Chapter 122: The Underground Labyrinth

Saul stared at the eerily synchronized movements of the spirit bodies, at their bare shoulders—and suddenly recalled the mountainside teeming with arms he’d seen before entering the burrow.

The arms cried for help outside, while the bodies quietly and cautiously moved underground.

If these spirits were truly the souls of the dead, Saul couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of terrifying scenes they had experienced in the moments of their deaths.

The first time he heard Senior Byron describe the tragedy at Hanging Hands Valley, Saul had assumed that the wizard and apprentices had either been crushed to death, suffocated, or killed while fighting each other during a desperate escape.

But clearly, it hadn’t been that simple.

There were many of the white apparitions, walking out in rows from the central tunnel and mechanically turning into the passage on the left.

Too many.

If not for the slight variations in body size and appearance, Saul might’ve suspected that these were all replicas of a single spirit.

Now, the left and central tunnels were packed with these apparitions—only the tunnel on the right remained untouched and clear.

Standing at the front, Bill observed for a while. Not sensing any danger, he asked in a low voice, “Byron, are there wraiths here?”

Bill could tell these apparitions were merely fragments of shattered spirit bodies—not even complete soul fragments.

But he couldn’t be certain whether such a phenomenon implied the presence of nearby wraiths.

Byron called out to Saul, “Saul, let’s go check it out together.”

Saul followed Byron, squeezing through the narrow space that Bill and Wright had left open.

They stopped three meters from the fork in the tunnel.

Saul entered a semi-immersive meditation first.

In an instant, the armless humanoid apparitions vanished from view, replaced by faint, pale flames suspended in the air.

Those flames, so feeble they looked as though they might flicker out at any moment, were bouncing slowly through the air in rhythm with the apparitions’ previous movements.

Silent, trembling.

Even though they had lost their human form, Saul could still sense a suffocating tension from the uniformity of their bouncing.

He carefully examined the three tunnels, then exited the meditative state.

“Whew—”

His chest expanded violently twice, as if just coming up for air after drowning.

“Anything?” Wright asked in a hushed voice, pushing air from his throat to avoid making noise as Byron and Saul finished observing.

Saul and Byron exchanged a glance—then, in perfect sync, raised their hands and pointed toward the left passage.

Bill’s mouth twitched slightly. “Are we really going to walk alongside those things?”

Byron walked forward and waved his hand through the white apparitions.

They remained unaffected—lifting their legs high and stepping down gently, continuing their cautious march.

“So far, these remnants just look odd. They don’t seem capable of harming us for now.”

Wright rubbed his arm. “This is why I don’t like dealing with spirits. You never know if attacking them is just a waste of mana.”

Bill snapped back, “If you’d bother to sense their mental energy properly, you wouldn’t be scared by a bunch of phantoms.”

“Hah, like you weren’t tense a second ago.”

“I’ll go in front this time.” Byron ignored their bickering and glanced at Saul, signaling him to follow closely.

“Sure,” said Wright, catching up. “This is your turf now. If any wraiths show up, I’ll just follow your lead.”

As they spoke, the four of them slipped into the line of white apparitions one after another.

“There might not even be wraiths here,” Saul warned the seniors. “It’s possible one passed through and left behind some corruption.”

“Got it!” Wright replied without a hint of ego. “When I go catching sand-eye bugs, sometimes all I find are their dried droppings.”

“Yeah, no need for that example.” Bill looked like he wanted to smack Wright on the head.

The group pressed forward.

At the next fork, the white apparitions turned right into another tunnel.

“Another fork,” Wright muttered with a frown. “I hate mazes.”

“This is how it is underground in Hanging Hands Valley,” Byron said with some weariness, his focus fully on choosing the right path.

They passed several more junctions—this underground world was even larger than Saul had imagined.

And this was only the outer edge of Hanging Hands Valley.

“There’s movement,” Byron suddenly halted.

They had just entered a slightly wider space—eight tunnels branched out in all directions.

“Why are there so many passageways? I don’t think I can even remember the way we came,” Wright groaned, covering his face.

His thin face looked corpse-pale in the dim glow of their light spell.

Bill was also visibly impatient.

“Tracking pollution to find wraiths doesn’t feel reliable to me. It’s just a trace—it doesn’t mean the thing’s still here.” He pointed to a passage that sloped downward. “I say we keep heading down.”

With that, he walked over without waiting for input.

But something caught Saul’s eye. “Wait—!”

Before he could finish, Bill had already jumped into the passage.

As he fell, the tunnel walls suddenly began to close in.

He was about to be sliced in half—but instead of panicking, Bill looked thrilled.

Purple foam erupted from the skin on his arms and legs. Though it looked soft, it held firm against the narrowing passage.

He pressed his hands to the sides of the tunnel and launched upward. The foam wedged into the walls, and Bill leapt clear into the air.

Saul had no time to watch.

After the first passage turned hostile, the tunnel to his left suddenly tilted toward him.

The mountainside compressed like a massive suction cup, threatening to suck him in.

A powerful suction force pulled at him.

He raised a leg, bracing it against the lower wall, and flung a Strike Undead into the tunnel.

It convulsed violently—but the attack had limited effect.

Saul hadn’t expected it to do much—he was buying time.

He immediately cast Arrow Spell.

The suction amplified the arrow’s speed, and it shot into the tunnel almost instantly.

The passage shuddered, then spat out a glob of green slime.

But then—it expanded, swelling from less than a meter wide to nearly two meters, and its suction force doubled.

Saul couldn’t find footing. The tunnel now gaped wider than his whole body, and he was being dragged in.

Suddenly, a sharp spike erupted beneath his feet, driving into the rock ceiling.

Saul grabbed it, holding on for dear life.

His legs, suspended by the powerful suction, dangled in midair—only one arm kept him from being swallowed.

But his other arm was already casting.

As he chanted, translucent parasites appeared along his forearm.

He flung a few into the tunnel—they were instantly sucked in.

He had chosen Soul Borers as his first Tier 1 spell precisely because it could attack both body and soul—a rare trait among low-level spells.

It wasn’t instantly lethal, but its coverage was broad.

Within seconds, the tunnel shrank abruptly—and the suction disappeared.

Saul’s feet finally touched solid ground again.

(End of Chapter)

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