"It... it worked."
Torrey's voice came through, exhausted. In fact, there was still roughly an hour until the dawn he had mentioned.
The Investigation Trio had stayed nearby after eating their late-night snack, waiting the whole time. Now they hurried over.
Torrey carefully opened the lantern's cover... Several pairs of eyes turned toward the lantern base at once. Inside it, they saw the phantom image of a tiny figure, curled up and sitting.
Switching to the tiny figure's perspective inside the lantern base—it was as though he had entered a land of giants, and one day, a giant opened a box and peered inside.
"How... how could it be you?!"
The tiny figure inside the lantern base cried out in disbelief. Then he suddenly transformed into a mass of light and tried to rush out of the base.
Unexpectedly, an invisible barrier forced him back down. The tiny figure trembled from the rebound, while lightning and thunder flashed inside the lantern base, repeatedly striking his body.
"Didn't you dismantle the lantern?" Ye Yan 0 asked with a frown.
"It's dismantled enough." Torrey rolled his eyes. "If I completely dismantle it, I'm afraid the one coming for me won't be the On-Duty Roaming God, but the Shackles General! He can't get out. Ask whatever you want quickly. Once we're done, I still have to put the lantern back together... As agreed, this has absolutely nothing to do with me afterward! And remember my ticket!"
"Can you control the lantern base's functions?" Ye Yan suddenly asked.
The dismantled white lantern was connected to many external spell circuits, all of which Torrey had arranged temporarily. Torrey hooked a finger at one of them. "Simple punishment mechanisms are no problem, but the lantern base was designed to torture yin souls. The spells inside cause