As he moved deeper, the light grew dimmer.
Gu Zhan could only rely on his instincts, feeling his way forward.
Beyond the hall lay the staircase of the ancient castle.
On the red carpet, a dark stain trailed from upstairs down to the ground. It looked like a bloodstain, left behind by someone in a panic during their escape.
And the bloodstain led down the stairs.
Following the blood, Gu Zhan found an entrance to a basement beneath the staircase.
The door wasn't closed, and with a gentle push, it opened.
Inside, he heard the chattering sounds of some small creatures, but thankfully, nothing like bats or crows flew out.
It was completely dark inside, so Gu Zhan took out a magical rune for illumination to light up the narrow passage.
The passage was made of stone, its walls smooth from frequent use, indicating that many people must have walked this way before.
This passage reminded him of the one he had seen when he first woke up from the instance, where the sacrificial site was located.
The lord's mansion was right next to the church—could it be that the two places were connected?
Covering his nose, Gu Zhan stepped inside.
After walking for a while, he realized that this place was less like a passage and more like a dungeon.
As he ventured further, he noticed several rooms on either side of the passage, all with iron bars. Most of the rooms were empty, but a couple contained people.
Of course, they were already dead.
They wore tattered prison clothes, slumped against the walls with their heads hanging low.
Some were missing limbs, while others had large, blood-soaked patches on their chests.
What was the lord doing in his home? Why were there so many prisoners?
The passage still extended beyond the dungeon, leading into darkness, with no clear destination in sight.
Gu Zhan held the illumination rune carefully and moved forward. Suddenly, he felt a chilling gust of decaying air rush past him from behind. He bent down instinctively as a shadow lunged at him, missing and crashing to the ground in front of him.
The light illuminated the figure: he was dressed in extravagant clothing, adorned with jewels on his chest.
His skin was dark, and his eyes were pale, clearly not a normal human anymore.
After missing his attack, the figure quickly rose and lunged at Gu Zhan again.
The way he attacked didn’t resemble a person; it was more like a beast acting on instinct.
Gu Zhan kicked the figure in the chest, sending him several meters away. As the figure fell, Gu Zhan observed closely and quickly deduced that this must be the missing lord.
The man was marked with numerous red lines; Gu Zhan couldn’t tell what they were for.
“Hiss…”
The lord refused to give up and lunged at Gu Zhan once more.
Gu Zhan, irritated by this relentless pursuit, glanced around and spotted a nearby dungeon, leading the lord in that direction.
Once inside the dungeon, Gu Zhan dodged the lord’s attack, quickly turning to slam the door shut.
Although the lord had lost his human rationality, he seemed to understand what was happening. He let out a roar and furiously charged at the iron bars.
But the bars couldn’t withstand the lord’s claws. Not wanting to be caught, Gu Zhan looked to the other side of the dungeon and saw a pile of various torturing instruments.
He grabbed a few of them and wedged them against the dungeon door.
The lord went wild, but he couldn’t push the door open.
That should hold him off for a while. Gu Zhan directed the illumination rune toward the lord, carefully observing the red lines on him, then turned and continued deeper into the passage.
With the lord occupied behind him, he moved faster. After walking a considerable distance, he suddenly caught a glimmer of light ahead.
At this point, the passage had no further path, and Gu Zhan slowed his pace, approaching the room that emitted light.
There were no guards at the entrance, so he pressed himself against the wall, listening carefully for any sounds. There was nothing.
Gu Zhan brought the rune from his astrolabe closer to the wall, intending to activate its functions, but discovered he was restricted.
This was clearly a magical world—why was the ability to teleport through walls restricted?
Pausing for a moment, Gu Zhan suddenly recalled the vast array of magical items in his spatial rune. He rummaged through the rune and soon found a wall-piercing rune that functioned almost identically to the astrolabe.
He activated the rune, entering the wall space and observing that the room was empty except for a large, incomplete array.
Finally, Gu Zhan stepped into the room.
The array was drawn on the floor and walls, a massive circle encompassing the entire room. Next to the array stood a statue.
It wore clothing identical to that of the church, but its face was blank.
As for the missing parts of the array…
Gu Zhan recalled that they matched up perfectly with the connections on the lord.
Was this the lord’s doing?
Had he become this way by his own choice, or had something gone wrong with the array?
Gu Zhan leaned toward the latter.
Based on the incomplete parts of the array, it seemed the lord must have been lying on the ground, right in the center of the circle, when the array was activated.
What kind of good person would lie in that spot? Only a sacrifice would.
The room contained nothing but the array and the statue.
Despite lacking eyes, the statue gave Gu Zhan an unsettling feeling.
He moved the statue out of the array's vicinity and began examining the array more closely.
From some corner of the room came faint sounds.
It was like wind or small insects scuttling in the cracks of the bricks.
Gu Zhan paused, glancing toward the corner of the wall.
He suddenly remembered the moment he had arrived in this instance and the escape with Garen from the sacrificial site...
If there was a hidden passage at the sacrificial site, then perhaps there was one here as well.
Gu Zhan began searching the room. With his prior experience of finding secret doors, he soon discovered one. Following Garen's technique, he pressed down hard on a specific floor tile, causing a large section of the floor to tremble.
Gu Zhan quickly stepped back, watching as a large hole opened up where he had just stood.
A colder breeze blew from the opening, and since it lacked the stench of decay, it indicated that this new passage connected to the outside world.
He descended into the passage, and as soon as he landed, he came face to face with Garen.
Gaeen was tightly bound to a chair, his clothes stripped away, and bizarre red patterns were drawn on his skin.
His mouth was gagged, but upon seeing Gu Zhan, he began to struggle wildly against his restraints.
Gu Zhan: “…”
This scene was quite hard to witness.
He tossed the handkerchief he had used to cover his mouth and nose over to Garen, perfectly covering his most private parts.
Garen: “…”
Damn he was being shunned by his benefactor.
Gu Zhan glanced around; this room was much more normal than the previous one. It contained furniture, and on the floor lay Garen's discarded clothes. Gu Zhan walked over, picked them up, and tossed them onto Garen, covering his exposed body. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief and approach to untie him.
After a struggle, he finally removed the gag from Garen’s mouth. Garen looking very aggrieved, said, “Benefactor, I can’t be that bad-looking, can I?”
“…” Gu Zhan found it hard to explain how absurd it was for one man to be exposed before another man with a different orientation.
Wasn’t that akin to violating his eyes?
But Gu Zhan was a good person, so he simply said, “Hurry and put on your clothes.”
Galen: “okay”
As Garen dressed, Gu Zhan turned his back and began to observe the room.
Unlike the previous dungeon, which was clearly designed to imprison people and hold obscure rituals, this room was evidently intended for living in.
It had cabinets, shelves, a table, and chairs, and there were some books on the shelves.
Gu Zhan took down a few to look at.
Rituals to Summon Deities, The Glory of the Sun God, Bloodline Inheritance, Sacrifice
All of them were related to religion.
What caught Gu Zhan’s attention was the book titled The Glory of the Sun God, which contained methods for offering sacrifices to Kripper.
As Garen had previously mentioned, they were all flowers and herbs. It seemed that this Sun God truly did not favor human blood.
However, just like in the lord’s mansion and the previous sacrificial site, the sacrifices were all living people.
Behind him, Garen had finished dressing.
Gu Zhan placed the books back on the shelf and turned to Garen, asking, “Why does the church keep capturing you as a sacrifice? Why are you so familiar with these underground passages?”
Garen hesitated, sighed deeply, and said, “I guess I can’t hide it from you.”
Garen continued, “I’m the illegitimate son of the lord and grew up in his mansion, so I’m quite familiar with these passages. As for why they insist on capturing me as a sacrifice, I don’t know. I left the lord’s mansion when I was twelve, and to him, I’ve already been dead.”
Gu Zhan said, “The lord has turned into a monster due to some ritual.”
“Ah…” A look of confusion crossed Garen’s face.
Clearly, he held no feelings for his lord father, as he did not show any sadness upon hearing this.
Gu Zhan recalled the books on the shelf and said, “Maybe they’re capturing you because you’re your father’s illegitimate son… By the way, does your father have any other children besides you?”
“He has two daughters, but it seems they’ve already married and moved away from Hassan,” Garen replied.
That made sense. The only person the church could capture in Hassan who had a blood relation to the lord was Garen.
But if the lord didn’t even know Garen was living in the countryside, how did they know?
Gu Zhan asked, “How did you manage to leave Hassan City?”
Garen said, “That was many years ago… Are you sure this is the right place to talk?”
This clearly wasn’t a good place for conversation.
Gu Zhan guessed they had already reached beneath the church.
This was a living space, and with Garen bound here, the church members could appear at any moment.
After a brief thought, Gu Zhan said, “Let’s talk while we walk.”
The two left the room, stepping into a long, intricate corridor, much like the one in the lord’s mansion.
“I hate the lord. He forcibly took me from my mother, and when I returned, she had already died. The people in the lord’s mansion looked down on me, always calling me a bastard. I could have lived a good life in the countryside, so why endure their scorn in the lord’s mansion? So I escaped secretly…”
“The person who helped me escape was the butler of the lord’s mansion, but he passed away many years ago.”
Garen explained.
There were too many ambiguous elements in this story; an old butler who had already passed was beyond verification.
In any case, the church had somehow discovered Garen’s background and intended to use him as a sacrifice.
The lord next door had likely been deceived by the church.
The corridor was silent, with only the sound of their footsteps echoing. In this tense atmosphere, Garen gradually spoke more.
After finishing his story, he asked Gu Zhan, “So what’s our plan now? Is the black plague related to the church?”
Gu Zhan replied, “I suspect they used inappropriate sacrificial methods, and the black spot disease is a result of those rituals.”
“Ah?” Galen looked confused. “What’s the benefit for them?”
Yes, indeed.
What benefit could it bring the church?
Suddenly, Gu Zhan stopped, saying, “There are people ahead.”
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