Chapter 291: Spiritual Pollution

Chapter 291: Chapter 291: Spiritual Pollution

She didn’t make any rash moves, instead observing carefully for a little while longer.

Only after confirming there was nothing where the other patterns converged did she shift her gaze back to the ring.

Touching it directly would be too reckless. Seraphina Sinclair decided to use Insight first.

The Insight results came quickly.

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[Description: ???]

Seraphina Sinclair: "..."

Although it wasn’t the first time she had seen all these question marks, she couldn’t help but feel her heart sink.

Insight always seemed to fail her at the most critical moments, providing no information. This usually meant the target’s quality was too high, which only served to confirm that this was a valuable item.

’A treasure delivered right to my doorstep. It would be a real shame not to take it!’

Seraphina Sinclair’s gaze hardened. She hesitated no longer.

She extended her left hand. Instead of grabbing the face of the ring, she used her thumb and index finger to precisely pinch the edge of the metal band.

It was ice-cold to the touch, even colder than the stone steps. The chill instantly shot up from her fingertips to her forearm, raising goosebumps on her skin.

She held her breath and pulled forcefully—

Instantly, the patterns on the stone altar lit up with a dark red glow. Like activated blood vessels, they began to rapidly spread and snake across the altar’s surface.

The entire stone chamber began to tremble slightly, and fine debris rained down from the ceiling above.

The ring was lifted from its recess.

But just as it was about to break free, an immense suction force yanked it back in!

Seraphina Sinclair was instantly on alert. Her ears perked up, and just as she’d expected, she heard an extremely faint sound, like the grating of bone on bone...

"CRACK... CRACK CRACK..."

The sound was coming from a corner of the chamber!

Seraphina Sinclair yanked her hand back and retreated, her longsword held horizontally before her chest. Her sharp gaze shot toward the source of the sound.

In the corner, a previously motionless skeleton... now, a faint, dark red glow began to seep from the stump of its severed neck.

The faint light flowed like living blood, pooling on the floor before snaking toward the stone altar.

Then a second skeleton, and a third... Soon, all the scattered remains began to exude the same eerie, dark red glow from their broken necks!

Countless streams of dark red light, like vipers returning to their nest, converged on the center of the altar, flooding into the black ring.

The black stone on the ring flared. In an instant, it erupted with a blinding, blood-red light!

A violent, chaotic will—one filled with endless venom and hunger—crashed toward the only living person in the chamber like a bursting flood!

Seraphina Sinclair was instantly paralyzed. Her ears were filled with a cacophony of overlapping, shrill howls and mad whispers!

"Head... My head... Give it back to me..."

"Pain... It hurts... Tearing..."

"My head... where’s my head... why... why do you have one..."

Her vision was no longer of the stone chamber, but of countless spinning, shattered, blood-dripping heads!

They opened their mouths in silent screams, lunging at her in a desperate, chaotic swarm.

Seraphina Sinclair realized what this was. A Spiritual Attack.

And a high-level Spiritual Pollution, at that.

She grunted, her temples throbbing violently as waves of dizziness washed over her. She didn’t even have the strength to lift a hand.

Her soul felt like it had been thrown into a vat of boiling oil. Every inch of her consciousness was being gnawed and torn apart by the venomous will. Her longsword slipped from her grasp, clattering to the floor with a harsh clang, but she couldn’t muster the strength to even bend down and retrieve it.

Her legs gave out, and her body slid uncontrollably down the cold stone wall. Her consciousness was a small boat in a raging storm, moments away from being capsized and swallowed by an infinitely black sea.

The shattered heads drew closer, almost pressing against her face. Their black, empty eye sockets burned with boundless resentment, rage, and killing intent.

’I can’t pass out!’

’If I lose consciousness, my fate will be no better than those headless skeletons in the corner.’

Her survival instincts shrieked.

Seraphina Sinclair bit down hard on the tip of her tongue. The sharp pain granted her chaotic mind a fleeting moment of clarity.

’Water Stopping!’

Seraphina was furious that [Water Stopping] wasn’t an automatic ability. But what drove her to further despair was that even after activating it with all her might, the intensity of the Spiritual Pollution barely lessened.

The endless, venomous howls were like a cancer clinging to her very bones, still battering relentlessly against the walls of her consciousness.

The clarity from [Water Stopping] was fading fast. Beneath the thin ice of her reason, a dark tide seethed and boiled.

’It’s not working... it’s not enough... The source of this pollution...’

Her gaze struggled to focus on the stone altar... on the ring!

The blood-red light was still blazing, like a beating heart, continuously pumping out waves of frenzied intent.

Around the altar, the dark red glow at the necks of the skeletons had grown faint, as if all their residual Strength had been drained by the ring for this one, all-or-nothing Spiritual Attack.

’It’s burning what’s left of the dead!’

’Once it burns through all of it, either the attack will stop, or... something even more terrifying will happen!’

Seraphina Sinclair’s vision started to blur. The effects of [Water Stopping] were fading rapidly.

She could almost hear the malevolent spirits shrieking in excitement, as if about to shatter the final defenses of their new prey.

’I can’t wait for it to burn out!’

’I have to stop it before it burns through everything!’

But she couldn’t move. Forget grabbing the ring—lifting a single finger felt like trying to move a mountain.

’There’s only...’

’Lucky!’

The thought struck her like a bolt of lightning in the darkness.

Just as her consciousness was about to be completely submerged, she used her last shred of willpower to issue a vague but incredibly strong command to Lucky, who was lying listlessly at her feet, also reeling from the terrifying spiritual shockwave.

"Touch it!"

"Touch that ring!"

Seraphina Sinclair used every ounce of her strength to rasp out those two phrases, her voice a raw, desperate gasp.

Despite the intensity of her emotions, her voice was barely a whisper.

As a Gloomdrake, Lucky was trembling under the torrent of malevolence, but as one of the most powerful creatures of the Black Mist World, its physical constitution was immense. Its hearing was naturally sharp, and it had heard Seraphina Sinclair’s words crystal clear.

It shook its head, trying to dispel the Spiritual Pollution that filled it with revulsion and fear. The white fur on its body bristled, and a series of low, threatening growls rumbled in its throat.

Lucky gave its body a shake and forced itself to its feet.

It didn’t understand Seraphina’s words, but it heard the desperation in its master’s raw voice.

The Gloomdrake knew exactly where the danger was coming from. But in the face of such an indiscriminate Spiritual Attack, all it could do, with all its might, was get to its feet.

It couldn’t even manage to take a single step forward. In fact, under Seraphina Sinclair’s expectant gaze, it took a pathetic step back.

As if getting farther away from the ring would lessen the assault.