Before this incomprehensible scene of terror, the man froze for a second or two, then suddenly let out a scream, frantically throwing the wine glass away and dodging to the side.
The glass fell to the floor and shattered instantly, the remaining wine spilling on the floor like blood, with every drop’s surface seemingly flashing with tiny flas and ominous, dignified faces. The man staggered backward, nearly tripping over the sofa next to him, and finally steadied himself by leaning against the wall.
He panted heavily, staring at the broken glass and liquid on the floor, his heart pounding as if it were about to burst. The symbiotic Smoke Dust Jellyfish wandered blindly and chaotically through the air beside him, gradually contracting into a weird spherical shape.
The shattered glass and liquid on the floor no longer held that terrifying reflection. The scene that had just occurred seed like nothing more than a horrifying illusion. The man gasped for breath, trying to steady his emotions by inhaling more fresh air. A less assured delusion slowly erged from the depths of his heart; perhaps it was just a hallucination, perhaps he was just too tense...
"It’s all an illusion, all an illusion... It’s a ntal misalignnt after encountering the influence of Subspace..." he muttered to himself rapidly, applying psychological suggestions to himself while drawing power from the Profound Demons within to construct spiritual protection, "Stop the associations, stop the recollections, avoid the connections, avoid the connections... The Saint bestow protection, grant eternal life in the Profound, The Saint bestow..."
"I appreciate your optimism," a voice entered his ear, "but blind optimism doesn’t solve the problem—relax, I just want to learn sothing from you."
The man abruptly stopped his prayers, the voice by his ear sounding like dreadful whispers from Subspace, tangibly gripping his mind. He slowly turned his stiff neck to look in the direction of the voice and saw it was the glass of the liquor cabinet—the glass quietly burned with a ghostly green fla, reflecting the specter that had returned from Subspace.
"Get out!"
A surge of courage arose from nowhere; the Heretic suddenly turned fierce, drawing the power of the Smoke Dust Jellyfish, and threw a filthy, dark ball of corrosion at the cabinet, which exploded on impact, shattering the whole cabinet and sending glass fragnts scattering throughout the room.
However, before the shards even hit the ground, that terrifying figure appeared once more in a corner mirror of the room: "Had enough venting? If so, let’s talk."
The Heretic in the room finally noticed the pattern—it was the mirrors.
The specter from Subspace could invade through the mirrors!
The next second, the man didn’t hesitate to smash the corner mirror, and then went on a frenzy, smashing any glass decorative items on nearby shelves and all reflective surfaces within sight!
The sharp sounds of shattering glass echoed continuously in the room. Anything that could be smashed was, and anything that couldn’t be smashed was covered with newspapers, clothes, or whatever else he could find. Fear turned to anger, anger to a false sense of courage, and supported by this "courage," the Heretic quickly moved to block and destroy all things in the room that could act as a "dium" for that Subspace specter’s "descent." All the while, the rising ghostly green flas and the terrifying figure that kept appearing in the mirrors almost incessantly haunted him.
New mirrors kept appearing, new voices kept coming, new faces kept erging in his field of vision, darkly watching him.
But after an indeterminate amount of ti, that horrifying entanglent finally began to subside.
The man had nearly destroyed or obscured everything in the room that could reflect objects, and he covered all the windows with thick curtains. With the tossing of the last glass vase into the trash bin, the building once again fell into dead silence.
Outside, darkness had descended, and inside the room, only the faint glow of an oil lamp flickered. The frightening pale green had sohow faded from the fla, and the Heretics, standing amidst the chaos, gulped down deep breaths while warily observing the enveloping gloom and stillness.
It seed it truly wouldn’t appear again.
Even the Smoke Dust Jellyfish with which he shared his life had quieted down, looking a bit wilted, and the smoke wafting around its body was especially sparse and dim, as though the confrontation had depleted it greatly, making it difficult to maintain its form in reality.
So the man stood silently in the darkness for a long while, as if cautiously deciding on sothing. It was a long ti before he finally let out a sigh and reached for the black coat thrown over the couch, quickly draping it over himself.
The commotion in the room just now might have drawn the neighbors’ attention. Although the response of the City-State’s peacekeepers tended to be slow in this rather remote district, trouble could still co knocking if soone made a report.
Furthermore, this room had been targeted by the Subspace Specter and was no longer safe. Destroying and sealing the room’s mirrors was rely a way to block the specter’s "arrival" channel, but it wouldn’t eliminate the specter’s influence entirely.
Now that the specter was temporarily barred from the real world, the only sensible choice was clearly to leave before the peacekeepers caught on and before the specter found another way to infiltrate.
The man had already quickly planned his next moves. He put on his coat, concealed his Symbiotic Demon, and then stepped towards the door.
But before leaving the room, he suddenly stopped, his gaze turning to the pile of miscellaneous objects covered with newspapers and rags in the center.
After a mont’s thought, he waved his hand and sent a mass of dark energy flying—the newspapers and rags were blown away, revealing a heap of broken mirrors and glass scattered across the floor, reflecting a cold and ominous light in the dimness.
"Better if soone reports it."
The man smiled with satisfaction, and imdiately, not daring to look at the broken glass on the floor again, he quickly opened the door and disappeared into the night outside.
He moved cautiously through the alleyways, using the shadows of buildings as cover, occasionally harnessing the power of spells to conceal his figure. He quickly left the no longer safe area, following a familiar route in his mory towards the Lower City District.
Now, it was already curfew, and guardians had appeared on the streets, making it very likely to be caught and interrogated for recklessly being outdoors, but this wasn’t much of a problem for a heretic who had been active in the City-State for many years and was already accustod to the "night curtain life."
As long as they didn’t make too much noise, there were plenty of "blind spots" right under the church guardians’ eyes.
This shadow, hidden in the darkness, successfully passed through the sentry posts between the districts and entered the more intricate and ancient alleys of the Lower City District. After bypassing countless intersections and turns, he finally stopped in front of an old house that looked quite ordinary.
The man cautiously observed the surroundings, confird once more that there was no bizarre green fire in sight, and that there was no suspicious noise in his mind before he let out a slight sigh of relief and stepped forward to knock on the door in a rhythmic pattern.
Then he waited patiently until footsteps neared on the other side of the door, and a suppressed voice ca through:
"It’s late at night, let’s talk about it tomorrow."
"The night is too deep, and my travel companion and I just want to rest our feet—we’ve brought so interesting stories from afar."
There was a mont of silence behind the door before a faint click was heard about ten seconds later, and then the door silently opened in the darkness. A thin, small figure appeared at the doorway, amidst the dim light.
"Co in, and try not to make too much noise."
The man nodded, darted into the room quickly, then casually closed the door—only after the clicking lock sound did he finally relax slightly, a look of post-escape relief on his face.
"Why have you co at this ti?" asked the thin figure who had opened the door carefully examining the "brethren" who had just entered, despite having confird their identity. Their actions violated the "rules," which made him wary, "We didn’t receive your advance contact."
"Sothing unexpected occurred," said the man cloaked in a black overcoat, shaking his head and lowering his voice, "My mission failed. An unexpected higher being intervened and is now watching —but don’t worry, I temporarily blocked Its channel into the real world. The priority now is to report this matter..."
The slender heretic’s expression beca grave upon hearing this. He imdiately stopped the other from continuing to speak and picked up an oil lamp from the table nearby. While walking toward a corner of the room, he whispered, "Follow , to the underground. Let’s not discuss our actions within the sight of the Four Gods."
"Alright."
The slender heretic opened a secret door in the corner of the room, and the two figures, one after the other, crawled into the hidden ramp leading underground.
They soon arrived at the eting space beneath the building.
Calling it a eting space was a bit generous—it was nothing more than a secretly constructed basent. A few chairs were placed around a round table with several oil lamps lit on top, and various ritualistic paraphernalia and materials used for heretical worship were scattered untidily.
At the end of the room stood a dark sculpture resembling a strange and terrifying "tree." Its pitch-black trunk branched out into dizzyingly intricate thorns, and it emitted a disquieting aura.
The man in the black overcoat descended the stairs and noticed several figures had already gathered—obviously, his "brethren" who had entered the basent urgently as part of the procedure when he had been knocking at the door earlier.
His gaze swept over these "brethren," who in turn raised their heads to scrutinize the night visitor.
After a mont, the tense atmosphere eased slightly; the man in the black overcoat exhaled, stepped to the round table, and sat down in an empty chair.
From the seat closest to him, a man with sallow hair and a sickly, sinister face looked up and suddenly asked after a brief silence, "Ran into trouble?"
"I couldn’t break through that ’Dreamscape,’ the information given by the Doomsday Preachers must be flawed—damn it, I should have known. Besides followers of The Saint, no one is trustworthy..."
"Slow down, take a mont to calm yourself," the sallow-haired man said with a thin smile and slid a cup of water from the side, "Have so water."
The man in the black overcoat took the cup and exhaled, "Thanks, Duncan."
(Ti to recomnd a book, the title is "This Fox Spirit is Too Non-Human," the male lead is a scumbag fox, it’s a joyous read with no scruples. Life is hard enough; let’s have so fun with this.
...
"Ren Yi Dao! Please, be a person!")
"Eh? Be a person? But I am a fox spirit."
"And please, call ’righteous father.’")
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