Chapter 279: The Red Robe

In the World of Souls, Lucien stopped the many thoughts in his mind and was about to find a room in the projection of the castle to take a rest. He planned to meet Leo later at the place they previously agreed, when this whole thing settled down.

According to Lucien's estimation, this would take three to four days. Leo and he had agreed on meeting each other a week later, so he had plenty of time. He could use this time learning how to control his newly-grown spiritual power.

Lucien felt lucky for not meeting any undead creatures here. The deeper one went, the more dangerous this space was. Lucien was only a middle-rank mage right now, and he knew his own limit.

When Lucien was going to step on the stairs, the castle started shaking fiercely, like a boat in the ocean meeting a great storm.

Then, the castle was torn into countless pieces of shadow. A second later, the shadow all disappeared.

This whole thing happened too fast. Lucien did not manage to cast any spells to protect himself. All of a sudden, he was exposed to the wild, and he could feel the sense of death from this world.

He was confused.

At this time, the white tear-shaped mark on Lucien's left hand refreshed him like a breeze. The breeze comforted Lucien greatly in the dreadful surroundings.

Lucien's was cheered up, feeling lucky for having the young girl's blessing wish. At the same time, he looked around and realized that he was on the west side of the mine of Ural. He silently murmured to himself, "This should be the real reflection of the material world..."

According to Lucien's knowledge of the World of Souls, unintelligent things in the material world, like a building, could be mistakenly reflected there. For example, a building in the west of a city could appear in the north in this creepy world. However, the mistake usually would not go beyond a certain range, say, within a city or a village. Still, the fact that Lucien entered the gap entrance in the mine but directly arrived at Dry Vine castle was out of his expectation. After all, they were quite far from each other.

Now, after witnessing what just happened to the castle, Lucien realized that it was Rhine's power that dragged the projection of the castle there. After Rhine left, the world recovered itself.

Actually, it was also a good thing. Lucien did not have to worry that the others might have the evidence that he killed Ivanovszki.

"But wait!!"

An idea suddenly struck Lucien and he immediately ran toward the gap exit close to him.

If Ivanovszki knew the existence of the World of Souls and the entrance, what about those who worked for or cooperated with him, say, the senior-rank mage, Nikonov? Did he know how to get into this world? If Nikonov also chose to hide in the World of Souls and saw the evidence of the fight between Lucien and Ivanovszki, he would definitely know that their enemy was also here! The secret of this world could have been revealed!

To all the people on Ivanovszki and Nikonov's side, and to the person pulling the strings behind them, the fact that someone else knew the existence of the World of Souls could be even more threatening than the fact that their plan toward the count had failed. If they found out about this, they would spare no effort on killing Lucien by searching around the entrance very carefully, and probably setting up some sensing traps.

If Lucien wanted to find another exit, he would need to go deeper in the World of Souls. And, very possibly, he would meet some horrible undead creatures!

Therefore, Lucien must take the risk and eliminate all the evidence at the bottom of the mine, and then find another place to hide.

Before going back, Lucien carefully sensed the other side of the gap with his Sun's Corona. Making sure that there was no one around there, Lucien activated Powerful Fire Shield, which was his last chance of using this spell today, and came back to the bottom of the mine again through the heavy "curtains" in the gap.

There was no wind here, so the toxic cloud was still around. Rocks, bugs and mice were being corroded.

After casting Dissipate Smoke easily using his stronger spiritual power for a few times, there was finally no toxic gas in the air. Then, Lucien started to deal with the bodies of the dead bugs and mice, as well as the damaged stones, making sure that no one could tell that once there was a bitter fight here, in a very organized way.

After less than ten minutes, Lucien's work was almost done. If one did not check around carefully, it would be very hard to notice. And as time went by, there was no way that one could tell any evidences here, except if he or she directly used the ninth-circle spell, Retrospective Sight.

After carefully checking around again, Lucien cast Invisibility and was ready to leave the place.

However, when he just took a few steps, all of a sudden, Lucien sensed that Nikonov had arrived there, as expected!

Maybe it was because Nikonov did not expect anyone to be there, or he was too confident, but Lucien was lucky to find it out in time, and thus had enough time to hide.

Lucien quickly restrained his spiritual power field and looked around. He knew that he could not hide in a corner like he did the last time. Nikonov was a senior-rank mage!

A senior-rank mage's spiritual power field was solid and very powerful, which could sense every single creature in the space. In the narrow pit, only the fourth-circle spell, Greater Invisibility, could hide the caster properly.

Therefore, decisively, Lucien entered the World of Souls again.

...

Black, white and gray. The bushes and trees were like concrete. Lucien ran fast on the open field, with dim shadows following him. His destination was the plain, because he had a greater chance to meet undead creatures down there.

This time, Lucien did not avoid the undead creatures, but tried to find them on purpose. He used the crystal ball and Maskelyne's Star at the same time. When the light balls and the stars hit each other and burst out shining pieces, Lucien's luck was improved.

Lucien did not believe in fate. This time he wanted to take the initiative and try his best to survive here! Even if he was doomed to die here, Lucien still wanted to fight for himself till the last second.

In this chaotic world, Lucien arrived at the plains in a very short time. There, he saw groups of ghouls. The way they looked—their rotten flesh and hanging pieces of skin—, in Lucien's eyes, was quite familiar.

And this time, Lucien felt lucky that he found the ghouls.

Smelling the air, the ghouls found Lucien—a live creature! Immediately, they became agitated and crazy. They were coming for Lucien!

At this time, Lucien silently cast a spell, and his smell suddenly changed. His body was shrouded by a dense smell of death, and his flesh started rotting. Soon, Lucien changed himself into a disgusting ghoul!

The unique second-circle spell from the Congress, the Undead Transformation!

The spell was invented based on two ancient spells: Death Cover and Undead Disguise.

The brainless ghouls felt very confused. After looking around, they accepted the fact that, all of a sudden, they had got a new friend.

The leader of the ghouls released a silent howling, asking Lucien to join the line.

Soon after Lucien joined this group of ghouls and wandered around, he saw a figure flying in the gray sky. The man was wearing a black magic robe. He was Nikonov.

Apparently, Nikonov was not interested in the ghouls at all. He did not even take an extra look at them, not to mention using his spiritual power to scan them carefully.

Lucien was quite nervous when he was walking among the real ghouls. After making sure that Nikonov had really left, he released a long sigh in his mind.

It seemed that Nikonov never expected his enemy to be here at all.

Just in case, Lucien kept wandering with the ghouls for a while. A little later, a figure wearing a black loose rob drawn with lots of complicated patterns flew across the sky. The aura that the figure had was one of absolute death!

The figure also directly ignored the ghouls, that could be found everywhere in this world.

Based on the direction, Lucien wondered if this figure was chasing Nikonov. He was not sure whether the figure was an intelligent undead creature or not.

After a while, Lucien started to get bored. When he was just about to leave and find the exit gap, he saw another figure flying across the sky again.

This time, Lucien was greatly shocked, because the figure was wearing the robe that was only meant for the cardinals!

Although Lucien could not tell the real color of the robe, he was completely sure that the style and shape was exactly the same!