Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 2324: Chapter 2325: Mirror Grudge

Frode is so concerned with the abilities of the special undead because of Tullas.

Although he always complained about Tullas causing destruction when they were in Originheart City, as they spent more time together, he gradually understood Tullas. He’s just a slightly silly big boy, very pure-hearted. If Frode were still alive, he might mock him as an idiot, but since becoming a soul body, Frode has grown to like this kind of pure-hearted person more and more compared to unpredictable complex personalities.

Earlier, Angel mentioned there was a chance for Tullas to also learn soul tricks.

Since then, Frode has been attentive to it.

There are two mainstream methods for learning soul tricks. Adar and Shanni learn through death energy, which is relatively safe but tends to be mediocre.

The second method involves killing and absorbing special energy from the undead to assist in learning soul tricks.

This method, although risky, allows one to instantly master the tricks and the formed power is greater if the opponent’s special ability is substantial.

Frode himself mastered soul tricks by absorbing Lady Cilla, a special web-weaving undead.

The first method can be done at any time, so it can be set aside for now. The second method, if one can really encounter a special undead whose ability matches Tullas, is obviously better than the first.

That’s why Frode is very concerned about whether the farm owner’s ghost became a special undead, and what special abilities he would have if he is a special undead.

"Special undead are ordinarily hard to come by, I hope you are one of them..."

After discussing the current situation with Drue and arranging some backup plans, Drue hurriedly left.

Frode then took out the log-in device to enter the Wilderness of Dreams.

He intends to report the happenings here to Angel.

However, since sending messages to the tree group, three or four days have passed without any response from Angel.

Tullas went with Nis to the New City, and Frode could not ask Tullas for help in transmitting messages.

In recent days, Drue’s continuous messages revealed increasingly frequent ghost incidents at the foot of the mountain. Even with Royal Wizards patrolling nearby, over thirty people have been killed in the forest factory, and a significant number of people have witnessed the ghostly appearances.

Since turning into a soul, Frode has become attentive to soul matters and read many related books.

One such book, "Book of the Undead," mentions a lot of specifics about the undead, clearly stating: The undead naturally exude killing intent towards humans, but the premise is that humans must enter the undead’s territory. This indicates that the killing by undead is typically a passive counterattack.

The wood factory incident has already deviated somewhat from the descriptions in the "Book of the Undead."

The ghost has started actively searching for humans to kill and intentionally avoids tracking.

This clearly does not conform to the norm.

If the opposing ghost is truly the farm owner, why didn’t he first go up the mountain, but instead went to slaughter humans and evaded pursuit... It sounds strange.

Frode has a feeling that the opponent might be plotting something.

Due to the delay in receiving Angel’s reply and the urgent matter of the farm owner’s ghost, Frode had no choice but to temporarily leave all matters in Originheart City to the City Lord Monroe and arrange several members of the Sin Hunting Group for protection. Then he boarded a spacecraft alone heading to the New City, deciding to go directly to find Tullas.

During the flight to the New City, Frode was busy organizing the information sent by Drue.

He tried to use this information to decipher the abilities of the farm owner’s ghost and its plot.

"Case 1: Third team of Wood Factory carpenters, working at slope No. 509 in the East District. Encountered ghost attack during sunset while Returning Home. Dead: 4; Escaped: 0."

"Case 2: Carpenter group two from Wood Factory, performing rough processing on transported wood in the factory’s open area, attacked by a ghost in the afternoon. Dead: 11; Escaped: 1."

"Case 3: Wood Factory headquarters, attacked by ghosts during a meeting inside the factory. Dead: 5 (including two Knights’ Order members); Escaped: 6."

"Case 4: ..."

After reading more than a dozen cases at once, no useful clues were found from the cases themselves. It was only apparent that the opponent was unrestricted by time, unafraid of Sunshine, and the case locations covered an extensive area.

But when reading the oral recordings of escapees, Frode’s eyes slightly tightened.

The escapee from Case 2 was named David. He’s a carpenter apprentice, generally involved in rough processing of wood with colleagues.

On the day of the incident, David was doing the usual processing work. Although aware of several accidents recently, due to concealment from above, he only believed it was beasts killing people. The location they were at was an open area next to the factory, blocked off with plenty of fence iron mesh, preventing beast intrusion, so David wasn’t too worried about safety.

However, the development of events was beyond David’s imagination.

That day the sky was very dark, covered with thick black clouds, creating a repressing atmosphere as if rain was about to fall but it never did.

Even though it was afternoon, the leader of the carpenters’ second group lit a torch to guide others, urging them to hurry and store the roughly processed wood in the warehouse to avoid rain-drenched wood later.

David was not in a hurry because the wood he was processing was oily wood, which wouldn’t get wet. Storing in the warehouse might actually cause it to dry excessively and self-ignite.

He decided to finish the last bit of work and then pile the oily wood outside the warehouse.

David continued his processing for about a quarter of an hour, initially hearing the rustle of the crowd around, but as time went by, the sounds became sparse, and when David laid down his handiwork, the surroundings were already quiet.

"Leaving so quickly? What’s going on with John? Didn’t he agree to wait and have lunch together?" David mumbled to himself in complaint, not paying much attention, and carried his handiwork to the warehouse.

The warehouse door was open, inside was pitch black, nothing was visible, and a faint fishy smell emanated from within.

David didn’t think much of it at the time, because rats often appeared in the warehouse, so he let a few cats in to catch them. Cats do like to catch rats, but they don’t eat them, so there are often dead rats accumulated in the warehouse, creating the stink of rot.

Plus, now with the rain looming and the suffocating atmosphere adding to the pungency.

David piled the oily wood products outside the warehouse.

After completing all this, David suddenly felt his bladder swell.

The warehouse had a bathroom, and since the door was open, it was David’s first thought to relieve himself there. But when he arrived at the warehouse door, he instinctively stopped.

It was too dark inside, no light at all, which felt abnormal.

Normally, carpenters carrying roughly processed wooden goods would have a glass lantern, it wouldn’t be this dim.

"Maybe they rushed out?" David thought, but then he felt something was wrong; if they rushed out, why was the warehouse door left open?

Jon hesitated at the doorway for two or three seconds before retreating.

He always felt that the open warehouse door seemed like a dark giant mouth ready to devour him at any moment. This was the metaphor Jon used when giving his statement to the Royal Wizard Group. Maybe it was some kind of premonition, or perhaps some subconscious realization after learning the truth.

In any case, Jon did not enter the warehouse. However, he couldn’t ignore his physical needs, and according to factory rules, he couldn’t resolve it arbitrarily, so he decided to go to the restroom in the nearby Warehouse No. 2.

He went there because he saw the lights on in Warehouse No. 2.

Inside Warehouse No. 2, it was quite clean, and there was no smell. Jon hurried into the restroom, and after relieving himself, he noticed a large mirror facing the restroom door.

Jon spat into his palm and was about to smooth his hair and style it.

However, just as Jon was acting vain, he suddenly noticed the "Jon" in the mirror grinning eerily, a smile that Jon had never managed before, like a Joker in a circus.

The "Jon" in the mirror also drooped his eyes, as if flickering with a ghostly green light.

Jon was so terrified that he sat down directly on the ground.

And the "Jon" in the mirror smiled even more eerily, even leaning forward as if trying to grab the Jon outside the mirror.

Jon indeed felt as if a pair of hands reached out from the mirror and grabbed his ankle.

Perhaps it was a burst of crisis reaction, but at this critical moment, Jon instinctively picked up a small piece of wood beside him and smashed it into the mirror.

The mirror shattered into a web-like pattern, and the sensation of being grabbed at the ankle began to dissipate.

Jon quickly crawled up, shouting for help while running outside.

As he ran, Jon vaguely heard the sound of a mournful howl behind him, and a chilling wind swept from behind.

At the time, Jon dared not look back, only focused on running forward, wanting to escape Warehouse No. 2, but he found the warehouse door nearby, yet no matter how he ran, he couldn’t reach it.

Just when Jon thought he was definitely going to die this time, he heard a large, booming bell sound.

With the sound of the bell, all the gloomy winds around disappeared, and Jon himself felt his inner fear lessen, his heart tranquil.

Jon didn’t know what was happening, but the survival instinct urged him to immediately get up and rush towards the door.

This time, the warehouse door did not "retreat," and Jon successfully ran outside.

Not long after, Jon saw a wizard wearing a robe flying over on a broom.

The wizard glanced at Jon and told him not to move, then rushed into the warehouse. Warehouse No. 2 yielded no gains, but from Warehouse No. 1, the one Jon hadn’t entered, the wizard dragged out 11 terrifyingly dead bodies.

These 11 corpses were exactly all the members of Carpenter Group 2 besides Jon.

Witnessing this scene, Jon finally understood; the initial silence wasn’t his colleagues not talking, but they had unknowingly stepped into eternal darkness.

...

The last part of Jon’s spoken record had a red pen annotation.

This annotation explained the bell sound Jon heard.

It turned out that one of the Silver Heron Royal Wizard Group members was patrolling nearby when he heard Jon’s cries and sensed something was amiss, immediately ringing the "Copper Bell." The Copper Bell was an alchemical tool refined by Angel and given to Neya, capable of somewhat diminishing the negative effects brought by the undead.

It was precisely because of the Copper Bell that Jon was able to break free from his trapped state at that moment.

The Copper Bell’s effect lasted for a very short time, and Jon was very fortunate to seize the opportunity to rush out of the warehouse before the effect faded, encountering the wizard coming to the rescue.

Frode, after reading this escapee’s spoken record, felt a slight emotional stir.

He didn’t immediately proceed with analysis but continued reading several other spoken records, and after reading them, Frode fell into deep thought.

Jon’s encounter fit the general impression humans have of ghosts, unsolvable and terrifying.

However, this was only from a commoner’s perspective.

From Frode’s viewpoint, he didn’t care much about the manufactured horror atmosphere, as he could create it himself. What he cared about was the attack methods Jon suffered.

The "Jon" in the mirror exhibited strange transformation.

The "Jon" in the mirror directly pierced through the mirror, attacking the real-world Jon.

Through some means, Jon was trapped, unable to escape smoothly.

The three attack methods undoubtedly concealed the Special Undead’s special ability. Among them, the third method of trapping shares a significant similarity with Frode’s own skill, "Soul Blind."

Frode could also create a bizarre blind space, allowing one to see the exit but never reach it.

This is what Jon referred to as "ghost walls."

However, Frode’s Soul Blind could trap even top-tier Apprentices, and it’s challenging to break free even if Angel were present.

Yet, Jon was trapped by a method that was dispelled by a minuscule effect of a Copper Bell sound, clearly very weak, far from being worthy of the name "Soul Blind."

If the ability possessed by the attacker wasn’t Soul Blind, then what could it be?

Frode shifted his focus to the first two attack methods, both involving a medium: mirrors.

This reminded Frode of a Special Undead mentioned in the Book of the Undead—the Mirror Grudge.

The so-called Mirror Grudge is an undead that uses mirrors as a medium. This type of undead can quickly transfer through mirrors and can leverage the power of mirrors to trap a Soul in the Mirror World for confinement. It can be said that its presence is elusive; Wizards fighting it often unexpectedly find themselves overturned, and once trapped, it’s difficult to escape.

This method belongs to a specialized form of Soul Trick.

This Soul Trick is called—

Interference.