Chapter 829: Blind Combat

Morora, fifth floor of the Church of Knowledge.

An enforcer in a black robe stood at the window, looking at the beast-like entrance to the underground mausoleum.

His eyes reflected Lu Mian's figure as he walked down the grayish-white stone steps step by step.

Somewhere in Morora, Albus Medici also stood by the window, but what was reflected in his pupils wasn't the building a dozen meters away, but the cemetery and Lu Mian's figure, which were invisible from this street.

"Is it starting?" The descendant of the "Red Angel" laughed.

…………

Lu Mian, with his eyes covered, moved forward in the darkness at a moderate pace, following the markings on his mental map as he approached the head of the "Abscessed Hand" he had sensed.

"This is the end; I need to turn left... It really is exactly the same as the example diagram in the book..." Lu Mian reached out his right hand, which wasn't holding the carbide lamp, and touched something cold and hard.

That should be a wall.

He immediately turned left, walked forward for another distance, and then stopped.

He felt that the head of the "Abscessed Hand" was two or three meters to his right, and the surroundings were so quiet that there wasn't a single sound.

Lu Mian turned his body sideways and tried to reach out his right palm in that direction; what he touched was still the cold, hard wall.

"Behind the wall? Hmm, according to the example diagram, there should be a room behind here; the door is still five meters ahead..." Although Lu Mian couldn't see, the importance of knowledge came into play in this situation.

He counted his steps, walked to where the door should be, reached out to touch it, and sure enough, it was a wooden board.

Lu Mian groped to find the handle, gave it a light twist, and pushed open the ajar door.

At the same time, he muttered in his heart:

"Albus just threw it casually, and he could throw the Abscessed Hand brother's head to this position?

"Even if it were an elastic ball, it shouldn't have bounced over here. Although the distance from the entrance isn't far, there are two turns, and the door was closed..."

"Was the door closed later?"

Lu Mian became increasingly vigilant and tilted his head to listen for any movement behind the door.

There wasn't a single sound.

He walked slowly, very slowly, into the room, heading toward the corner where the special connection was incomparably clear and the rotten, foul stench continued to emanate.

His right palm reached into the "Traveler's Bag," ready to draw the "Sword of Courage" at any time, while his left hand, holding the carbide lamp, reached forward, groping toward the head of the "Abscessed Hand."

The position of this head was relatively high; it wasn't placed on the ground as Lu Mian had expected, but seemed to be placed on some kind of shelf.

The next second, the back of Lu Mian's fist hit something; it was slippery and wet, wriggling slightly.

Five cold, finger-like things instantly gripped him, holding Lu Mian's left fist.

Lu Mian's scalp went numb.

Encountering such a thing when invisible to the naked eye was simply double, no, quadruple or quintuple the fear.

He had no way of knowing what on earth this thing was!

He could only be certain that this didn't belong to the head of the "Abscessed Hand"; that was just a head!

With a "thump," Lu Mian ignited scorching white flames on his left fist.

His fist didn't retreat but advanced; relying on a sudden, short acceleration, he struck with a crisp sound between the five finger-like things.

Boom!

The violent explosion blew away the slippery, wet "fingers," and Lu Mian immediately used the black mark on his right shoulder, which was already in a semi-activated state, to flash behind the thing that was suspected to be the head of the "Abscessed Hand."

"Hmph!"

Lu Mian let two white lights spray out from his nose.

He felt he should have hit the target.

He couldn't afford to wait for the opponent to faint and fall to the ground; his left fist, holding the carbide lamp, carried the scorching flames and slammed out violently, while his right palm was in a state where he could grasp the "Sword of Courage" and draw it out at any time.

Bang!

Lu Mian felt as if he had hit a piece of dead but elastic wood, and he directly detonated the accumulated flame power.

Boom!

The violent wind pushed that slippery, wet "wood" forward for a distance.

Then, that thing didn't make a sound, nor did it emit the sound of falling to the ground.

Lu Mian cautiously transformed into a scorching white flame spear and whooshed in pursuit.

He felt himself penetrate the withered tree filled with rust and flesh, and in the nose-stinging odor, he landed in front of the head of the "Abscessed Hand."

During this process, he didn't encounter any obstruction, nor did he encounter any substantial counterattack.

"Is that it?" Lu Mian, who couldn't see anything at all, felt a bit uneasy in his heart.

He kept his right palm inside his "Traveler's Bag," held the handle of the carbide lamp in his mouth, reached out with his left hand toward the upper diagonal, and remained ready at all times to trigger the contract ability "Spirit World Shuttle."

In the solidified atmosphere, Lu Mian touched a mass of flesh that was covered in mucus, emitted a foul stench, and was soft and limp, and touched a greasy, disgusting clump of "weeds."

"This should be the Abscessed Hand brother's hair... no other abnormalities..." Lu Mian gathered his courage and continued to grope downward.

Soon, he touched something suspected to be a rotten neck and touched a "shoulder" with an obvious wound.

Shoulder... Although Lu Mian had been mentally prepared, he was still startled.

It couldn't be that the head of the "Abscessed Hand" had grown a body on its own, could it?

After waiting for a few seconds without waiting for a sudden attack, Lu Mian let his left palm move upward, grasped the clump of "weeds" suspected to be hair, and pulled it toward himself.

As he gradually exerted force, a "pop" sound like pulling out a wine cork, reluctant to part, rang out in front of him.

Lu Mian's center of gravity swayed instantly, and his strength seemed to fall into empty space.

He had forcibly ripped the target's head off!

Almost at the same time, his right palm, which was reaching into the "Traveler's Bag," sensed that the two pieces of the "Abscessed Hand's" corpse had each moved, but they couldn't break through the barrier of space and could only wriggle toward each other, slowly pushing away piles of sundries.

"This is the Abscessed Hand brother's head... then who was the one who wanted to 'shake hands' with me just now?" Scenes flashed through Lu Mian's mind:

That was the head flying with a bloody spine, that was the headless corpse chasing the head...

"There's a similar headless corpse inside the underground mausoleum that seals '0-01', and one of them took the Abscessed Hand brother's head as its own and put it on its neck? No wonder Albus threw it casually, and the Abscessed Hand brother's head 'ran' here..." Lu Mian quickly had a guess, feeling that this matter was both ridiculous and horrifying.

If the combination of the headless corpse and the "Abscessed Hand" head were maintained for another half a year or a year, perhaps something terrible would happen...

Lu Mian didn't dare to put the head of the "Abscessed Hand" into the "Traveler's Bag"; that would inevitably lead to the aggregation of the body parts, summoning the "Abscessed Hand" and completing the reorganization. Lu Mian wanted to do that only after running into Julie, Céleste, or Albus and Te Wanake.

He held the head of the "Abscessed Hand" and the carbide lamp used for show in his left hand, preparing to leave the room.

Suddenly, Lu Mian sensed something and shrank his right shoulder.

He felt something trying to pat him.

But when he dodged, there were no more abnormalities around, and it was quiet and soundless.

Scorching white flames instantly ignited on Lu Mian's body surface; they expanded in a spherical shape and pushed out in all directions.

This ignited the thing that had originally been installed with the head of the "Abscessed Hand."

In a situation where he couldn't see, Lu Mian didn't persist in figuring out what had tried to pat his shoulder just now. By recalling the previous battle, he quickly determined his current position and the direction he was facing.

Then, he walked back to the door with steady steps and walked out, performing as if he could see every detail here.

Finally getting the head of the "Abscessed Hand" made Lu Mian a little more confident. According to the three-dimensional map formed in his mind, he walked toward the bottom layer of the underground mausoleum, which was crowded with combat puppets.

With layers of white bandages wrapped around his eyes, he turned right, moved forward, walked down the stairs, and groped to open doors that were either heavy or simple.

He didn't forget to use Ancient Hermes to activate that brass charm, studying with one ear and monitoring the movement around him with the other.

As he walked, Lu Mian suddenly condensed a ball of flame in his right palm and threw it toward the side, throwing it into a scorching white flame straight sword.

This seemed to slash something, but it also felt like just an illusion.

Lu Mian didn't maintain that flame straight sword and let it extinguish, nor did he explore whether what he encountered just now was a real thing or an overreaction caused by his high mental tension and loss of vision.

Although the knowledge he had mastered didn't explicitly state it, his previous experience made him vaguely grasp a key point:

In the underground mausoleum, if you take something as real, it is very likely to become real!

As long as it doesn't truly harm yourself, it's best to treat hidden dangers as non-existent!

After finishing another flight of stairs, Lu Mian suddenly felt like he was being watched by eyes.

At this moment, he had the urge to rip off the bandages on his face and see what was going on.

Plop, a drop of cold liquid fell on the back of his left hand.

It was a bit sticky, but Lu Mian didn't smell any blood.

Plop, plop, plop, the cold "raindrops" became more and more frequent and urgent, like a sudden downpour.

Inside the mausoleum, twenty or thirty meters from the ground, a "sudden downpour" began.

What the hell is going on, what does it look like around here... That book only mentioned that there was a hall here, and walking straight would lead to the exit, but it didn't give a specific layout, nor did it say what was special in the hall... Lu Mian endured the soaking of the "rainwater" and stepped forward with his right foot under the gaze of countless eyes.

Thump!

The sound of a drum beat abruptly, as if it had struck Lu Mian's heart, making him feel the discomfort of wanting to vomit a mouthful of blood.

Thump, thump, thump!

The drum sound became clearer and more intense.

And Lu Mian also vaguely heard a burst of thin, scratching low laughter.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 830 =====