Due to the lack of light, the narrow corridor was especially dark.
Jefferson, walking inside, turned a bend in the corridor and at last came to a slightly more spacious small room.
The room still had plenty of household items, indicating that someone had once lived here.
In the exact center of the small room, a square gap had been opened in the floor.
Jefferson peered downward, and the first thing he saw was an old wooden ladder.
The ladder, about three to four meters in length, led straight down, suggesting it might be something like a cellar below.
"I have to see what's in there!" Spurred by curiosity, Jefferson jumped down without hesitation.
With a THUD, Jefferson's feet landed firmly on solid ground.
After taking two steps forward, a bizarre fragrance suddenly rushed into his nostrils.
"This scent is... a wine cellar!"
Jefferson, who had entered a wealthy person's wine cellar for an Exorcism before, his eyes suddenly lit up.
It would be great if he could get his hands on a few bottles of fine wine for the party everyone was having that night!
Eager, Jefferson hurriedly quickened his pace. After turning a corner, a large Underground Space suddenly appeared before him.
Gazing at the neatly arranged rows of oak wine casks, a fiery light flickered in Jefferson's eyes.
After deeply inhaling the aroma of the cellar, he lunged toward an oak cask beside him.
"THUMP THUMP." The dull sound from the oak cask immediately brought Jefferson back to reality.
"Empty?" he muttered, his eyes full of disbelief as he tapped it several more times.
"THUMP THUMP THUMP. This one... this one too... is this empty too?"
After checking several casks and finding them all hollow, the light in Jefferson's eyes gradually dimmed.
"Fuck!" Angry, Jefferson kicked a cask beside him.
Yet the sound of liquid sloshing inside the cask and the sensation from his foot suddenly filled his face with surprise again.
"Haha, I knew it..."
The joyful Jefferson quickly embraced the cask and brought it into the open space in the middle, ready to carry it out with him soon.
Just as he set the cask down and before he could catch his breath, Jefferson suddenly noticed a pool of red liquid beside it.
"Fuck, did I kick the cask and break it just now?"
Afraid of wasting this fine wine, Jefferson quickly inspected the nearby oak cask.
However, after checking it all over, he found nothing but a shoeprint on the edge of the cask, with no signs of damage anywhere else.
"Strange..." Confused, Jefferson looked around but couldn't find the source of the red liquid.
Just as he was shaking his head, about to lift the cask and leave, the ground beneath him emitted a clear cracking sound.
"CRACK."
"Fuck..."
As Jefferson uttered the curse, the ground beneath him instantly broke open, and his body, along with the nearby oak cask, plunged downward.
"BANG." Accompanied by countless rocks and dirt, Jefferson fell more than ten meters before finally landing on solid ground.
Covered in mud and in total disarray, Jefferson coughed a few times and, leaning on a nearby stone, finally rose to his feet.
"COUGH. COUGH COUGH..." When he could finally see the scene before him clearly, he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. The Spiritual Power within him surged, and he feared he had fallen prey to an illusion created by the Bizarre.
"How is this possible?"
A space of about fifty square meters, clearly man-made, starkly presented itself before his eyes.
Jefferson looked around and finally confirmed that in this clearly artificial space, there were no other entrances apart from the hole through which he had fallen.
"A chamber with no entrance? Does The Holy See still engage in such things?"
Looking at the giant cross on the wall in front of him, Jefferson appeared utterly perplexed.
As everyone knows, the cross is a symbol of The Holy See.
Yet here it was in this mysterious Underground Space, instantly piquing Jefferson's interest.
Moreover, from the exquisitely crafted sarcophagus beneath the cross, a faint Holy Power emanated intermittently.
All of this stretched Jefferson's curiosity to its limit.
"Such a beautifully crafted sarcophagus, with no Bizarre aura, but instead a hidden Holy Power..." Jefferson muttered to himself as he slowly walked over.
"Could this be the tomb of some important figure from The Holy See?"
As he drew closer, the details on the sarcophagus became clearer.
The beautiful sarcophagus was carved with various figures and countless mysterious Runes.
In the middle of the sarcophagus lid lay a thick book, its inscriptions somewhat blurred.
As Jefferson approached the sarcophagus, after careful examination, he could faintly make out the words "The Holy Bible" on it.
"The Bible? This place is indeed related to The Holy See!"
Having confirmed the book, Jefferson turned his gaze to the sarcophagus below.
But he suddenly noticed that the exquisitely crafted sarcophagus had some flaws.
Fine cracks were spread across the entire lid of the sarcophagus. From a distance, Jefferson had initially thought these cracks were part of the sarcophagus's pattern.
"Such a pity, such a beautiful thing! But what is that color inside the cracks?"
Jefferson, who was initially somewhat regretful, now widened his eyes in shock upon noticing the inside of the cracks, alarm bells ringing loudly in his head.
The pitch-black iron staff in his hand was instantly held across his chest.
"Fuck, something's not right here!"
Jefferson, his mind suddenly alert, retreated a dozen steps.
"I'm supposed to be clearing this church of the Bizarre, so how could I have approached this sarcophagus so easily?"
Though the Holy Power on the sarcophagus lowered my guard, it's strange that when I encountered such an odd place, I completely forgot to notify the boss and the others...
A sudden sense of wrongness gripped Jefferson, and he turned to flee.
"Fuck, I'm a Sixth Level Exorcist! What on earth is inside this thing?"
However, it was clear that whatever entity inside the sarcophagus had gone to such great lengths to lure Jefferson here was not going to let him leave so easily.
Jefferson, who could already see in the dark, suddenly found his vision obscured as if by a black cloth. The things before his eyes gradually blurred.
"Oh God, what are you playing at? I'm in your house!"
Jefferson, now unable to see clearly, heard a sudden rustling sound in the darkness, and his heart sank.
Relying on his memory, he bent his knees and leapt, only for his head to hit a hard stone with a THUD, and he fell back down heavily.
"Fuck! Now I'm really screwed!"
Jefferson scrambled up from the ground, no longer caring about the sharp pain in his head, and instantly held the iron staff across his chest.
For several unfamiliar presences had already appeared right in front of him.