Stumbling backward out of the white mist door, Xia De gasped for air as he gazed at the ancient stone gate towering before him. The terrifying wind of death blowing from the stone gate instantly sobered him up: “This is bad! It’s almost dawn!”
Without time to think, he bent down to pick up his belongings from the ground, and after confirming that he hadn’t left anything behind, he immediately rushed out along the passage.
Inside the church, he didn’t encounter any obstacles. Even the soul of the church’s Ring術士, who was standing at the church entrance with his arms crossed, congratulated him on successfully rescuing his companion.
Running out of the church and onto the street filled with white mist, Xia De stopped after only a few steps.
In reality, the Natural Church and the Dawn Church are both on Saint Carla Avenue, but at opposite ends of the street. However, on Saint Carla Avenue in Between Life and Death at this moment, dozens of evil spirits were patrolling in the eerie mist, and then they suddenly noticed Xia De.
“Damn it, why are there so many evil spirits… Wait, could it be that my use of Mystic Lock behind the door just now also had a feedback effect in Between Life and Death and reality?”
Without time to think, those terrifying-faced evil spirits had already swept over, silently surging with white mist. They were almost integrated with the white mist, as if a tide of mist and ghosts were rushing over together.
If it were in the outside world, the bursting Silver Moonlight or even Felianna's Witch Light could severely injure all of them, but to avoid attracting more attention, Xia De couldn’t do that.
“There are too many, and I can’t use 【Silver Moon Slash】 for close combat. There’s not enough time.”
Thinking to himself, he took a step back and sharply drew a horizontal line in front of him with his right hand. A silver light streak parallel to the ground immediately flew out, but it only repelled the tall man at the very front who looked like he had been cut in half, with his upper and lower body able to separate and attack individually, as well as the noble evil spirit holding his own head and dragging hundreds of other heads behind him.
“The instant 【Silver Moon Slash】 isn’t powerful enough.”
Xia De continued to retreat, while simultaneously drawing a crossed X in front of him with both arms. The light streak remained in the air, and Xia De bent slightly before thrusting a punch forward. The crossed light streak immediately flew out, but due to the long casting time, all the evil spirits easily dodged the attack.
“It seems the power is enough, but the speed isn’t fast enough.”
“What will you do? Use Mind Blast to repel an entire street of evil spirits with one punch?”
“She” asked with a light laugh.
Xia De’s power wasn’t that strong in the real world, but in Between Life and Death, a world that highlights soul power, he could indeed do it by using eighty percent of his current spirit. However, he still had a long way to go, and Xia De couldn’t fall into a predicament of power depletion again.
“I have another move that’s both fast and fierce.”
Seeing the terrifying spiritual entities sweeping towards him, already close at hand, Xia De closed his eyes, took a deep breath, meditated on the silver moon in his mind, and at the same time tried to grasp the further insights into the moon he gained when he drank “Moon Wine.”
Stopping his retreat, Xia De spread his arms—
Clap!
His arms extended straight in front of him, and his hands clapped together sharply:
“Moonlight—”
the moment he opened his eyes, countless pale arms were already reaching out from the white mist in front of him, scrambling for Xia De’s head:
“—Slash!”
His two hands sharply separated, moving to the upper left and lower right respectively. As his hands separated, a dazzling arc of light was pulled between his palms. Due to the trajectory of his hands, the light streak was convex in the middle and trailed behind at the end, flying out almost the instant his arms were fully extended.
A lingering afterimage remained in the white mist. The arc of light, almost in the next instant, cut all the evil spirits accumulated in front of him into two halves, then flew into the depths of the white mist. The cuts on the spiritual bodies glowed with brilliant Moonlight, and after a silent second, the “last words” of the souls rose and fell:
“If I could just get home in time.”
“I want to live another hundred years.”
“Actually, I didn’t lose, he did.”
“Forgive me.”
“The terror beneath the ground is unimaginable to mortals.”
As these chaotic voices sounded, Xia De smiled and looked at his hands:
“At Ring 1, I learned 【Moonlight Slash】, which is weaker but requires no casting time; at Ring 2, I learned to make the light streak linger and then strike, which is powerful but has a long casting time; at Ring 3, I mastered the method of pulling a light arc with two palms, which has medium power and medium casting time. Perhaps this Miracle is the most suitable for me. If there’s a change with each Ring, even if it’s not a fundamental change like 【Blood Echo】, this Miracle is enough for me.”
“There’s not enough time.”
“Oh! Let’s go!”
In Between Life and Death, the sky was covered by eerie white mist, obscuring stars, sun, and moon. But at this moment, Middlesburg had reached the last moment before dawn. Xia De, who was rapidly advancing using 【Raglai's Leap】 and 【Frog's Leap】, had already shattered countless evil spirits along the way, and when he entered the courtyard of Russell Manor, only half a minute remained until dawn.
“I’ll make it, I’ll make it!”
The arrival of dawn in the material world seemed to suppress Between Life and Death. The white mist was thinning, greatly increasing visibility.
Xia De didn’t even have time to use the main entrance; he directly broke through the corridor window of the dilapidated manor and then ran forward along the corridor.
When he turned into the deepest corridor of the manor, due to the temporal mismatch between the two spaces, what was just half a minute ago was now less than five seconds.
He lunged forward, directly crashing into the decaying wooden door at the end of the corridor. Behind the door was the normal world. But even if he could cross space, time in the normal world was still rapidly passing.
Xia De crossed ten meters in one step, his hand about to touch the wooden door, but it seemed he was still a bit late.
“No choice, I can only use Raglai's Leap twice in a row!”
Doing so would very likely attract those terrifying things that live in the spatial rifts, but Xia De couldn’t care less at this moment.
However, before he could make another spatial leap, the tightly closed, decaying wooden door actually opened on its own, and then an old hand stretched out like stretched-out playdough, grabbing Xia De’s right hand and pulling him sharply. At the last moment, Xia De was pulled directly into the door connecting the two worlds from a position 15 feet away from it.
The burning thin line on his right hand completely turned to Ashes, the last spark floating in the empty corridor.
“Oh!”
Xia De, who had passed through that door, had already fallen heavily into the corridor of Russell Manor, rolling a few times to dissipate the immense impact. Looking up, there was no one in sight, and the interior of Russell Manor had returned to its normal state. As for the black vortex on the wall behind him that connected to Between Life and Death, it had also disappeared.
“I succeeded.”
Leaning against the wall, he slowly stood up, only then feeling the fatigue of a sleepless night. Returning to reality allowed his numb body to regain normal sensations. As warmth surged, Xia De also felt truly exhausted.
Not only had he not slept all night, but he had truly stepped into death and faced the blood-ssucking saint again. Even though everything was over, the mental pressure, once his taut nerves relaxed, could not be relieved so easily.
Yawning and fighting off sleepiness, he walked out of the manor house, wanting to properly thank Sister Devlin and the Spiritual Cultivation Order for their help. At this moment, the bonfire in the courtyard had already extinguished under the eastern sky, leaving only extremely faint embers still radiating heat on the charred wood.
The sisters and Priests of the Order were also pouring into the building, preparing to clear away the traces of the ritual inside. Sister Devlin still stood before the bonfire, but now an old woman stood beside her.
She had a full head of silver hair, but her face was still healthy. Although the wrinkles on her face could no longer be hidden, her eyes were still so bright and expressive.
She wore a very old-fashioned black dress, like a style from half a century ago, and a black wide-brimmed hat adorned with a large white artificial flower.
Xia De abruptly stopped at the manor’s entrance and then put his hand into his right pocket. Returning from the past, he hadn’t had time to put the pendant around his neck, so he had simply stuffed it into his pocket.
It was also for this reason that his skin wasn’t directly against the pendant that could sense a Witch. Only at this moment, when the heat was strong enough to affect his waist through his outer garment and shirt, did he realize who the old woman standing before him was.
The other party nodded and smiled at him, her face showing a benevolent expression, seemingly without malice. Xia De hesitated for a moment, then continued forward, passing the blind sisters of the Order, and came before the gray-haired Sister Devlin and the Old Witch:
“Sister Devlin, I encountered some unexpected events inside, but Priest Augustus has been rescued. Not only the Priest, but also most of the people who went missing this autumn. They should now be scattered in Sicar Mountain. Someone helped us, a person with wings. I think there should have been strange phenomena in the Sicar Mountain area in the real world just now…”
After reporting his fabricated “facts” in detail to the sister, Xia De bowed slightly to the old woman:
“Hello, Ms. Cassandra, thank you for pulling me just now.”
The hand that pulled Xia De out of Between Life and Death should have belonged to this Witch.
“Good morning, Mr. Hamilton.”
The Witch directly called out the Outsider’s surname in this world, while the sister beside her showed no reaction.
The old woman kindly scrutinized Xia De:
“You’re right, something did happen just now. I think someone must have used a Mystic Lock deep within Between Life and Death, but that also helped you. It seems you have really good luck.”
Although old, the details of her face still revealed what kind of grace she possessed in her youth:
“Actually, before I met you, I still had some doubts about what Jialinna said.”
“Did Miss Jialinna ask you to help me?”
Xia De asked, seeing that the Witch before him seemed to bear him no ill will.
“Oh, yes. Yesterday, Devlin told me that Jialinna’s friend came to her for help, and even wanted to personally enter Between Life and Death. It just so happened that I met Jialinna at the council last night, so I mentioned this to her.”
Xia De could imagine the Duchess’s astonishment and shock at the time. Xia De hadn’t told her before acting, also because Miss Jialinna definitely wouldn’t agree to him doing such a thing. After all, the Red-haired Witch didn’t care whether Priest Augustus lived or died.
“Some time ago, I heard rumors that the Duchess of Saladill danced with a lucky man from Tobesk at the Queen’s birthday banquet. At the time, I thought she had her maid dress up as a man to cover up some facts and quell bad rumors, but I never expected it to be true.”
