Chapter 177 Shadows of the Past

Everyone else was discussing wizards, mystic realms, magic, and ghosts, not paying attention to what Lily was doing. It was a natural occurrence for the husky girl to be overly curious and running around, and even if she suddenly squatted down and dug a hole to bury herself, probably no one would give her a second glance. So Lily stood blankly by the platform, her eyes wide as she listened to the voice coming from who-knew-what dimension, until the voices slowly turned into a noisy static, like a radio encountering interference. She then woke up with a start, as if from a dream.

Lily twitched her ears. The ghostly voices were gone, and the faint shadows in her eyes gradually faded like ripples on water. She raised her icy-hot paws and grabbed at the air, finally confirming that they were all illusions.

Hao Ren finally noticed the girl's movements and asked from a distance, "Lily, what are you doing?"

"I heard someone talking just now!" Lily immediately trotted to Hao Ren's side and told everyone what she had just seen and heard.

Nangong Sanba frowned. "Was it a message left by a ghost?"

"Didn't you say the spirits here are very weak and mixed together so you can't tell them apart?" Hao Ren glanced at Sanba. "What's going on?"

Nangong Sanba looked at Lily curiously and casually scattered some powder into the air. "The spirits here are indeed very weak, look for yourselves—"

As soon as he finished speaking, the powder scattered into the air was already suspended in mid-air under the traction of magic. They spread around everyone like mist, and then emitted a faint fluorescent light. This weak light slightly illuminated the surrounding dim space. In the fluorescent light of the powder, some chaotic and unclear light and shadows gradually emerged, but gradually disappeared after a few seconds. No clear image could be seen in the light and shadows.

"Those are the spirits entrenched in this town," Nangong Sanba raised the corner of his mouth. "You can see the resolution for yourselves."

"I don't know if you guys have bad eyesight or what…" Lily twitched her ears. "Anyway, I can see them pretty clearly."

Hao Ren was immediately surprised. He looked at the husky girl unexpectedly, not expecting that this girl actually had such an unexpected ability: even the weak ghosts that demon hunters could not distinguish were captured by her. Nangong Wuyue also marveled and asked Vivian, "Do werewolves have a talent for sensing the dead?"

"Werewolves don't have this talent…" Vivian thought seriously, her expression suddenly becoming strange. "But dogs are really good at warding off evil spirits, and isn't there a Chinese legend that the eyes of cats and dogs are psychic and can see unclean things?"

Everyone: "…"

Vivian's expression was so serious when she said this that even Lily didn't know how to refute it. Only Duncan next to her wanted to shout "That's not scientific," but he swallowed it back. At the critical moment, he still remembered that he was an even more unscientific fantasy creature.

Hao Ren waved his hand to dismiss the topic. He looked thoughtfully at the seemingly empty small square. "It seems that there are many ghosts entrenched in this town—in fact, I seemed to hear a little sound when I first arrived, but it was obviously not as clear as Lily's perception. Okay, Lily, you'll be responsible for paying attention to the movements of the spirits, and tell me whatever you hear or see. Perhaps these spirits can tell us something about the town."

"Oh, oh, definitely!" Lily puffed out her chest confidently. "By the way, they seemed to be discussing the lord just now. This town used to be a noble fiefdom, is that information useful?"

"Noble fiefdom?" Vivian frowned. "Not very useful. In those days, almost all land belonged to nobles."

Lily said "oh" regretfully and began to lead the way in front of everyone, staring intently. Her eyes were faintly golden, and the invisible things entrenched in this Lost Town constantly appeared and slowly disappeared in her field of vision. In front of other people, there was only a layer of gray mist on the town's path, but in Lily's eyes, some semi-transparent shadows flashed past from time to time in those mists.

Unfortunately, most of the shadows were very, very thin. They weren't even considered ghosts, just a little echo left over when the soul dissipated. They were just floating around in the air blankly, while the real soul had already left.

Hao Ren took out the data terminal from his arms. He also saw the spirit readings, but this thing wasn't specifically used to detect undead creatures. He couldn't communicate with ghosts with radar alone, so he put the terminal away again.

When passing a ruined house, Nangong Sanba checked the street sign in front of the house: "Domir… Is there any record of this town in history?"

"No," Duncan replied. "We've already checked the information. Whether it's the place name 'Domir' or records of human towns that once existed in this area, it's all blank. This place has been completely erased from history. It's unclear whether it's the power of magic or simply because of the long years."

Vivian thought for a moment: "It should just be a matter of time. Phenomenal spells that can massively tamper with history could only be performed by guys like Odin and Zeus in the mythological era. I don't think a wizard who was promoted from humans could have this talent. Europe was very chaotic hundreds of years ago, and it's not uncommon for small towns in remote areas to be submerged in history, especially since it has completely disappeared from the map. Later generations can't find a place to check even if they want to."

Nangong Wuyue wriggled at the back of the team. Her snake tail felt something strange while crawling on the ground. She rolled up her tail and looked at it, suddenly discovering something: "Have you noticed that this town is full of ash?"

"Ash?" Hao Ren looked down at his feet and found that he was stepping on a layer of gray-black powder. He hadn't really noticed these ubiquitous things before. "This is…"

"It looks like ashes left over from burning wood," Wuyue twirled a bit of the ash on the ground with her finger. "From the entrance of the town all the way to here, it's everywhere."

Hao Ren looked around thoughtfully. He didn't see any obvious signs of a fire having occurred. He didn't know where the ubiquitous ashes in the town came from.

There was no record of this "Domir" town in history at all. No one could say when it disappeared in what kind of process, and no one knew what the scene was like when the town was destroyed. Based solely on the town's closed state and the spirits entrenched here, Hao Ren judged that this place should have been intact until it was pulled into the alien space. Then the "ash" in the town should have appeared after the mystic realm was sealed.

Unless this town had a tradition of scattering wood ash everywhere—Hao Ren thought about it and felt that this possibility was unlikely.

Lily held the Fire of Hearth and happily acted as a torch, walking in front. After concentrating, she saw more spirits appearing in the air. The number of these spirits was already abnormally large. They were almost densely walking back and forth on the streets, even overlapping and pushing and shoving into a ball. This scale was completely unlike what a small town could accommodate. Lily was a little puzzled. After careful observation, she finally discovered the secret of these spirits: more than half of those "ghosts" were actually duplicates.

Although she couldn't see clearly, she could still judge from the general outline and shape that some of the wandering ghosts were actually the same one. They kept walking back and forth on the streets along roughly fixed trajectories, with only a difference in time: it was this repetition that allowed Lily to discover the secret of these spirits.

She told Nangong Sanba about her discovery with confusion, and the latter discussed it with the others. Vivian suddenly had an idea: "Perhaps these spirits are not remnants of humans."

Hao Ren didn't quite understand: "Then what are they…"

"Perhaps they are the memory of this town, or perhaps a resonance phenomenon produced by a more powerful soul. In short, they are not ghosts, but things projected by another force, so there are repetitions and they move along fixed trajectories," Vivian said, while a faint blood-red mist surrounded her. "I was just wondering, if all the residents of the entire town turned into ghosts, there should be a very strong undead power accumulated here, but apart from a little change in temperature and those wandering spirits, you can't feel a similar 'environment' here."

Hao Ren didn't know much about this kind of thing. He asked Cassandra and learned that when a large number of ghosts (or similar undead) gathered together, they would produce a superposition of "aura." The more the number, the deeper the superposition. More than a hundred ghosts were enough to make an area produce an energy field that could be perceived by ordinary people. This energy field could cause hallucinations and even cause serious consequences such as brain death.

At least the undead produced by humans have this property.

The data terminal also confirmed Cassandra's statement, but its explanation was easier to understand: the superposition of electromagnetic fields.

Hao Ren reasoned a little deeper about the current phenomenon and suddenly felt a little creepy.