Really escaped!
A sliver of light emerged.
Shawn looked up, and in the gray mist, he saw an incredibly desolate and decayed apocalyptic scene. The earth was covered with festering sores, a dark purple viscous substance like asphalt, stretching to the horizon.
Everything before him was corroded by decay, almost no normal vegetation could be seen, even the mountains were shadowy like phantoms. Ahead, there was only the ghostly forest growing in flesh and blood moss, with gray-white trunks bent at ninety degrees, their bare branches twisting into grotesque shapes, like silhouettes of people crawling on the ground.
And at the edge of his vision, in the haze of the gray fog, there were enormous, distorted slender black shadows, wandering in the endless mist, appearing indistinct like reflections in the fog.
Their figures changed, not like real creatures, but like two-dimensional reflections.
The Butcher didn't deceive him!
Without hesitation, Shawn drew his gun and aimed it at Lorice in front of him.
Because after seeing the apocalyptic scene ahead, she showed not even a trace of surprise, as if she had already known all this, and even she gave a strange smile.
Then the next second.
Shawn suddenly couldn't move.
——Human Immobilization Technique!
He was fixed in place.
Lorice's once sweet smile twisted all at once, her pretty face revealing a hint of wickedness and madness, her gaze hauntingly fixated on Shawn before her, a playful expression: "I didn't expect you'd react as soon as you escaped."
Shawn's body was immobilized.
Lorice's strength surpassed Shawn's, and she seemed very familiar with everything here, as she had laid out a strange ritual on the ground.
A black sun badge.
Lorice reached out and touched Shawn, and the feeling of paralysis spread quickly, immobilizing him entirely.
"You... deceived me..."
After being paralyzed, while Shawn couldn't move, he could barely speak, though with great difficulty.
An Invisible Hand stretched out quietly, as if Lorice was unaware of it.
"Yes." Lorice turned her head, her once pretty and cute face now tinged with madness and ferocity, blood and dust smeared on her face, just as disheveled.
But at this moment, her expression was filled with excitement, so much so that her face twisted. She drew out a strange Ritual Dagger, a bizarre glow moving over it, her voice gradually becoming sharp: "But I wasn't wrong, this place really is full of monsters. They too are monsters, completely untrustworthy."
Shawn struggled to speak: "What do you want to do?"
Did Lorice do all this just to lure him out and kill him?
With her strength, she didn't need to go to such lengths.
Besides, it felt as if everything had been orchestrated.
Their escape had been too smooth.
And that dagger, why did it seem so familiar?
In a place Lorice couldn't see, the corner of Shawn's clothes moved slightly, the Invisible Hand poised, he had another gun hidden at the small of his back.
Less than three meters away, a shot could blow her head off.
"A ritual." Lorice turned around, her expression growing more bizarre, destroying her once pretty features, like a frenzied human-shaped puppet. Her voice became increasingly shrill, revealing her thoughts: "A deception, a betrayal, a murder."
"A blood sacrifice ceremony for my master, to please my master."
"Although it's a bit hasty, you are the best sacrifice."
"Hahaha!"
"They weren't wrong about one thing, you can't escape this haunted place!"
Lorice's appearance became increasingly bizarre and terrifying, even she wasn't aware, her face fanatical and ferocious, her smile hoarse and insane, her once lively eyes turned pitch-black, her skin gradually drying up bit by bit, transforming from a pretty maiden into a bizarre humanoid withered corpse.
"The only way to escape is to use you as a sacrifice."
"A rare soul from the Otherworld, enough to complete the blood sacrifice, summon the Divine Kingdom Gate, bring forth my master's Otherworld Divine Envoy!"
"This could make my master aware of the existence of this eerie world!"
"Only then will I have a chance to escape."
Lorice picked up the peculiar Ritual Dagger. Shawn had seen a dagger just like it before.
Someone had once advised him to use this dagger to set himself free.
But now Lorice held it in her hand, and Shawn seemed to understand something.
This all felt like a setup, but it seemed Shawn wasn't the one ensnared.
He felt like bait.
Lorice gripped the dagger tightly, her laughter growing more deranged.
Then.
She raised the dagger and thrust it fiercely into her own heart!
As her body felt the sharp pain, she suddenly seemed to awaken, her face filled with shock and horror, mumbling: "Impossible! This is impossible!"
"I was supposed to stab it into your heart!"
"No!"
"My lord! The great omniscient lord! Master of deception, conspiracy, betrayal, murder, the lord of the dark sun!"
"Save me!..."
The black dark sun ritual formation on the ground transformed into boiling black sludge, eerie purple flames rose, igniting the ritual runes representing deception, betrayal, and murder.
The sludge and purple fire spread along Lorice's body, her expression was indescribable, her mind completely deranged, as if she couldn't feel the erosion of it all, her flesh began to dry and decay, skin peeling off bit by bit, exposing dark red muscle tissue. She screamed madly, "No!...It shouldn't have turned out this way!..."
"My lord!"
"The great dark sun!"
"I offer this world to you!...This is a realm unknown to the other gods!..."
"You will become the one true god of this world!!!..."
Lorice's voice grew more and more hoarse.
"And I shall ascend to become the dark sun...angel..."
The black sludge, like a living creature, completely submerged Lorice's body, pouring into her eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. She knelt at the center of the ritual, crazily stretching out an arm, as if trying to grasp something.
"My lord..."
Lorice's spirit seemed to have completely collapsed now, her body began to transform, struggling, colliding, limbs twisted, skin seeming to writhe with countless maggots. In just a few seconds, only a head remained unchanged, but it no longer retained its original beauty.
Boom!
An indescribable monstrous blob of flesh exploded out, bloated and spreading in all directions.
At that moment in the sky, with Lorice's complete death, an enormous glowing gate opened, Shawn saw the angel outline slowly emerge; black feathers, full body armor, holding a long sword burning with a black scorching sun.
The divine envoy from the Otherworld that Lorice spoke of descended.
It truly was an angel.
But before Shawn could clearly see the form of the black angel, the next moment something surged in the rolling gray mist, the angel in midair emitted an unbelievably shrill wail, soon the black armor began to flake away, feathers and flesh scattered in the sky, the wail gradually turned into eerie whispers, a pair of magnificent angel wings turned into bare bones, indescribable flesh spread along the bony wings, its body twisted and transformed, its head resembling a vulture, feet morphing into bird-like grotesque claws.
Woo-woo-woo!
A strange baby-like crying sound emerged, suggesting something extremely terrifying was descending within the gray mist.
Shawn saw countless flesh tentacles entwining within the gray mist, looking like intestines, or umbilical cords, a vague silhouette emerged, appearing hunched, with grayish skin, a wrinkled body, a swollen belly with a long umbilical cord trailing behind, extending and entwining to form three pairs of bizarre angel wings resembling floating seaweed.
A chilling chewing sound rang out!
The celestial divine envoy that Lorice summoned was grabbed and chewed, while the gray hunchbacked figure cried, gradually merging into the deepest part of the mist.
"My lord...save me..."
Lorice's body had turned into a grotesquely swollen monster of indescribable flesh, inching towards Shawn's position. Even the only remaining face on Lorice grew hollow, resembling a faceless mask, whispering softly as it hung on the writhing flesh.
"Still holding onto hope?"
A towering and robust figure appeared before Shawn at an unknown time, uncertain whether speaking to Lorice or Shawn.
The Butcher.
He turned to look at Shawn, who was still immobilized, slowly drew the Bone Knife, accompanied by a gleaming flash, splitting Lorice's twisted, indescribable corpse in two, even shattering the hollow mask-like face.
Shawn fully regained his senses.
He saw the Butcher, saw the exquisite doll-like beautiful girl he met initially, standing atop the high wall, playing with a doll resembling Lorice, her silver-white hair wildly dancing in the brisk cold wind.
Shawn got up, breathing heavily, "You knew from the start?"
The Butcher sheathed his knife.
He looked at Shawn significantly, calmly saying, "You knew we already knew, didn't you?"
Shawn suddenly fell silent.
He's now certain that he truly mattered to them.
Lorice believed Shawn was her sacrifice, but she didn't know she herself was someone else's sacrifice.
Here, the only one showing him a shred of goodwill seemed to be the Butcher.
Shawn even suspected someone here wanted to eliminate the Otherworld soul through some 'reasonable means'.
"Why didn't you stop her?" Shawn softly asked.
The Butcher didn't look back, heading towards the high wall, calmly said, "We gave her a chance, but she chose her own fate. She preferred believing in the god she served."
"Unwilling to accept reality, she could only be engulfed by illusions."
On top of the high wall.
The doll-like delicate girl leapt down from the hundred-meter-high wall, her eyes scanning past Shawn, gently raising a hand. Her silver-white hair flew, a cold glint appeared in her fair hand, a peculiar ritual dagger flew into her palm from Lorice's exploded indescribable flesh.
The girl turned and left, and in the moment of passing by, softly said, "It's called [Return to Death]."
"To help the Otherworld soul find peace."
Shawn felt a chill.
.........