Chapter 1 Vivian's Resting Place

As Hao Ren had guessed, the castle on the small hill was Vivian's resting place.

Strictly speaking, it was the entrance to the resting place.

After careful deduction and discussion, Hao Ren and Hessiana replanned the entire process of opening the seal and entering the Shadow World. To avoid complications – the demon hunters could track them down at any time – they decided to enter the castle before dawn. Although the power of the shadows was very strong at night, which would make it difficult to open the seal, Hessiana had decided to use her shadow magic to replace the key. Her power would also be strengthened at night, so it didn't matter.

Castle Harrowen – it was once the property of a human noble, but in the end, it changed hands several times and became the property of a vampire. Although that ignorant and reckless young vampire was later bankrupted by Vivian's aura of misfortune, he was at least quite wealthy when he first took over the castle. Therefore, he carried out an extremely luxurious reconstruction of this human castle, which could still be glimpsed even after the castle was abandoned and the walls collapsed. The entire castle consisted of four huge towers and two main structures. A wide corridor connected the two rectangular main buildings, a structure that made the entire castle look like the Chinese character "工" from the air, with the four towers distributed in the four corners of this character, looking exceptionally magnificent.

Of course, this imposing structure had now collapsed by more than half, and the upper structures of the entire castle had basically become dilapidated with the erosion of time. A fortress built of stone would not decay so quickly, but the dark forces surrounding this land accelerated the decay of everything. Although only a century had passed, the rock structure of the castle was riddled with holes as if it had been through four or five centuries.

"There are many ghost stories about this castle in the local area," Hessiana, who had been active in this area for some time and had deliberately collected information, knew a lot about the castle. She introduced it as she led the group into the ruins of the castle. "Some daring guys will risk coming in, trying to find some noble relics or junk that can be sold for money, but few people can return unscathed. Even the lucky ones who return alive claim that they encountered ghosts and other evil things in the castle. In fact, it's all the power of the shadows at work."

As she spoke, the little bat spirit curled her lips. "Tsk, tsk, still hoping to find treasures here. Don't they know that this territory was poor? That Harrowen couldn't even find a copper coin in the castle when he left."

Hao Ren didn't respond, but looked up. They were passing through the main building in the front part of the castle. The high Gothic roof had collapsed, leaving only some jagged skeletons hanging crisscrossed in the air. Torn and twisted strips of cloth and cobwebs stretched from those tall skeletons all the way to the walls on both sides, looking desolate and eerie. Due to the collapse of the entire dome, the moonlight could almost shine into the front hall of the castle without any obstruction. The originally bright moonlight seemed to have undergone some mysterious change when it passed through the castle. It presented a deathly gray-white color, and the light was frighteningly cold. It was a real coldness. Hao Ren could even feel the real icy touch after the moonlight shone on his skin.

Before entering the castle, the moon had already sunk near the horizon, but after entering the castle, it hung in the center of the sky. This was also a very obvious anomaly.

"The moonlight is never normal in places related to Vivian," Hessiana noticed Hao Ren's gaze and explained casually. "We should be glad that the moonlight is not red – otherwise, we'd have to turn around and run."

"Vivian would actually find such a gorgeous place to sleep," Lily, carrying the deeply comatose Hasson, followed behind the team and said in surprise, "I thought she could only sleep in caves and the like…"

"She moved in after this castle was first abandoned," Hessiana sighed. "At that time, this place was already a ruin."

Lily: "...That makes sense."

"Where is the entrance to the Shadow Fortress?" Hao Ren looked around curiously. He could already feel that this castle was being controlled by powerful shadow forces, but he didn't observe any obvious spatial fracture points. Obviously, Vivian had made considerable preparations before this sleep. Her resting place this time was not as easy to deal with as the cave in Siberia.

"The castle is divided into two. The castle in the real world corresponds to light, so the 'shadow' castle is of course on its 'back'," Hessiana smiled. "Right in front, there is a pool in the castle garden, and the entrance is in the reflection of the pool."

Lily grumbled as she listened, "It's this kind of mysterious stuff again… I'm the worst at dealing with this kind of thing."

Before she could finish speaking, she felt Hasson on her back suddenly move slightly. Then the old hunter woke up faintly from his coma. Seeing the witches surrounding him and Hessiana leading the way in front, Hasson subconsciously wanted to grab his weapon, but found that his hands and feet were bound by a strange energy field, and he couldn't use any strength at all. He immediately roared, "You…"

"Hey – Bang!!"

"Speaking of which, I feel a little embarrassed," Lily stuck out her tongue. "He looks so pitiful."

The witches were startled by Hasson's sudden awakening, even Hessiana was no exception, but seeing Lily knock the latter unconscious again with a brick, they all showed extremely strange expressions. Madam Marie even sighed, "This is probably the worst demon hunter I've ever seen in my life…"

Hao Ren looked up at the sky and didn't know what to say. He was thinking about how to explain what happened along the way to Hasson after he "pulled him in"... Would the old hunter be ashamed and indignant and commit suicide with his sword at that time?

Under Hessiana's leadership, the group quickly arrived at the back garden of the castle and saw the pool that could serve as a passage between the two worlds.

It was located in the west-central part of the castle's "工" shape, surrounded by a large area of withered thorns and twisted vines. The pool had a marble outer edge, but in the depression in the center of the pool, there was no drop of water to be seen.

Without water, there would naturally be no reflection.

Hao Ren cast an inquiring look at Hessiana. He knew that since the little bat spirit had brought everyone here, there must be some other trick to this pool. As expected, Hessiana was not surprised at all when she saw the dry pool. She just stepped forward, bit her finger, and dripped a drop of blood into the dry pool.

Then she retreated to the side and looked up at the gray-white moon hanging in the sky. "Without the key, I can only borrow the power of the moonlight… Vivian, if you can hear me, then wish me success…"

After speaking, she gently took a step and began to walk around the pool at an extremely slow speed, and whispered an ancient spell.

Incredible things happened.

A layer of thin ripples suddenly began to ripple in the already dry pool. The gray-white moonlight seemed to be bound by an invisible force, and converged into a beam of light that shone straight on the bottom of the pool. The light seemed to condense into liquid, and as Hessiana walked slowly, it began to accumulate in the pool at a speed visible to the naked eye. It became more and more solid every second, and finally became as real as flowing water, just like a substance!

As Hessiana took the last step, she returned to the starting position, just completing a circle around the pool, and the "moonlight water" in the pool was just full, the water surface was almost level with the edge of the pool, still like a mirror.

Hao Ren saw a clear reflection in the mirror-like water surface. In that reflection, there were towering towers and a solemn castle – but in the corresponding position in the real world, those towers and castle structures had long been dilapidated and collapsed by more than half.

Obviously, the reflection was not reflecting the real world, at least not the real world in this time and space.

"The shadow channel has been opened. Crossing the pool is another space," Hessiana wiped the fine sweat from her forehead. "Because it was opened by abnormal means, I'm not sure what the situation is on the other side now. If we're lucky, we won't run into those patrolling soulless guards, but if that wizard Barn has already activated the defense of the Shadow Fortress with the key… then we should be prepared to meet a fierce battle. I need to spend some effort to gain control of the soulless guards after entering the Shadow World."

"This was already expected," Hao Ren nodded. "What should we do now?"

"It's very simple, just follow me."

As Hessiana spoke, she stood on the edge of the pool.

Then she fell straight towards the "water surface".

There was no splash, and there was no sound of falling into the water. She seemed to blend into the water surface, and disappeared silently into the water the moment she came into contact with that reflection, without even causing a ripple.

Hao Ren and Lily looked at each other, and then Hao Ren took a step forward first, and also imitated Hessiana's movements and fell straight towards the water.

He also successfully passed through that layer of "boundary".

"You go in first!" Lily bared her teeth at a group of witches. "To prevent you from escaping!"

The witches had no choice but to come to the water one by one, and then "fall into the water" straight.

Lily was the last to come to the pool, looking at the calm moonlight water, the husky girl wrinkled her nose.

"I don't like water…"

Then she closed her eyes and jumped in.