The Eldritch Files

’There’s no other way...’

Han Su had seen the little girl in the bathtub, but the timing wasn’t right.

He sped past the bathtub and rushed out the door, slamming it shut behind him with a loud BANG.

The girl in the bathtub finally reacted, her gaze dull as a look of desolate despair washed over her face.

Meanwhile, inside the room, the Worm Monk seemed indifferent to the theft of the key. Though typically sluggish and dull, his movements at this moment were surprisingly fast.

Without needing help from his worms, his hands flew, catching and placing. One by one, he caught the bottles and jars in mid-air and set them gently back on the table.

He even returned them to their exact original positions, without the slightest error.

Only after all the bottles and jars were arranged on the table did he slowly straighten up and let out a soft sigh of relief.

The worms on his body stood up one by one, their countless maws contracting and expanding.

A dense hiss echoed in the air, as if they were reporting to him.

The Worm Monk merely frowned, his gaze slowly turning toward the spot where the large, fat cat had disappeared. He seemed to be concentrating, trying to recall something, but nothing came to mind.

In the end, he simply picked up his book, sat back down, and resumed reading as if nothing had happened.

...

...

’Thank goodness for that sentient cat...’

As Han Su burst out of the room, boundless joy surged in his heart. ’No, it’s the Duke!’

He never would have thought his final hope of escape would depend on a cat that looked so completely unreliable.

Now, with the key in hand, he didn’t dare to be careless. He sprinted desperately toward the end of the corridor.

’The door, the door should...’

The thought came to him subconsciously, but he suddenly paused.

He shot a quick glance behind him.

The door he had just closed hadn’t been reopened. ’The Worm Monk... isn’t he giving chase?’

This discovery immediately made Han Su change his mind.

’Maybe I shouldn’t summon the door just yet?’

The key was already in his hand. As long as he focused his thoughts, "the door" would appear.

Moreover, it would appear at the end of the nearest corridor, somewhere near the edge of the Ancient Castle.

On every previous attempt, the moment he got the key, he had fled the Ancient Castle immediately. Getting the key usually meant he had alerted the monsters within the castle, and the slightest carelessness would get him killed.

But this time was different...

He had the key, and he had also learned the Invisibility Spell.

There was still a little time...

’Then let’s risk it!’

A fierce determination rose in his heart. He rushed to the stairwell and hurried down the steps.

At the same time, his mind raced. ’Who should I go for?’

’At this point in time, someone whose location I know for certain, who isn’t with a monster, and who isn’t restrained is...’

A figure instantly flashed through his mind. Taking this chance, she was the one he could try to save.

Having made his decision, Han Su immediately recited [Entering the Abyssal] once more. His form grew faint and he slowed his pace. As he reached the corner of the sixth floor, he first peeked his head around.

The pig-headed couple and the old butler he had just encountered were still at the left corner of the sixth floor when he rushed up to the seventh. Now that he had come down from the right corner, the area was empty.

Perfect!

Han Su quickly crossed the landing, descended another level, and arrived on the fifth floor, a level filled with a copper-colored, metallic style.

His nerves were taut as he brushed past the Snake-headed Copper Armor Statues embedded in the walls on either side and slipped into a room at the far corner.

Traces of copper were everywhere. The room was filled with countless bizarre contraptions that Han Su had never seen before, each belonging to its own unique style, like the remnants of some ancient, mysterious, and absurd civilization.

But Han Su was in no mood to appreciate it. He casually picked up a few metal scraps, stuffed them in his pocket, and then used his small, thin frame to squeeze behind a cabinet, lift a floorboard, and slip into a secret passage.

This was the very same secret passage that the esteemed Lord Duke had led him through just a moment ago.

It was also the safest route he had pieced together in his mind after discovering these passages.

He held the key in his mouth, crawled to the end of the secret passage, and climbed down a ladder, squinting to keep dust from getting into his eyes.

He had arrived.

This was the fourth floor, the Pale Giant’s territory, and also the floor where Li Manman was being held.

Han Su now found himself in what looked like a library. Countless ancient, black-covered books were piled in disarray. Han Su didn’t recognize a single character of the text on them, nor was he in the mood to examine them. He just moved lightly, pressing his ear to the wall to listen carefully.

Nothing from the left. From the right, he could hear the faint sound of a record player.

He took another deep breath, crept into the corridor, walked past two rooms, and peeked through the crack of a door. There he saw the Pale Giant.

It was sitting in a chair, a monocle over its right eye, holding a huge pair of scissors and carefully cutting a small dress. Behind it, an old record player spun, its leisurely tune creaking out.

Han Su didn’t dare make any movement that might startle it. Once he confirmed its location, he quietly took the metal scraps from his pocket, jammed them into the gap under the door, and wedged them in tight.

He took out a metal rod and secured it in the door’s latch to fix it in place. Only then did he back away a few steps, turn, and walk on.

The Invisibility Spell was still active; the light and shadows around him flickered with an unusual distortion.

A strange feeling washed over him. Han Su actually felt as if he were swaggering right through the Ancient Castle.

This time, he went directly to the second room from the left on the fourth floor, gently pushing the door open and stepping inside.

As the door opened, the dolls inside the glass cabinets all twisted their heads slightly in unison, their strange eyes looking toward the doorway. But in their line of sight, the door had simply opened on its own; they saw nothing there.

’What a magical feeling...’

Han Su felt his Spiritual Power draining faster under their gazes. He walked to a far corner of the room and saw Li Manman huddled into a tiny ball. He crouched down gently and whispered in her ear:

"Manman, don’t be afraid!"

"My name is Han Su. I’m here to get you out!"

"..."

The little girl’s eyes shot wide open.

Her body trembled from the shock, but she managed to keep herself from making a sound.

On his previous attempt, Han Su would have tried to win Manman’s trust with words first. But now, he felt a strange sense of familiarity. Knowing how clever the girl was, Han Su chose the simplest method: he took her hand and led her quietly toward the door.

The dolls in the glass cabinets instantly widened their eyes. A rustling, shuffling sound began to fill the room.

In its current, ordinary state, Han Su’s spell couldn’t generate enough Spiritual Power to completely envelop Li Manman.

They could only see the audacious girl, Li Manman, emerging from the corner and walking toward the door.

Their displeasure reached its peak when Li Manman reached the doorway.

Suddenly, they began to clamor and shriek, trying to alert the Pale Giant.

Although they weren’t allied with the Pale Giant, they were even more unwilling to see anyone escape from this place.

"Don’t be scared! Run with me!"

Han Su cursed these Puppet Dolls. He could already hear the record player in the Pale Giant’s room fall silent, replaced by the heavy scrape of a chair being pushed back. He urged Li Manman on, pulling her into a sprint while tightening his grip on the key.

’The door, the door should be appearing...’

Sure enough, as he focused his attention, a slight chill emanated from the key in his hand.

The next moment, at the pitch-black end of the corridor, a strange spatial vortex seemed to appear, twisting the very fabric of reality.

Then, a door completely out of place with the style of the Ancient Castle suddenly materialized on the wall at the end of the corridor.

It was so perfectly embedded that it seemed as if it had always been there.

Twenty meters!

Han Su judged the distance and immediately picked up his pace.

As for Manman, she could only focus on churning her little legs, her lips pressed tightly together, with no time to ask a single question.

’If I can just get out, I’ll have saved another one.’

This girl would be free from her kidnapping forever.

BANG! BANG!

Behind them, from the other end of the corridor, came the sound of furious pounding. It was the Pale Giant. It wanted to come out and investigate, but the door had been jammed and barricaded. It couldn’t get out, which enraged it, but it didn’t know what was happening.

Its anger had its limits, so it didn’t immediately smash the door down.

Han Su, meanwhile, raced against time, pulling Li Manman as he dashed toward the end of the corridor, hating that his ten-year-old body had such short legs and ran so slow.

CRASH! CRASH!

The Pale Giant grew more frantic. After two violent blows, it finally let out a roar and smashed the door open. It struggled to emerge, but it was too far away and its eyesight was poor. It couldn’t see clearly, and it was reluctant to simply melt the blurry shapes and kill them.

Yet, some intuition told it that something precious was slipping away.

So, throwing caution to the wind, it let out an incomprehensible cry mixed in with its roars.

CRACKLE! SHATTER!

The sound of shattering glass erupted from the room behind Han Su and Li Manman.

It was the Puppet Dolls from the glass cabinets. The Pale Giant had actually released them, and they swarmed out of the room.

Their limbs were stiff, yet their movements were eerily swift.

They scrambled across the walls and ceiling as if ignoring gravity, like a horde of spiders, rapidly closing in.

Feeling the dense pressure of their gazes and the hair on his body standing on end, Han Su knew the time had come. He hesitated no longer.

He abruptly threw out his left hand and roared a single phrase:

[Let the Gods’ Decree Descend!]

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