92: Catacombs

The Holy Knight's silver armor reflected the scattered light of torches in the blizzard, and the rusted windmill blades above our heads groaned a dying lament.

Beyond the ice-covered mill fence, a decaying farmhouse lay sprawled at the edge of the snowy plain, its crooked chimney stabbing into the sky like a broken spine.

The dilapidated outline of the farmhouse flickered in and out of the snow curtain. As we approached, we circled the abandoned farmhouse, observing it carefully for a few turns, but found nothing unusual.

The Holy Knight's perception of ominous aura was faint, almost imperceptible.

When we pushed open the frozen door, a musty smell rushed out from the decrepit interior.

Looking at the dust-covered, decaying furniture and the two small rooms, there were no Undead Creatures, which puzzled the Holy Knight.

"That's not right!" I said. "In this environment, there isn't even a single insect, which is very abnormal."

Randall heard this and also sensed something was amiss.

"It's hollow underneath!" I said, tapping the blue bricks by the fireplace with my toe.

When the charred firewood piled inside the fireplace was removed, a damp, musty smell, mixed with the cold air from underground, wafted out.

Randall knelt and tapped the bluestone slab. "It seems to be down here."

Randall pried open the stone slab, revealing a pitch-black passage below. The blizzard, carrying ice pellets, poured into the tunnel, creating ghost-like wails as it struck the stone walls of the passage.

The torch flickered in the wind and snow that filled the tunnel. I used the Qiankun Ring to summon the Dragon King to my side.

The Original Consciousness's detection results still made me uneasy.

However, it was the Holy Knight's duty to eliminate Undead Creatures, and it was my duty to protect everyone in the three merchant caravans.

No matter how terrifying the monster ahead, I had to grit my teeth and move forward.

As for whether I could defeat the so-called powerful Undead Creature, I didn't know, but I hadn't even seen the enemy yet, so I wasn't about to run away.

The moss on the steps had been trampled into slimy mud, and the winding stone steps were long and quiet.

After stepping down the last step, a moss-stained archway suddenly opened wide.

The solidified whale oil in the bronze brazier still maintained its swirling shape from when it was extinguished, and beneath the peeling gold leaf on the murals, the rituals of an unknown deity were faintly visible.

I held my Red Tassel Spear diagonally to block the Holy Knight; a hunter's intuition told me this place was full of traps.

When the tip of my spear lifted the loose dirt at the edge of a floor tile, three taut tripwires glowed faintly under the torchlight.

"Step back two paces. The floor tile on the left will trigger crossbow bolts if more than seventy pounds of weight are applied." I used my skinning knife to cut the main transmission rope.

After I continuously disarmed several traps, the Holy Knight suddenly pushed open the lid of the central stone coffin.

It was an empty coffin! The Undead Creature wasn't here either.

Randall circled inside the crypt a few times. "It's behind this wall," he whispered.

I looked in the direction his sword tip pointed—the north wall, covered in bas-reliefs.

I inspected it carefully and found that the edge of one stone brick was unusually smooth, and the discontinuity in the moss growth indicated it had been frequently moved.

After I tapped three times, the secret door opened with the sound of gears turning, revealing another deep, dark passage in the rising dust.

This time, I took the torch and walked ahead, carefully detecting any possible mechanisms.

Soon after, we stood before an arched stone door.

When the Dragon King split the rusted lock with his tail blade, the stone door slowly opened.

A well-maintained scarlet carpet spread out from the crack in the door; there was no musty smell, it was very clean.

Behind the door, the sight before us was breathtaking.

A thirty-foot-high dome hung with crystal chandeliers, illuminating the underground space as if it were daylight.

Behind velvet curtains stood bookshelves made of Elven Moon Sandalwood, gilded tea sets of human nobility and gilded dining carts leaned against the wall, and luxurious candelabras and exquisite oak desks complemented each other on the Persian rug.

The most bizarre thing was the crystal photo frame on the mantelpiece, which contained a yellowed portrait—seven or eight parts similar to Irene.

It looked as if this place was frequently used.

"Brother's trap lessons are quite good," a childish voice came from behind.

The Holy Knight's greatsword pointed behind him, and his tower shield guarded me.

Amidst the metallic clang, I recognized that face—Irene, barefoot, was elegantly seated in a luxurious rocking chair by the fireplace.

She held a skull in her arms, and a cloth doll discarded on the carpet had a button for its right eye that gleamed silver under the sword light.

"Irene? You clearly..." My throat tightened, and I gripped the Red Tassel Spear in my hand.

"Are you that Undead Creature?" the Holy Knight asked, staring at the girl.

"Hehe... Didn't Brother say we weren't playing hide-and-seek? How did you find your way here yourself?" Irene tilted her head, twirling a lock of hair, giggling.

"Were those two people killed by you?" The Holy Knight's question suddenly made sparks burst from the fireplace embers.

"Those two pieces of food?" Ellie replied as if she were answering what she had for dinner, gently scratching the skull with her fingernail. "Just like a bear cub stealing from a honey pot, except they tasted the sweetness of death."

"Evil creature!" Randall's holy emblem began to glow.

"Holy Knight, do you want to kill me?" The girl's vocal cords suddenly produced a mixed sound of a child and an old woman simultaneously. "If I were gone, how would the villagers here survive?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, fine beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead. I instinctively felt that the girl opposite me was very powerful.

"At the harvest festival ball that year, William's blue eyes were brighter than an autumn lake. He always said he would come to marry me in an oat cart when I turned fourteen." Her decayed vocal cords suddenly regained clarity, like a spring stream bubbling beneath ice. "But when William's beard began to turn green, I still couldn't reach the iron ring on the tavern sign. It wasn't until he stood with his newborn in front of the hazel bush where I was hiding that I knew that night in the cellar... it wasn't a wild dog that bit me."

The Holy Knight's sword tip dropped half an inch, and the holy light on his tower shield reflected the festering tooth marks on the girl's neck beneath her lifted long hair—precisely the mark of a low-level vampire's first embrace recorded in the temple archives.

"When his wife's neck blood splattered on the baby's cradle, I was licking the blood from under my fingernails." Irene's fangs suddenly pierced her pale lips. "William's posture as he crashed into the plow was exactly the same as when he fell from the tree picking wild berries for me that year." She gently caressed her lover's skull, her eyes filled with sorrow, and blood-colored tears slowly flowed from the corners of her eyes.

A faded cowhide diary slipped from her hand, falling open onto the gilded tea tray.

Dried violets were pressed between the yellowed pages, and where the ink bled, it read: Little Irene learned to spin today, and William praised me for being more nimble than the angels in the Morning Song Temple's stained-glass windows.

"The night I lost control, the bride was nursing the baby." Irene's knuckles suddenly cracked loudly. "When I came to, William's blood had already soaked my apron... The last thing he gave me wasn't a curse, but the baby's swaddling clothes."

"Whenever a William bloodline is born, cellar spiders will weave white cocoons on the delivery room beams." She kicked aside the luxurious carpet, revealing the handprint molds of past generations of babies below. "Last month, when the seventh-generation William was abducted by bandits, I had to burn in the sunlight for three hours..." Her decayed skirt suddenly lifted, revealing healing blisters on her charred leg bones.

"Gorebest's inspectors always disappear in late autumn because that's when the villagers most need the Harvest Goddess's favor." Irene's vocal cords again produced a mixed sound of a child and an old woman. "Without my protection, William's bloodline cannot survive, and this village cannot establish itself in this man-eating wilderness." She squatted on the chair, revealing the fangs in her mouth, staring intently into the Holy Knight's eyes.