Chapter 273: Moving Forward (2)

The five wizards were surprised by what they just witnessed.

Angele pursed his lips. He tried to find the green string but nothing could be traced.

"What's going on?" he wondered.

Stigma narrowed his eyes and shook his head. "We need to find another route. I don't even know what's on that cliff. There's a town called White Mist around the canyon. We can find human beings living there. We should go ask them about the situation."

Angele was not familiar with the area, so he decided to follow Stigma's advice. The five wizards started heading to the right.

Good thing was that the team carried enough food and water. They could stay on the plains for about two more months.

The path to White Mist Town was dangerous. The first several days were peaceful but they were tracked down by a herd of strange beasts in the next ten days. The creature looked like a mutated leopard with burning flame at the end of its tail. The leopard had hard fur, high speed, and its paws could deal Fire damage.

Angele did the test. The leopard's fur could easily block the physical damage dealt by a person with Strength points lower than seven. The fur could only be damaged by extremely sharp metal weapons.

Reyline cast several spells after he realized that his physical attacks did not work but those leopards were sensitive to the energy particles and they dodged the spells easily as well. Only the instant-cast spells were fast enough to hit them but only Angele's instant-cast spell was powerful enough to damage them.

Hikari was almost injured by those leopards. Morrisa and Hikari's spells needed time to prepare. Morrisa was a good healer but could not fight and her summoning potions took too long to prepare.

Stigma and Reyline's close combat skills were mainly used to defend against the strikes from the mutated leopards. Angele was the only one killing those creatures. With the buff from the cursed scimitar, his Strength had reached 15, and he could easily slice the leopards into pieces.

After several battles, Angele had killed more than ten mutated leopards and he had successfully extracted some more life essences.

His Strength was increased to 17, Mentality was increased to 57.4, and his Stamina was increased to 20.

17 points of Strength brought Angele incredible power. He missed a slash once and the cursed scimitar left a deep crack in the ground.

The high Stamina increased Angele's defense and recovery. He was once bitten by two mutated leopards on the shoulders, but the wounds were quickly healed, and his bones were not even damaged.

The mutated leopard had a Strength of 6 but they could barely do any damage to Angele. His Metal Mastery was also improving as his attributes rose in digits.

The metal forcefield improved and Angele was able to control more metal creations at the same time.

He concluded after doing many tests that the metal forcefield would be more powerful and easier to control if his Strength and Stamina increased. The amount of mentality and mana he had would only affect the metal creation ability.

Angele's attributes were increased to a whole different level but sadly, the cursed scimitar reached its limit and the buff could no longer be strengthened. Although he could still absorb the life essences of the creatures, his mentality increase slowed down again.

It took the five wizards about half a month to reach the White Mist Town Stigma had mentioned.

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On the edge of the Abyss Canyon, there was a small forest with yellow trees. Tiny grey bushes filled up the gaps between the gaps between those trees.

The wizards followed after Stigma as they went across the forest, then they finally saw the town.

White Mist Town was surrounded by some yellow trees and there were more than 100 old houses in the town. The view of the place was blurred by the white mist in the air.

Most of the houses in the town had red roofs and grey walls. The roofs were decaying naturally due to the weather and their color was fading.

The walls were covered with black marks and cracks. It almost looked like the houses got burnt.

White sand covered the dark mud on the ground and there were green mosses everywhere.

It was getting dark.

The sky was blocked thick dark clouds and it was about to rain.

Black rusty iron fences lined up around the town and they were connected by large grey piers. It looked like a long black string with grey dots on it.

The entrance of the town was an arched white gate.

The town was empty. There was no one around and it was deadly silent.

The five wizards entered the town through the stone gate. They stepped on the white sands and made some soft noise.

Stigma was walking in the front of the team.

"The place has probably been abandoned a long time ago." He glanced around.

He peeked through one of the broken wooden windows on a house but the only thing he saw was darkness.

"It's late, why don't we spend the night here? What do you think?" Hikari advised. "I need to find a place to take a good shower. The water energy particles are making skin dry."

"Let's go to the biggest house then. You can probably find a nice bathroom there." Reyline knitted his eyebrows. "I need to take a good shower with some real water too."

Angele and Stigma had long noticed that Reyline was an introvert during the trip.

Reyline would only talk when it was absolutely necessary. He liked to keep the things to himself and he would not ask for help even when he was in need. That was the reason why people in Nola thought that Reyline was a short-tempered person.

Usually, people's conversation with Reyline would end awkwardly as he did not like chatting too much. Some people thought that Reyline got mad at them. They then spread the rumor saying that Reyline had a strange personality and he was hard to deal with.

The situation with Morrisa was different. She was the weakest wizard in the group and she relied on others' protection. Although she wanted to join the conversation, she knew that it was better to let the other wizards make the decision.

Stigma, Hikari, and Angele were the most talkative people in the team.

The five walked to the tallest building in the town quickly.

The building looked like a church and it had three levels. There were two stone staircases built by the entrance. They could enter the building from either the right or the left side.

The building was protected by some rusty fences but most of them were broken.

*Creak*

Hikari pushed the door open.

*BAM*

The wooden door fell to the ground and blew the dust on the floor to the air.

Angele covered his nose and coughed several times.

"Let's do some cleanings first." Angele shook his head.

They started checking the building's structure right away.

Angele stood in the living room and observed the surroundings while talking to Stigma.

"I need to do some preparation and see if I can get in touch with my family." Stigma lowered his voice. "We're very close to the other side of the crevasse. I think my communication rune can reach the guard post."

"You're returning to your family?" Angele asked.

"I need to visit them no matter what." Stigma nodded. "My sister, my mother, and my best friend...I'm sure they're waiting for me..."

"Ah!"

Suddenly, Morrisa's scream echoed in the building.

"What's going on?!" Angele and Stigma's expressions changed. They rushed to the direction where the scream was coming from and saw Morrisa ran out of a room with a pale face.

Her eyes were wide open, and her body was trembling. Morrisa jumped to the two male wizards quickly like a rabbit.

"What happened? Morrisa?" Angele patted Morrisa's shoulders and asked her.

*Ka-ta Ka-ta*

Hikari ran down the stairs from the second floor quickly after hearing the scream.

"Are you alright? Morrisa? What did you find?"

Reyline entered the building from outside, looking confused.

They gathered in the living room and waited for Morrisa's answer.

Morrisa pointed at the bedroom she entered and started explaining in a shaky tone.

"Right in that room! I saw a woman on a bed. Her neck was stabbed by many thick metal needles. There was blood everywhere!"

"How is that even possible? I didn't..." Angele was surprised. "Let's go check the bedroom. Stay alert!"

They entered the bedroom right away.

The room was relatively small. On the bed, the yellow blanket was moved to the side and some dark marks were left on the surface of the sheet.

Hikari walked to the bed and checked the black marks.

"It's blood." She nodded.

"A specter?" Reyline looked at Angele and Stigma.

"What do you think?" Stigma asked. It seemed that he did not know how to deal with the situation.

Angele pursed his lips. "I have a matrix that is said to be useful against ghosts. I checked the rune system in the matrix. I think it can at least tell us if the place is haunted. I'll give it a try, but I need someone to help me."

"Let me help you." Hikari stepped forward. "Ghosts are hard to deal with. We need to check the area immediately. I've encountered a similar situation in the Dark Red Highland, so I have an experience fighting against specters."

"Huh?" Angele looked at Hikari curiously. It was the first he was seeing another wizard that had survived the curse of the ghosts.

The ghosts in this world were mysterious and strong. An average wizard could easily be killed by a strong curse. Only the souls of strong or special individuals could stay in the world.