Chapter 751: Ice and Demon

Breaking through the thick fog, the group arrived at the Cassandra Auction House at 2:30 AM. For safety, the dream-entering ritual was conducted in a room in the basement of the auction house. There were many rooms hidden by illusions in the basement of the auction house, and it was unknown what Grandmother Cassandra wanted to do.

The room selected for the ritual was much smaller than the room where Grace and Helen were. A normal-sized four-poster bed was placed in the center of the room, and the burning fireplace provided light—there were no gas lamps, because the connection of gas pipes would make the room's concealment meaningless.

The old Witch's maids were still arranging, and the scent of "Death Sleep Flowers" in the room made Xia De almost unable to help but sneeze. Taking advantage of the waiting time, the Witches informed Xia De of the precautions after entering the dream and told him that in order to prevent Joy Barton from using the three channels to enter death and call back the dead, the Church entrusted the Witch Council to guard the seal on the mountainside while the sealing ritual "Trace of the Holy Tree" was held.

Grandmother Cassandra and Miss Aurora planned to invite Sister Sister Daifulin to re-enter the boundary with them after Xia De returned from the dream and wait at the seal on the mountainside until the Church's ritual ended.

As for the seals at the top of the mountain and the Nature Church at the foot of the mountain, they belonged to the Church to guard.

Time approached 3:00 AM, Xia De took off his coat and shoes, wore a white shirt, and lay on the bed. The Witches had already covered the bedside with white "Sleeping Dragon Grass."

Under the pillow was placed a specimen of the clown's umbilical cord before his death; it was unknown how Grandmother Cassandra managed to get it ahead of the Orthodox Church. And Xia De, besides the "Demon Amulet" given by the doctor, also had three relic rings given by the Witches.

Those rings were placed in three velvet ring boxes of different colors but exactly the same style. Among them, two were document-level, and one was secret-keeper-level.

"One of the common sense of Ringed Ringed Shushi is not to carry too many relics on the body, and even more so not to use more than three relics that have an impact on oneself at the same time."

Miss Aurora said, sitting on the edge of the bed, and opened those ring boxes:

"You are adventuring into the boundary, you shouldn't have used relics, but to ensure safety, you have to use so many rings in cooperation with the ritual. And Miss Jia Lin Na mentioned that your resistance to whisper elements far exceeds that of ordinary Ringed Ringed Shushi, otherwise Grandmother would allow you to wear at most one."

She signaled Xia De to wear all those rings on his left hand:

"This one is 【Dream Feast】, a document-level relic. Wearing this ring to enter a dream, a Ringed Ringed Shushi can slowly increase the upper limit of their spirit in the dream. And for entering the boundary in a dream, it means that one can slightly resist the negative effect of the significant decrease in the recovery speed of the spirit in the boundary. The negative effect of the ring is that there will be a slight sense of hunger in the dream, and as time goes on, the sense of hunger will become more and more intense, until the user gets lost in the dream. But owners of spirit runes like 【Gluttony】 have strong resistance to its negative effects."

Xia De took the ring and found that 【Dream Feast】 was a golden ring with a very small green gem ring face. The outer ring of the finger ring was connected spiral patterns, and the inner ring was engraved with ancient runes—

【After entering the dream, the dream is a feast.】

"This one is 【Soul Ring】, secret-keeper-level. When held by a spirit body, it can add a layer of invisible energy shield to itself. The negative effect is that the holder will hear whispers and easily become an evil spirit, but there is no problem wearing it for a short time."

【Soul Ring】 was a quite beautiful silver ring, the style even looked somewhat like a wedding ring. The outer surface had letters from the Fifth Era—

【I wish to accompany you forever, turning into your most solid shield.】

"Finally, this one is 【Apprentice's Ice Ring】, a document-level relic. This is a relic of a certain transcendent apprentice in the Fourth Era. The effect is very unremarkable. It can allow a Ringed Ringed Shushi to keep awake in the dream and possess the power to manipulate cold ice in the dream. But this kind of power is only available in the dream, so except for this kind of special situation today, it basically has no use. The negative effect is that it will freeze the soul and release the apprentice's unwilling resentment. Grandmother and I are watching over you, so you don't need to worry about this point."

【The Apprentice's Ice Ring】 is truly made of cold ice. The outer rim of the ice ring is inlaid with tiny, extremely small purple gemstones. The ring is abnormally cold; wearing it on a finger, one can even feel the chill creeping up the arm toward the heart. There are no letters or engravings inside or outside the ring, but when the ring is held up to the light, one can see sentences formed by tiny gemstone particles frozen inside the ice surface—

【The power of solid ice, please bless me, even if it's just in a dream.】

All three rings were worn on Xia De's fingers. As for the black crystal amulet he was holding, the Witches only inquired about the general purpose and didn't care about it anymore.

"In short, be careful in the dream. Don't worry about Joy Barton seeing your face; the ritual will blur your image."

Drinking the orange-flavored sleeping medicine, and drinking the soul-stabilizing soul-stabilizing magic potion added with milk brought by Grandmother Cassandra, under the gaze of a circle of people around, Xia De lay on the pillow. As the maids pulled down the white gauze curtains all around, the firelight of the fireplace was extinguished little by little, and the vision overhead became blurred.

Someone was chanting softly outside the curtains, and someone was singing softly. Xia De heard the sound of a bell ringing and heard the whispers that seemed to come from the dream.

The bed was so comfortable, as if it were a mud swamp about to swallow Xia De's body. He felt sleepiness surge into his heart, so he closed his eyes.

His body fell into the darkness, and his consciousness was pulled by some strange traction. Xia De meditated in his heart on the appearance of the clown who had fought with him on the ice lake under the moon. The Witch's secret technique pulled this imagination, distorted it into strong longing, and used this to communicate with the boundary of life and death.

"Xia De, it's now."

The blurred voice of Grandmother Cassandra came from his ear. In the deepest part of his consciousness, a black door appeared abruptly. There was no door panel, and black gauze swayed in the door frame.

Xia De stretched out his hand forward, pushed aside the black gauze, and behind it was cold white fog.

A moment of soul detachment feeling gave him the illusion that the shackles were broken. And when he realized that the surroundings had turned into the decaying boundary scenery, he asked in his heart for the first time:

"What do I look like now?"

【Still Xia De Hamilton.】

"But..."

【Outsider, this is your dream, not soul detachment. Those basic knowledge of the first year, you still haven't fully mastered.】

While "She" chuckled in his ear, Miss Aurora's voice came from an extremely distant place, as if separated by several layers of glass:

"Xia De, can you hear me?"

"I can hear, but it's not very clear."

Xia De answered in his heart; he knew there would be contact before entering the dream.

"How is the situation now?"

Xia De surveyed his surroundings and found the scenery in the thick fog very familiar:

"I am on a street in the city center of Midhillburg. The gap is even more terrifying than when we entered last week. The fog here is very thick; I haven't seen the Clown or Joey Barton, and I haven't been attacked yet."

"The old lady's ritual went without a hitch, and the target should be nearby. Stay safe, look around, and we will..."

The voice stopped abruptly; this kind of contact cannot be sustained indefinitely.

The red butterflies gifted by Grace and Helen can detect the position of the "nails" at close range. When fighting the Clown and the Count, Xia De used one butterfly each. Now that the final nail has been caught by the Church, the last red butterfly was once again used by Xia De to search for the Clown.

He should be very close to the Clown's position now. The red butterfly on his shoulder was faintly restless, wanting to fly out, but it hadn't reached the point of doing so. In the land of the gap, there is no shortage of wandering undead, so Xia De did not walk boldly on the street. After appearing at the corner of Oak Street in the city center, he stepped on the mud on the ground, carefully hugged the wall in the fog, and entered a street-facing shop.

In the real world, this is a tobacco shop; Priest Ao Gu Si had even bought tobacco here. But in the gap, this is just a dilapidated three-story building that looks like it is about to collapse.

The dimness inside the room was unimaginable. Large patches of black-gray mold were distributed on the walls where the plaster had peeled off, looking just like the post-mortem lividity on a corpse. Corpse grass grew all over the gaps in the walls, and the swirling white fog made it impossible for Xia De to see the position of the interior walls at a glance.

The first floor was safe, but the undead fat woman wandering on the second floor, carrying a heavy axe, was the first opponent Xia De encountered on this trip.

Her waist was about three or four times as thick as Xia De's. When she dragged the blood-stained, rusty giant axe back and forth, it was hard to say whether the sound of the axe was louder or the sound of her footsteps was louder. Of course, sounds in the gap are attenuated, so Xia De only heard the noise after arriving on the second floor.

She paced back and forth in the spacious second-floor living room, while the remains of furniture with a terrifying black appearance and a corpse that had long since turned into a mummy were scattered along the wall.

Xia De, who had jumped up from the broken stairs with great effort, had just appeared when the fat woman stopped in her tracks. The evil spirit's rotten face hissed at him, revealing pitch-black teeth and a rotten mouth, and then the woman charged over with large strides.

Xia De subconsciously wanted to slash forward with moonlight, but after thinking about it, he stopped:

"Ice and demons..."

With a slight step backward, he disappeared in front of the stairs, and then the giant axe slashed directly onto the already fragile floor, the immense force seemingly capable of shaking the entire building to collapse.

Xia De had already appeared behind the woman at this moment and was surprised to find that a rotten pig's head was actually completely embedded in the back of this spirit body. The pig's head opened its eyes wide and looked at him, and at the same time, the woman, as if she had eyes on her back, swung the giant blood axe with effort to sweep toward the rear.

Xia De did not dodge but gripped his right hand tightly. There was no demon amulet from the doctor in the dream, but there were demonic symbols on his palm. At this moment, wriggling black pus spread from his palm to his entire arm, and those pus instantly wrapped around Xia De's right hand, making his arm look like it had swollen by a circle.

At the same time, the ice power from the relic ring also permeated into this giant hand, the chill making even Xia De, the user, feel terrified.

"Hah!"

The thick right hand was raised high, and it gripped the giant axe firmly. The feeling of abundant power made Xia De yank it hard, actually snatching the axe from the fat woman's hand.

The evil spirit was also clearly stunned, and then, amidst shrill howls, it charged over like a chariot. The black pus swelled again, and Xia De stretched out his right hand and gripped it hard, completely holding the fat woman in his palm.

Cold air overflowed, and when Xia De loosened his palm, only a lifelike ice sculpture remained on the spot. He smashed the ice sculpture with his fist, and the ice and the soul shattered together. Because the spell 【Mind Blast】 was used during the attack, the evil spirit's shell peeled off, and the lingering soul appeared; it was a middle-aged woman with a normal figure:

"If I could have understood during my lifetime that my appearance was actually enough..."

She left her last words and then departed.

"Actually this strong?"

The black pus gradually faded, and the drawn-out, thick black threads slowly flowed into the demonic symbols on his palm. Xia De's right hand returned to normal. He looked at his palm and sincerely thanked Doctor Shi Nai De for his help.