booktalesy Chapter 197 Trap
Chapter 197 Trap
Chapter 197 Trap
They seemed to be drawn by the life force of the camp and the light of the pure flames, letting out silent howls as they drifted towards the camp, baring their fangs and claws.
Wherever it passed, the air temperature plummeted, and even the ashes on the ground seemed to be covered with a layer of white frost.
"Purify Flame!" Liana shouted, pointing her staff forward. The cluster of Purify Flame flames in the center of the camp suddenly expanded, transforming into a warm ring of fire that spread outwards!
The ring of fire swept over the ghosts, who emitted sharp, mournful, silent shrieks that pierced their souls. Their translucent bodies trembled violently, and hissing white smoke rose from the places burned by the flames, their speed noticeably slowing down.
But after the ring of fire, although they were injured, they did not dissipate. They continued to struggle and drift forward, only more frantic.
"Physical attacks have limited effectiveness!"
"Lehman, area paralysis!" Blake roared, slamming his shield heavily into the ground. A more solid red shield rose up, blocking the direction where the ghosts were most concentrated.
Lehman Brothers had been preparing for this for a long time.
He quickly formed hand seals and uttered a few short, powerful syllables.
In an instant, countless fine blue arcs of electricity spread outwards from him like a spider web, crackling and covering a large area!
As the electric grid swept across the horde of ghosts, their floating bodies suddenly stiffened. The intense electric shock made their soul structures unstable, flickering erratically. Two of the weaker ghosts even disintegrated, turning into specks of phosphorescent light and disappearing.
Ella's arrows have arrived.
Her arrows were no ordinary arrows; the arrowheads were engraved with runes for warding off evil and dispelling evil, and the shafts were wrapped with subtle wind elements.
The arrow pierced precisely through the gaps in the electric grid, striking a ghost core paralyzed by the electric arc.
boom!
With a soft sound, the ghost burst open like a punctured bubble and vanished completely.
However, the number of ghosts does not appear to have decreased.
More blurry outlines emerged from the surrounding shadows, one after another.
The piercing, silent screams combined to create a dizzying, unsettling mental shock.
Luo Lin felt a slight throbbing in his temples.
He mobilized the power of [Quiet Dust Star], and a cool and peaceful thought swept across his mental sea, filtering and settling those invisible mental noises.
My mind cleared up.
He looked in the direction from which the ghosts were coming, his gaze fixed on the area where the shadows were thickest and the soul fluctuations were most concentrated.
The signals passively received by the detector indicated that there was a node there that continuously emitted soul energy, and the ghosts seemed to be born or summoned from there.
We cannot adopt a passive defense approach.
That node must be destroyed or its operation disrupted.
Rowling took a deep breath, raised his right hand, and aimed his fingertips at the shadow node.
Within the mental sea, the spell model of [Disruption of Order] was instantly activated, and a wisp of highly condensed star power was injected into it.
There was no earth-shattering sound, only a very slight distortion in the air in front of the fingertip, a tiny, almost imperceptible silver glint flashed and disappeared instantly into the dense shadow.
The next moment, the shadow seemed to be an ice cube thrown into hot oil, violently rolling, contracting, and twisting!
A silent yet sharp sense of collapse, as if tearing the soul apart, erupted from there!
The endless stream of ghosts seemed to have its source cut off, and instantly came to a standstill.
The existing ghosts trembled violently at the same time, as if they had lost some kind of support, becoming blurry and thin, and their movements became slow and chaotic.
At the location of the node, the shadow spread out, revealing the ground below.
There, a rudimentary magic circle, about two meters in diameter, was inscribed, composed of pale bone powder and some kind of dark liquid. At this moment, a fist-sized, murky crystal, constantly emitting grayish-white mist, embedded in the center of the magic circle, its surface covered with spiderweb-like cracks, shattered completely with a "crack"!
As the crystal shattered, the invisible supply of soul energy was completely cut off.
The remaining ghosts, like puppets with broken strings, struggled and twisted, before collapsing and disappearing under the continuous attacks of the purifying flames and electric arcs.
Silence quickly returned to the area around the camp. Only the wind continued to howl, but the feeling of being watched by countless malicious eyes had vanished.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but their vigilance remained.
"That was just now—" Ella looked at Rolin, her eyes filled with surprise.
She only saw Rowling raise his hand, and then the source of the ghosts in the distance collapsed, the process was incredibly fast.
"A kind of interference against chaotic energy structures," Rowling explained simply, without going into details.
He walked to the broken magic circle, squatted down, and examined it carefully.
The magic circle's patterns were rough but effective. Its core was the shattered soul core crystal, which was clearly used to gather and transform the wandering death intent and soul remnants in the environment to mass-produce low-level ghosts.
This method isn't very efficient, but it's effective because it's covert and can continuously create trouble, depleting the intruder's strength.
"It's a trap for warning and harassment." Lehman walked over and poked at the broken crystal fragments with his toe.
"The style of the Pale Hands. They must be nearby, and they know someone is approaching."
Blake's expression turned grave: "It seems this mission won't be easy."
The remnants of the magic array were cleared, and the camp's security was strengthened. The rest of the night passed peacefully.
But everyone understands that this is just the beginning.
The Pale Hand's activities in the Howling Rift are probably deeper than expected.
After daybreak, the team packed up their camp and headed toward the entrance to the rift valley.
The entrance to the Howling Rift is more treacherous than imagined.
Two steep, black rock walls, hundreds of meters high, stand facing each other, with a narrow, winding passage only a dozen meters wide in between.
The rock face is covered with holes formed by wind erosion. When the wind blows, it emits all sorts of strange whistles and sobs, which combine to form that famous howling sound.
The depths of the rift valley were dimly lit and filled with a thin, grayish-white mist, severely obstructing visibility.
The detector readings became extremely chaotic here, with various energy signals intertwined and difficult to distinguish.
"Stay close and watch out for the rock walls on both sides," Blake said in a deep voice, taking the lead into the rift passage.
The tower shield tilted slightly, guarding against possible attacks from above.
The team formed a long, single-file line and cautiously advanced into the depths of the rift valley.
The passageway floor was slippery, covered with a thick layer of grayish-black mud that emitted a faint smell of decay. The rock walls on both sides were wet, with cold water droplets constantly seeping down, creating an eerie contrast with the scorching, dry environment outside.
After walking for about a mile, the passage ahead turned a corner, and the fog seemed to thicken further.
Just then, a clear and rhythmic vibration suddenly came from the [Rift Perception Patch] on Rolin's wrist—a spatial disturbance!
"Stop! There's a spatial anomaly ahead!" Roland shouted immediately.
Before he finished speaking, several pale green flames suddenly lit up from the thick fog ahead!
Immediately afterwards, seven or eight figures emerged from the mist and blocked the way.
These figures are no longer low-level ghosts.
They have almost solid grayish-white bodies, wear tattered and stained robes or armor, and hold rusty swords or staffs.
Two green flames burned in his eye sockets, and his jaw opened and closed, making a "clucking" sound like bones rubbing together.
They exuded an aura of death far stronger than that of ghosts, and their movements were no longer elusive, but rather carried a stiff yet powerful heaviness.