【Help! Who would've thought one of the dungeon Bosses would get so scared by a rookie player that his voice cracked?】
【The King's expression just now... He seriously almost had an out-of-body experience right then and there.】
【Pissing his pants in terror, literally.】
【Watch your wording, guys. At least the King hasn't actually wet himself yet.】
【I think he's close.】
【Lady Witch is way too good at scaring people. I'd run too if I were him.】
【What kind of reverse horror movie set is this? The ghost hasn't even shown up yet, and the Boss has already been scared away by the player.】
Cen Yao didn't look at the bullet screen.
After the King ran out of the study, she silently followed him.
Spreading her wings once more, she used the shadows along the ceiling of the corridor to tail the King from a distance.
The King ran in a great hurry.
He looked nothing like a middle-aged man who usually lived in pampered luxury.
He dashed down the long corridors, pushing past two attendants who tried to ask him what was wrong, and even knocked over a maid carrying a silver tray at a corner.
The silver tray hit the floor with a clatter.
But the King didn't even spare it a glance.
He was entirely focused on running forward.
Cen Yao watched from behind, lost in thought.
His reaction was a bit off.
If he were merely frightened, what he should be doing was calling for guards—calling for anyone who could protect him.
But right now, he didn't look like he was seeking protection.
It seemed more like he was rushing to confirm if a certain secret was still safe.
Cen Yao quieted her breathing and followed him more closely.
The King ran all the way toward the west side of the palace.
The closer they got to the old garden on the west side, the quieter the surroundings became.
The lights from the palaces gradually thinned out, and the roses by the path changed from pure white to a dark crimson before finally withering completely.
High walls loomed in the night.
The walls were covered in black vines, and withered flower buds could be seen faintly peeking through the gaps.
This was the old garden mentioned in the city gate rules.
Before the feast begins, do not approach the old garden on the west side of the palace.
Yet, the King didn't hesitate in the slightest.
Pulling out a small golden key, he unlocked a side door and scrambled inside in a panic.
Cen Yao glided effortlessly over the top of the wall.
There were no lights in the old garden.
The moonlight shone down, illuminating a desolate scene.
Withered flower trellises, broken stone statues, and a half-collapsed fountain.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of dead leaves that rustled softly underfoot.
The King ran all the way to the depths of the garden.
He knelt before a headless angel statue and hurriedly swept away the dead leaves on the ground.
Soon, a hidden latch was revealed beside the base of the statue.
Gasping for breath, the King reached out and pressed it down.
Click.
The ground slowly split open.
A secret passage leading underground appeared under the moonlight.
A cold draft welled up from the passage, carrying a damp, earthy odor and a faint, subtle scent of blood from deeper within.
The King bent over and scrambled inside, practically crawling.
Cen Yao landed beside the entrance of the passage.
She was preparing to follow him.
Just then, the sound of a baby crying suddenly echoed from the distance.
“Wah...”
“Wah-ah...”
The crying was very faint at first.
It sounded as if it were separated by distant palace walls, yet also as if it were coming from deep underground.
Cen Yao paused.
She instantly recalled the rule from the city gate.
A curfew is in effect in the royal capital at night.
After the bell tolls twelve times, all guests must remain indoors.
If you hear a baby crying, close your eyes immediately and do not respond.
Cen Yao stood at the entrance of the passage, her eyelashes drooping slightly.
There was something wrong with this rule.
It didn't specify whether the baby's crying would occur before or after the bell tolled.
Looking at it now, it should be before the bell tolls?
After all, the bell hadn't tolled yet.
No, that might not be the case either.
The baby's crying might have nothing to do with the bell tolling.
But if the crying had nothing to do with the bell, why did the rule group them together?
Was it to mislead the players?
Cen Yao quickly dismissed this idea.
This was only a D-rank rookie dungeon.
Even if the mortality rate was high, there shouldn't be overly complex misleading factors.
That was something reserved for A-rank or higher dungeons.
The rules of a D-rank dungeon could have traps.
But those traps must have solutions.
The bell tolls could not possibly be just for show.
Also, closing one's eyes upon hearing a baby's cry.
Why?
The crying was clearly just a sound.
If simply hearing it would result in death, then something should have happened to her by now.
But nothing had.
She could hear the crying, yet she could still think and move, and her body had suffered no apparent harm.
Perhaps the real danger lay not in "hearing" it,
but in "seeing" it.
The rule told players to close their eyes to prevent them from seeing something they shouldn't after hearing the cry.
If that was the case, there was still room to maneuver before the baby actually appeared in front of her.
That brought her back to the original question.
What was the bell for?
As if to answer her thoughts, a deep, ancient tolling of a bell suddenly echoed from the depths of the palace.
Dong—
The first chime fell.
The dead leaves throughout the old garden trembled slightly.
Dong—
The second chime.
The black vines on the high walls began to slither slowly like living things.
Dong—
The third chime.
The baby's crying in the distance suddenly grew louder.
“Wah-ah—!”
It was sharp, shrill, and piercing.
The sound didn't resemble a normal baby's cry; it was more like something pressing against one's eardrums, scraping them over and over with tiny fingernails.
Cen Yao's brow furrowed.
A sudden wave of irritability washed over her.
There was also an indescribable dread, crawling up her spine like a tiny, icy insect.
She didn't panic.
She raised her hand and cast a Heart-Calming Spell on herself.
A pale blue light rippled out from between her brows, like a layer of soothing water, suppressing the effects of the piercing cry.
Cen Yao exhaled softly.
This was the typical attack method used by ghosts and monsters in dungeons.
They polluted the mind, amplified fear, and clouded judgment.
An ordinary rookie would likely close their eyes instinctively upon hearing this cry, or run around in a blind panic.
But not Cen Yao.
These thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant.
After checking the Protection Spell and Alarm Curse on herself to ensure they were functioning properly, she looked down into the passage.
The King was already nowhere to be seen.
Without further hesitation, Cen Yao slipped into the passage.
The passage was very narrow.
The stone walls on both sides were damp, with dark green moss growing in the crevices.
The further down she went, the colder the air became.
The baby's crying continued to echo outside.
The bell continued to toll, chime by chime.
It was heavy, ancient, and eerie.
The King's footsteps echoed ahead.
At first, his ragged gasps were audible, but soon his breathing grew more erratic, and his footsteps quickened.
Cen Yao followed behind, her brow slightly furrowed.
Strange.
Why did the King look as if he were being chased by a ghost?
He was in a bigger hurry than she was.
Logically speaking, she was the Witch who had come to collect a debt.
Yet his frantic pace made it seem like he was far more terrified of whatever was deep inside the passage being compromised.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, a faint red light finally appeared ahead.
The King stopped.
Concealed in the dark by her Concealment Spell, Cen Yao saw the King push open a door hidden in the wall and quickly slip inside.
The door was very narrow, its surface covered in strange symbols.
The symbols were dark red, resembling blood that had dried over many years.
Cen Yao took one look and thought they were incredibly ugly.
The lines were crooked, and the flow of spiritual energy was completely chaotic.
But the key to everything was clearly hidden behind that door.
She didn't wait around. Just as the door was about to close, she slipped inside with agile grace.
However, the moment she stepped inside, Cen Yao immediately regretted it.
What greeted her was not a monster jumping out at her.
Instead, it was an overpowering, suffocating stench of blood.
The smell of blood was mixed with the foul stench of rotting corpses.
The two scents intertwined, feeling like an invisible hand squeezing her throat while stuffing a handful of rotting flesh down her stomach.
Cen Yao's stomach churned violently.
Her face went pale in an instant.
If she could see her current reflection, she would definitely be surprised.
The female ghost in front of her looked exactly like herself.
The secret chamber was quite large.
The walls were covered in paper talismans.
On the floor, circles of array patterns were drawn in cinnabar.
Several peach wood swords were driven into the edges of the array, their blades wrapped in red threads and bells.
In the corners lay piles of objects whose original forms were unrecognizable.
Some looked like bones.
Others resembled dried flower branches.
There were also several corpses covered in white cloth, with stiff, pale blue fingers faintly visible beneath the sheets.
Cen Yao held her breath, forcing down the urge to vomit.
Paper talismans.
Cinnabar.
Peach wood swords.
This setup plunged her into a brief silence.
The orb fell silent too.
After a few seconds, it spoke hesitantly, “Host, isn't this your Eastern metaphysics system?”
Cen Yao looked at the talismans covering the walls with a complicated expression.
“It seems so.”
When studying magic, she had briefly looked into Blue Star's local metaphysics to adapt to different systems.
She could recognize things like cinnabar, peach wood swords, and talismans.
But recognizing them didn't mean she could understand them.
Especially since the talismans here looked like they had been scribbled by a crawling ghost.
Cen Yao stared at one of the talismans for two seconds.
“These are drawn so uglily.”
The orb agreed wholeheartedly. “They're far worse than the magic sigils you drew during your Elementary Witch exam, Host.”
Cen Yao replied earnestly, “Thank you. I think so too.”
Still, ugly as they were, she could roughly figure out their function.
Suppression.
Sealing.
Isolation.
It was just that the skills of the person who drew these talismans were truly sub-par. The array's aura was scattered, riddled with as many holes as a sieve.
Cen Yao felt she could pierce through this thing with a single finger.
It appeared that in order to save his own life, the King had dabbled in both Eastern and Western metaphysical forces.
A Witch's magic, Eastern talismans, peach wood swords, and a cinnabar array.
His main philosophy was to set up everything, regardless of whether it actually worked.
But the people he hired were truly incompetent.
She really wondered where he got the courage to steal the treasure of a genuinely skilled Witch.
Cen Yao raised her hand and condensed a transparent, soft chair in midair.
She sat on it, leaning half-back against the chair, quietly watching the King search frantically around the secret chamber.
In truth, with her current strength, she could have easily gone back to her room and waited.
Once her internal magic fully recovered in a couple of days, she could use large-scale magic to tear this entire dungeon wide open in one go.
When that time came, the shocking, magnificent magic performance and her deep, unfathomable strength would bring her a massive amount of shock points.
But if she did that, she would lose the true meaning of exploring a dungeon.
Perhaps it was because she had spent her first eighteen years as an ordinary person.
Even though she now possessed extraordinary power, the first emotion to surface in Cen Yao's heart was not arrogance, but trepidation.
She couldn't help but constantly wonder:
What if one day she suddenly lost her magic?
What if one day the System was no longer there?
What if she was dragged into a dungeon where magic was completely banned?
How would she survive then?
That was why she had been waiting.
Waiting to enter the main storyline of the dungeon.
Waiting to understand the rules.
Waiting to find clues.
Unfortunately, she had spent the entire first day traveling, and after entering the palace, she had been busy gathering materials and scaring the King.
Cen Yao sighed inwardly.
How exhausting.
Just then, a rustling sound suddenly echoed from the depths of the chamber.
It was very faint.
Like something was gnawing.
Cen Yao looked up.
Then she saw the King crouching in the deepest corner of the secret chamber.
His back was turned to her, his shoulders twitching.
He seemed to be cradling something in his hands.
A dark red liquid dripped down through the gaps of his fingers.
The stench of blood in the air grew even stronger.
Bowing his head, he was eagerly and greedily devouring something.
The wet, squelching sound of chewing was amplified in the quiet chamber, sounding exceptionally clear.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Like teeth crushing bones.
Cen Yao's stomach finally couldn't help but convulse violently.
“Gag!”
The sound was very quiet.
But in this deathly silent chamber, it was clear enough.
The King froze instantly.
In the next second, he whipped his head around like a startled beast.
His face, which was supposed to look kind and benevolent, was smeared with blood, and a bit of shredded flesh still clung to the corner of his mouth.
His pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, and his voice was shrill and piercing.
“Who's there?!”
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