Chapter 127 — Mad BB

The nearest shrub swayed in the night wind, and from its roots emerged a pale hand, buried in the soil, twitching faintly; from the weeds beside it protruded a face mostly buried, its eyes half open and half shut, its pallid, cracked lips still moving; a half-living, half-dead old oak leaned by the path, its roots heaved up in a swelling shaped like a skull, and from the cracks in its bark peered a pair of eyes—withered, yellow, stiff, as half-living and half-dead as the oak itself...

Beneath every plant in the entire courtyard lay buried human limbs, and their owners were clearly still alive!

"By the god of war!" Philip hissed, suppressing his voice. "What kind of madness is this!"

"These people... are they alive or dead?!" Amber drew two deep breaths, pried Gao Song's hand away, and whispered with a trace of horror.

"Most could still count as alive, but it's hard to say for how much longer," Pi Yun said, tightening his grip on the seeds he held ready as casting material. "No wonder we haven't seen a single guard or servant... they're all buried in the courtyard!"

"Be careful—whatever you do, don't touch these plants," the old druid added. "They are the eyes of the Xuanying cultists!"

"What are the cultists burying these people here for?" Amber said, frowning as she fought down her nausea. "To drain their life force?"

"...I'm afraid not," Pi Yun said, shaking his head. "Draining life force wouldn't require such an elaborate ritual. The cultists are keeping these people suspended between life and death, and holding their consciousness in a daze... I suspect he's extracting their thoughts."

"Extracting thoughts?!" Amber was startled. "The All Things Perish Society can do even that?!"

"Against transcendent beings it certainly wouldn't be so easy, but these are ordinary people with no ability to resist magic. Alas," Pi Yun sighed softly. "It seems the Xuanying cultist isn't merely here to kill a few people—he has a purpose. He's gathering intelligence..."

As they spoke, the group had crossed the courtyard overrun with mad plants with extreme caution and reached the portico leading to the castle's main hall. Before them stood a half-open oak door, carved upon which was the emblem of the Leslie family.

The emblem seemed to flow with blood, dark red and glistening.

Gao Yang did not touch that plainly abnormal door with his hand, but used the Pioneer's Sword to push it, slowly and soundlessly swinging it open; then, with every ounce of vigilance, he was the first to step across the threshold.

And at the very instant his foot crossed the door, a burst of noise—coming from who knew where, so clamorous and chaotic it was nearly unbearable—suddenly swept over them!

It was as if ten thousand sounds had exploded in his ears all at once, ten thousand voices shouting at once, ten thousand chaotic and absurd instruments playing at once—or two thoroughly drunk Ambers babbling nonsense right beside his ear...

Gao Yang felt as though his body had rusted over; even turning his head had become unbearably difficult and slow. And he soon realized that the clamor was not coming from outside, but from within his own mind. Amid that maddening sound, he saw the castle corridor before him, paved with dark red carpet, suddenly stretch out long, while the walls on either side, hung with portraits of the Leslie family's ancestors through the generations, receded at breakneck speed into infinite distance. In every direction the space abruptly became vast beyond measure, and a dark starry sky replaced the castle's original surroundings.

At last those chaotic noises merged into a single clearly discernible voice, which ceaselessly roared: "All things shall perish! All things shall perish! All things shall perish!"

Yet though Gao Yang was enveloped in the noise and the visions, he found that his own thoughts were, astonishingly, exceptionally clear. The unified roar came through plainly, and a rather distinct thought even sprang up unbidden in his mind: "Right—because of entropy increase. What of it?"

"All things shall perish..."

Before Gao Yang could make sense of what was happening, the frenzied noise and the vision of the dark starry sky had already broken off, vanished into smoke and dispersed.