Exorcist's Self-Cultivation

Mrs. Mina had once said that when she dreamed of her own death, she had given herself a hint.

A gesture of hushing.

At the time, Du Wei thought it meant not to speak, because when you spoke, it would trigger the mechanism and then you would be killed by the Evil Spirit.

However, Du Wei had spoken on the first floor before, and there had been no problems at all.

That's why he even made a call to Father Tony on the second floor.

The deviation occurred only after walking out of Kelly's bedroom.

He remembered that he had only glanced at the body and saw the hexagram pattern under the bed, then as he walked out the door, the deviation manifested.

But now, upon careful thought, it was possible he had been mistaken.

The gesture of hushing signified not to speak, or else, one would perish at the hands of the Evil Spirit, but it was not the key to triggering the Evil Spirit; it was to remain silent after the deviation appeared.

In other words, the hushing gesture was a protective act after triggering the mechanism.

However, Du Wei hadn't thought of that at the time. Of course, even if he had, it couldn't have helped him to leave the mansion.

Therefore, at that moment, Du Wei chose to skip the middle steps and went directly to the location in the death scene, confronting the Evil Spirit in the most brutal way possible.

As for this mask, Du Wei thought that if he was not mistaken, it should be the key to leaving this mansion.

This explanation might sound hard to understand, but in reality, if one considered the mansion after the deviation to be a closed-off space, it made sense.

In normal conditions, the traces of the Evil Spirit in the mansion were faint, so faint that even the initial stages of Spirit Vision couldn't detect anything amiss.

But when a certain unknown mechanism was triggered, the mansion would transform into what Du Wei had encountered before — with no means of escape.

The Evil Spirit that emerged from the mask turned the mansion after the deviation into a door.

The remaining mask thus became a key.

Now, besides Du Wei who possessed the mask, anyone pulled into the mansion after the deviation would have no way out, face only a dead end.

Of course, there were many parts of this that were difficult to think through.

For example, Du Wei still didn't know why the Evil Spirit hadn't attacked him from the beginning but waited until he reached that bedroom.

It was as if it had some specific purpose in mind.

As for what it was afraid of...

Du Wei had known that ever since he put on the mask.

The mask is the key, together it is the vessel for hiding the Golden Brooch, while separately it is some kind of byproduct of the Evil Spirit's parasitism.

...

2:20 PM.

Outside the mansion, the rain was getting heavier and the weather was turning gloomier.

Du Wei sat in the driver's seat of his Subaru Impreza, with the heater already on, slowly dissipating the coldness and dampness from his body.

On the passenger seat lay a backpack, which concealed the mask.

At this moment, an old Mercedes sedan drove up, coming to a stop on the left of the Subaru.

Du Wei then saw Father Tony's anxious and tense face as he opened the Mercedes door.

He gasped, "Mr. Du Wei, I am so sorry, I never expected Mina's matter to turn out this way..."

Du Wei frowned slightly and stepped out of the car too.

In the rain, the two men locked eyes for a second.

Father Tony was the first to speak, "That hexagram pattern is a Veda Sect sacrificial ritual. Once started, it cannot be stopped; otherwise, there will be a severe backlash from the Veda they worship."

Du Wei nodded and asked, "I more or less know these things, but I want to ask one more question, will a person possessed by the Evil Spirit continue the sacrificial ritual?"

Father Tony looked astonished, "You mean Kelly? That's very unlikely, unless the Evil Spirit possesses another person, otherwise it's practically impossible."

Du Wei hummed in acknowledgment and then asked, "Can it be understood that the Evil Spirit is making a sacrifice to the so-called Veda?"

Father Tony shook his head and replied, "No, it only wanted to complete the ritual, the intended recipient of the sacrifice should have been itself."

As he spoke, Father Tony looked at Du Wei with a puzzled expression, "Why would you ask such a strange question? Have you discovered something? Right... is Mrs. Mina..."

Upon hearing this, Du Wei looked up and pointed to the second floor of the villa, towards Kelly's bedroom, "She's there."

"What?"

Father Tony was startled for a moment, then followed Du Wei's pointing gaze upwards.

Their position aligned perfectly with the window of Kelly's bedroom, where one could see the top half of the body hanging upside down.

But at that moment, beside the window, Father Tony saw the figure of Mrs. Mina.

Her face was expressionless, her eyes pitch black, the skin around her eye sockets looked as if burned red, her hair disheveled, and her pale, slender hands resting on the edge of the window.

In an instant, Father Tony felt an overwhelming chill creep over his entire body, and in his damp clothes, he couldn't help but shudder.

The next second.

As if sensing something, Mrs. Mina's stiff body turned around, like some kind of machine, silently walking into the shadows, and then she was no longer visible.

Thud...

Father Tony collapsed onto the ground; some of the muddy water he kicked up nearly reached Du Wei.

"She... she..."

"She's already dead. I was watching her the whole time in the car. She was the final vessel and also the Evil Spirit that killed Kelly and completed the sacrificial ritual."

Seeing Father Tony sitting on the ground, Du Wei knew he was in emotional turmoil, so after some thought, he said:

"I can introduce you to Officer Tom; he seems quite good at resolving men's pain."

Father Tony, with a sorrowful look, lifted his head, "Thank you, Mr. Du Wei, but I do not need it. I may be just a priest, but I have long been accustomed to these things..."

He continued on his own, "She often came to church to pray, sometimes she would confide in me about her pain... like how her life was not happy... and how her child was adopted..."

At this, Father Tony suddenly looked up with a hopeful tone, "Her body..."

Du Wei shook his head, "It's pointless, and this villa is incredibly dangerous. Once you go in, you can't come back out, and it's even less likely that you will find her body."

At this point, Du Wei silently added in his mind, "But I will go in again, for another mask."

"... Alright, I trust your judgment."

...

Meanwhile.

In the residential buildings of the North Brook District.

The lights in the corridor were dim, the garbage can in the corner was dirty and disorganized, and it looked as if someone had kicked it, filling the air with an unbearable stench.

In front of the garbage can, an iron door was tightly shut.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

And behind the door was a horrifying scene that was startling to behold.

Five or six cultists of the Veda Sect stood emotionless in the room, surrounding the corpse of a man whose chest had been cut open, with something placed inside. Blood pooled on the floor, forming a sinister hexagram pattern, with a candle at each of the points.

At that moment, Bishop Ruth came over, holding a photograph in her hand, of a family of four, two daughters.

As she walked over to the corpse on the floor, she muttered softly, "Martin Nickter, diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder twenty years ago, killed his own wife and one daughter, then went on to murder over thirty innocent people. Whether it's sin or bloodshed, you are a fitting substitute."

"But why do the Vedas seem more satisfied with that psychologist?"

"The deaths of Nerella and the others must have been the work of the Evil Spirit, also because of this man. Could he be favored by the Evil Spirit?"

"Even the legendary hunters of the church seem unlikely."

Bishop Ruth threw the photo into the chest cavity of the corpse and said softly to the others, "The deaths of Nerella and the others will be blamed on that man. As the original Sacrifice intended for the Vedas, he can't escape."

After speaking, they walked straight out and left at a slow pace.

Compared to Roy, these people were even more reckless in killing, with a simple and direct motive, and they didn't care about the aftermath with the bodies, as if it didn't matter to them at all.

After they left, the body that had been eviscerated began to tremble.