bookbashuk Chapter 3482 The Evil Creature of Leeches
Chapter 3482 The Evil Creature of Leeches
Chapter 3482 The Evil Creature of Leeches
"Of course, I'm very good at keeping secrets."
Shad was quite certain that Miss Novare's "beak growing from her right hand" wasn't some vampire technique, but rather some kind of extremely dangerous power. However, he wasn't foolish enough to point it out now; he simply confirmed his suspicions once again.
"It seems that the guests we need to select for this mission are indeed three companions."
However, at least Miss Novares seemed normal now. The "Eye Demon" stopped moving, and after discussing it, the two decided to risk sending it back to the room corresponding to the number displayed above its head.
They certainly wouldn't go inside; they simply tossed the monster in. As Shad closed the door, a key clattered to his feet. He quickly picked it up and locked the door from the inside. Only then did he notice the house number written on the key handle; he and Miss Novare both knew what it meant.
They returned to the door of room 0300, and this time, opening the door went smoothly. Shad even had time to try both keys in his hand, but as expected, only the key in the mummified corpse's hand could open the door successfully.
The door was opened smoothly, but behind it was not a room, but an elevator blocked by a fence. The elevator itself looked like the iron cages commonly used to confine animals in zoos, except that there was a step button in the center of the bottom—a classic design.
The two pushed open the gate and went straight inside. The light from their lamps was strictly confined inside the fence, illuminating nothing outside.
The door and the gate were closed one after the other, and as Shad was about to press the button, he realized a serious problem:
"Wait, why doesn't this elevator have a button to select a floor?"
The instant the thought formed, information flooded their minds, and the two simultaneously understood how to use the elevator. The elevator could be used to go to any floor that had already been reached. After saying the floor number, stepping on the button would take it off, and regardless of the interval between the destination and the starting floor, the elevator would run for a fixed 30 seconds.
"I want to go to the tenth floor."
Miss Novare then called out, and her little black shoes stepped into the center of the elevator. With a buzzing vibration, both of them felt the elevator rising.
The buzzing sound made Xia De, who had just gotten used to the silence of the corridor, feel a little uncomfortable. He reached out and touched his wound, and then realized that in the few short minutes that he had forgotten he was also injured, the superficial wounds had almost healed.
The moonlight flashed by, burning the body and completely expelling the remaining power of the evil entity.
Miss Novare watched silently as Shad healed himself. Only after the elevator shook again and then stabilized, and the two had returned to the tenth floor where they had started, did she speak again:
"Okay, I lied to you just now. I didn't use any vampire secret techniques."
Xia De looked at her with some surprise:
"I know it's not true, but why say it out loud?"
The red-haired girl gripped her left arm with her right hand; her eyes were black.
"When the elevator was running just now, I thought about it carefully again, and I realized that it's absolutely impossible for me to leave here safely on my own. You've shown me your strength, and I admit that you seem to be more skilled with a sword than Joanna, a professional hunter."
I need to rely on your strength, so I must treat you sincerely; this is also the way to conduct oneself in society.
Neither of them made a move to open the gate. Miss Novare showed her right arm and then revealed that cold mouth again in her palm.
"This is not my power, but a result of my research. I once searched alone for the whereabouts of the infamous and dangerous evil creature from the end of the Fourth Era—the Leech Queen—and finally found it at the very bottom of the Rift Abyss in the Southern Continent. Its physical body was dead, but its soul still wandered in the abyss."
Even so, I still couldn't defeat it. In the end, I obtained a part of its body, transplanted it into my arm, and that's how this happened.
Shad examined it with Edwards' Eye and indeed, the signs of human modification were quite obvious. The glowing red light in her arm connected to her palm at one end, but to her heart at the other.
"It enhanced my vampire talents, especially my talents in feeding and digestion, and allowed me to use special liquids other than blood to advance myself. I know this is dangerous, I know it better than anyone else, so I won't use this talent lightly unless I encounter a 'prey' of the same level as just now."
After receiving permission, Shad carefully examined her palm. Unless she actively revealed this power, no one could possibly know it; even Shad himself hadn't noticed it when they shook hands. However, having dealt with the "Grit Worms" many times, he was quite familiar with their mouthparts:
“I used to know a man who had a mouth growing out of his palm, and then he died.”
Miss Novare withdrew her hand and said dryly:
"All men must die eventually."
"Yes, all mortals must die. You swallowed a part of that evil creature; will you be able to gain its memories?"
“Mr. Hamilton, if my hands really had that function, I think I would have gone mad long ago due to all the memories.”
As she spoke, she extended her left hand to Shad:
"So, are you willing to continue cooperating with me to find a way out of here?"
"Of course, but you must promise not to misuse this power, and that you have the resolve to relinquish it when necessary."
The red-haired girl hesitated for a moment before nodding:
"Pleasant to work with."
"Pleasant to work with."
They opened the gate and pushed open the door, returning to the tenth-floor corridor. Turning around, they saw the room number was "1000." As Shad, holding the key, crossed the threshold, a realization dawned on him: the "elevator" had been officially restarted, its status changing from hidden to active.
From then on, whenever he walked out of a room with the key, he would always find the elevator room three rooms to the left or right. Although he still had to judge for himself whether it was left or right, this was consistent with the pattern of stairwells. The probability of not finding both the elevator room and the stairwell at the same time while relying on luck was very low.
Having been attacked multiple times on the third floor, the quiet tenth floor now gave Xia De a strange sense of security. He looked around and then asked the vampire lady:
"I forgot to ask earlier, how do we get back to our room?"
If this still requires luck, then they are incredibly lucky to have survived to this day.
“There’s a reason we call room 1024 a safe house. Although we can’t see the light on the door like you can, we who live in that room feel like we’ve been accepted by it. If the three of us go back to the tenth floor, it will most likely appear nearby.”
It seems that all the bad luck was used up on the third floor. After a slight hesitation, the light from Miss Novare's lantern guided Shad to the left along the corridor. After passing two doors, the glowing door actually appeared.
So the two knocked on the door using the pre-arranged code, and after confirming each other's identities, they finally returned to their safe room with the warm glow of the fireplace. The first time he'd been there, Shad hadn't thought the fireplace fire was strong enough, but after experiencing the dangers inside the hotel, he truly understood how important it was to have a safe place to stay in such a location.
During the twenty minutes the two were gone, Ms. Gerd and Miss Joanna Cohens, who remained behind, encountered nothing strange. They simply chatted amongst themselves before returning.
"You seem to have gained a lot."
The Witcher was now able to stand on her own; her recovery was remarkably fast. After receiving the sword and ring back from Shad and noticing the marks left on them, she became even more certain that the two who had gone out had encountered something extraordinary.
The two returned and shared their stories with their companions about the gods, the three missions, the guidance the gods gave to everyone, the elevator, the goods on the first floor, and the keys.
Although the vampire lady had been secretly hiding matches, she didn't conceal any of this crucial information.
So the two witches who stayed here listened very carefully. After learning that the hotel and the hills outside were actually a "prison" for imprisoning monsters, the witcher Joanna Cohens looked very honored to be here.
After hearing God's assessment of her as "not looking at her own feet," Lady Gerd actually looked down at the floor beneath her feet. Shad suspected that she was thinking of tearing down all the floors in the house to look for clues.
Regardless, the fact that the first floor of the inn truly belonged to a deity gave the witches a deeper understanding of their current situation.
After Shad and Miss Novared explained the situation, Miss Coens led everyone in expressing their gratitude and respect to the statue in the corner. She was the kind of person who acted quickly and decisively, grasping the crux of the matter immediately:
"So the most important thing to do now is not to deal with the things wandering in the 19th-floor corridor, but to help Mr. Hamilton find a 'sacred relic,' otherwise we may lose this companion."
"During your exploration of the hotel, did you see anything similar?"
Shad then inquired, noting that Miss Novare had arrived the latest, and therefore knew very little.
Miss Cohens and Ms. Gerd, who had prepared black tea for everyone, carefully recalled:
"I didn't know the specifics of this place before, and there were some things I saw that I didn't understand what they meant, but now I think I understand. On the seventh floor, I saw an empty room with a shrine. I thought that room could also be used as a safe room, but unfortunately, the room was later hacked."
Thinking about it this way, perhaps there are sacred objects inside the shrine cabinet I couldn't open, just not as potent as the statues here.