The group headed toward the Library.
Deep inside the Library, Mo Yu pulled a book from a shelf. Its cover was tattered, with two large words written on it: Dark Arts.
There was no author's name, and the contents were handwritten. It appeared to be an original manuscript.
Mo Yu flipped to the middle. "Found it."
Lu Mi took it and skimmed quickly. "To assume another person's appearance, simply gather the following herbs and pickle them for seven days and seven nights, then take a lock of their hair and mix it with powder ground from their left rib..."
These steps largely matched what Lu Mi had personally seen the man named Michel do.
At the end, the author had circled one sentence with thick lines: To maintain this appearance for an extended period, the preparation must be replaced every seven days.
"Wow," Mo Yu exclaimed. "How is the person whose face is being stolen supposed to survive that?"
"Replaced every seven days..." Did that mean they had to keep harvesting the materials required for this dark art from the person whose face they wanted?
Lu Mi snapped the book shut. "Roman, let's go!"
Mo Yu checked the time, surprised. "Did you figure something out? He Shengguang's lesson is almost over. Aren't we waiting for him?"
"I think I know what he wanted to show us," Lu Mi said. "Sorry for the trouble, but could you wait for him in the hall and tell him we're outside the storage room on the fifth floor?"
Roman leaned against a bookshelf with his back to them, silently putting the glove back on his right hand.
"You've been taking your gloves off and putting them back on pretty often these past few days." Lu Mi had only asked casually, but when he noticed Roman looking elsewhere with studied indifference, suspicion immediately stirred. "Roman, take off your glove."
Roman obediently complied. Lu Mi's expression remained blank. "The right glove."
Finally, looking at the sharp fingernails growing densely across Roman's palm, arm, and even his back, Lu Mi drew a deep breath. "What's going on?"
"Perhaps I'm having trouble adjusting to the local environment."
"Has this been going on for a long time?"
"I forgot."
Remembering that Mo Yu had entered more instances, Lu Mi turned to ask whether she knew what was happening.
Roman's gaze slowly shifted to Mo Yu as well.
Mo Yu: "..."
She stammered that she didn't know either, then turned and left, saying she was going to wait for He Shengguang in the hall.
At a loss himself, Lu Mi could only say, "Once we clear this, go to the Healing Area and see if they can fix it. If they can't, go find 2044."
Given the situation, they had to find a way out as soon as possible. Otherwise, if the fingernails on Roman's body kept growing, there was no telling what would happen.
He could only hope his guess was right.
Lu Mi exhaled, but a moment later, he frowned at the hastily scrawled steps in the booklet before him.
"No, something's still missing."
He recalled it carefully: after the man named Michel entered the room, he had taken a bag of white powder from a drawer, then added a lock of hair, along with...
A small vial of fresh blood.
The instructions never mentioned blood. Why had Michel added it?
The booklet was very thin, and Lu Mi quickly skimmed it from the beginning. Quite a few dark arts required fresh blood, but only one matched these circumstances: a dark art called "Deification."
The author wrote: Take fresh blood from both cheeks, the mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, both hands and feet, and every part of the torso.
Use this method, and none can rival you. However, backlash is extremely likely. Raise a [substitute life] and draw its blood to guard against it. The following precautions apply...
Lu Mi continued reading and spoke one passage aloud. "Day one, rest quietly. Day two, take blood from one person. Day four, take blood from two people..."
"Day five is crucial and requires fresh blood from at least four people... On day twelve, blood from seven living people must be used. The optimal time to collect blood on this occasion is between three and five in the afternoon."
As he read, cold sweat broke out over him.
Only five players remained.
But with Noel and the maid included, there were enough people.
Hadn't Michel been killing people according to this schedule all along? Noel wasn't completely under his control, so even if the daily numbers differed slightly, enough people had definitely died before each milestone.
No wonder Michel had said in the dream that his brother was the one leading troops into battle, while all the beautiful women in the world would belong to him. So he had been pursuing this sinister path.
"Roman." He checked the time displayed on his wristband: 14:55. "How long have we been in this instance?"
"Today is..." Roman counted. "Day twelve."
Meanwhile, He Shengguang, who had finished his lesson and was about to leave the study, was stopped.
The Butler forced a chilling smile. "Sir, you just said you had something to show them?"
Lu Mi had climbed the castle stairs countless times, but never as fast as he did now. He nearly knocked over a bucket of water at a corner.
They reached the room where Noel had been made to take her afternoon nap, but did not go inside.
Lu Mi tapped and knocked on the wall outside, muttering, "He Shengguang must have screamed here."
The two searched around, but still found nothing.
After a moment's thought, Lu Mi opened the door and went inside. "Roman, stay there and shout."
Roman: "?"
"Try to match how loudly He Shengguang shouted at noon. Change your pose after every few shouts."
Roman's eyebrow twitched. Impossible. How could someone as reserved and noble as me ever do such a thing?
A minute later, Lu Mi pressed himself against the other side of the door and heard two aggrieved but earnest attempts at imitation. "Butler! Butler!"
Not quite. Lu Mi kept waiting. A few seconds later, Roman, presumably having changed his pose, shouted again.
After several repetitions, Lu Mi finally heard the sound he had been looking for. He excitedly opened the door. "Yes, that's it!"
Roman still held his previous pose, his head tilted far back. Only his eyes were filled with resentment.
Lu Mi patted his head in consolation, then followed Roman's gaze upward.
No matter how they looked at it, the patch above their heads seemed to be nothing more than an ordinary ceiling.
"What did He Shengguang see through his Butterfly Eyes?" Lu Mi wondered.
Noel had seen a bright, happy life in the manor, which was what she longed for most. What He Shengguang wanted most, of course, was to clear the instance as soon as possible and escape.
Perhaps the Butterfly Eyes did not show illusions.
Instead, they showed what you truly desired in your heart.
At that thought, Lu Mi curled his fingers. The water in the wooden bucket around the corner answered his summons from afar, washing over that small patch of ceiling high above.
The concealing color washed away, revealing a sheet of ice. A human face was pressed tightly against it, its bleeding, wide-open eyes staring straight at Lu Mi.
Just then, He Shengguang's startled cry came from downstairs. "What are you trying to do?!"
Lu Mi and Roman exchanged a glance and rushed to the stairs, one heading down and the other up.
No torches burned on the castle's sixth floor. Holding a small flame, Lu Mi strode through the darkness toward the spot directly above the storage room below.
I have to hurry.
He Shengguang had always taken Noel's lessons seriously. This time, the Butler had probably run out of patience and seized on some trivial fault.
Outside, fierce winds raged. In less than an hour, the heavy snow had already piled up to the first-floor windows.
These players' deaths were not far off.
Before you continue