Just then...
The crimson pillar of light from the distant temple suddenly twisted.
It emitted a shrill cry like a baby's wail.
The clouds in the sky began to rotate in a way that defied the laws of physics, forming a huge vortex eye, as if foreshadowing something that was about to happen.
The night rain had stopped, but the air remained damp and chilly.
It was as if the entire mountain was shrouded in an invisible sorrow. In the distance, the majestic temple stood in the city, its spire piercing the leaden sky like a giant tombstone. The night wind was biting, blowing Ian's black robes. He stood atop a solitary peak outside the city, looking down at the city that had sunk into darkness.
Moonlight occasionally pierced through the clouds, illuminating scattered bloodstains and the remains of overturned coffins on the Street.
"It's time to end this."
Ian spoke in a low voice, calm yet sharp as a blade. His eyes were fixed on the silhouette of the building in the distance, and there was no longer any hesitation, only determination.
"This chaos, woven by arrogant priests and ancient evils, cannot continue." Ian remembered that he had only come to this era to find the materials that the Titaness Claire wanted him to find. Heaven knows why he didn't find the Eye of Ra, and now he was caught up in the "crisis" of the locals.
Ian lacked the courage to watch an entire city perish before his eyes; he could sense that what the temple was brewing might be more than just the destruction of an entire city.
It could also be the entirety of Ancient Egypt.
Ian didn't know if this was true history, but he didn't consider himself a heartless person, so he still intended to find a way to deal with the problems facing the city.
"Are you going to the temple? I... I want to go with you." Kam stood a few steps behind him, pale-faced, his hands gripping his wand tightly, his voice trembling.
Ian slowly turned around, his gaze falling on him.
His gaze was as deep as an abyss, seemingly piercing through Kam's fear and unease, looking straight into the depths of his soul. He did not answer immediately, but simply watched this young man who had once been cowardly and wavering, but now was determined to move forward.
After a moment, Ian nodded slightly. "You are no longer that fugitive hiding in the alleyway."
He raised his hand and lightly waved his wand. "Hold on tight to me."
Without hesitation, Kam reached out and grabbed Ian's arm.
" Apparition!"
Space suddenly distorted, light and shadow tore apart, and the two figures vanished from the mountaintop in an instant. The next moment, they appeared on a desolate stone plaza—the edge of the forbidden area on the south side of the temple. This place was once the purification plaza before the sacrifice, but now it was covered with cracks and charred rune arrays, and the air was filled with heavy magical remnants.
Ian steadied himself and looked around. He tried to Apparition again, tapping his wand lightly on the air and whispering an incantation. However, only a faint ripple appeared in the space.
It crumbled as if it had hit an invisible barrier.
"As expected," he said coldly, "The core area of the temple is sealed off by a ' Spatial Anchor Barrier,' which no teleportation magic can penetrate. We must enter on foot."
This wasn't actually the Apparition location Ian had planned, since he had already entered the temple's interior and should have been able to Apparition directly there.
However.
He remained in that position, clearly indicating that some kind of magic within the temple was preventing the Wizard's Apparition inside, and it was a magic capable of blocking Legendary Wizard from casting spells.
As an ancient temple, it certainly possesses a rich history. A gust of wind rose, stirring up dust and sand. The two stood side by side, taking their first step towards the temple.
The biting wind, sharp as a knife, tore through the air, emitting a piercing whistle. Above the night sky, the aurora borealis danced like ribbons, its eerie vortexes swirling and reflecting across the boundless horizon.
It emitted a deep, eerie glow.
Ian and Kam's figures appeared small and lonely in the Night Curtain.
Are you really planning to venture into the temple alone?
Kam's gaze never left Ian. He looked at this unexpected companion with eyes that were no longer simply filled with awe, but rather with near-reverence.
"Certainly."
Ian nodded in response.
They had crossed a Street and arrived at the Street where the temple was located.
We've arrived.
Ian said in a low voice, his gaze sharp as he scanned the area ahead.
Kam was pale and his body was trembling slightly.
He wasn't afraid, but heartbroken—because he saw dozens of corpses lying haphazardly in the square in front of the temple gate.
Some wore the grey robes of the Twilight Hermit Society, while others wore the platinum robes of temple priests. A putrid wind, carrying the stench of blood, swept over them, Ian's boots made a sticky sound as they stepped on the temple steps. The dark red liquid had solidified into a gel-like substance, and each step felt like walking on the tongue of some giant creature.
"That's... that's one of ours!"
Kam rushed forward and knelt beside the body of a young Wizard. The man still clutched his wand, his eyes were wide open, black blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, and a ritual dagger was embedded in his chest—it was suicide.
"I know him, he's a good person."
With trembling hands, Kam closed the eyelids of a corpse—a young man in a gray robe, with wisps of smoke rising from the edges of the bloody hole in his temple.
"These people are good people. They'd rather cast spells on themselves," Kam's choked voice was broken by the wind, "Than become... that kind of thing."
"Even if the wand is destroyed, my comrades would rather slit their own throats than betray those damned traitors!" The young Hermit Society's voice was hoarse, his fingers still glistening with his comrade's blood. "By the Ra, what have you seen that would drive even the bravest warrior to choose suicide?"
Kam and Ian knew the answer to this question perfectly well. Clearly, some members of the Twilight Hermit Society would rather commit suicide than be captured and used as sacrifices to feed the Evil God Embryo.
"They knew what being arrested meant."
Ian whispered, "It's not death, it's living sacrifice. The soul is stripped away, the body is modified, becoming 'nourishment' for the embryo. They choose to end their own lives to preserve their last shred of dignity."
Kam trembled as he closed his companion's eyes and whispered a requiem. His voice was choked with emotion, yet resolute. Ian stood up and looked toward the temple gate. There, several priests' corpses lay on the ground, their postures contorted, also suicides. One had pierced his own throat with a ceremonial sword.
The other person used magic backlash to shatter their own skull.
" Merlin's beard. Not just your companions, but these priests, who would rather commit suicide with Killing Curse." Ian crouched down, his fingertips brushing against the black sun marks that had appeared on the corpses' necks. The marks writhed like living things, then cracked the moment they touched his fingertips, oozing a putrid purple liquid.
"Strange." Ian frowned. "These priests... are the 'creators' of the embryo, its 'guardians.' Why are they running away? Why are they dying?"
Some analysis.
Ian also got the answer.
"Clearly, things are out of control, and these people know just how terrible the things they're feeding are." Ian's wand suddenly popped out of his sleeve, drawing a warning red line in the air.
In the shadow of the obelisk thirty paces away, three White Robe priests were slitting each other's throats with jewel-encrusted ceremonial daggers. The eldest, upon seeing Ian, suddenly drew incomplete runes on the ground with Runes bloodied finger—"Do not be seen." Clearly, this eldest priest was also expressing what might have been the last vestiges of his kindness.
You stay here.
Ian tore off his cloak and covered the exposed chest of a woman's corpse. "Bury them all in the western dunes. At least... don't let the vultures desecrate the Champion ' remains."
Ian unleashed three Freezing Charm, sealing the priests' corpses that might be nearby.
"The concentration of Dark Magic in this place could drive Dementor mad."
Ian's caution was not without reason.
Just as Ian was preparing to leave.
Kam suddenly grabbed his wrist.
"Don't you find it strange? It seems the priests are being hunted down as well." He pointed to the shadows of the temple pillars, where several corpses dressed in White Robe were piled together like discarded dolls.
"They are the ones who created the Evil God Embryo, how could they..." The young Wizard only noticed this now. He noticed that the priests' deaths were completely different—ritual daggers were stuck in their throats, and their broken fingernails were digging deep into the cracks in the stone, as if they were still desperately trying to escape the temple in their last moments. One of the corpses even drew half a sun symbol on the stone slab with its blood, and the trail of blood showed that he had crawled and bled to death.
"Of course it got out of control, that's how it's always portrayed in TV dramas. Okay, I forgot you don't know what a TV drama is." Ian shrugged helplessly at the bewildered Kam.
"Just listen to me and everything will be fine. Stay here and don't move, or just take your companion's body and leave. I'll go scout ahead, and if we're lucky, I'll bring you a couple of oranges." Ian's voice was more incomprehensible than the Nile River. Under Kam's increasingly bewildered gaze, he stepped over the threshold and into the temple.
Upon entering the main gate.
He then smelled a rotten, sweet, and fishy odor, like aged honey mixed with the smell of entrails. Ian went to the corpses of the old priest and the others who had warned him earlier.
The man was dressed in the gold-embroidered robes of a high priest, with a temple scepter hanging around his neck. Ian examined his hands and found burn marks on his fingertips—a side effect of forcibly casting a high-level sealing spell.
"He was trying to seal something... but he failed," Ian murmured. "He knew perfectly well that the only thing he could do was commit suicide, just like those outside who wanted to escape but couldn't."
Ian glanced at the corpse one last time, then turned and walked toward the temple gate. The heavy Bronze Door was ajar, and a rotten, sweet smell seeped from the crack, like decaying roses mixed with rust.
Ian pushed open the door and stepped into the temple's main hall.
The hall was deathly silent.
The light inside the temple was a sickly amber color, as if the air itself was deteriorating. Ian's footsteps echoed eerily in the corridor, and the Sun God relief on the wall had somehow turned into twisted, tumor-like protrusions. He touched one of the "reliefs," and his fingertips felt a nauseatingly elastic sensation.
That was clearly wriggling biological tissue.
"This is a place that makes your sanity drop like crazy." As soon as Ian's Lumos Charm lit up the dome inside the temple, he seemed to hear echoes like the cries of thousands of babies. The Sun God reliefs on the walls were melting, and the pure Ra's Chariot was hanging down like a wax figure, with the dripping molten gold transforming into flying insects with compound eyes in mid-air.
" Fiendfyre!" Ian's wand exploded with a blue ring of fire, burning away the swarming insects. The flames illuminated the end of the corridor—seven priests dangling from crystal chandeliers, their White Robe revealing spider-like bony appendages protruding from beneath them. Clearly, they had begun their transformation before committing suicide, becoming sacrifices to nourish the Evil God Embryo.
"Ugh--!"
A piercing scream came from ahead. Ian drew his wand and rushed toward the source of the sound. As he rounded the third bend, the sight before him made him stop abruptly—a blood-stained white scepter rolled to his feet, the golden sun disk inlaid on its head shattered. Twenty paces away, an old priest, his face covered in blood, was being cornered by something.
He is Scepter Priest.
He was facing the minions of the Evil God Embryo they had created.
Yet another Ghost Bride.
This is not the same Ghost Bride who was given the paradox by Ian.
This thing, dressed in a blood-stained wedding gown, hovered three inches above the ground, its black hair swaying like a living creature in the windless environment. The moment it turned its face, Ian's stomach convulsed violently—there was no face under the veil, only a cloud of black mist that kept changing shape, vaguely forming the outline of facial features before immediately collapsing.
"No--! I am not a sacrifice! I am your servant!" the Scepter Priest roared, trying to beg for mercy, but to no avail, unable to communicate with the embryo controlling the Ghost Bride.
Seeing that he was about to be captured, the Scepter Priest certainly wouldn't sit idly by and wait for his death.
In the name of Ra!
The Scepter Priest suddenly raised his hands, revealing arms covered in black veins through the tattered cuffs.
"Burn!"
A pillar of blazing white fire descended from the sky, engulfing the Ghost Bride. Yi smelled the stench of burning flesh, but his blood froze the next second—the red wedding dress remained intact in the flames, the Tongue of Fire piercing through the Spirit Body as if passing through a phantom. The Ghost Bride raised her "hand," her misty fingers gently brushing across the old priest's forehead.
"This is impossible!" the Scepter Priest cried out in horror, "I used the highest-level purification spell! How could you—"
The Ghost Bride didn't answer, but simply raised her hand, her five fingers spread wide. A Blood-red Threads shot out from her fingertips, instantly piercing the priest's right leg. He screamed and fell to his knees.
" Light Cage!" The priest slammed his scepter into the ground with all his might. A golden light barrier instantly formed, separating him from the Ghost Bride.
The Ghost Bride crashed into the light barrier, causing it to shake violently and crack, but it did not break.
"It works?!" Hope flashed in the priest's eyes.
However, the Ghost Bride simply raised her hand slowly and made a light stroke with her fingertips.
The light curtain was torn apart like paper.
"No... no..." the priest trembled as he backed away, "You're not Altos... you're not human... you're... a monster..."
The Ghost Bride drew near, her bloody mouth opening wide, Black Mist gushing from it, forming a twisted tentacle that aimed straight for the priest's throat.
The priest roared, " Endbringer Lightning!"
The scepter was raised high, and a bolt of purplish-black lightning struck down from the dome, hitting the Ghost Bride squarely. Her body was charred in the lightning, her head exploded, and her limbs disintegrated.
The main hall was deathly silent.
The priest collapsed to the ground, panting heavily. "It's over... it's over..."
Just then--
The charred corpse began to writhe.
Black Mist surged from the cracks in the ground, piecing together the pieces of flesh. The head regenerated, the skin regenerated, and the red veil reappeared.
The Ghost Bride has returned in her entirety.
She slowly raised her head, her red eyes locking onto the priest, her lips splitting open to reveal a chilling, bloody mouth.
"You... what are you?!" the priest screamed in despair. "I used the temple's highest-level magic! Why can't you kill me?!"
The Ghost Bride didn't answer, but simply raised her hand, and blood-red threads, like whips, wrapped around the priest's neck, slowly lifting him up, intending to take this former servant to feed the embryo.
It transformed into Raven.
Ian, hidden at the boundary between reality and illusion, followed closely behind.
(End of this chapter)