Lord of Mysterious Wizard-Chapter 547 - 505: Sanctuary

Divine Eagle New Calendar, October 19th.

Blue Deer City, compared to the dark and cold styled Messer City, this is a metropolis filled with pastoral charm, tranquility, and a perfect blending into nature. However, under the grand era of "Spiritual Tide Return," this place unavoidably gives birth to many mysterious events.

If one is wealthy or holds a higher social status, when encountering such events, they can obtain effective help and shelter through their own channels.

But there are other ordinary people who can only help themselves.

At this moment, a bus full of "seekers of help" is breaking through the morning fog, driving along an increasingly narrow road in the suburbs, heading towards the foot of Deer Mountain.

The passengers on the bus, roughly a dozen people.

Men and women, old and young, consisting of couples, families, or individuals, dressed in ordinary clothes, seemingly due to some reason, they do not pay much attention to personal image, their faces all show worried expressions, and fear lingers in their eyes.

Tang Qi is sitting at the back of the bus. In the eyes of the other passengers, he became a white-haired, poor old gentleman with an old but neatly pressed suit, a gray hat, and a luggage case that clearly exuded the aura of a luxury product.

He watches the fellow passengers, not needing to activate his Special Ability, and instantly recognizes the conditions of these people.

"Three pairs of couples all have the aura of ghosts, probably remnants from a certain mysterious event, with a faint scent of a curse. According to the rules of the Mysterious Side, the ghosts will come at some moment to take something from them, life or some object."

"A family of six, tainted with the scent of a Demon, but not strong. It’s likely a lower Level demon."

"Four different individuals, three people are scaring themselves, and the one remaining has a more serious problem, an obvious witchcraft mark, has he provoked an Evil Wizard?"

The passengers naturally do not know that the "old man" who joined halfway through has already seen through the vicissitudes on them in the blink of an eye.

Aside from those three men and women who had a false alarm, the rest have become "Contactors," meaning they’ve all been involved in different mysterious events. Although they have temporarily saved their lives, they are now remembered by ghosts, Demons, and Evil Wizards.

The reason they gathered on the bus is also clearly written on the poster stuck on the outside of the vehicle.

It was after seeing that poster that Tang Qi chose to forcibly join the ride.

It was a somewhat gaudy poster, filled with strange symbols and ancient symbolic markers, with an image of a person obviously cut from an old photograph at the center, an extremely decadent and weak middle-aged wizard with pitch black eye sockets, seemingly indulgent to excess.

"The sanctuary of the Mad Wizard?"

Tang Qi’s mind automatically conjured up the scene before boarding the bus, his face revealing a strange smile.

Especially when the bus, filled with a gloomy atmosphere, passes through the fog-laden suburban path and arrives in front of an old mansion deep in the forest, a huge sign out of place with the surrounding environment immediately enters into the sight of all passengers.

Clearly written on it are five big characters, with seemingly imitated textures surrounding the script.

Ralph’s House!

Seeing this name, plus the few words exchanged with the other passengers after boarding, Tang Qi completely understands what El’s family is up to nowadays.

As the last passenger to disembark from the bus, looking at the somewhat aged but still noble-presenting grey-white mansion before his eyes, his Special Ability silently activates, and several vague Information Fragments sporadically pop up.

[Curios: The mansion of the Mad Wizard.]

[State: Normal.]

[Information Fragment One: Once the residence of the Mad Wizard Ralph, where he created a large number of magical and peculiar witchcraft. Although Ralph couldn’t become a true Wizard due to the Spiritual Tide not returning, the mansion, tainted with Ralph’s aura, became a special place under the wash of the Spiritual Tide.]

[Information Fragment Two: The aura of Ralph allows the mansion to form an invisible Protective Shield, keeping at bay Chaotic Creatures like Witch Hunting Evil Spirits and Demons.]

[Information Fragment Three: Also due to Ralph’s aura, the mansion may attract some special creatures, generally harmless ones.]

...

"Should I say as expected of Ralph’s descendant? Even though he didn’t learn Ralph’s witchcraft, knowing that Ralph’s leftover mansion has a Shocking effect on creatures like Evil Spirits, he decisively utilized it to start a Sanctuary?"

"Very genius, but also a very suicidal idea. I wonder what the charging standard is?"

Tang Qi smiled, then followed the crowd towards El Ralph and his wife Talia, who were standing in front of the mansion, whom he hadn’t seen for some time.

On the first meeting, just like the passengers in the bus, they were panicked and afraid due to being pursued by a "Witch Hunting Evil Spirit" and in order to protect their own family, El even tried to fight desperately.

Now, the two of them have a completely different demeanor.

Especially El Ralph, who wore a proper shirt and a comfortable sweater, his eyes calm, his curly hair well-groomed, and his lips seemed to always carry a faint smile, exuding a reassuring and trustworthy presence.

"Hm?"

But as Tang Qi’s gaze swept over, automatically capturing the content of the Information Fragments attached to him, a hint of surprise immediately arose.

"Extraordinary Creatures: Offspring of wizards, possessing pure wizard bloodlines, yet for some enigmatic reason, the bloodline’s essence within him is waning... He remains the son of Ralph, but his likelihood of inheriting Ralph’s witchcraft talent is rapidly diminishing."

"Bloodline waning?"

Tang Qi immediately furrowed his brows; this was an utterly unexpected development.

The so-called "bloodline waning" wasn’t uncommon in the Mysterious Side.

But it usually happens because, as descendants repeatedly marry outsiders, the purity of the bloodline is diluted.

For the son of a wizard, direct devolution of this sort is extremely rare.

Tang Qi’s mind was swiftly flooded with the materials he’d read; this type of case was rare, but not nonexistent. He tried to guess which one it might be?

"Let’s see if his daughter Sarah and that little boy are experiencing something similar?"

While Tang Qi pondered, that line of anxious and frightened travelers had already, clutching their bags and luggage of all sizes, approached Mr. and Mrs. El.

One of the couples, a muscular young man with blonde hair, wrapped his arm around his haggard girlfriend, asking half nervously and half doubtfully, "Sir, is this place really capable of warding off evil spirits?"

"We must be honest with you, we have indeed seen an evil spirit, it’s a vicious murderer, it has already killed eight of our companions, the police didn’t believe us, but I swear on my grandmother’s name, everything I’ve said is true."

"If you really can help us, we are willing to pay whatever it takes, but if it’s not going to work, and you’re just after our money, we don’t want to involve you..."

The young man spoke quickly and somewhat chaotically, obviously under tremendous pressure. As he spoke and became more agitated, his bare arms began to exhibit strange and terrifying changes.

Red lines appeared out of nowhere, slowly taking the shape of a skull, with two crossed machetes below it, a dreadful malevolence seeping out, causing the temperature in the surrounding area to plummet suddenly. The unexpected turn of events made the couples scream in terror.

The blonde youth seemed to be enduring pain, he pointed at his arm, and uttered in horror, "It’s—It’s coming!"

From composed to out of control, in less than a second.

The young man hadn’t become hysterical, probably because he had already witnessed the evil spirit committing murder.

But that only lasted for a few seconds, because as the mark became more distinct.

A chilling gust, with a cold enough to freeze the marrow, suddenly swept through, sending leaves and mist swirling upward, obscuring the warm morning sunlight. It was at this moment, a nihility figure abruptly appeared within the shadows of the dense forest.

He wore clothes so rotted they were indistinguishable in style and era, lacking flesh and blood, only a skeleton wrapped in foul-smelling sludge and maggots, each hand gripping a machete, within his dark, hollow eye sockets, a dim green flame was slowly rising.

The skeleton’s mouth slowly opened, exhaling putrid mist, forming invisible chains that entwined towards the three couples.

A hoarse voice, carrying a chill that seeped into their bloodstreams, pierced into everyone’s ears:

"You... won’t escape!"

In an instant, including the three couples, all were petrified on the spot, their bodies trembling insanely, as if wanting to scream, but no sound could be made when it came to their lips.

They stood like statues, waiting for the evil spirit to approach step by step, swinging its machetes to decapitate them.

Tang Qi did not intervene, but turned his gaze to El.

He wanted to see how the Son of Ralph, whose "wizard talent" was ebbing away, would handle the situation before him.

Just as his gaze shifted there, El abruptly stepped forward, grabbing the frozen blonde youth, while shouting in a low voice to the others who were petrified with fright, "Follow me, evil spirits cannot invade Ralph’s House."

"Huuh"

With his grasp, not only did he rouse the blonde youth, but it was as though everyone woke from a dream, staggering as they followed the couple into the villa.

It was at this moment, the "evil spirit" that lurked within the dense forest fell into a rage at the interference of outsiders. The entire figure turned into foul-smelling gas, bringing forth a smoke that obscured the sunlight, and surged towards them with terrifying speed.

The grotesque skull emerged first, followed by the blood-stained, rust-covered machetes slashing towards the crowd.

But just as it stepped into the villa’s inner area, red flames erupted from the previously empty space.

"Boom!"

The flames, carrying a peculiar trait, instantly ignited the evil spirit’s body. Despite the slow progression of the ensuing burn, it nevertheless inflicted severe agony on the evil spirit. He howled and shrieked and eventually had no choice but to swing his machetes, severing most of his body, only then escaping the flames.

Reverting into foul-smelling vapor, he burrowed into the ground, vanishing in an instant.

Tang Qi followed behind everyone nonchalantly, completely ignoring the machete that was originally poised to strike his head.

His eyes first landed on the abruptly erupting flames, then concentrated on the ancestral villa of the Ralph family, a hint of astonishment flashing by.

"Because it has been imbued with the aura of Ralph, it has transformed into a large-scale Curios, and even potentialized certain witchcraft such as the Flame Spell... indeed, it’s a safe Sanctuary."