Hao Ren had no idea why anything that had to do with evil spirits, sorcery or black magic have to be so eerie. It was more grating that the eerie atmosphere does zilch to the effectiveness of the magic spells. He had sought the counsel of Vivian and Y'zaks, two masters of spellcraft and found out that you do not need a black rock to summon the spirits of the dead, demonic runes do not go haywire at the present of anything gold. Magic is something alive, something very malleable. Something that does not shy away from looking resplendent.
Thus, he felt that even if an underground catacomb that had evil spirits sealed within was fully lit till it was bright as day, had rows upon rows of Teletubbies and Ponies lined up against the spell matrix, and the tomb itself had a Spongebob paintwork over it, the seal would hold up just fine.
After Hao Ren spouted that whole load of drivel it was natural that he earned Vivian's glare and ire, but he really thought it was worth a shot. At least the atmosphere would've been much lighter, and generally much better for the overall wellbeing of the guardians. In fact he felt that the setup would even improve the seals potency. Think about it, a sealed demon opening up a tomb splashed in Spongebob livery, and stepping on Furbies as it leaves the ritual altar. To it's left, a host of Teletubbies and to the right, a bunch of Ponies. Even Sargeras would think twice about coming down from the altar...
Vivian's expression was bordering incredulous. If anyone had someday summoned her like this, she'd rather just die inside the portal...
But regardless of how Hao Ren lampooned the place, the Andrei's catacombs was still eerie as hell.
The rectangular room had several worn out portraits, so worn out in fact that you could not tell whose face was it. On the wall facing the pathway was a veiled witch. Aside from the paintings there were nothing else, almost as if the place was some weird art gallery.
Beside the witch's portrait was a locked gate. It seemed like frost had formed on the gate. Hao Ren thought at first that the frost was simply water droplets that froze on the gate, but he soon realised that the frost was indeed alive.
It was like a breathing layer of light, floating slowly on the gate.
"Does those vengeful spirits love to pull stunts like this?" Hao Ren really felt the chill down his spine but after checking his shield capacity, he still gathered his guts and pushed the gate open. Surprisingly, the gate just simply swung open. "Not locked? Aren't they afraid of the spirits escaping?"
"This is not meant to stop the spirits. It's for humans. A gate to denote the divide between the realm of the living, and the realm of the spirits. It's just there to stop some random fool from bumbling his way in." Nangong Sanba triggered his grip on his crossbow, the demon hunter was clearly nervous. "After passing through this gate, we'll leave the normal dimensions and head towards the world of the vengeful spirits. At the heart of it is a pit of madness akin to another world. Don't be too cocky, I know all of you can fight, but against the spirits, brute strength alone won't cut it."
It was pitch black after the gate with only an unlit corridor before them. There were no source of lighting at all.
Hao Ren took point and let the MDT float in front of him as a source of light. He brushed his hand against the wall, and suddenly felt that he stone walls were unusually brittle. The slight brush had caused a chunk of sand and earthwork to fall off the wall. "How long since anyone came here?"
"Aside from my foray two days back.... two hundred years at least." Sanba's voice came from behind. "The first few generations of the Andrei's knew something about exorcism and tricks to survive. Perhaps something from the witch. But they were not able to fortify the seals beyond this gate and the spirits soon affect their descendants and completely eradicated any exorcist ability from the bloodline. After that no none of the Andrei's had passed the gate since... perhaps maybe some brave exorcist had went through that, but who knows."
The stone walls was rough and cold. On it, you could vaguely see engravings that look like runes. Hao Ren held his hand out to touch the runes, but the bricks were brittle beyond his imagination, and a whole load of sand and dust fell from it.
No... those were not from the brick wall.
Hao Ren looked at his fingers and wiggled it a bit. The sight of his own skin and flesh crumble away like dried dirt, brown-ish sand started spilling out of his fingers, his palms soon followed, then his wrist, his forearm....
"Hallucination," Hao Ren stood there stunned for a couple of seconds before shaking his hand with force. He finally felt something was trying to invade his psyche, and was now in retreat. His hand too had returned to normal. "Be careful, there's something causing hallucinations here."
Becky who was beside him too seemed too have snapped out of her hallucination. Her dumb smile quickly turned into a towering rage. "I only just caught sight of a mountain of gold, and it's just a bloody illusion?!"
Hao Ren didn't need to hear that to know what she was seeing.
The dark, unlit corridor seemed almost endless, and the MDT's light was a mere flicker in the sea of darkness. Lily decided to pull out Flame-effing-joy to help light the way. Her eyes had already turned gold and used her superhuman senses to break through the illusion. As they went forth, Hao Ren could hear her mumbling. "The braised pork rib is fake.... The smoked ribs are fake... the meat buns are fake.... the spicy sticks... spicy sticks.... spicy sticks are fake...."
It was almost a pitiful sight seeing her braving through the hallucinations as they went forward.
As they head further in, a mysterious chillwind blowed within the pathway, almost as if an exit to the surface had appeared in the corridor. Hao Ren felt something weird beneath his feet, and as he looked down, he found legs deep in snow.
The corridor was getting wider and wider but the walls were twisted and elongated, leaving deformed tree stumps and severed columns. Everything was smothered with a thick layer of now, and snow started falling from the darkness while a strange gust was buffeting the party. Hao Ren looked up, and realised that the stone ceilings were gone. Above him, was only darkness. And snow was falling.
Becky pulled out an intricate sword from under her coat, and the blade quickly lit up in flames. Her face nervous. "Illusion?"
"No, that's real." Nangong Sanba gripped his crossbow tightly as he pulled out a few tiny phails out of his pouch. "We've crossed the borders of reality. This is the domain of the vengeful spirits. The twisted horrors before you is real. This is what happened when a dimension distorts itself."
"MDT, scan the area." Hao Ren let out a curt order.
"Energy converging on the left side."
Nangong Sanba's crossbow was quickly pointed in that direction. At the same time, a blurry ball of light appeared in the darkness before them. It let out a bone-chilling screech and the distortion around them worsened as the corridor walls simply just disappeared. It was open space now.
"PLUNK!" the crossbow sang as it spat out it's payload. Nangong Sanba had shot out a silver quarrel. The quarrel was not meant to harm. It was exploded as it approached the apparition and released a bright golden light. The apparition's form solidified under the bright light and Nangong Sanba took the chance to throw out one of the phials in his hand.
The phial exploded the moment it made contact with the apparition. The blessed salt within it lit into a blaze.
But the vengeful spirit was not fazed by such an attack, it aimlessly wandered for a while before charging towards Hao Ren.
Hao Ren had already drew his sidearm (he was not certain his spear would be effective against something without shape or form) and fired the moment it approached.
A gunshot rang throughout the space and a blue lightning cracked. Azure crystalline dust started raining on the party.
Hao Ren had indeed found his mark, but the spirit had expanded into a large white mist at the very last moment. The psionic revolver had only took out a small part of the white mist.
The apparition reform and was just about to launch it's attack again, a dazzling lighting net suddenly came out of nowhere. The net was formed by countless tiny bats, and each serving as an conduit for a powerful electric current that ran through them. The net was even larger than that of the mist, and it canvassed the latter in a blink of an eye.
The electric net and the spirit collided violently before dissipating into nothingness. Only a small amount of bats made their way back towards Vivian.
Lily scratched her head. "It's dead?"
"No, this is just a greeting." Vivian frowned. "That was just a 'phenomenon' created by the spirit. We have not seen it's true form yet."
Hao Ren took a deep breath as he gazed upon the dark sprawling snowfield. He kept reminding himself that he was in a corridor somewhere beneath Andrei's castle, but the scene before him left him utterly puzzled.
"What the bloody f*ck is this?"