Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1168 - 280: Entering

Chapter 1168: Chapter 280: Entering

Having returned to reality, the first thing the girls saw was the figure of Pannis standing at one end of the corridor, arms crossed, facing off against the two moribund figures across the plaza. Although he didn’t turn around, Pannis clearly felt the energy fluctuations from behind him and squinted with a smile, "It’s truly unfortunate, it seems I’ve let you down, they have come out unscathed."

"Hmph, what does it matter if they’ve come out, we’ve at least achieved part of our goal," the male half-dead sneered. "At least one destabilizing element has been eliminated."

"Heh, likewise eliminated are the magical beasts you were counting on," Pannis said, reverting to his usual languid tone. "How does it feel, are you worried? Are you in a hurry? Without them, your once guaranteed victory plan must face a significant drop in success rate. Tsk, tsk, tsk, I never imagined that Dillie, that idiot, would bring me such a surprise, though it’s likely he’s now embroiled in a tough battle."

"What’s there for us to worry about, if anyone should be anxious, it’s you," the female half-dead declared ominously. "Even if he is a demigod, up against sixty-eight of our carefully cultivated modified Undead, do you think he stands a chance of surviving? Hahaha, we’re not worried at all, we just have to wait and watch him die, and then those pets of ours that survive can certainly serve you a despair like never before."

"I absolutely believe my partners will be the ultimate victors, the strength of Dillie in his own domain is beyond your imagination," Pannis said unhurriedly. "Since you’re not in a rush, and neither are we, why don’t we all just sit here and wait for the results? Ah, you guys really have no sense of hospitality at all, not even preparing a few chairs for us? Do you want us to sit on the floor and wait for the outcome?"

Watching Pannis seriously look around for chairs, determined to stay put at the entrance, the two moribund figures seemed to exchange a glance and, after a snort of anger, slowly receded back into the shadows beyond the door. The door remained open, and the voice of the moribund echoes from the ajar portal, "We will wait for you Between the rituals. The doors to Between the rituals will shut in ten minutes. If you wish to stop us, find us there. Hmph, you should be familiar with the path to Between the rituals, no? The shame of yesteryear and the grudges we hold against each other, since it all began there, let’s end it there as well. The question is, do you dare to come?"

"Guess whether I’ll go or not?" Pannis said, squinting. "Since you’ve chosen the old place to be your final resting place, naturally I have no objections."

"Hmph." The half-deads let out a final cold snort and fell into complete silence, not uttering another word.

"Let’s hurry and follow them in," Pannis said, turning to wave at the girls behind him, urging, "The path to Between the rituals inside the temple is rather circuitous, and who knows how many battles we might encounter along the way. They never said they’d open the doors and welcome us while we charge in, so we must be ready for battle. Ten minutes is not a lot of time for us."

"Can’t we just wait for Mr. Dillie to come out and then go in together as you suggested?" Lina asked doubtfully. "Those two moribund didn’t seem that determined. If we just stay put here, I doubt they’d be willing to use an alternate sacrifice to conduct the ritual."

Before she could finish, three gazes simultaneously settled on her face. The looks from Pannis, Catherine, and Freya were almost identical, filled with deep pity, as if they had given up all hope for the girl’s intellect. Frustrated by her partners’ reactions, Lina burst out, "What’s with that reaction? You’re all looking at me with those eyes, and they’re even sighing together. It was just a question, wasn’t it?"

"Sigh," Catherine let out a deep sigh, helplessly explaining, "Whether the battle inside the domain ended in victory or defeat, Mr. Dillie won’t come out until the moribund are dealt with."

"Why?" Lina asked in confusion. "Didn’t us coming out show that he wasn’t deceived by the enemy? Why wouldn’t he come out to help us if he’s won?"

"Use your brain, or it will start to rust," Freya said with pity. "If he really came out and fought alongside us, would we have to constantly guard against him? If we’re on guard, the rift between us will only grow deeper. Fine, let’s say everyone absolutely trusts him, no one is wary of him—it seems like a good outcome, but in a fight of this level, what if one of us... say, me, gets seriously injured or even dies from the enemy’s attack? Even if it has nothing to do with him, can he really clear his name? Even if we don’t associate it with him, he probably will, and with that mindset, he probably thinks it’s better to fight that whole herd of magical beasts on his own. He sent us out of his domain, not wanting our help, probably for this reason. So, how could he possibly reappear before all the fights are over?"

"Moreover, his victory is far from certain," Pannis said in a low voice. "The fool is strong enough, but even now, he’s weak when it comes to high-intensity combat, because he lacks the courage to fight. I don’t know the situation within his domain, but even with the help of his domain, facing the attack of sixty or seventy powerful Demigod magical beasts, it’s hard for him to win unless he can overcome his own weakness. So, we need to resolve our own fights as soon as possible and then go back to help him, or else he might end up crying again."

He made a joke out of habit, but the expected roar and biting did not follow. Pannis was stunned for a moment, then sighed with a wry smile and shook his head in some loneliness.

The corridor was long, the square was wide, but no enemy was to be seen. The members of the adventure team conversed as they briskly crossed the square and unobstructed, they ascended the temple stairs to enter through its wide-open doors. Upon entering the temple, the light changed from bright to dark, and the girls stood at the entrance, squinting their eyes and trying to adjust to the dim interior. Once they did, they discovered that the structure here was almost identical to the temple they saw deep in the grasslands, with a deep corridor just past the entrance where both sides were carved with strangely shaped Divine scripts and murals praising the greatness of the Grimreaper. These bizarre murals might seem sacred in the eyes of Grimreaper’s devout followers, but to normal people, they would only feel a chilling sensation. The corridor was also empty, and at the end were two doors tightly closed, each door being four to five meters tall with two lines of text engraved that were taller than two people stacked on top of each other.

"All things return to illusion; only death is eternal." Without looking, Pannis accurately recited the lines that frequently appeared in years of nightmares. To such maxims, Pannis still responded with a cold laugh, "As the chief deity of the Grimreaper’s System, Danacus naturally wants all beings to see death as their eternal destination. It’s just unfortunate that his own downfall proves that even death is not immortal. Perhaps, aside from Lord Yarra, nothing in the world is eternal."

With that, he put his hands firmly on the doors and pushed the tightly closed doors open.

The doors appeared massive and heavy, but perhaps due to the blessing of Deity’s power or because of the careful maintenance by believers, they did not require much effort from Pannis and were easily opened. As soon as the doors swung open, a wave of sweet fragrance that could make one drowsy hit them—it wasn’t strong or pungent, soft and elegant, but with an effect that calmed the mind. Behind the doors, unsurprisingly, was a huge chapel with a statue of Danacus, over twenty meters tall, standing in the center of the chapel. Unlike the idol seen in the Realm of the Dead more than a hundred years ago, the current idol was as polished as new, even emitting a subtle oppressive force, similar to the one felt from the statue of Denia in the great cathedral within the Denia Sanctuary. This statue alone was proof enough that the moribund had not lied; they had indeed reestablished contact with Danacus.

The hall was not as empty as the stretch of path before it. It was filled with many people dressed in black robes, arranged in some order, surrounding the sacred image of Danacus, prostrated devoutly on the ground. It was clear that among these followers, there were more than a dozen ghouls of Legendary Rank and nearly a hundred Undead Mages, who were as though completely oblivious to the adventuring team that had invaded the temple, kneeling in the faint sweet fragrance and incessantly chanting some unknown texts, which must have been part of the ritual as well.

The situation behind the doors was unexpected for everyone—in anticipation of combat. The girls were ready for battle, even prepared for a barrage of magic and arrows as soon as the doors opened, but when the doors actually did, the many enemies did not acknowledge them at all, making the girls feel as uncomfortable as throwing a punch into thin air.

Testing their luck, they walked through the door and were ignored; they circled around the crowd and were ignored; they passed by the statue’s position and were still ignored, but the more they were disregarded, the more tense the girls felt, unsure of what plot might await them ahead.

However, there was no plot this time, only a very straightforward scheme. As everyone bypassed the chapel and was about to reach the passageway leading to the inner sanctum, the door to the sanctum opened, and a ghoul, who looked no different from a normal person, walked out and calmly said, "The two high priests have instructed me to tell you that only one person is allowed to enter Between the rituals, otherwise, you bear the consequences."

Pannis’s pupils shrank, and he turned his head, his gaze meeting Catherine’s in midair.