Cen Yao did not answer.
She raised her hand and waved her wand.
Silver-white magic spread from the tip of her wand, sweeping across the four walls of the secret chamber like an invisible wind.
One by one, the paper talismans on the walls caught fire.
It wasn't ordinary fire.
Instead, it was an extremely faint white flame.
They burned without smoke or ash, only leaving a slight singe on the edges of the talismans before the papers silently dissolved into powder.
The cinnabar array patterns were wiped away inch by inch by the magic.
With a sharp snap, the peach wood sword stuck in the ground broke.
The red threads and bells on the sword fell to the floor, rolling around with a series of tinkling sounds before Cen Yao swept them into a corner using a Cleaning Spell.
Chen Lin and Wang Tao watched all of this unfold, not even daring to breathe too loudly.
They didn't know exactly what these things were used for.
But looking at the walls covered in talismans and the array on the floor, they knew these were definitely not mere decorations.
Yet in front of Cen Yao, these creepy and eerie things were as fragile as flyers stuck to a wall.
Removing them didn't take any effort at all.
In Cen Yao's mind, the orb commented in a low voice, “Host, this secret chamber looks much more pleasing to the eye now.”
Cen Yao: “Yeah.”
At least it wasn't as ugly anymore.
Only after clearing out the suppression items in the secret chamber did Cen Yao take off the glass bottle hanging from her waist.
Inside the bottle, a pale gold soul figure curled up quietly.
As if sensing something, she suddenly stirred slightly.
Cen Yao raised her hand and unsealed the mouth of the bottle.
A silver-white light flashed.
The blonde Queen's soul form slowly emerged from the bottle.
She was slightly clearer than she had been last night.
With a pale face, soft blonde hair, and her tattered gown draping in midair, a deep crimson still lingered in the depths of her eyes.
At first, her expression was somewhat dazed.
Until she saw the Little Princess bound by vines on the ground.
At that moment, the Queen's soul form began to tremble violently.
“My child...”
Her voice was as soft as a fragile snowflake about to shatter.
In the next second, a thick black mist erupted from her body.
Forced back by this surge of resentment, Chen Lin and Wang Tao took two steps back, their backs instantly slamming against the wall.
As if sensing the Queen's presence, the Little Princess also stopped struggling.
That pale blue little head slowly turned.
Mottled golden hair clung to her cheeks, with bloodstains still remaining at the corners of her mouth.
She didn't reach out for a hug like a normal baby.
Nor did she cry.
She merely stared at the Queen quietly and greedily, the corners of her mouth slowly curling up.
Revealing a cold, twisted smile that did not belong to a child at all.
“Hee...”
The red in the Queen's eyes grew even deeper.
The black mist on her body almost materialized, growing frantically out of her soul form like countless sharp thorns.
“Who...”
Her voice trembled, each word sounding as if it had been ground out of blood.
“Who made you like this?”
The Little Princess did not answer.
Though bound by the vines, she still struggled to crawl toward the Queen.
Her limbs dragged against the floor, leaving a trail of blood inch by inch.
The scene was both eerie and pitiful.
Chen Lin covered her mouth, her eyes instantly turning red.
She didn't know the backstory, but just looking at this scene, she could vaguely understand that this mother and daughter probably met a tragic end.
Wang Tao's face was also very grim.
The monsters in the dungeons killed people.
To survive, players would also kill monsters.
This was originally a basic rule they were forced to accept after entering the Horror Game.
But the monster before them was a baby who hadn't even reached a month old.
She had been murdered, polluted, and transformed into a man-eating thing.
This made them feel an indescribable, suffocating frustration on top of their fear.
Cen Yao frowned as she watched the cracks on the Queen's soul form grow deeper.
“Calm down.”
The Queen seemed completely deaf to her.
She wanted to rush over and hug the Little Princess, but the aura of pollution on the baby made her soul form tremble with pain.
Only a few paces separated the mother and daughter.
Yet those few paces felt like an uncrossable abyss.
Cen Yao sighed and raised her wand.
“Clear.”
“Stabilize.”
“Rest.”
Several spells landed on the Queen one after another.
The surging black mist around the Queen was temporarily suppressed.
She finally regained a sliver of sanity and looked up at Cen Yao.
“Save her.”
The moment she spoke, the resentment and madness in her eyes shattered completely, leaving only a near-humble plea.
“Lady Witch, please save her.”
Chen Lin and Wang Tao froze at the same time.
Lady Witch?
So, this powerhouse's dungeon identity was really a Witch?
No.
That wasn't the point.
The point was that a ghost Queen was actually begging her to save someone.
Cen Yao looked down at the Little Princess.
The Little Princess was still smiling.
There was no purity of a baby on that pale blue face, only greed and malice after being polluted.
Yet deep within her mottled golden hair, Cen Yao did indeed sense an extremely faint, rainbow-colored glow.
The glow was wrapped in thick black pollution, like a seed about to be swallowed by sludge.
This should be the power of the rainbow flower.
But now, this power had been transformed into something else.
If she directly purified the Little Princess, she might be able to dispel a portion of the pollution.
But the risk was too high.
She still didn't know what the source of the pollution was.
Nor did she know what tricks the wizard hiding in the shadows had played inside the Little Princess's body.
Purifying her rashly could very well cause the Little Princess to collapse directly.
After a moment of thought, Cen Yao squatted down.
She gently tapped her wand against the Little Princess's forehead.
The Little Princess suddenly snapped her mouth open, trying to bite her wand.
The vines instantly tightened, binding her even more securely.
Cen Yao said expressionlessly, “Behave.”
The Little Princess: “Hee...”
Cen Yao: “Keep laughing and I'll seal your mouth.”
The Little Princess: “...”
She actually stopped for a moment.
Chen Lin: “...”
Wang Tao: “...”
For some reason, they suddenly detected a hint of grievance from this terrifying ghost baby.
They must be going crazy.
Cen Yao paid no attention to their expressions.
She closed her eyes and sent a very fine thread of magic into the Little Princess's body.
Almost the instant the magic entered, a bone-chilling coldness surged back along the wand.
The black pollution wrapped around her magic like a living thing, trying to drag her in as well.
Cen Yao immediately cut off that thread of magic.
A wisp of black smoke rose from the tip of her wand.
Her gaze grew slightly cold.
As expected.
The Little Princess was no longer a simple ghost.
Inside her body was a parasitic-like pollution core.
The thing was hidden very deeply, clinging to the power of the rainbow flower, using its healing properties and vitality to continuously feed the pollution.
No wonder she could appear in the morning.
No wonder she could "feed" according to the tolling of the bell.
The rainbow flower's vitality made her unafraid of daylight, while the pollution turned her into a monster that needed to feed.
Cen Yao looked up at the Queen.
“She isn't completely beyond saving.”
A sudden gleam of hope lit up in the Queen's eyes.
But in the next second, Cen Yao added, “However, I cannot save her directly right now.”
The light in the Queen's eyes wavered.
Cen Yao explained, “There is something else inside her body. If I force a purification, her body will collapse.”
The Queen's soul form swayed, barely able to keep herself upright.
Cen Yao continued, “We must first find the person who turned her into this.”
“The dark wizard.”
Hearing these words, the red light in the Queen's eyes suddenly surged.
“It's him...”
Her voice suddenly became low and hoarse.
As if digging this name out of some extremely deep nightmare.
“It's that dark wizard...”
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