Inside an underground room with no windows and torches hanging on the walls to provide lighting, the selected team of Carol Summers and Soren Lupei stood before a round metal gate. On the ground between them and the metal gate was a shiny socket made of golden alloy and decorated with three blue gems. Standing beside the metal gate were two full suits of knight armor, one with a sword sheathed on the side and the other had a metal lance.

Carol Summers extended her right hand at the armor with a sword, the sword immediately flew over to her hand. A low chant was uttered by Carol Summers, and the sword started emitting electricity sparks while glowing in blue. Then, Carol Summers came forward and jammed the sword into the golden socket on the ground.

“Crack!” “Boom!” The metal gate was shaken by a jolt of energy, and slowly rotated open from the middle. Behind the metal gate was a dark and empty space. When one focused on the space, they would be able to see that there were flickering stars at a distance, and occasionally there were colorful bubbles with miniature sceneries, landmarks or even buildings inside floating by.

Carol Summers extended her left hand at the armor with a lance and grabbed it firmly in hand. Chanting a spell in a voice that was gradually getting louder, the physical lance with a metal tip, wooden shaft and metal rings along the shaft with small gems socketed on them slowly turned into a lance of pale white energy. Then after a grunt, she threw the energy lance at the empty space behind the metal gate. The energy lance pierced into the dark and empty space, leaving a pale white trail also made of energy. Before long, the energy lance exploded and tore a hole in the distant space. A shockwave was released by the explosion, and expanded along the pale white energy trail, the vague and ethereal looking rail became solidified when the shockwave blew through, which then became a full-fledged tunnel connected to the frame of the metal gate.

“Found it.” Carol Summers took a look at the tunnel and she could see the green grass, the blue sky and a magnificent castle in the distance: “Interesting look - it’s almost the same as the picture on that book cover many years ago.”

“Looks very fake.” Soren Lupei shook his head: “I know elders in our tribe that had lent their forces to those who were there when it fell - it was damaged and corrupted beyond repair when the Hellinger line was wiped out - well, ALMOST wiped out.”

Before leading the team into the tunnel, Carol Summers seemed to have felt something and took out three tiny gems from her inner robe pocket: these three gems all cracked up into pieces, and before she could even take a closer look, they crumbled in her hand and into tiny grains of shiny sand.

“Well, there goes my spies. I thought they would last longer. Too bad they could only prove us with the coordinates.” Carol Summers sighed and let the sand fall onto the ground: “Let’s go.”

The tunnel looked long and winding, but it only took less than a second for one to travel through. And in just around a minute, all members of Carol Summers and Soren Lupei’s team landed on the grass outside of the Hellinger Castle.

The moment she came out from the tunnel, Carol Summers sensed some hostility and animosity against her and her team. Having studied a bit about the history of the Hellinger family and the hidden and rarely talked about story of the siege and fall of the Hellinger Castle, she was already expecting something like this would be present - the Hellingers were known to be experts at curses, magic of the mind and will and controlling and utilizing malice as weapon. And after the fall of the castle and the absolute majority of the family members being slain, the last ones standing cast a spell together trying to pull together the collective grudge of the fallen family members as a last hail mary. The spell did not work as intended, and only stalled the invasion forces for a short moment. But unexpectedly, the spell polluted and corrupted the entire castle, so much so that all the families who joined forces for the assault deemed it not worthwhile at all to occupy it or attempt to salvage anything from the ruins.

But it was precisely because of this, once one found the right person and offered a right price, just like Carol Summers did, they could acquire information about the battle plans and intelligence utilized by the invasion forces during that disgraceful battle. All she needed to do, was to adjust it for her own purposes.

“Alright, everyone, take out your keys.” Carol Summers turned around at the teams behind her and said: “It’s time to blend in.”

Each member of her and Soren Lupei’s team took out a short sword or dagger from their pocket and unsheathed it. The blades of these short swords and daggers were all dark and reeked of dark energy, grudge and malice. Each team member dripped a few droplets of blood onto their blade, and with chills running through the surface of their bodies - cold, dark and gloomy energy clouds shrouded them.

“Stay in formation, do not fight unless you have to.” Soren Lupei told the lycans and vampires behind him: “Remember, if you break the shroud, the grudge that haunt this place will start to target you - don’t cause us to waste any more energy than we have to.”

Four cloaked and masked mages came before Carol Summers each with a long scythe on their back and a small metal figurine of a grim reaper in their hands. When they placed the figurines on the ground and released the scythes in the air, the figurines started growing in size to the height of one and a half adult men.

These figurines’ bodies became foggy as they grabbed the scythes and wielded them like realm grim reapers would. Then seemingly on a mark, the four grim reapers charged at a position on the outer wall of the Hellinger Castle and swung their scythes at the same spot.

“Boom!” A breach was created by this coordinated and synchronized attack. A high pitched howl came from the sky above, and one cloud changed in shape and shot out hundreds of human and non-human skulls made of mist and fog at the four grim reapers from below.

Dear readers:

This will be the last update for this year! I will be off during the holidays and see you again in the new year!

Stay healthy!

Egao Chan