Chapter 3665

In a room on the first floor of the sanitarium, Shiler used blood to draw a huge magic circle—not a magic circle of any system, but one he had made up on the spot, yet it looked gorgeous and complex, very convincing—and the two Johnny brothers were helping him arrange the items needed for the ritual.

And Mephisto, standing on the side disguised as Shiler, had an expression on his face that was exactly "What are you doing?".

Shiler caught a glimpse of Mephisto's expression from the corner of his eye, and from the confusion in his expression, he saw a tiny bit of hesitation.

No, what kind of magic circle is this? Why haven't I seen it before? Mephisto's heart began to drum. I heard this Dr. Sothip just came back from the Vatican; could it be that those bird-men have come up with some new tricks again?

Could this thing really be able to exorcise me???

Mephisto certainly didn't know that this was something Shiler had made up, mainly because the logic didn't hold up either. A doctor from the most powerful occult institution for humans, who had just brought back some academic achievements from the Vatican, then drew a made-up magic circle when performing an exorcism here—this made absolutely no sense.

Moreover, although the elements used in this magic circle were somewhat unfamiliar, there was clearly a connection between them. There must be a logic of its own in this; making it up wouldn't be able to achieve this.

Seeing Mephisto's expression, Shiler could roughly guess what he was thinking. He smiled inwardly. This wasn't just ordinary making it up. Even with his skill at making things up, he had first drafted it, revised it several times, and only then created the final image. To deceive Mephisto, this seasoned and cunning devil, he had spent quite a lot of effort.

Following Shiler's line of sight, the screen froze on the fleeting feeling of unease on the face of Mephisto, who was disguised as Shiler.

Eddie hit the space bar, crossed his legs, spun his chair, and said: "Are you sure you want to keep this scene? Won't the hint be a bit too obvious? If you let the audience guess who the mastermind is too early, it might affect the film's rating."

"It doesn't matter. Thanks to Mr. Nelson's perfect performance, everyone's attention is now focused on him. And if I don't hint at all, the follow-up will be very abrupt. It's better to be safe and give some hints first."

"Alright." Eddie continued to check the subsequent footage, and then he had to admit Shiler's assessment of Nelson—he was indeed a good actor, simply natural.

The entire exorcism process had no special effects. Shiler also didn't let Eddie add those flashy light effects in post-production, but the scene of the exorcism ritual was very eerie. Nelson first stood up in an extremely abnormal posture, his whole body as if being held by something, hands and feet touching the ground, his waist arched upward, constantly swinging his limbs, trembling, and making terrifying gibberish in his mouth.

Seeing that the situation was wrong, Danny immediately wanted to rush up. Johnny reached out to stop him, stared fixedly at the figure in the center of the magic circle, stepped back two paces, looked at Shiler, and asked: "Is this normal, Doctor?"

Shiler looked grave, shook his head slowly, and said: "Clearly not. The power of the Holy Light cannot gather in the center of the magic circle; something has interfered with the process of the ritual. Not only did it fail to exorcise the devil in his body, but it instead stimulated..."

Bang!!!

A loud noise suddenly came from upstairs, and everyone looked up. They immediately realized: the devil had attacked upstairs again.

At the same time, Nelson went limp and collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Danny, Johnny, and Shiler rushed upstairs at the fastest speed and saw that terrifying figure with long arms and legs again.

"Don't run!!!" Danny shouted.

The Spirit of Vengeance suddenly responded. The moment Danny rushed toward the monster, flames ignited, and his whole body turned into a flaming skeleton. He leaped into the air, like a flying flaming arrow, and crashed into the monster's chest. The other party let out a weird scream, its slender limbs slammed hard against the wall, and it scrambled to run out the window.

Having finally seized the opportunity, Danny wouldn't let him go. He raised his hand, and the flaming chain flew out of his hand, binding the monster tightly, and then he swung it backward with force. The monster rolled and crashed into another wall.

And Johnny, who had just run upstairs, didn't care that his power was exhausted, forcibly entered the Ghost Rider state, grabbed the monster by the neck, and the flames burning in his eye sockets looked into the monster's eyes.

Instantly, flames began to emerge from the monster's body, and it screamed and struggled, waving its slender limbs, but it was of no use, and it slowly turned into ashes in Johnny's hands.

The two returned to human form, but neither breathed a sigh of relief. Danny shook his head and said: "This is just a puppet. We must find the source, otherwise, such monsters will only become more and more numerous."

Just then, Danny noticed that Shiler, who had just walked up the stairs, looked a bit off. He wanted to ask something, but Johnny gave him a look and said: "It's almost dawn, we should take this opportunity to rest for a while to recharge our batteries."

After saying that, he pulled Danny back to the room where they were resting. Shiler also returned to the room next to theirs. But less than ten minutes later, Danny climbed in through the window.

"Doctor, did you notice a problem?"

"Yes. Logically speaking, my magic circle couldn't have gone wrong." Shiler said very firmly, "Even if it couldn't completely exorcise the devil's power, it should have been able to restrict him. But Nelson's situation hasn't improved, which proves that something went wrong in some link."

"You said something interfered with the magic circle, what do you think it could be?"

"Impossible to judge. However, just as I was about to take some action, something happened upstairs. This means the devil knew we were performing an exorcism and deliberately wanted to interrupt us."

"That's right." Danny agreed with his point of view and said, "He might have felt the powerful power of the magic circle and had to make some noise upstairs to attract our attention. It would have been better if we hadn't gone over then."

"If we hadn't gone over then, he would definitely have attacked others upstairs. Even to protect ordinary people, we had to go. You guys did the right thing."

Danny sighed and continued: "Actually, the one who knows the situation best should be Nelson. But people who have been controlled by the devil are not trustworthy. They will lie, or rather, they think what they are saying is the truth, but that is actually just a lie the devil put into their brains."

"No, I think there is one more person worth noting." Shiler said, "Don't you think the owner of this sanitarium is a bit suspicious?"

A burst of cheers erupted from the right side of the cinema. Stark spread his hands and said: "Finally, someone with a clear head! It's simply gratifying, they should have discovered from the moment they walked in that the most suspicious one is this sanitarium owner!!!"

Shiler rolled his eyes slightly. Unexpectedly, Natasha also nodded and said: "If it were me, I would have investigated the information about the owner of the sanitarium in the first instance. But this is definitely not out of any agent's professional quality, purely because you look really too suspicious, Doctor."

Stephen also nodded and said: "I was originally going to say, the protagonist group really looks a bit stupid, leaving such a suspicious target uninvestigated and insisting on finding Nelson."

Peter was a bit dazed, stopped chewing his cheese balls, and then said: "What's the situation? Who is suspicious? Are you talking about the doctor? What's suspicious about him?"

Stark slapped Peter on the back of the head, almost pressing him into the bucket of cheese balls. Peter coughed twice and said: "I didn't see anything suspicious about the character the doctor is playing, isn't this quite normal?"

Hawkeye next to him sighed and said: "It's been a bit off since he appeared in the doctor's room before. A normal ordinary person, if they knew which floor was haunted, would definitely stay far away. But the doctor ran to that floor just as it was getting dark, and even ran into someone's room, which is suspicious enough. Not to mention, the cellar where Nelson ate the corpse clearly wasn't dug in a day or two; only the owner of the sanitarium has the ability to carry out such a large project. And during the exorcism ritual, besides the protagonist, only he was present. If the ritual was interfered with by something, who else could it be but him?"

The film critics were also discussing it, but they didn't think the plot was cliché. Most people were teasing that Shiler was going to be a professional villain. However, some also said that the villain Shiler played this time was a bit lacking in flavor; of course, this could also be a disguise, and how it actually turns out depends on the subsequent development.

Afterwards, the pace of the film began to speed up. Dr. Sothip explained to Danny the reasons why he suspected Dr. Rodriguez, the director of the sanitarium. Although Danny was a bit hesitant, he agreed with his view.

They formulated an action plan: Shiler would search for relevant information online, while Danny would try to break into Shiler's office tomorrow noon to see if he could find any clues.

The result was, of course, that they found it. Because besides Mephisto being able to use magic to enter and exit the office, Shiler could also use his own fingerprints to enter and exit, and of course, it was easy to create evidence and place it inside—what Shiler used was the hell ash that Mephisto himself brought.

A devil of Mephisto's level wouldn't leave any traces. The smell and the ash were actually things he created to scare people. After all, if there were only monsters, the atmosphere wouldn't be enough. Sometimes, having some omens before the final kill can maximize human fear.

When Danny found the hell ash in the office, he felt angry and terrified, and found his brother again. While the two were discussing countermeasures, Shiler found them with a computer and indicated that he had found information about this sanitarium and several of its owners online.

Among the information Shiler found, a few points seemed particularly suspicious. But the most obvious one was, of course: ever since Dr. Rodriguez finished filming a certain movie, his daily routine and travel habits had changed drastically.

Previously, this doctor usually went out during the day and almost never left his bedroom at night. But ever since he returned to the sanitarium after filming the movie, he almost always slept during the day and was active at night, and his routine became very irregular. Moreover, the nurses and caregivers at the hospital all said that Dr. Rodriguez seemed a bit different from before, not as patient with patients, and the management of the hospital was a mess, and these were all real testimonies.

After Danny finished reading all this, he hammered the table hard. Shiler, however, was laughing inwardly.

(End of chapter)