Ian's consciousness sank into the shadows. His body silently dissipated, transforming into a pitch-black raven that quietly perched on a ceiling beam high above the Temple's great hall.
His eyes were deep as black jade, piercing through dust and darkness, firmly locking onto the desperate struggle unfolding below.
Because he had been seized and lifted directly by the Ghost Bride, the Scepter Priest's legs kicked wildly in the air. The blood threads tightening around his neck dug into his aged skin, leaving spiderweb-like purple marks. His white robe trimmed with gold was soaked with cold sweat.
The Scepter had long since fallen beside the altar, the sun disc at its head split cleanly in two.
"Sp… spare me…"
The Priest forced the plea through clenched teeth. Bloodshot eyes reflected the Ghost Bride's expressionless face.
"I… I can continue to serve…"
The Scepter Priest hung high in the air, suspended by the blood threads. His feet dangled off the ground as the tightening strands strangled his neck. His face turned purple, his eyes bulging outward. He struggled violently, choking sounds rattling from his throat. His wand had already slipped from his grasp, and the star-marked Scepter lay dim and powerless on the ground.
He looked utterly miserable.
"Hehe~"
The Ghost Bride's crimson eyes flickered slightly, and the blood threads loosened just a little.
Hope flashed in the Priest's eyes… Only to turn into deeper terror the next moment.
A single strand of the blood threads separated from the rest and slithered into his ear like a venomous snake.
"AAAAAAH…!"
The Priest let out an inhuman scream, his limbs convulsing violently. He could feel the blood thread moving through his brain, searching for a specific memory. In his Raven form, Ian silently landed on the window lattice. His sharp gaze pierced through the concealment of his Disillusionment Charm.
He saw a bulging lump writhing beneath the Priest's temple, which was the path of the blood thread moving through his brain.
Even more alarming was the Ghost Bride's precise level of control.
This was not something a mere slaughter machine could accomplish. The Embryo was directly reading the prey's memories through her.
Perhaps it was a form of learning, or simply a way to obtain information.
"Found it." The Ghost Bride suddenly spoke.
Her voice remained that eerie dual-toned harmony, but the cadence had become noticeably more… human.
The blood thread withdrew from the Priest's ear, pulling out a faintly glowing blue substance…
It was a crystallized fragment of memory.
The Priest's face instantly turned deathly gray as he knew exactly which memory had been taken.
It was the spell used to open the hidden cellar gate.
The Temple's most closely guarded secret.
"No… no…" He muttered hoarsely, murky tears sliding down his deeply wrinkled face. "You can't… that would be sacrilege…"
The Ghost Bride ignored his pleas entirely. She released the blood threads, letting the Priest collapse to the ground like a heap of mud.
Then she turned toward the wall behind the altar, a stone surface covered in hieroglyphs. The extracted memory orb floated in her palm, slowly spinning and displaying its contents.
The Raven's feathers bristled slightly as Ian recognized that wall as well.
It looked like an ordinary stone barrier, but it actually concealed seven layers of spatial locks, each requiring a different key.
And now… The Ghost Bride was unlocking them one by one.
The Priest suddenly stopped sobbing and a vicious gleam flashed in his eyes. His trembling hand quietly moved toward his waist.
Hidden there was an obsidian dagger coated with a poison capable of paralyzing even gods.
"For the glory of Ra…" His lips moved silently before he suddenly lunged forward.
The dagger struck precisely into the Ghost Bride's back.
Black-purple poison instantly spread along the vein-like patterns across her body.
The Ghost Bride froze in place.
The crimson glow in her eyes flickered uncertainly.
Taking advantage of the moment, the Priest scrambled to his feet and fled toward the hall's exit. As he ran, he pulled a bone whistle from his robes.
A piercing whistle echoed, cousin the Temple's defensive mechanisms to activate.
The ground began to tremble.
The relief carvings on the walls came alive, and stone scarabs and jackal-headed guardians surged from all directions.
"Stop her!" the Priest screamed hysterically. "At all costs!"
In Raven form, Ian had to fly away from the window lattice to dodge the pounce of a giant stone scarab.
Circling in the air, he saw the Ghost Bride still standing motionless.
The poison had already spread across most of her body.
But strangely… She didn't appear to be in pain. If anything, she seemed to be… adapting.
Meanwhile, the Priest had already reached the entrance of the grand hall. He bit his finger and used his blood to draw an inverted triangle symbol on the doorframe.
It was the highest-level spatial sealing mark.
As long as he crossed that threshold, he could activate the Temple's self-destruct mechanism, burying the entire Inner Temple along with that monster beneath the ruins.
"You think that's enough?" The Ghost Bride's voice suddenly sounded from behind him.
The Priest turned around in terror and saw that she, who should have been paralyzed by the poison, had actually raised her hand. The black-purple toxin spreading across her body was being assimilated by the Golden Sand within her, transforming into a strange blue-black mixture.
"Impossible!" The Priest screamed. "That poison can paralyze even Anubis…"
His words abruptly stopped.
The Ghost Bride's figure suddenly blurred. In the next instant, she appeared directly in front of him, so fast that not even an afterimage remained.
Even more horrifying was the change in her wedding dress.
The originally bright red fabric was gradually fading, turning the same blue-black color as the poison. Across its surface emerged countless tiny patterns shaped like golden eyes.
The Ghost Bride floated in the air, her crimson eyes staring at him coldly. The blood-filled mouth at the corner of her lips curled slightly upward, perhaps a smile, or perhaps merely the distortion of muscle.
She gave no response.
Instead, she slowly raised her hand.
Another strand of blood extended from her fingertip and gently touched the center of the Priest's forehead.
An invisible force began pulling at him… The traction of the soul.
The Priest's pupils shrank sharply.
At last, he understood that she wasn't trying to kill him. She intended to take him alive, delivering him as a living sacrifice to the Embryo beneath the Temple.
"No…!" He suddenly roared in fury, determination flashing in his eyes. "I would rather die than become a sacrifice!"
Before his words even finished, he bit the tip of his tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood essence. His hands moved rapidly through the air, forming an ancient and forbidden hand seal.
His body trembled violently, and his soul began slowly separating from the crown of his head.
Soul Projection.
A secret technique only high-ranking Priests could master, allowing consciousness to abandon the flesh and escape in spiritual form.
"In sacrifice of my soul, I borrow the power of the River Styx!" The Priest had completely collapsed mentally. He discarded the whistle and formed a complicated spell seal with both hands.
He had made his decision.
Even if he could not guarantee his life, he still wanted to protect his soul.
Compared to the other Priests who had decisively committed suicide earlier, this choice seemed somewhat hesitant. But as someone who had long stood in power, clinging to his own life was only natural.
After all, he had spent years as one of the privileged elite.
Abandoning such a life was far more difficult.
The moment the Scepter Priest released the spell, the entire hall suddenly darkened, as if all light had been devoured.
His physical body collapsed to the ground.
Meanwhile, a translucent spirit began emerging from the crown of his head.
This was the secret Egyptian technique known as Soul Projection, normally mastered only by Grand Priest–level figures. A pale golden mist rose from the top of his head, condensing into a miniature, semi-transparent phantom of the Priest himself.
The moment the phantom separated from the body, it turned into a streak of light and shot straight toward the hall's vaulted ceiling, attempting to pierce through the stone and escape.
It fled frantically toward the direction of the Nile River.
As long as he could reach the Holy River, there would still be other ways to survive.
"I succeeded…" The spirit Priest was overjoyed, already planning his future. "As long as I escape the Temple, I can possess another body and regain physical form!"
For wizards, death often did not mean the end of life.
Admittedly, possessing someone else's body was a shameful act. But clearly, the Scepter Priest no longer cared whether he became a Dark Wizard.
He wanted to live.
Even if that meant losing his identity as a wizard and becoming a parasite in the body of a mere mortal.
In his mind, he had done nothing wrong.
However… Just as he was about to reach the ceiling, he failed to notice that the Ghost Bride's crimson eyes were already locked onto the trajectory of his fleeing soul through the walls.
The Ghost Bride slowly raised her head and the golden spirit was clearly reflected in her red pupils.
What was even more terrifying was…
She lifted her hand, spreading open her fingers as a blood-red spiritual thread shot from her fingertips, piercing through the barrier between reality and the spirit world and locking precisely onto the escaping soul.
"What?! You… you can see souls?!" The spirit Priest was horrified beyond belief. "Impossible! Soul Projection transcends the material world! You're only a physical entity, how could you touch the spirit realm?!"
The Ghost Bride did not answer.
She simply acted by slowly raising her hand.
The blood threads wrapped around the Priest's physical body suddenly turned semi-transparent, like ghostly tendrils. They passed through matter itself and surged toward the fleeing soul.
Raven Ian immediately flapped his wings and followed.
From the perspective of spiritual sight, the chase was disturbingly surreal.
In front was the Priest's spirit fleeing in panic, and behind it surged dozens of writhing blood-soul threads. And even farther behind, the Ghost Bride's physical body still stood within the hall, pursuing through the strange dual-state phenomenon Ian had encountered before.
The Ghost Bride could exist in two states simultaneously.
The blood threads moved far faster than the spirit and they quickly wrapped around the Priest's ankles, then his waist, and finally enveloped him completely like a glowing cocoon.
The crimson threads tightened violently.
The golden spirit let out a shrill scream, and it looked as if the spirit was being burned by raging fire.
His form began twisting and breaking apart and the golden light flickered violently, like a projection suffering from a failing signal.
"Ahhhh…!"
The Priest released a silent spiritual scream, struggling desperately, but it was useless.
"Let me go! This is forbidden! You are violating the Laws of Life and Death!"
The Priest's spirit struggled wildly, releasing waves of soul energy in an attempt to shake off the blood threads. But something even more terrifying was happening.
Those threads were sending something back into him in reverse.
Every time he struggled, his spirit became slightly more clouded and corrupted. The Ghost Bride's soul threads were like chains from a higher dimension, ignoring every form of resistance.
"No… don't…"
The Priest's spirit began to be dragged back toward the hall.
"I surrender! I'll tell you everything…"
"NO…!!!"
A heart-rending scream echoed through the spirit realm.
The blood threads yanked sharply, and the spirit was forcibly dragged back into the hall.
Bang!
His chest heaved violently as his soul was forced back into his body. His consciousness fused once again with his flesh, as though an invisible hand had stuffed him into a cramped container.
The violent rejection caused the Priest to foam at the mouth and convulse violently.
He collapsed to the ground, gasping desperately for air. His face was as pale as paper, and his eyes were filled with despair and complete mental collapse.
The Ghost Bride slowly walked toward him.
For the first time, something resembling emotion appeared in her crimson eyes… and it was 'utter contempt'.
"You… you're not an ordinary alchemical creature…" The Scepter Priest's magical power was nearly depleted now as he muttered in terror. "You are the incarnation of that Embryo's will… the devourer… you can even capture souls…"
Clearly… It was only now that the Scepter Priest realized what Ian had understood long ago.
That was the difference between a Legendary Wizard and an ordinary wizard, even if that ordinary wizard was the Temple's Scepter Priest.
The gap in perception was simply too great.
"Heh."
The Ghost Bride slowly descended, the blood threads lifting the Priest into the air again.
In her red eyes, a faint trace of satisfaction appeared for the first time, as though confirming the prey's integrity.
"What… exactly are you…" The Priest asked weakly, his voice barely audible.
The Ghost Bride did not answer. She simply lifted the limp Priest and began walking deeper into the hall.
The raven that Ian had become silently spread its wings and glided down from the ceiling, flying along the shadows of the wall and maintaining a constant distance of thirty paces behind the Ghost Bride.
She passed through a dim corridor with ancient runes carved across the walls, depicting scenes of the Embryo gestating in a pool of blood.
Candles along the walls ignited automatically. But their flames burned an eerie green, casting twisted shadows across the walls.
Through the Raven's Eyes, Ian could see through both matter and magical concealment, clearly tracking every movement the Ghost Bride made.
She dragged the Scepter Priest like a dead dog back to the wall covered in runes.
Ahead stood what looked like an ordinary stone wall. Its surface was cracked, and in the center was carved a complex hexagram formation. At the center of the formation was embedded a dark-red gem, like a drop of solidified blood.
This was the very defense Ian had failed to break earlier.
The Ghost Bride stopped and suspended the Scepter Priest before the wall.
The Priest was on the verge of total collapse. His lips trembled, but he no longer dared beg for mercy.
A drop of black blood gathered on her fingertip.
She lightly touched it to the gemstone.
Instantly… The gem lit up and the hexagram formation began rotating.
One rune after another ignited, emitting a deep humming sound.
"Open." The Ghost Bride commanded.
She had already extracted the necessary memory from the Scepter Priest, yet she still forced him to speak the command.
Clearly, this was about asserting authority.
She now possessed emotions.
Joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure… and the Seven Deadly Sins were already thriving within her.
The Priest closed his eyes in despair. His trembling lips began chanting a string of obscure spells. The runes on the wall lit up one after another with golden light, eventually forming a rotating sun symbol at the center.
When the final syllable fell…
The stone wall produced a thunderous grinding sound.
Kā Chā… Kā Chā…
With the rumble of massive stone shifting, the wall slowly split open. Behind it appeared a deep spiral staircase. A rotten stench rushed outward, mixed with a nauseatingly sweet fragrance.
From the depths of the staircase came faint echoes of dripping liquid—
And something else.
A rhythmic pulsing sound.
Like a heartbeat amplified a hundred times.
The Ghost Bride dragged the Scepter Priest forward and stepped inside.
Ian, in raven form, silently landed on the windowsill at the end of the corridor. Under the dim green candlelight, his feathers gleamed with a metallic sheen.
His Raven Eyes remained fixed on the opened wall… On the Ghost Bride's disappearing silhouette… On the staircase leading into the depths.
At the final moment… Ian, still in raven form, slipped into the wall through the darkness.
He knew that was not an ordinary cellar.
It was the Embryo's womb. The altar where the evil god was gestating. The true source of the city's nightmare.
Ian knew he had to resolve this situation and the thing he was searching for was very likely inside that cellar as well.
So when he followed the Ghost Bride, he did not hesitate for even a moment. Because even in raven form, Ian could remain hidden at the boundary between illusion and reality.
The Ghost Bride sensed nothing.
Behind them, the stone wall slammed shut, completely separating the inner and outer worlds.
Inside the passage, the only light came from patches of glowing moss scattered along the walls, casting a sickly sheen across the Ghost Bride's blue-black wedding dress.
The spiral staircase seemed endless. She dragged the half-stupefied Priest downward, her footsteps swallowed by some kind of sound-absorbing material.
Only the sound of dripping liquid grew clearer and clearer.
And now… Ian could already feel the presence of that evil god.
It was more than ten times stronger than it had been the night before.
(End of Chapter)
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