Chapter 168: Curse
Date: 9/23/23/Blackgate/Location: The site of the Psychic Academy inside the Barov Manor - the rector's office
The gate was not locked, and the scarlet ghoul had the audacity to sneak in. Of course, both Jule and Gardin, the dean, saw Kiefer's arrival, but no one paid attention to him, and the two sides seemed to have a relaxed conversation, but in fact they were waiting for him.
Gardin's hair was white, and his pupils shone with a ghostly glow, and two black mists rose from the gaps in his eyelashes, reaching the silver hairline. This is the first time Kifer has seen the final boss of the Cursed City. He had heard of Gardin, who had been a researcher in the laboratory of Archmage Kel'thugad more than a decade ago, and whose passion for magic and genetic science was well known in the Lordaeron Domain. At this time, I saw that this big devil who was full of evil confirmed his radicalism and paranoia for half his life. But this did not correspond to Kiefer's imagination, and the old man in front of him was polite and suave, with long hair in his shawl and silver hair neatly scattered on his chest. He didn't look like a madman at all, but like a doctor who treats a madman.
Gardin held a terrifying staff in his hand, and other staffs were filled with mana crystals or other magical items, and at the top of this staff was a withered human head, and the most terrifying thing was that the human head could talk and laugh, and its hideous expression was even more terrifying.
Kifer hid behind Le, his fearful grip on his thin, bare back, combing through their conversation.
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "He's not ready, old friend. Your hopes will come to naught, today is his death, and I will be the mentor who will lead him in the future!"
To the surprise of his surprise, Hule spoke, his voice old and deep, using the extremely powerful sense of oppression to question the other party: "Old friend, I am convinced that he is the future savior, he has the potential to overcome you, and the power of goodness is beyond your comprehension. β
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "Then we might as well take a gamble, you and I will sit idly by from now on." β
Urle glared at the empty holes in his eyes, and said faintly, "Are you afraid? Did I make you afraid, or did Hadley make you afraid?"
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "Don't laugh! You prayed to me, and I answered your prayers." I know you, and your strength is not strong enough for me to give it my all. β
Huller: "That's him! You're afraid of him! You've seen him in hell with a power you've never seen before, and even your soul trembles with your flesh!"
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "That's enough! I'll admit all of this, but he's not that guy yet! Now all I'm going to face is Lilith's innocent little wolfdog!"
Hule: "So, I'm going to stop you, I'm going to make him that one!"
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "You misunderstood me, I'm going to make him that guy too, I just promise he'll serve me in the end!"
Hule: "Until then, please step over my corpse!"
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "Is this really going to be like this? old friend." Tens of thousands of years, tens of thousands of years of cultivation, city government, knowledge. Can you leave it behind?"
Hule: "Civilization needs to be inherited, not by relying on my old bones. If this cheap life can be exchanged for the future of Azeroth, then death may not be the destination!"
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "Hmph! you're hopeless. To tell you the truth, I have forcibly sealed the gates of hell, and even if you die, you will not be able to get rid of my shackles!"
Hule's strange face couldn't help but become more gloomy: "I guessed correctly, what method did you use... οΌβ
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "That's not important, friend. You can't get out of here alive today, so what's the use of asking those?"
Kiefer suddenly muttered in a low voice, "The Ark of the Covenant!"
Gardin's (Ellsbeth) expression immediately betrayed himself, and even though he was the true god of hell, he couldn't stop a slight catharsis of his emotions. Everyone present noticed this, and his face turned pale: "Actually, I want to kill you later, old friend." But you have succeeded in disturbing me ... Disillusionment of all beings, vain and unbridled, remnants of life, I want to be a god, three souls are envoys, evil words are divided, and the devil's way - [Soul Splitting]!" His lips did not move, but evil words kept coming from all directions, mixed with indistinct whispers, which made the atmosphere even more eerie. Kifer couldn't hide his excitement and shouted, "The magic of the Book of Evil Words, the first time I've seen it. β
Hule didn't move, but whispered coldly to Kiefer, "Maybe it's the last time we'll see each other." β
As the incantation ended, another Ansbai emerged parallel from the old man's body, and he stepped back, the outline of his figure becoming more and more blurred, and almost immediately, he disappeared in place.
"You divide yourself and use your doppelganger to trick others. In fact, you have committed the taboo of insatiable greed, do you think you can beat me with half of your spiritual power?" The bloody wind slammed the ground in Le's hand, and with the rhythmic tapping, the walls and every item in the room were slowly covered in white, and the shiny lines of magic continued to glide on those white surfaces, and countless charms spread all over every corner of the entire big house.
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "I may have learned a little bit of arrogance and arrogance from my old friends, but since I am greedy, I will always choose the best interests, and even take risks for it. Look at this battle! Your magic seems to be even higher than the last time we met. Tsk tsk, you have already surpassed mortal life forms, why should you die for those filthy inferior creatures?"
Hule: "The undead life forms are not high, but they are not humble either, we are the same as all races! What matters is the independent mind!
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "I disagree with this, because of thought, mortal suffering." And what I'm doing is to make them no longer have the source of suffering!"
Hule: "What could be more sad than the walking dead?"
Gardin (Ellsbeth): "Not being able to get everything is the saddest." The whole world will be in my pocket. I will save your soul, the paper palace Yule, and when it is all over, I will share my joy with you. β
Kiefer: "What about us?"
Ellsber: "You will be cute dolls, there will be no more laziness, no more hunger, your duty is only to work." The world will be a better place then!"
Kiefer had already realized something, and he then asked, "Who are you?"
Ellsbeth: "I am... β
Hule gritted his teeth and said angrily: "The god of greed - Ansber. β
Kifer suddenly realized: "Oh~~~ Okay. You go on. β
An Shibai deliberately looked left and right, and then said to Le with a sneer: "Your helpers don't seem to be very reliable! Are those spells [Evil Energy Dao Technique]? This is the first time I've seen them." β
Yu Le was unwilling to continue to confront, one hand twisted, the bloody rain and bloody wind immediately inserted into the floor tiles, the staff trembled non-stop, the top of the gems collided, making a 'ding ding dong' crisp sound, almost at the same time, the stone statue on the left of Ann Shibai and the large earth meter on the right suddenly rushed out of two monsters, the monster on the left was several feet tall, with two curly horns on its head, a flat face and no nose, and several circles of fangs were densely grown in the mouth of the blood basin, holding a long-handled sharp axe in its arms, and the axe head was pimpled, like a patchwork of countless huge insects.
The thing on the right resembles a human, but it is extremely short, the whole person is round, its head is small, giving people the illusion that it is about to retract into the cavity, this thing has no mouth, the neck almost the same width as the body is close to a large hooked nose, the eyes are deep, there are no shoes, the lower body is covered with a pair of khaki bib pants, and the upper body is wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with blue and white stripes. Its hands were extremely rough, one in front of the other.
As the rabbit rose and fell, the green qi in the hands of the little fat demon condensed, and two ugly little mouths that were snickering grew in the palms of their palms. On the other hand, the troll, at some point, has quietly stood behind An Shibai, and the sharp axe is about to be cut down. Undaunted, Ellsbeth put the iron rod behind his back with one hand, just to hold the sharp axe. When he suddenly turned around, the only place where the big demon was standing was a small half-foot-high boundary gate.
An Shibai kept muttering evil spells in his mouth, his feet were not dusty, but his body shifted in all directions, avoiding the shadowy boundary gate. The gates opened and closed, and the big demons shuttled through them, slashing from all directions around Ellsbeth. The summoning demons have self-awareness, and their actions are all based on the degree of tacit understanding with their masters, but those realm gates have to be cast manually by old Yule, he paints dots with one hand, and turns around with the other hand, the pure turquoise magic arrow rushes towards the short and fat demon from the palm of his hand with this rotation, and the demon does not dodge, the small mouth in the left palm continues to devour the energy arrow, and with the chewing of this small mouth, the fat demon's body becomes more and more rounded, like a large balloon that is being inflated.
The Evil Dao Technique needs to bite off the fingers, and at this time, all the ten fingers of Yu Le are bleeding blood, and it is obvious that the Dao Law is in full swing. And Ellswhite's body was covered with a shallow layer of thin armor. He deliberately stopped dodging, and took an axe with his neck, and the head covered with silver hair immediately disconnected from his body, but he still maintained a smug smile on the head, and the big demon followed up with another axe, splitting his head in two in the middle.
Yu Le whispered and commanded: "Keep chopping! [Ounce White Armor] has a time limit!Huh!" Old Yu Le obviously has a lot of combat experience, although the words in his mouth are commanding the big demon, and the 'hey' at the end of the sentence is probably a signal to the fat demon. The Humpty Dumpty Demon received the signal, puffed up his huge cheeks, and pushed with his right hand, all the energy he had absorbed before gushed out, and a huge mana sphere burst into the air, this energy was too huge, and the air in the path was twisted and folded together, and the picture blurred all of a sudden. An Shibai had just received a few slashes, his body was cut into multiple pieces, and half of his face flying in the air widened, and he caught a glimpse of the menacing huge magic orb. Because there were too many pieces, he couldn't make all parts of his body avoid the shroud of the magic ball, just at this time the big demon stretched out a sharp axe and cut off the arm on Ellsbeth's torso, the severed arm did not land, but suddenly flew up, trying to grab the horns on the head of the big demon, the demon reacted very quickly, turned his head to dodge, and his body shrank into the inside of the gate, and the hand did not stop, and followed the upper body of the demon out of the gate and drilled into it together.
An Shibai had no other means to avoid the magic ball, so he simply let the two broken calves rise from the ground and deliberately hit the magic ball. Green immediately invaded his boots and calves, and the flesh and bone of those feet suddenly mutated, quickly decayed, and then burned by the poisonous fire.
Knowing that physical attacks would hardly do any damage to Ellsbeth's body, Hule pinned his hopes on the Humpty Dumpty Demon's absorption-accumulation heavy cannon. His right hand flipped even faster, and the energy arrows were devoured by the Humpty Dumpty Demon more and more frequently.
Ellsbeth seemed to have stopped all the movement of his body parts, and what was even more strange was that the big demon had not come out of the Boundary Gate for a long time. The time for the Humpty Dumpty Demon to store energy was much shorter than the last time, and after a while, the giant orb blasted towards Ansber's torso and two-point head again. An Shibai still didn't dodge, and he was about to hit, Yu Le's expression suddenly changed greatly, and he saw that a boundary gate suddenly grew on An Shibai's torso, and the hand that was not here just now dragged the big demon out of the boundary gate and blocked it in front of An Shibai's torso. Yu Le hurriedly changed his moves, and opened another boundary gate on the path of the magic ball, the magic ball just rushed in, Yu Le dotted again, the boundary gate closed, and another boundary gate appeared from behind An Shibai's torso, this time the magic ball was reversed from the inside of the boundary gate to the outside, impartially in the back of An Shibai's heart, just like last time, his entire torso was quickly burned out.
The badly injured big demon fell heavily to the ground from the disappearing gate, it twisted its body on the masonry and struggled, and suddenly a shadow appeared in the air, it was the other half of An Shibai's arm and the human head staff in his hand, Gardin cooed, 'coughed', and spat out a mouthful of black thick phlegm, which hit the big demon's horns, this phlegm seemed to be alive, slowly squirming and expanding, and finally covering the demon's entire head.
The big demon had no nose and didn't know if he needed to breathe, but he was suffocating and struggling, his hands clutching the edge of his hood, but even with all his strength, he still couldn't get rid of the shackles, and finally, his body stopped moving. Ellsbeth's stump immediately came up, attached to its body piece by piece, and merged with each other.
A tower of paper rose from all around the body in an instant, and Hule could no longer use so many spells at the same time, so he finally opened a boundary gate for the fat demon to run away, pulling up the bloody rain, and finally using all the remaining spirit to the power of the guardian.
As mentioned in the Battle of Andohar, the biggest feature of the Paper Palace is the enchantment and seal, although he has been facing the true god for so long, his body and magic source have long been overloaded, but he has been prepared for a long time, and the ultimate goal is only to seal.
However, the speed at which Ellsbeth lodged the demon caught Hule by surprise. I only heard a voice inside the paper tower laugh calmly: "Hahahaha, interesting, I can't help but feel distressed about the future, there are no more humans, no more orcs, and no more powerful opponents like you who can make me happy." β
Hule's mouth opened and closed and closed again, and he had no strength to speak. Stretches of green text soon covered the surface of the tower, but he didn't have time to finish. A crack was cut on one side of the paper tower by the staff, and Hule raised a trembling hand to repair it with more paper, and Ellsberg, who was sealed inside, could not easily climb out of it.
Suddenly, the iron rod flew out of the crack that did not reach the seal, and plunged directly into the wall next to the door, and Gadin's strange face was aimed at Yule, and he wanted to repeat the old trick, and when he opened his mouth, he was about to spew out soul power and phlegm.
At this moment, Kifer, who had no heroic power but a heroic heart, suddenly stepped forward, jumped high, grabbed the rod of the iron rod with one hand, and made a pull-up that he would never be able to achieve. I don't know what the idea is, Kiefer and Gardin kissed each other on their lips, and he used his tongue to put the poisonous phlegm between their lips and teeth, and the corrosion quickly invaded the cranial cavity of the two, and at the moment of detachment, Kiefer's clenched teeth tore off half of Gardin's face.
The confinement of the incantation finally took effect at this time, and no more voices came out of the paper tower, and the tower gradually shrank, leaving only a thin scrap of paper. Jule also collapsed by the door of the headmaster's office due to his exertion.
At this point, there are countless questions that remain unexplained, such as why Hule ended up dead, or why Kiefer is still alive. So, now let's rewind the story a little bit.
Rewind back to the moment when Ellsberg possessed the big demon, if you want to understand the final battle situation, you have to mention one thing in advance, before Ellsbeth was not obscured by the paper tower, Hule was not Yule, and the person who had been substituting spells at that time was Yule's stand-in demon - Transfiguration Demon Treasure, so he could speak at that time and would ridicule each other. So where is the real Hule? The answer is surprising - Hule's body hides in the bloody wind.
Hule waited in the paper staff for the moment to obscure his vision, and when Ell was besieged, Hule emerged from the rain of blood and temporarily sealed Kiifer's curiosity in an inconspicuous piece of paper, hoping that Kifer would live and pass on the information he had. The Transfiguration Treasure then took on the form of Kifo to accomplish the feat of kissing the old corpse.
Originally, all this was just Huller's foresight, he didn't expect that he could survive the battle against Ansbai, so he used all his tactics to deliver the news. The end result proved that his scheming was necessary. Because the split half of Ellsbeth's body returned to the headmaster's office after this.
By this time, the exhausted Hule was no longer able to recover, and after meeting Hadley and the others, Ellsbeth had an unknown period (Keefer and I deduced that he was likely to check the concealment of the Ark of the Covenant during this time) before finally returning to the headmaster's office, and then it became his one-man show. There is also the matter of Xiaoxiao and Yule passing on the gong across the gate.
Kiefer witnessed the final moments, when Ellsbeth used some kind of cruel bone-eating curse on him, and in order to get revenge on the 'ghoul' who killed his best doll, he stuck a staff into Kiefer's brain, and did not forget to stir it a few times. Just as the Hell King was smirking out loud, Yu Le finally lost his breath, and the Ninglu-level Heavenly God Sealing Spell he had set in advance at the cost of his life was activated, and the countless runes in the room instantly banished most of An Shibai into the Twisted Void.
Unfortunately, the cunning Ellsberg moved a small part of the spirit into the body of the scorpion on the mouth of Yu Nai, which allowed him to escape with his life. Kifo had gone through a lot of hardships, and when the seal failed, his companions were already in the tunnel, and he asked about the situation outside the headmaster from the grieving Illusia, and also explained to Iru what he had witnessed, and Iru, who knew that his father was in danger of escaping, was determined to die with him, so he did not enter the cryonology classroom with Kifer. Kiefer didn't force her, and ran to find the frozen lich, Les Frostwhisper, and he pressed his proud head against the lich's chin. Eventually, the heat struck that roasted most of Kiefer's flesh, so when we met again, his color changed, from blood-red to a deep dull gray. To Kiefer's consolation, Abby's Extreme Cold had protected his brain, and he was still the chattering ghoul.
He successfully passed on the information that Ellsbeth had the Ark of the Covenant. Kiefer's resilience is a shining point of humanity that many normal people do not have, and the scheming of Hule and Ellsbeth is also a rare experience for me. Carlin and Yuna and I listened to Kiefer's story, and before I knew it, it was past noon (Kiefer's narrative style made it extremely slow), but I have to say that we learned a lot from that incidentγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγγ (Rabbit pen Kang slugging cow)