A Psychiatrist's Bizarre Game Journey / Dream of the Mist

"rub!"

Just as Zhou Ke'er was about to draw her sword, Xi Ang swung his sword without hesitation, severing several vines that were stabbing at her.

Lance immediately stepped forward, shield in hand, and with a powerful swing, blocked the remaining vines and the woman's attacks. "She's not very strong; she's not much of a threat to us..."

Zhou Ke'er narrowed her eyes and before Lance could finish speaking, she quickly stepped forward. Taking advantage of the fact that the woman's attention was drawn to Lance, she immediately kicked the woman in the head, knocking her over. Then she pulled Lance back.

Before her transformation, this woman was just an ordinary person with no strength to even kill a chicken. After the transformation, she naturally couldn't suddenly possess great power. But the problem is...

Lance looked at Zhou Ke'er with a puzzled expression: "What's wrong? What just happened?"

Zhou Ke'er raised an eyebrow. "I remember saying a long time ago that evil spirits are contagious and can cause pollution. You shouldn't keep in contact with these things, or you'll run into problems."

Just now, in Zhou Ke'er's field of vision, she saw that the dark, malevolent energy was slowly spreading from the vines to Lance's shield. If Zhou Ke'er hadn't acted quickly enough, the malevolent energy would have already stuck to his shield.

Lance then belatedly realized—it wasn't that he wasn't wary at all, but he had only been in a standoff with the woman for less than five seconds and never imagined that it would have such an impact in such a short time.

"Let's do it. I suppose... keeping her in this world any longer would be a kind of pain for her."

Sion shook his head and turned to look at Sagos and Chris. "Since Miss Memoride has already said that contacting her will have bad consequences, then we can only rely on you to take action directly from a distance."

Chris and Sagos had already launched their attack before Sion finished speaking.

Zhou Ke'er stepped back, cautiously glancing around—there was definitely more to this than just this woman—and casually asked Xi Ang, "I didn't expect you to act so decisively. I thought you would at least hesitate. After all, you decided to come to the rescue, but now you have to kill the rescue target with your own hands. It feels like a loss."

Sion shrugged: "While that's true in theory, it's not the only way to look at it. When someone cries for help, I rush to their aid because I'm a hero—albeit a former one. But if I realize the situation is beyond repair and could even pose a huge danger to others, I immediately choose to abandon the rescue because I'm responsible for my teammates. Hesitating and being caught in a dilemma not only fails to save the other person but also puts ourselves in danger. I've understood this principle for a long time."

While Sion was speaking, Chris's arrows had already pinned the woman firmly to a tree. Saggs waved his staff, and dozens of sharp ice spears radiating coldness appeared in front of him, fiercely stabbing towards the woman who was no longer able to move.

Just then, the tree behind the woman seemed to come alive, twisting its branches and wrapping itself around her, creating a cocoon-like structure that completely sheltered her inside.

The ice spear pierced the tree branch, but failed to penetrate it. Instead, it was shattered by the impact, and countless scattered ice spikes and icicles pierced the branch again, but still did not cause much damage.

Sagos shook his head and frowned slightly. "There's no way around it. We can't use fire magic in the forest, or the problem will be even more serious."

After all, arson is a death sentence. Setting fire here could mean you won't be able to escape, and it could also attract extremely powerful monsters that will chase you. Then you'll be surrounded by monsters in front and fire behind, with nowhere to run.

"Let me do it."

Zhou Ke'er took a few steps forward, imbued the Jade Trace Sword with its malevolent energy, and lightly thrust the sword into the cocoon. The tip of the sword penetrated as easily as if it had pierced through tofu.

Of course, this was just a smokescreen. Zhou Ke'er was merely absorbing a small amount of the evil energy to replenish the damage she had suffered during the flight. Although that meager loss was insignificant to her, it was always best to stay at full strength in such a dangerous place. Sometimes, life and death can be separated by just a hair's breadth.

With her back to Xi Ang and the others, from an angle they couldn't see, a dark, malevolent aura emanated from the opening in the cocoon and was absorbed into Zhou Ke'er's right eye. Meanwhile, the tree visibly grew increasingly withered; its already incredibly dry trunk now appeared as fragile as if it were about to crumble.

After Zhou Ke'er pulled the sword out, she gently pushed the tree, and it collapsed with a crash—though it was a visual effect, the tree had already disintegrated and turned into dust during the fall.

With a casual flick of her sword, Zhou Ke'er then feigned weakness, as if her body could no longer support her and she staggered back two steps before barely managing to stand, leaning on her sword. She first bent slightly, then knelt down, clutching her chest with one hand, panting as if enduring pain.

Startled by the sight, Xi Ang quickly stepped forward to protect Zhou Ke'er, anxiously asking, "Miss Meimoride! Are you alright? What happened? What just occurred? How are you now?"

Zhou Ke'er waved her hand, paused for a moment, then shook her head and replied, "No. In fact, these things tainted by evil, even if they are corpses, simply killing them and burning them to ashes will not remove the evil clinging to them. I suppose there is no way to remove evil in your world. What I just did... was simply to completely remove these evils. It's just a minor side effect, nothing serious."

Xi Ang quickly reached out to help Zhou Ke'er up, and looked around warily for a moment. "Let's leave here quickly, it's not safe here anymore... Let's continue walking for a while before resting."

Zhou Ke'er shook her head. "We can't leave for now—when I was exorcising the evil spirits, I discovered that not only that woman was bound to them, but all the evil spirits in this entire area... are..."

But before he could finish speaking, he heard the woman's voice ringing out from all directions: "You're leaving already? I haven't even entertained you yet! Wei'er, you can't leave! You have to stay and keep me company! You promised!"

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546. On the Way (Part 5)

Sion immediately turned to look at Sargus, gave him a wink, and then raised the holy sword high—instantly, a strong light burst forth from the holy sword, illuminating the originally dark surroundings.

Sargers was prepared. He first cast invisibility spells on everyone again, then dispelled the fireballs he was using for illumination. Finally, he waved his staff, pulling everyone directly to his side.

After the light on the holy sword dimmed instantly, the place became pitch black, so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Originally, it was only thanks to Saggs's fireball that they could barely see the scene clearly. Now that the fireball had dissipated, it was pitch black. The moonlight in the sky could not penetrate the dense canopy, and with the addition of the evil influence, the darkness here was not something the naked eye could automatically adapt to after a while. Unless there was lighting, it was an impenetrable blackness.

Zhou Ke'er seemed to realize Xi Ang's plan—they probably wanted to make the other side lose sight of them, so that they could quietly retreat.

But that won't do! Who says the other side can only use their eyes to observe their surroundings? That woman's physical body has already been destroyed, so where did she get her eyes? She must be using some kind of evil power to perceive her surroundings, similar to how Zhou Ke'er sees with her right eye. Darkness cannot stop them!

Sure enough, in Zhou Ke'er's sight, the vines surged toward them without any obstruction!

However, at that moment, Zhou Ke'er saw Xi Ang plunge the holy sword into the ground. Immediately, countless rune-like marks spread rapidly outwards from the blade, covering a large area in the blink of an eye and encompassing the entire open space.

"Boundary stripping? Sealing!"

With a low shout from Xion, the surrounding darkness seemed to come alive, struggling to separate itself from the evil that had long been tainted and integrated into it, and then suddenly contracted towards the center, forming a spherical shape.

The area originally covered by the incantation was now as bright as day, as if the darkness had been stripped away, leaving only a pitch-black sphere in front of them.

Of course, the surrounding darkness was also slowly eroding the light here, gradually shrinking the area of ​​light, spreading like a tide.

"Crack..."

In contrast, a slight cracking sound came from the holy sword.

The woman's shrieks continued to emanate from the dark sphere in front of everyone, but due to the seal, they were distorted and impossible to understand, like a broken cassette tape.

Sion, slightly weak, knelt on the ground, drew the holy sword, and turned to the others: "Go! Let's run now. The artificial holy sword can't withstand the holy sword technique. She'll break free in a little while!"

Of course, without Sion's reminder, Lance had already slung the giant shield over his back, then lifted Sion with one hand and grabbed Zhou Ke'er with the other, hoisting both of them onto his shoulder and running away into the distance.

Sagos and Chris, without hesitation, immediately followed in Lance's footsteps.

They ran like this for an unknown amount of time. Under Zhou Ke'er's command, the group avoided many places where the concentration of evil energy was much higher than the average level, and they did not encounter any further dangers along the way.

Finally, the group found a relatively safe place to rest. To be honest, after what had just happened, none of them were sleepy, and they could easily continue traveling all night. However, given the extreme danger of traveling at night and the inability to light a fire, they had been running blindly, guided entirely by Zhou Ke'er.

Furthermore, Sargus needs to recover his magic power, and the others also need to conserve their strength so that they won't be unable to escape danger if they become exhausted.

Sion sat on the grass, hugging his knees, gazing towards the capital—of course, he couldn't see anything, only darkness—and couldn't help but sigh softly, muttering, "I never imagined the situation in the Duchy of Dragon had become so dangerous. Even refugees couldn't escape this fate. I wonder how my master is doing in the capital..."

Zhou Ke'er sat next to Xi Ang, resting her chin on one hand while teasing the familiar that had quietly appeared beside her with the other. Zhou Ke'er had asked this creature to scout ahead and then come back to report the situation, but it was so frightened by the scene that it hid and only quietly followed behind when Zhou Ke'er and the others ran away.