Chapter 327 — Holy Art: "Blood of Oath"
"An overlapping space..." Gideon quickly realized what he was dealing with.
Fixing his gaze on the end of the black strand of hair, he activated God's Eye Imprisonment, restricting the flow of spirit particles around it.
At once, countless spirit-particle runes surfaced in midair.
Different colors intertwined together, layered upon one another in chaotic overlap.
Thanks to the ability granted by his panel, Gideon soon noticed the anomaly.
The end of the black hair vanished into a cluster of pale-white runes, and the spirit-particle structure there was far more complex than anywhere else nearby.
Without hesitation, he took out a holy artifact and began deciphering the formation.
Moments later, ripples spread through the air.
Then a crack slowly opened inside the room.
"This is..." Gideon narrowed his eyes.
After confirming the opening showed no obvious danger, he stepped through.
He immediately surveyed his surroundings.
It was still the second-floor bedroom—
but something was different.
Yellowed lighting.
Brand-new furniture.
Freshly prepared food sitting on the table.
Gideon stared at the bizarre scene before him.
Old and new objects overlapped together, as though people from entirely different eras were somehow living in the same room.
"If I remember correctly... Kayako's cursed house possessed multiple-space-time abilities."
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"In the second film, it used that power to let people glimpse fragments of the future ahead of time, completely breaking their sanity."
It was a strange ability for an evil spirit to possess, yet it perfectly explained how Kayako could appear and disappear so impossibly while killing people.
Gideon shook his head.
Now wasn't the time to analyze horror movie lore.
Golden rings reappeared around his pupils as he searched for traces of the black hair.
But this time, things became troublesome.
The original strand suddenly split into dozens of smaller strands, each disappearing into different corners of the room.
Some remained within the house.
The rest vanished directly into empty air.
Combined with the overlapping spirit-particle runes layered throughout the room, Gideon became even more certain—
multiple timelines were intersecting here.
"I just hope those two can hold on..." he muttered grimly.
At the same time, in another point in the past—
BANG!
Mia slammed open a door—
only for despair to flood her face.
She had returned once again to the room where Nakamura died.
"How... how is this possible... I was wrong... please, just let me go home..." she sobbed quietly.
But at that moment, the low bubbling sound echoed through the hallway once more.
Along with the noise came the scraping sound of something crawling across the floorboards.
Mia clamped both hands tightly over her mouth.
Even as tears streamed down her face, she forced herself to steady her breathing and suppress her panic.
As the sound drew closer, she hurried toward a nearby wardrobe.
Opening it, she immediately frowned.
The inside smelled strange—a mixture of rot and cheap perfume.
The wardrobe contained scattered household items, many already damaged and decayed, leaving a cramped empty space within.
Without hesitation, she crawled inside.
The moment she shut the doors, darkness swallowed her completely.
Silence.
Heat.
The sound of her own heartbeat.
Every second felt unbearably long.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap...
A rapid, rhythmic sound entered the bedroom.
Shaking violently, Mia leaned toward the wooden slats of the wardrobe door, barely able to peek outside.
And then she saw it.
The white-clothed spirit.
Its hair spread across the entire floor, climbing up the walls as though trying to consume the entire room.
Mia pressed herself backward as hard as possible, silently praying not to be discovered.
THUD.
Suddenly, one of the wardrobe shelves collapsed inside the cabinet.
Though blankets softened the impact, a faint noise still escaped.
Mia's heart nearly stopped.
Trembling, she leaned toward the slats again—
and met a dead, icy eye staring directly back at her.
"AHHH—!"
She recoiled backward in terror.
At the same instant—
Creeeak.
The wardrobe doors swung open.
But then suddenly hand shot inward and violently dragged her outside.
"NO! NO!"
Mia struggled desperately—
only to open her eyes and see a familiar face.
"Simon?!"
Panting heavily, she frantically looked around.
"Where's the spirit?!"
The room looked normal again.
The white figure and black hair had completely vanished.
Meanwhile, inside the wardrobe, one of the blankets suddenly twitched.
Then a pale hand slowly emerged from beneath it.
Mia, with her back turned, noticed nothing.
Simon suddenly turned the camera and pointed toward the wardrobe.
Mia immediately looked over—
and her eyes widened.
The blanket she had just been leaning against contained the outline of a human body beneath it.
Only now did she realize the blanket was covered in tiny holes.
They had been invisible earlier in the darkness.
Mia instantly understood.
Simon had just answered her question.
The two immediately backed away from the wardrobe.
The pale ghostly hand froze midair.
"Ghh... ghhk..."
That low bubbling sound echoed again.
The hand tightened around the blanket's torn openings.
Then it began violently ripping at the fabric, as though only now realizing there was a flaw in its prison.
But suddenly—
several blood-drawn crosses lit up across the outer surface of the blanket.
The symbols were arranged in a precise formation.
A surge of energy erupted instantly.
Both Mia and Simon immediately felt the suffocating oppression in their hearts lessen.
Bzzzt... sizzle...
At the same time, burning sounds erupted from the wardrobe.
The spirit trapped inside let out a painful shriek.
"This is..." Mia stared in shock.
Although she knew nothing about exorcism, the moment she saw the crosses, she immediately thought of the two priests.
"Were... were they the ones who saved me?"
She initially wanted to keep running—
but soon realized something astonishing.
The spirit was trapped.
Kayako clawed frantically at the blanket, but every time she touched the outer layer, she recoiled violently as though something restrained her.
The object she had used to conceal herself had now become her cage.
Seeing this, hesitation appeared on Mia's face.
Moments later, she clenched her fists.
"Simon! Stand farther back—and make sure both of us are in frame!"
After shouting those words, she actually crouched down and leaned toward the trapped spirit.
"Ready?!" Mia's voice trembled violently.
Simon raised a thumbs-up from the distance.
"H-Hey everyone... I'm inside the haunted house right now... a-and beside me is an actual... actual evil spirit..."
She had resumed filming the show.
Even Kayako froze momentarily at Mia's behavior.
One second later—
the spirit began tearing at the blanket even more violently.
Mia shrieked and jumped backward.
But after observing for a while, she realized the spirit truly couldn't escape.
Her courage gradually began to grow.
"S-Simon... I want to take a photo with it..."
Meanwhile—
Gideon crouched before a wardrobe in the second-floor bedroom, frowning at the blanket beneath him.
More precisely—
the remains of a blanket.
Although it had already been destroyed, traces of formation power still lingered on it.
This was the Oath Formation Gideon had recently learned to create using his blood.
Since he had only just mastered the holy art, its effective range remained limited.
That was why he had drawn the formation onto the blanket itself—to avoid alerting Kayako in advance.
"So the formation really worked..." he muttered thoughtfully.
"I just don't know which timeline trapped her..."
Because the room's timelines were distorted and overlapping, he couldn't directly help Mia and Simon.
So instead, he had taken a roundabout approach—
leaving preparations behind in every timeline he passed through.
Elsewhere—
Mia stood pouting in front of Simon.
The cameraman held the camera over one shoulder while applying lipstick with his other hand.
Moments later, Simon nodded.
Only then did Mia take the lipstick back.
"Good thing you're here. Otherwise I'd look just as ugly as that evil spirit on camera."
She sighed.
"Strange... there isn't a single mirror in this room."
By now, they had already finished filming the most important parts of their planned episode.
All that remained was a few supplementary shots—
then they could wrap up and escape.
Thinking about it, Mia found the situation almost unbelievable.
She had actually been openly provoking an evil spirit to its face—
and it couldn't do anything to her.
"So those two priests really were genuine exorcists..."
Regret began filling her heart.
If she had listened earlier to that cute-looking priest, they probably would've already finished filming and gone home safely instead of becoming trapped here.
"Forget it... let's finish the remaining footage first."
She clenched her fists again.
"Even if I die, as long as everyone sees this video, I'll definitely become famous!"
After encouraging herself, she approached the wardrobe once more.
But this time—
it was completely silent.
"Hm? Miss Evil Spirit?"
Inside the house's dimensional gap—
the layout mirrored reality, but everything was reversed.
"Ghh... ghhk..."
Kayako crawled along the bathroom wall, frantically feeling around the space above the sink.
A mirror should have been there.
But now there was nothing.
That mirror had once been one of the few gateways connecting the dimensional cracks and real space-time.
With mirrors present, she could use reflections throughout the house as pathways to move instantly between locations.
Kayako let out another low bubbling growl while sensing the other timelines.
Soon, she discovered the horrifying truth.
Every single mirror across every timeline had been removed.
Even the mirrors from the earliest point in the house's history were gone.
BANG!
She crushed the edge of the sink with one hand.
Her body trembled violently in rage.
Nearby, a child slowly peeked his head out from behind the bathroom doorway.
He possessed the same pale skin, though the deadness in his eyes was less severe.
Toshio shrank back timidly.
It was the first time he had ever seen "Mother" this furious.
Just as he prepared to approach her—
she suddenly crawled out of the bathroom.
Meanwhile—
"This is weird... the evil spirit really disappeared. It's not even chasing us anymore."
Mia sat atop an overturned bed, utterly confused.
"Did it get exorcised?"
But she quickly dismissed the thought.
Before coming here, she had actually done some research.
She had read a booklet called Safety Defense Guidelines, which described in detail how evil spirits affected reality.
Originally, Mia had assumed it was fictional horror writing.
But since entering the haunted house, nearly everything happening here had matched the booklet exactly.
That led her to a terrifying conclusion—
the person who wrote it might have been a real exorcist.
And the current situation perfectly matched one particular line she remembered:
> "If the surrounding environment remains unchanged, you must assume the evil spirit has not truly been destroyed."
Right then—
something suddenly slammed violently beneath the bed.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Mia screamed and leapt to her feet.
Turning around, she saw something trying to crawl out from underneath.
But glowing light suddenly emerged across the underside of the bed.
Several blood-red crosses appeared there.
"These are... the same symbols from the blanket!" Mia exclaimed immediately.
At the same time, within the dimensional gap—
Countless strands of black hair lashed violently against a wooden bed, tearing apart the surrounding floor.
There should originally have been an opening there.
But now, the overturned bedframe completely blocked it.
Kayako's face twisted savagely as two streams of bloody tears ran down her cheeks.
Just like what had happened with the mirrors earlier—
another one of her pathways had been sealed.
A mere human dared trespass upon her domain.
Yet no matter how fiercely Kayako attacked, she could not disperse the power outside.
In fact, she had to focus all her senses just to perceive its existence.
Had she encountered this force earlier, Kayako would have immediately retreated into the dimensional gap and slowly tortured her enemy through the distortions of time within this space.
After all, that was exactly how she had devoured those powerful humans before.
But now, her movement space was steadily shrinking.
If this continued, she might permanently lose control of the cursed house.
Realizing this, Kayako stopped attacking the bed and instead crawled toward a nearby corner.
Toshio stared at "Mother's" back before hesitantly approaching the bed himself.
He reached out and touched it—
and instantly felt agonizing pain pierce deep into his spirit.
Without hesitation, Toshio let out a frightened cry and ran back toward "Mother."
Meanwhile, Kayako stood before a patch of darkness.
This was the final passageway.
Countless times, she had traveled through this route to reach humans, savoring their blood and despair.
And now, she intended to do so again.
A low bubbling sound escaped her throat.
As for the person sealing off her cursed house—
she would peel that human's flesh off piece by piece.
With that thought, Kayako crawled into the darkness.
But in the next instant—
Sizzle...
A burst of crimson light erupted.
Kayako's entire body was blasted backward.
When she rose again, most of both hands had been melted away, exposing beneath her pale skin an incomparably vile and sinister aura.
Her expression twisted with hatred as she looked toward the corner.
Several tiny crosses glowed faintly there, radiating terrifyingly powerful holy energy.
"Ghh... ghhk..."
Kayako finally snapped.
She slowly turned her head toward Toshio.
And for the first time—
the child spirit showed fear.
In the next second, Kayako instantly appeared beside him.
Her pale hands seized his head.
Tchhk!
Toshio's body exploded into black mist.
The entire dimensional gap became flooded with dark fog.
Kayako raised one hand and carved through the air.
The black mist condensed into a single word:
"Curse."
At almost the exact same moment—
the entire dimensional space began violently shaking.
Simultaneously, the overlapping timelines throughout the cursed house started merging together, collapsing into one unified reality.
Inside the room—
Mia stared in shock.
The scenery around her warped and flickered, like a film rapidly skipping through time.
Then—
a brutal murder scene unfolded before her eyes.
At the end of it, a woman collapsed into a pool of blood.
Mia covered her mouth and trembled as she slowly approached.
But the moment she looked closer, her eyes widened in horror.
The corpse on the floor had become Mr. Nakamura.
At the same instant, a pale figure suddenly appeared directly before her.
Oppressive.
Freezing.
Overwhelming with hatred.
Before Mia could react, a mass of black hair wrapped around her body.
She immediately began suffocating.
Nearby, Simon calmly set the camera down at an excellent filming angle.
Then—
he charged forward without hesitation.
Within the frame, black hair pierced through his limbs as blood spread across the floorboards.
It looked like the perfect shot foreshadowing death itself.
But in the very next second—
a black-robed figure stepped into view.
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