The unforeseen event did not throw them off guard. They immediately clenched their weapons and wielded their spells. They then ran out of the house, only to see a strange sight greeting them outside.
A huge, translucent barrier was shrouding the house. It was an energy shield-like cover with magic runes on it. Fog was gathering above, spinning and compressing into a fluid-like substance and forming an energy barrier. The barrier was blocking their way out in all directions. Lily immediately drew her Frostfire Claws about to dig her way out. Nangong Sanba stopped her. "Don't do that! Let's first figure out what this thing is."
"We are trapped," Hessiana's face did not look good. "It's a trap!"
Hao Ren was stunned for a moment. He then rummaged through his dimensional pocket trying to find something useful. But before he could find anything, something began to appear outside the translucent barrier. The fog rolled up as a whirlwind of black smoke formed. The black smoke was pulling even more black smoke from the surroundings and quickly forming a human figure. It was Heimerwin, the seigneur who had crumbled into a pile of ashes in the house just a while ago.
However, this man now looked very different from the timid Heimerwin. He was standing straight with a strange sceptre in his hand, his expression cold as he stood outside the barrier as if he was examining his subjects of experiment. "Do you know how long I have waited?"
Nangong Sanba raised his crossbow and aimed it straight at him. "Heimerwin, what do you mean?"
"Just collecting the necessary power for my gate," this Heimerwin said with a blank expression. At the same time, he pointed to the magic barrier. "My advice to you is don't try to do stupid thing. It contains the hundreds of years of my power. Its power is enough to trap any ancient god of Mythological Era in an instant. You have no way to escape; the most sensible thing to do is calm down and wait for your power to be sucked out. It won't be very painful if you do not resist."
As the voice of 'Heimerwin' trailed off, the magic barrier above them began to make a buzzing sound, and the white runes flowed in a complicated pattern; it was beginning to extract all the power of the souls inside the barrier. Hao Ren began to notice the weeds under his feet turned into ashes rapidly. Even the big house behind them was squeaking loudly. Nangong Sanba and Kassandra were the first to feel dizzy and power draining from their bodies.
Hessiana finally came to her senses. She held up her whip and pointed straight at 'Heimerwin'. "You are not a seigneur! You are Baptiste!"
The man outside the barrier nodded in a blank expression. "What took you so long? Was it so hard to guess, vampire girl?"
Hao Ren suddenly began to put two and two together. They were fooled right from the beginning!
The man before him was not a ghost of the seigneur. He was actually Baptiste, the witch they were looking for. He cast a necromantic spell and transformed himself into ashes, half-human half-ghost monster. He had completely erased the magic erosion mark left behind on the body of a wizard. Everything he said before was a lie. His ultimate purpose was to lure them to this abandoned house on the high ground.
He had set up a black magic circle that could extract the power of the living!
Hao Ren began to realise the timidity, awkwardness, neurotic and hysterical reactions of Heimerwin earlier were a disguise. The wizard wanted to divert their attention. He pretended to be a bumpkin nobility so that no one would be suspicious of him and asking him too many questions!
"I have been waiting for a long time!" Baptiste seemed to believe that the people inside the barrier were no more than sitting ducks. He began to talk to himself while waiting for this magic circle to draw their powers. "I left so many clues behind just for people like you. Aha, it's hard to get experimental material with magic power. The strength I could extract from a hundred commoners is not as great as that a magician could provide. Today I have more than one! I have been preparing for this for so long, I've been preparing for this so long! And, now I am finally going to get the last bit of magic that I've been so lacking... I can finally go deeper into Inferno!"
Baptiste seemed to have immersed himself in some kind of frantic imagination. Living alone in this ghostly place for hundreds of years had turned him mad. He spoke to himself and waved his weird sceptre in his hand, his expression was switching forth and back from deadpan to crazy. Amid all these, Hao Ren saw something emerged in the thick fog just a few metres away from him.
The silky fog was flowing in the air as water in the river. It turned into a huge vortex under the influence of magic as red light emerged within and gradually formed a huge sphere. The sphere was like a huge eyeball of a few metres in radius, embedded on the surface of the earth. Inside the smoky sphere, a twisted landscape was looming.
It was Infernal Gate. Baptiste had actually found the connection between the infernal dimension and the Earth, everything happened just as planned; as enough magic power was gathered, the Infernal Gate began to emerge in the heart of the magic vortex!
It seemed long-winded, but it all actually happened in a very short time. Hessiana immediately launched her attack on the magic barrier. She raised her long whip, which was shrouded by an intense icy wind and electric arcs. She whipped it on the magic barrier with a thunderous sound, but the barrier stood still without a scratch. Turcan and Kassandra also unleashed their attacks on the magic barrier, but still, it did not move an inch.
But Baptiste's sceptre flashed a few times when the barrier was attacked. He glanced at Hessiana indifferently. "Resistance is futile. You're only wasting your strength."
"Do you know who you are talking to? If I told you who I am you will pee in your pant!" Hessiana lashed out, and then looked to Hao Ren. "Aren't you always resourceful? Please come out with something!"
Hao Ren reached into his dimensional pocket again looking for a bomb. But before he could took anything out, Lily already went up before the barrier.
The husky first scratched the barrier with her claws. After knowing that her claws were not going to defeat the barrier, she did the unexpected.
She sprawled on the ground and dug...
The boring ability of the maiden was well known to many. She could dig up a hole barehanded and bury herself in it the blink of an eye, not to mention she had two claws now. As she dug, earth and rocks were thrown up backward like a fountain behind her. And, she had bored through a hole under the barrier in just a few seconds.
Yes, that was how she got out.
Meanwhile, Baptiste was still holding his sceptre in his hand like Statue of Liberty. It was not that he did not notice Lily, even if he had, he would be still rooted to the spot like now. Any normal person would react the same way as he did when they first saw the husky. The evil wizard watched as Lily got out from the hole. He could not stop her because he was never prepared for this.
Lily sashayed up to Baptiste, grabbed the sceptre from his hand, and said, "Your magic barrier didn't reach into the ground, idiot."
Batiste was stunned. "I have never seen one that could bore hole..."
Lily pursed her lips and broke the sceptre in half. The magic barrier immediately dimmed before disappeared completely. Hessiana surged in anger as she strutted towards Baptiste. At this moment, the unexpected happened.
Baptiste let out a creepy sound and lunged towards the Infernal Gate!