Chapter 167
Chapter 167
Castle Rules, Part Two, Rule Three: The portraits hanging in the castle corridors will occasionally change their expressions. If you discover that the figure in a portrait has disappeared completely, notify the One-Eyed Knight immediately, then proceed to the garden and stroke one of the heads decorating the flower beds.
Wei Sen was about to turn back toward the flower beds when, after only a few steps, she realized that Little Bear had vanished as well.
“Little Bear?”
Wei Sen looked around. Little Bear had been right beside her just a moment ago, but now was nowhere to be seen.
When no one answered, Wei Sen stopped lingering and headed back the way she had come.
But the corridor seemed endless. She walked for a long time without finding an exit.
Wei Sen took a marker out of her System Space, drew a tiny five-pointed star on the wall, and continued forward.
After walking for a while, she stopped. The same five-pointed star had appeared in the exact same place again!
She decided to stop walking altogether.
Whatever had vanished from the walls had trapped her here. She would never escape by blindly pressing forward.
Wei Sen studied the corridor. It was clearly straight, yet its end was nowhere in sight. The intricate patterns on the floor stretched endlessly ahead as though they had been copied and pasted.
She hurled the marker forward. A moment later, it rolled out from behind her.
This straight corridor had somehow looped back on itself in space. If she wanted to escape, she could go neither forward nor backward.
Wei Sen examined the walls, but after checking the entire corridor, she found no hidden doors or exits.
Under these circumstances, no Anomalous Artifact in her possession seemed capable of helping her either.
“Heh heh heh… Stay here. Keep us company…”
A cacophony of eerie voices suddenly filled the air. It sounded as if the gates of hell had cracked open, allowing countless vengeful souls and vicious ghosts to howl through the gap.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Wei Sen asked coldly.
“Heh heh heh… You’ll never get out… Never get out… You will remain here with us…”
Wei Sen swept her gaze across the paintings. All that remained in them were abstract lines. Yet at some point, a new frame had appeared between two of the paintings!
She stepped closer to inspect it. It was as if someone were painting with an invisible brush. Unnaturally vivid colors spread across the canvas, while black lines twisted and slithered like venomous snakes until they formed the shape of a person.
It was her.
Wei Sen narrowed her eyes. These damned things were trying to erode her mental power and trap her in this bizarre space forever!
There had to be a way out.
Using markers was pointless because there was no second path anywhere in this space.
Psychological suggestion?
That would not work either. This was the Eerie World, where creatures classified as Eerie Entity truly existed, rather than illusions caused by hypnosis.
If she wanted to escape, she needed to deduce the fundamental logic behind this place’s existence.
And the first breakthrough had to be these paintings!
Wei Sen ignored the portrait intended to disturb her and turned to examine the other paintings whose figures had disappeared.
Only patches of color and warped backgrounds remained inside them.
Wei Sen inspected them one by one. Every painting had a different background.
These backgrounds…
Human-Faced Flower Manor, a forest, and even a skyscraper?
Why were things from both reality and the Instance World appearing in this corridor?
There had to be some connection between each background and the person who had disappeared from its painting.
More importantly, who were the people in these paintings?
Why were such disturbing portraits hanging in Red Queen’s Castle?
A sudden realization flashed through Wei Sen’s mind.
The rules!
The rules stated that the portraits hanging in the castle corridors would occasionally change their expressions. If the figure in a portrait disappeared completely, they were to notify the One-Eyed Knight immediately, then proceed to the garden and stroke one of the heads decorating the flower beds.
Why did the disappearance of a person from a corridor portrait require them to find the One-Eyed Knight and then stroke one of the decorative heads in the flower beds?
The One-Eyed Knight could eliminate or suppress them, while the heads had to share some kind of connection with the people who disappeared from the paintings!
What if…
These paintings were not decorations at all, but trophies?
Every time the Red Queen chopped off someone’s head, another bizarre painting would appear in the corridor.
After all, she loved collecting heads so much that they were used as decorations throughout the castle. Clearly, she took immense pride in everything she had done.
Everyone who had been beheaded had become an Eerie Entity, trapped inside the paintings lining the corridor. Every so often, they would emerge to cause trouble.
The simplest way to keep them contained was to have the One-Eyed Knight suppress them, while the most direct solution had something to do with the heads in the flower bed.
Wei Sen now knew how to get out of this place.
“Stay with us…”
“You’ll never get out…”
“Heh heh heh…”
The voices around her grew increasingly clamorous.
Wei Sen remained calm. She summoned the Dragonslaying Sword and said, “I can kill the Red Queen for you.”
The corridor instantly fell silent.
“You have two choices. One, you trust me. Two, I use this sword to smash every frame in this corridor!”
If her deduction was correct, then all these people hated the Red Queen.
But they were powerless against her. As time passed, their hatred had shifted toward others. Trapped here themselves, they wanted more people to suffer the same fate.
They were like people who, frustrated with their own miserable lives, eventually lashed out at society.
As for the frames, they were probably only places of refuge, not the actual force imprisoning them.
What truly bound them here were their heads in the flower bed.
If she destroyed the frames in the corridor, these Eerie Entities would lose their only shelter in the castle. What awaited them afterward might be even worse than being displayed as trophies.
When the surrounding silence persisted, Wei Sen slowly raised her sword.
If her deduction was wrong, then this was her only option. She would use the sword in her hands to carve out a path of escape!
“Are you telling the truth?” An elderly man’s voice broke the silence.
“Of course. This sword exists to take her head,” Wei Sen said. “Tell me why you’re trapped here. Perhaps I can set you free.”
How could she pass up an opportunity to help others and earn Merit Points? It would hardly take any extra effort.
Judging by the voices, there had to be at least several dozen people here. If freeing them awarded her Merit Points for each one, the total would surely be substantial!
The man continued, “We… are all unfortunate souls. We came from different places. Some of us came from the forest, some from the manor, and others from different worlds. As for me, I was once the White Queen’s Knight.
“After the Red Queen cut off our heads, she drove long nails through them and pinned them in the flower bed. From that moment on, our souls were imprisoned in this castle forever.
“We had nowhere else to go, so we could only hide inside the frames…
“We did all this because we wanted to kill the Red Queen’s lackeys!
“But if you’re our ally, we can spare you.
“Still, how can you prove that you’re telling the truth?
“Can you really kill the Red Queen?
“That sword in your hand is the Dragonslaying Sword from the Red Queen’s private collection. How could she possibly give something like that to another person so easily?
“Unless… you’re the Red Queen’s newly appointed knight!”
“If I were her knight, I wouldn’t be wasting my breath talking to you.
“Besides, you said it yourself. The Red Queen would never hand the Dragonslaying Sword over to just anyone. Even after serving her loyally for so many years, the One-Eyed Knight never received it.
“Naturally, I couldn’t have obtained it without resorting to other means.
“After all, only this sword has the power to cut off her head as easily as she cut off yours. Isn’t that right?”
Wei Sen surveyed the corridor but still saw no one.
These beings probably had no physical forms.
“You have three seconds to decide. Three, two-”
Before Wei Sen could finish, the man’s voice rang out again. “Fine! I believe you!”
Wei Sen returned the Dragonslaying Sword to the System Space. “I’ll kill the Red Queen first. Then I’ll come back and deal with the heads in the flower bed.”
“Good, we have a deal!”
“All right.”
The moment she finished speaking, something suddenly threw itself against her leg.
“Alice!”
Wei Sen looked down and saw Little Bear. At the same time, every painting in the corridor returned to normal. The Eerie Entities had all withdrawn into their frames.