Chapter 1 A Hollow Voice

The sudden female voice was empty and ethereal. The group had heard it more than once here. Hao Ren turned around and saw a woman in white standing less than five meters behind him. She was wearing a court dress of the upper class women more than two centuries ago, with light brown curly hair in a bun, and two strands of hair hanging from behind her ears to her chest. Her appearance was noble and dignified, with a aristocratic air, just like the image in the painting.

Hao Ren's eyes lingered on her for a while, and he saw that the edges of the woman's body were slightly shimmering and translucent: as previously known, this was a wraith.

Without a doubt, she was the ghost who had mysteriously warned them many times before.

"You're finally willing to show yourself?" Hao Ren looked at the woman not far away. "I thought you were going to watch from the sidelines forever."

"It's not that I'm finally showing myself, but that you've finally come to my place," the wraith woman said calmly, her voice ethereal. "I didn't expect you to really find this place. Few people can reach this layer of space… Who exactly are you?"

Hao Ren couldn't help but think of the little Evil Thought entity in the can. He remembered that the space was distorted after the little thing suddenly became agitated, and his party was able to enter this "second layer of the domain." Although it was difficult to explain how a weak chicken-like evil spirit had such power, it seemed that the matter in front of him was related to the little guy.

But he couldn't explain this to the wraith in front of him, so he just nodded: "We have our own ways."

The female wraith didn't seem to be interested in this question. She looked at Hao Ren and the others curiously: "What exactly are you here for? I can feel that you have a strong goal, but it's not treasure, nor magical knowledge, nor simple curiosity… Many people come here, and what they pursue is nothing more than these three things. What are you pursuing?"

"We're here to find Heracles," Hesperides stepped forward. "We're looking for the artifact he took away."

"Ah… the worst of all the bad answers," the female wraith sighed. "You're chasing the most dangerous thing. There are still people chasing that thing…"

Hao Ren waved his hand and interrupted the female wraith: "Wait a minute, you'd better not rush to conclusions, first figure out who we are—the one who spoke just now, she is one of the last survivors of the Olympus family, Hesperides."

"Descendant of Olympus?" The expression on the female wraith's face finally seemed to change. "Why, why would a survivor of Olympus suddenly run out to find Heracles and that artifact?"

"It's not me who wants to find it, it's my friend," Hesperides raised her hand and pointed to Vivian. "Do you know who she is?"

The female wraith looked at Vivian for a while and shook her head gently: "I don't recognize her. Even if I did, I don't recognize her now… Ah, I've been dead for more than two centuries, and I don't remember much anymore."

"Vivian Anseista, the oldest of the shapeshifters, you should still remember that," Vivian said lightly, and an aura of seniority slowly spread out. "That artifact of Heracles… I now suspect that it stole a part of my power. I found records of that artifact in your demon hunter files and tracked it here, but now it seems that this matter is more complicated than I thought."

"The Countess who summons the Red Moon?!" The female wraith was indeed deeply impressed by this well-known name. "You said you found records in our demon hunter files… How is that possible? That information should be in Corpus…"

Hao Ren cleared his throat: "Ahem, we've been to Corpus more than once. The outside world has undergone earth-shattering changes. The war between demon hunters and shapeshifters has just ended, and we have found the root of the innate antagonism and hunting instinct and have completely removed this 'curse'. Ah, now is not the time to talk about this. If you are interested, we can explain it slowly later. Now you should tell us about this place…"

"No, you tell me about the changes outside first," the female wraith suddenly got up and floated to a place less than a meter in front of Hao Ren, her face like cold ice. "What you said sounds like a fairy tale to me, which makes me even less likely to believe you. You are approaching a dangerous secret. I don't know if you are courting death or confident, so convince me, let me believe you!"

The stubbornness and capriciousness of wraiths were well known, and Hao Ren also knew that if he wanted to understand what was going on here, he had to gain the trust of the female wraith in front of him, so he didn't refuse. He sighed and began to explain the identities of his party, as well as the current situation between demon hunters and shapeshifters—he focused on describing his adventures in Corpus, which was a great support to enhance his persuasiveness.

Of course, he kept some secrets that should not be told to outsiders very well.

The entire narration lasted for nearly an hour, because the female wraith would always interrupt and ask some questions from time to time. In the end, when Hao Ren finished talking about the establishment of the Shadow Council and the situation of Corpus being rebuilt, the female wraith finally stopped asking questions.

"Earth-shattering, earth-shattering…" the female wraith murmured. "If I hadn't experienced something similar myself, how could I believe that 'hunting instinct' is a shackle that can be removed… However, your understanding of Corpus cannot be faked. The scene in the Spirit Realm Clock Tower is hard to imagine for ordinary people unless they have experienced it personally. So, I am willing to believe you, 50%."

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that 50% was already good enough. He was still holding back the fact that the First Saint was reborn as a husky due to a mistake, and that the Thirteenth Saint was the vampire ancestor next to him. If these two things were said, it would probably take more effort, because any demon hunter who was sane and had not experienced the Battle of Corpus would definitely not believe these things. Instead of wasting words, it was better to suppress them temporarily.

Because of this, he pressed Lily's head back three times in a row: the dog girl had been trying to interject just now, she especially wanted people to come and pay homage to the late emperor…

"My name is Hathaway," the female wraith finally said her name, which was a signal of willingness to cooperate. "Ask any questions you have. Here, I have a lot of time."

Vivian spoke first: "Why would demon hunters and shapeshifters come together? Have your hunting instincts and Heracles' innate antagonism disappeared? Is it really the power of that artifact?"

"It seems that you really don't know the situation of that 'artifact'," Hathaway looked at Vivian's eyes. Probably because she had seen through everything after death, she didn't have the tension and restraint of ordinary young demon hunters or shapeshifters when facing Vivian. "You only know that it carries your power, but you don't know that it also contains secrets that are far deeper than your power. We were originally a team responsible for hunting Heracles. There were twelve of us. On the west side of France, we set up a trap and fought fiercely with Heracles, who was holding the artifact, for ten days and nights. During that battle, the conflicting impulses between us disappeared. Master Mohabben was the first to discover the anomaly, and he happened to know something about the Order's research on 'hunting instinct'… There's no need to go into the details after that. In short, in the end, we reached a ceasefire agreement with Heracles."

Hao Ren thought of the news he got from Bai Huo: "Ah, I remember, I saw records about you in the demon hunters' files: the last hunt for Heracles, twelve demon hunters were missing, suspected of dying together with the hunting target—that's you? Did you fake it?"

Hathaway nodded silently to acknowledge it.

Hesperides asked: "Because you knew that if you returned to the Order, you would become 'heretics', and you were unwilling to continue hunting shapeshifters knowing that there was a problem with the hunting instinct, so you simply chose to defect?"

"We did not betray the Order," Hathaway attached great importance to this question. "We just went incognito and used our own methods to pursue the truth."

"Okay, we won't discuss this kind of issue. After all, the demon hunter Order two centuries ago is different from the modern one. Back then, not having a hunting instinct was a big deal," Hao Ren waved his hand. "Let's get back to the topic of the 'artifact'. I want to know what exactly that thing is, what exactly is hidden inside it, and… what did you do to this place?"

"We built a prison to imprison a frantic Dream Lord," Hathaway turned her head and looked at the narrow window, which was in the direction of the village. "You may have seen its surface form in the real world, but here, this is where the prison really is. As for that artifact, it's a long story—the core of that thing was not even created by the Olympus 'gods' themselves. They just stole it from some older, more powerful being."

As Hathaway spoke, she looked at Vivian: "Not from you."