The Unkillable Bride

The rain still had not let up as Ian and Kalan hid in a corner of an abandoned clock tower in the eastern part of the city.

Their surroundings were shrouded in a pale-blue magical barrier—an invisibility ward Ian had set up himself. It could not only conceal their presence, but also distort sight and perception.

Even high-level wizards would have struggled to notice it without special detection methods.

"She only collects wizards... but why specifically the 'living' ones?" Kalan was still steeped in fear, his voice trembling. "Where is she sending them? Beneath the temple? What exactly is down there?"

Ian frowned deeply and was about to answer when his entire body suddenly tensed.

He sensed it—a gaze beyond description.

He abruptly looked up through the ward toward the far end of the street. The Ghost Bride was slowly dragging five pitch-black coffins along. Her steps remained soundless, her red veil fluttering lightly in the wind. Yet at that moment, she suddenly stopped.

Then, she slowly turned her head.

That paper-pale face, those hollow eyes burning with red light, locked precisely onto the direction of the clock tower—as if they had pierced through the ward, the shadows, and the distance, stabbing straight into Ian's soul.

"Impossible... With three layers of concealment charms and a spatial distortion barrier, even if Dumbledore himself came, it should take him at least three minutes to break my magic." Ian murmured, his tone filled with disbelief and shock. "The ward wasn't triggered, and no magical fluctuations leaked out... How did she find us?"

"Found. You." The Ghost Bride's mouth split open all the way to her ears. Golden sand gushed from her eye sockets, forming countless tiny eye-shaped patterns in the air.

The skin of her face cracked apart like rotting flesh, her mouth