Free Web NovelUnder the night sky, dilapidated buildings stood in silence, like giant skeletons forgotten by the world. The dark and deep spaces between the floors were the nests of insects dwelling within the skeletons.
Deep inside the furthest dilapidated building, the underground parking lot was empty.
Spiritual Energy fluctuations stirred a breeze, circling in the darkness, raising dust and forming tiny tornadoes. Accompanied by a song titled "lostrivers," they moved through the vast space like dancing ghosts.
In the corner of the underground parking lot, candlelight flickered faintly.
The dim yellow light of two funerary candles illuminated the delicate face of a young girl before the altar.
The girl wore a tattered robe that resembled that of an evil medieval witch and a brightly colored, grotesque mask of a ghost god. Her pinkish-white long hair was casually spread out behind her, swaying gently in the breeze. Her shadow stretched long on the ground, extending backward until it was swallowed by the darkness.
From a distance, it looked as if a cultist was performing some kind of sacrificial ritual.
The scene from the previous interrogation of Suolang Baima was vivid.
Hu Chuan, as an ordinary person, was at most a low-level Psychic. The soul fragment remaining on the relic could not be too strong. It was highly likely that it would be unable to withstand the interrogation and would shatter and dissipate before Lu Yibei could ask anything.
Therefore, this time, Lu Yibei slightly changed her strategy, deciding to abandon violent interrogation in favor of humanitarian care.
Music filled with the aura of the underworld, attire and setup resembling the netherworld, and a dilapidated underground parking lot shrouded in darkness would surely make Hu Chuan, who was already a dead ghost, feel at home and let down his guard.
This way, she would only need to slightly use her Charm ability to gain his trust, make him shy, and extract...
Wait, have I become this kind of manipulative green tea bitch character now?
No, start over!
She would only need to slightly use some means to gain his trust, make him open his heart, and become friends who can talk about anything.
Thinking this, Lu Yibei held the necklace found in the time capsule in front of her with both hands, closed her eyes, spread her Spiritual Energy fluctuations to envelop the entire altar, and began to chant.
"Youth accepts its decline, the bright sun shines alone, spring energy bursts forth, all things rush forth. The netherworld permeates and moves, the soul has no escape. Soul and spirit return! No far distance. Soul, come back! No east, no west, no south, no north..."
As the Spell was chanted, a thin mist emanated from the necklace, flowing like water, carrying Lu Yibei's voice and intent into the void.
In a trance, Lu Yibei felt countless pairs of eyes looking at her, and strange whispers echoed in her ears.
Those "onlookers" were here again.
She ignored those gazes and waited quietly, like a fisherman who had cast a bait, waiting for a big fish to bite, waiting for Hu Chuan's soul fragment to respond.
Time passed second by second.
Five minutes later, Lu Yibei stopped chanting and opened her eyes.
She did not feel the slight trembling of intent like when she successfully performed Directional Soul Summoning on Suolang Baima last time. Hu Chuan's remnant soul gave her no response, leaving her no chance to even make a promise.
It was as if there were no fish in this "fish pond," or like "the user you are calling is not in the service area."
"..."
How could this be?
Did I chant the Spell incorrectly?
Or is it that the remnant souls of ordinary people are inherently more difficult to summon than those of high-level Psychic?
Lu Yibei grumbled, walked to the ancient, worn altar, carefully checked if the materials and items required for the Directional Soul Summoning Spell were complete, and seriously recalled the Spell Qingji taught her several times. After confirming it was correct, she performed the Directional Soul Summoning Spell again. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
Lighting candles to welcome the spirit, burning incense for offerings, toasting with wine and chanting the Spell... After repeating this process several times, she stopped, looked at the flickering candlelight on the altar, and fell into thought.
Something is wrong, very wrong!
Even if the remnant souls of ordinary people are more difficult to summon than those of high-level Psychic, after trying so many times, even if it doesn't succeed, there should be at least a slight reaction.
There must be some factor affecting the Spell, causing the summoning to fail.
Lu Yibei picked up the gold necklace, examined it repeatedly for a while, and frowned.
After more than twenty practical exercises using Suolang Baima, Lu Yibei was already very proficient in the Directional Soul Summoning Spell.
According to Qingji, when he performed Directional Soul Summoning for the twentieth time, his technique was already at the level of mastery.
Although Lu Yibei considered her talent inferior to her own Ancestor, after practicing so many times, she had at least achieved a certain level of success, and the process of performing the Spell could not be wrong.
As for the gold necklace used as the summoning medium, she had repeatedly confirmed with Headless Senior that Hu Chuan had definitely touched it more than once, and when he gave the necklace to Senior, he personally put it on her.
Fat Er Ye is a qualified businessman with his own principles. Although he often uses small tricks during transactions to gain more benefits, he never sells fakes, which means the materials are not the problem.
Therefore, the only possible reason for failure in the process of performing the Spell is insufficient Spiritual Energy input.
However...
After excluding these factors, a bold guess gradually emerged in Lu Yibei's mind.
Is it possible... that Hu Chuan is not dead at all?
The death recorded in the school archives was just a staged death he created because he was worried about Senior's entanglement and revenge, or for some other unspeakable reason.
"If that's the case..." Lu Yibei murmured, "I can only ask for help from those sages who never show their true faces. I'm not good at investigating the whereabouts of living people."
That's right, it's the silly netizens from the Monster Story Chat Group.
"However, before that, I should try to increase the Spiritual Energy input when performing the Spell."
Lu Yibei mumbled to herself, silently took out the fuxing copper coin from her Coat pocket, and tossed it into the air.
For the next Spell amplification, greater than one is heads, less than one is tails.
She silently thought in her heart, predicted heads or tails, and reached out to catch the copper coin falling from mid-air.
Tails? Amplification rate less than one.
Lu Yibei shook her head, casually pinched a Red Flame Flash, then dispersed it, and immediately tossed the copper coin again.
When summoning Suolang Baima earlier, she hadn't considered the issue of Spell amplification rate and Spiritual Energy input intensity at all, because from the first time to the last, she succeeded every time.
Now, considering the failure to summon Hu Chuan might be due to insufficient Spiritual Energy input when performing the Spell, she had to choose a suitable time.
Directional Soul Summoning Spell, this type of ritualistic Spell, is not like offensive or defensive Spells used in combat, where even if the amplification rate is less than one, it can still play a certain role through improvisation.
If the Directional Soul Summoning Spell is performed when the amplification rate is very low, while increasing the Spiritual Energy input intensity, it is likely to be counterproductive.
After continuously tossing the copper coin and resetting the amplification rate with Red Flame Flash more than ten times, Lu Yibei finally got the desired rate. A hint of resentment flashed in her eyes.
Damn it! Why didn't I feel that Spell amplification was so frustrating before?
It's like the warehouse check mechanism in a shady pay-to-win gacha game, the more you want it, the less you get!
My little brother needs to be properly trained. If it can obediently listen to me and give me whatever amplification rate I want, that would be best.
Thinking this, Lu Yibei picked up the necklace again, paced to the altar, and performed the Directional Soul Summoning Spell.
She had already divined with the fuxing copper coin that the amplification rate was greater than five. If she still couldn't successfully summon Hu Chuan's remnant soul this time, it would mean that kid staged his death!
"Youth accepts its decline, the bright sun shines alone..."
As the Spell was chanted, Lu Yibei clearly felt the Spiritual Energy in her body rapidly draining, intensifying, like a wild beast with insatiable desires, trying to drain her dry.
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Damn it, why is the Spiritual Energy consumption so intense this time?
The amplification rate seems a bit too high. I should have divined the upper limit just now.
"...No far distance. Soul, come back! No east, no west, no south, no north..."
After the Spell chanting was completed, the gold necklace in Lu Yibei's hand suddenly trembled slightly, emitting a faint hum. The next moment, a dazzling silver mist, like a mushroom cloud from a violent explosion, surged up from the necklace. The umbrella-like canopy spread out, almost covering the entire underground parking lot.
The silver mist surged and churned, stirring up a strong Spiritual Energy storm, whistling and rushing. Everything was covered in a layer of silver, leaving only blurred outlines.
The entire underground parking lot was trembling, causing muffled sounds, like the low roar of a giant beast. Along with the roar, concrete debris peeled from the ceiling and fell rustling.
On the ground, the various sundries that Lu Yibei had poured out from the God Kingdom Prototype seemed to be activated by this silver mist, trembling constantly and clinking. From time to time, figures of various appearances appeared and disappeared on those sundries, scrambling like chicks waiting to be fed in a nest.
Upon closer inspection, those figures were basically the lucky ones who perished in the chaos in Taoyuan.
Holy crap! This ♦ is probably amplified by forty or fifty times!
What if I summon something strange and cause trouble?
Lu Yibei thought with a heavy heart, gently flipped her hand, and Lingtai Pure Karma and several Alchemy Dirty Bombs appeared in her hand. Just then, a chaotic noise suddenly sounded in her ears.
It was as if thousands of invisible people suddenly appeared in this long-abandoned underground parking lot, either cheering loudly, screaming in surprise, or cursing... Various voices filled with extreme emotions converged, making one feel irritable.
If the whispering sounds when performing the Directional Soul Summoning Spell before were like a crowd watching a car accident, then now it was like a football stadium during the World Cup qualifiers where the national team was sent home 0:5 by a small country with a total population of less than 100,000.
Thousands of invisible eyes watched Lu Yibei, brewing unsettling gazes.
She had seen that kind of gaze before, on the golden plain outside the Dream Come True Entertainment City, the wolves that chased her looked at her with that kind of gaze.
Ah... this seems to be going bad.
I performed the Directional Soul Summoning Spell so many times before, and this never happened?
Lu Yibei was skillfully pinning the blame on the Ifrit Spirit Mark when something in her close-fitting pocket suddenly trembled and made a clear, pleasant sound.
"Dingling..." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓
Was it the string of bells Xiao Hua # Nоvеlight # left behind?
But why did it suddenly ring?
Lu Yibei lowered her head and looked at the place where she kept the bells on her chest with a puzzled expression, frowning. Shui Ge's sudden appearance at the old house and her being busy preparing the Directional Soul Summoning Spell had almost made her forget that she had picked up such a small item today.
The next moment, as if warning Lu Yibei of something, the bells in her arms suddenly shook violently, and the ringing grew loud.
"Dingling—Dingling—!"
The moment the bells rang, a predictive thought flashed through Lu Yibei's mind.
【It pierced your chest from behind】
Sensing the danger, Lu Yibei's pupils slightly contracted. She immediately changed her footwork, spun her body, and dodged sideways.
No penetration from behind!
The next moment, a sharp whistling sound erupted.
Something suddenly shot out from the scattered pile of sundries on the ground, like a small cannonball. It flew past Lu Yibei's chest, leaving a white mark on her Coat with a "hiss," and slammed into the stone pillar behind her.
"Boom—!"
With a loud bang, as if a bomb had exploded inside the concrete-poured stone pillar, the pillar instantly burst open, shattering into pieces.
Broken bricks and concrete scattered on the ground, turning golden in the blink of an eye and clinking as they fell, as if they had turned into pieces of gold.
Lu Yibei, "..." What's going on? Turning stone into gold?
After piercing one stone pillar, the golden light did not stop but continued its momentum, breaking several stone pillars in less than a second before suddenly making a sharp turn and flying straight towards Lu Yibei.
Wrapped in dazzling golden light, the object was as fast as lightning, spinning at high speed and stirring up surprising Spiritual Energy fluctuations, creating vortices. Its specific form was unclear, only a blurry, elongated outline.
Flying sword? Short knife? Alchemy armor-piercing projectile?
Damn it, I really did summon something inexplicable!
Is my little brother taking the opportunity to mess with me?
Lu Yibei cursed inwardly while rapidly performing her movement technique. Her body suddenly accelerated, like a low-flying swallow, agile and swift, dodging the pursuit of the golden light.
She could feel that the object wrapped in the golden light had considerable Spiritual Energy fluctuations exceeding A-Level and faintly emitted a very dangerous aura.
It felt like a delusion, yet it had a few points of the feeling of directly facing the Big Boss's Spiritual Energy fluctuations.
Very bad!
Because she had just performed the forty or fifty times amplified Directional Soul Summoning Spell, she was in a state of Spiritual Energy depletion. Attempting to shoot it down rashly before figuring out what it was was not a wise move. She could only maneuver first and make plans after figuring out the object's details.
So, there is a reason why summoning rituals in stories always end up summoning inexplicable things!
【It pierced your chest from the left】,【It pierced your chest from the back right】,【It pierced your chest from behind】...
The booming sounds of the golden light piercing through buildings were continuous, like a legendary flying sword that must draw blood after being unsheathed, relentlessly pursuing Lu Yibei.
Predictive thoughts flashed through Lu Yibei's mind incessantly, and the copper bells in her arms rang loudly.
While moving and dodging, she tried to confront it head-on with Alchemy Dirty Bombs, Spells, and Lingtai Pure Karma, but the result was that the golden light always managed to strangely avoid her attacks in a bizarre way.
It was as if it had a script to dodge skills, its movement was absurd!
Time passed little by little.
The golden light was getting closer and closer to her. Almost every time it attacked, it could approach her by a few points. After realizing this, she felt the pressure double, and fine white hairs appeared on her forehead.
【It pierced your chest from the front】
Tsk, why do you always have to go through my chest?!
A predictive thought flashed through her mind, Lu Yibei complained inwardly, and her body suddenly flashed to the left.
However, before her toes even landed, the golden light suddenly made a ninety-degree sharp turn and flew straight towards where she was about to land.
Seeing this, the moment she landed, Lu Yibei lowered her body, rolled sideways somewhat awkwardly, and the shattered stones that turned into gold poured down over her head.
How, how could this be?
That ghostly thing actually...
Predicted my prediction?!
Lu Yibei's pupils constricted violently. Just then, a predictive thought flashed through her mind.
【It miraculously pierced your chest】
Lu Yibei, "???"
What the heck? What do you mean by miraculously? Is it a lock-on cheat?
