Mind Reading

The moment Xia Lin and Sera stepped into the main burial chamber, a thick stench of dust and death rushed toward them.

The burial chamber was circular, with a towering domed ceiling.

At the very center, a massive black stone coffin sat in silence. Its lid was carved with intricate, savage reliefs that seemed to depict the wrath of some ancient deity.

The walls all around were densely covered in runes flickering with faint magical radiance. They resembled countless peering eyes, silently watching the intruders in the darkness.

Firelight fell upon the runes, casting twisted, wavering shadows and making the entire burial chamber seem eerie and uncanny.

Just as Xia Lin's second foot entered the chamber—

The thick shadows around the stone coffin, so dense they seemed impossible to disperse, began to writhe like venomous snakes that had been disturbed.

Then, two translucent figures clad in battered bronze armor and gripping rusty spears emerged soundlessly from the shadows.

They had no physical bodies, only vague humanoid outlines. Two points of ghostly blue soul-fire burned in their hollow eye sockets.

Ghost Guards!

"Uuu—" They made no sound, yet an invisible howl carrying a mental shock exploded directly inside Xia Lin and Sera's minds.

Two blue-gray bolts of lightning drifted toward Xia Lin and Sera from the left and right, moving in a way that completely defied the laws of physics. Unlucky ghostly light flickered at the tips of their spears.

One Ghost Guard had already floated in front of Xia Lin, its spear stabbing straight toward his chest with bone-chilling cold.

Xia Lin shifted his footing and narrowly avoided the spearhead, then swung his sword back at the ghost's "arm."

"Shing!" The longsword passed straight through the ghost's translucent body as if cutting through air. It met no resistance and did not even cause the slightest ripple of energy.

"Damn it! An incorporeal creature!" Xia Lin's scalp prickled. This was his first proper encounter with one of these monsters that ignored physical attacks.

That was what made incorporeal creatures so troublesome.

They were like a veil existing between reality and the spirit world. Ordinary swords, knives, axes, and hammers—even when swung with tremendous force—were no different from striking at air and could not inflict any substantial damage.

To them, mundane steel was nothing more than a breeze brushing across the body.

Unless a weapon carried magical power, or one wielded holy energy or pure force, adventurers facing these ghosts that lingered on the boundary between life and death would often fall into despair, unable to bring their strength to bear.

They could pass freely through objects and other living beings, treating solid walls as though they were nothing. Only areas blessed by divine power or powerful magical barriers could obstruct their phantom steps.

"Don't panic! Use something with 'magic' in it!" A voice tinged with impatience drilled directly into Xia Lin's mind like an electric current.

The voice was crystal clear. It was Sera.

Xia Lin froze for a moment, then immediately understood.

"Thanks!" Xia Lin "replied" in his mind, not bothering to wonder how this Tiefling could speak directly inside his head.

He twisted aside and narrowly avoided a spear thrust from a Ghost Guard. Then he reached into his Space Bag and pulled out a small bottle of holy water he had portioned out earlier. He pried open the stopper with his thumb, flicked his wrist, and splashed the holy water at the Ghost Guard.

"Sizzle—!!!" It was like scalding oil poured into ice water.

The instant the holy water touched the Ghost Guard's translucent body, blinding white light erupted, accompanied by a shriek so piercing it seemed capable of tearing the soul apart.

The Ghost Guard's body twisted violently as though corroded by strong acid, and its movements became sluggish. The ghostly glow across its surface rapidly dimmed.

At the same time, the other Ghost Guard lunged in front of Sera.

Sera neither dodged nor retreated. She thrust one palm forward, and shadow energy gathered in her palm once more.

"Hallelu-Yah!" Another condensed purple-black ray howled forth.

This time, the ray's target was not the ghost's "head," but its phantom arm gripping the spear.

Boom! The purple-black energy struck its target with precision. Half of the Ghost Guard's arm, along with the spear in its hand, exploded instantly and scattered into a sky full of motes of light.

It let out a silent wail. Its entire body dimmed, and the momentum of its attack faltered.

Taking advantage of one ghost being weakened by holy water and the other being crippled by Eldritch Blast, Xia Lin drew a deep breath and infused his arcane energy into the longsword once more.

The blade trembled with a sharp hum. Then, two Furious Slashes as swift as lightning tore through the air and howled toward the phantom forms!

The enchanted blade easily cleaved through the Ghost Guards' phantom bodies, like a hot knife through butter.

Each slash sent great swaths of ghostly blue sparks flying.

After two short, sharp shrieks, the two entangled Ghost Guards finally dissipated completely into the air, leaving behind only a few wisps of vanishing blue-gray smoke.

"Phew... finally dealt with." Xia Lin leaned on his sword and panted, feeling more exhausted than if he had cut down ten Orcs.

The mental pressure of fighting incorporeal creatures was simply too great.

He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and walked over to Sera, studying her curiously. "Sera, just now... how did you speak inside my head? It felt like a dream."

Sera shot him a sidelong glance. "It was merely a little insignificant 'trick' granted to me by my 'sect master.' As long as you're within my line of sight, we can engage in this crude form of mental communication. It's nothing special."

She paused, then added with her distinctive mockery, "Of course, the other person's head must contain something worth 'communicating' with. For certain empty skulls, this ability is probably no different from talking to a rock—a complete waste of effort."

"Thank you so much. You mean that as a compliment, right? That my brain is full of good stuff?" Xia Lin rolled his eyes. He had already developed considerable resistance to the venomous remarks that this Tiefling occasionally tossed out.

While their attention was completely drawn to the Ghost Guards and the coffin before them, neither of them noticed that high above, on the domed ceiling of the burial chamber, lay an even more ancient and secret mural.

The mural had not been painted with ordinary pigments. Instead, it had been directly imprinted onto the rough stone ceiling with some material mixed from stardust and an unknown liquid.

Under the weak torchlight, most of the mural remained hidden in darkness. Only when the light occasionally swept past could a corner of it be glimpsed.

What it depicted was not a scene from the mortal world.

Twisted geometric lines formed an incomprehensible background. Occupying most of the mural were countless enormous, distorted black shadows.

Beneath those shadows, a group of black figures of varying shapes—recognizable only as different races—were slaughtering another group of figures in a bloody, brutal manner. The latter were more human in form and radiated faint blue halos across their bodies.

Blue blood stained the scene like rivers, mingling desperate flight with merciless pursuit.

Some of the enormous shadows seemed to gaze down coldly at the slaughter from the highest heavens. Others stretched out vague giant hands, as though pouring some indescribable power directly into the bodies of the black figures.

This mural, hidden in the darkness and high above, silently told of a forgotten story—a secret far darker and more terrifying than the tomb itself.

Unfortunately, Xia Lin and Sera knew nothing of it at that moment.

They were fully focused on guarding against whatever danger might appear ahead, completely missing the voiceless whisper from the immemorial past above their heads.