I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 158 Her Children

Mrs. McNeill was standing in the very center of the hall.

Seven spirit vessels, seven spirits dwelling within them.

In the basement of the material world, Richard could only faintly hear the breathing of each spirit.

Beneath the veil, those spirits no longer hide.

The wolf from the silver ring floated on her left shoulder; the wolf, when standing upright, was taller than a horse.

The jade brooch depicts a bird with outstretched wings, each tail feather tipped with a water droplet.

The woman in the ebony comb, her hands constantly threading, hooking, and pulling;

The milky light surrounding the moonstone pendant solidified into the outline of a figure in a long robe.

Coral earrings hung from Mrs. McNeill's ears, each containing a tiny piercing of her throat;

A silver chain pocket watch hung across her chest, its second hand ticking away.

The bone bracelet was on Mrs. McNeill's right wrist, and inside the bracelet sat the old woman.

"Eight people."

Richard counted them in his mind.

There were seven spirits, plus Mrs. McNeil herself, making a total of eight, which corresponds to the number of people who came down to this hall tonight.

"Activate the formation."

Mrs. McNeil spoke from the center.

The "ground" beneath the curtain bowed slightly, as if returning a greeting to tonight's caster.

Mrs. McNeil waved her right hand slightly.

The seven spirits dispersed in seven directions, and seven extremely faint silver lines connected from the seven points to the center, which was the True Name Stone.

She didn't need to draw the array; the array already existed in this hall, just waiting for a qualified hermit to activate it.

"Beautiful," Mr. Hutton murmured in admiration.

He himself has spent his entire life stuck at the threshold of becoming a professional, and he knows better than anyone the scenery after achieving a little mastery.

The moment the formation was completed, the first sound came from underground.

The seam that the old woman inside the bone bracelet was pressing down on was gently pushed from below.

The first figure emerged.

It has no face; the face is flat and the same color as the neck and shoulders.

Richard uses his clairvoyance to identify people.

The first man, with a full beard and a brass whistle pinned to his chest, was the foreman of the mill in 1881.

The second one was very young, clearly a child laborer under fifteen, with a streak of coal dust on his face.

The third layer, the fourth layer... piece by piece of ground folded itself up, folding itself into her children.

Not only the twenty-three workers who were swallowed up, but also the two children who recently went missing, they were in there too...

The battle began, with Captain Whitfield making the first move.

Richard could see the fire in the captain's chest, which had expanded from a small furnace into a large melting pot.

In the deeper layers of the veil, the intensity of the etheric burst is amplified by the environment itself.

Normally, a captain can maintain an explosive burst for ten minutes, but here it's only about three to four minutes.

But during those three to four minutes, his intensity was pushed to several times his usual level, and he almost turned into a ball of fire.

"Ready, madam," Captain Field's voice came from the fire.

"Then let's go." Mrs. McNeil nodded gently.

The captain already held the two enchanted axes at his waist.

He leaped from the ground and landed right on the foreman standing at the front.

The axe came down, the first blow striking from the foreman's head to his jaw.

The axe blade cleaved down, splitting the foreman's shadow in two.

The shadow beneath the curtain cannot be "cut" in a physical sense.

As the axe blade passed, the shadow parted to make way; after the axe blade passed, the shadow closed in again.

"...My job is getting harder." The captain's voice came from the fire.

"You're just responsible for holding them back," Mr. Hutton chimed in from the other side.

"Understood."

The captain changed his fighting style.

He no longer aimed to split through, but instead used the back of the axe.

With the back of the axe pressed against the foreman's shoulder, he used the force of the burst of ether to slam the foreman and the two figures behind him backward.

"Okay, if you fight back like this, they won't be able to get through easily."

"Understood."

"Sarah, it's your turn."

In the innermost corner of the cellar, the huntress raised her double-barreled shotgun.

boom!

A silver lead bullet shot out from the muzzle, its trajectory marked by a dark red trail beneath the curtain.

The tail light was Sarah's own ether, attached to the bullet.

The bullet pierced the air and embedded itself in the center of the child laborer's chest.

The child laborer didn't cry out, and the shadow had no mouth.

But the movement stopped.

boom!

Sarah reloaded even faster than she had in the swamp; her left hand was already loading the third round before she had even fired the first.

The second shot pierced the chest of the third figure on the left side of the circle.

The third shot pierced the chest of the second figure on the right.

boom! boom! boom!

Six shots were fired, and six shadows were pierced through the heart.

The shadows pierced through their hearts did not dissipate, but they were temporarily unable to move.

"...Just as I expected." Captain Field's voice came from the fire: "This time, we can't wipe them out cleanly."

The captain pushed the other shadows back as well.

But the remaining dozen or so shadows in the circle moved, and three of them huddled together and pounced on the captain's waist from the side.

Four more shadows emerged from the circle, bypassing the defensive formation formed by the captain and Sarah, and rushed towards the outer circle.

Their objective was clear: to get around Mrs. McNeil and Mr. Hutton and deal with them from behind.

Although the mother's children are still young, they already know which is the head, which is the hand, and which is the waist.

They pounced very quickly.

Richard's inspiration alarm, however, did not go off.

The four figures that had circled around had just reached halfway to the outer circle when they were blocked by an extremely thin golden thread.

The gold thread dangled from the wolf's mouth on Mrs. McNeil's left shoulder.

Golden threads were spat out from the wolf's mouth, forming an invisible line along the floor of the hall.

The four shadows that had circled behind were entangled in the golden thread and could not move.

The bird in the jade brooch perched on the highest beam in the hall.

Every squinting eye on its feathers opened, and countless eyes simultaneously surveyed the entire scene.

The bird provides everyone with the enemy's location.

The location seen by each eye was relayed back to the outer circle by the bird.

Edmund has run into trouble.

The silver cross on the young priest's chest began to heat up.

Richard glanced over with his spiritual vision and saw that the halo of scripture that the priest had repeatedly recited at his feet was shrinking inward.

Something is gnawing at him.

"Madam," Edmund said, somewhat flustered, "I'll use Sanctification once."

"No," Mrs. McNeil replied immediately.

Why?

"Your sanctification will drain half of your ether reserves with each use, and even bigger things will happen after you've drained them all under the veil."

"But he's nibbling on it."

"Let him gnaw on you." Mrs. McNeil's response was ruthless: "He's not gnawing on you, he's gnawing on the monks behind you."

"They've been dead for hundreds of years. After he gnaws on them for a while, they won't die a second time."

Edmund frowned, but had no choice but to agree.

"Yes."

"Take care of yourself," Mr. Hutton said from the other side. "The people behind you will hold them off; don't take their place."

Richard silently noted this down in his mind.

All spells cast under the veil will have their effects amplified, but their costs will also be increased.

The sixteenth shadow rushed in from the west.

The figure in the long robe, whose face was obscured, stepped out.

At that moment, Richard's inspiration was touched by something extremely gentle.

The spirit of the moonstone pendant was actually "negotiating" with the sixteenth shadow in the etheric layer.

Richard couldn't hear the specifics of what they were discussing.

But he could sense that the sixteenth shadow had slowed down.

It actually stopped being persuaded?

The timekeeping device in the silver chain pocket watch also started to move.

It drew a second ray of light from its pocket watch, circled the captain, and made him even faster.

Mrs. McNeil herself is still standing in the center.

She stood with her hands at her sides, doing nothing, yet doing everything.

The spirit within the ebony comb is weaving the trajectory of the children.

Every inch of her knitting corresponds to the spot where a certain shadow in this hall has just passed.

Once woven in, that shadow could never retreat the way it came.

The spirit of the moonstone pendant is still "negotiating".

It even separated into several that drifted to the outer circle to negotiate with the four figures behind it that were hidden by the golden threads.

One by one, the figures being negotiated stopped.

The two throats inside the coral earrings are still singing.

They were singing a song that covered their ears.

Let those twenty-five shadows pounce on the captain, on Sarah, on Edmund's halo.

But they didn't touch Mrs. McNeil and Mr. Hutton, who held key positions.

The old woman inside the bone bracelet remained standing at Mrs. McNeil's feet.

She was the anchor point, providing a stable support for everyone present.

Mr. Hutton was able to stand firm because she was there;

The captain was able to get fired up because she was there;

Edmund's aura was chipped at the edges but didn't dissipate inside because of her presence;

Richard's own shadow was coveted by the children but not stripped away because of her presence.

The seven spirits, divided into seven groups, spread out to form the entire outer defense.

Mrs. McNeil herself stood in the center, her hands hanging down without moving.

"Madam." The young man from the horse farm was somewhat flustered and couldn't help but ask.

"How long can you maintain this state?"

"Until the second round," Mrs. McNeil replied naturally.

"...There's a second round?"

"Um."

"Don't be nervous," Mrs. McNeil added. "Mr. Hutton's incantation was ready before the second round started."

"If all else fails, I'll call the seventh one."

"Seventh?"

Richard then realized that Mrs. McNeil had not read the seventh name after reading the sixth.

She only said one sentence: "You've arrived."

The seventh spirit, she never uttered her name.