Jianmen thought for a brief moment, then took two paper sigils out and handed each to his two teammates: “Take these and keep them on you nonetheless - the curse could have worn off over the years, but - just to be on the safe side.”

“Should we leave? What are those?” Glenda Grimes took the paper sigil, put it in her inner robe pocket and asked.

“Memories of the last group of Hellingers, who turned their very souls and minds into a curse and bound themselves to the Hellinger Bloodline.” Jianmen shook his head: “I don’t think it ended up working as they expected. And from what I can tell these shadows are not a threat to us right now. But the thing is there’s still danger here. And if we want to keep going, we’re gonna have to find a way to go forward without making too much noise.”

“Why? What are you worried about besides the thing that hollowed out the structures?” Josephine Wong asked: “I’ve swept the room with my detection spells already, I don’t think it’s here.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Jianmen scratched his jaw while thinking: “How about this, you go ahead but try to be quiet, let me worry about… well what I’m worried about.”

“Understood, we’ll try to keep it down.” Glenda Grimes chuckled and nodded: “Josephine, can you help me here with a wind saw?”

“On it.” Josephine Wong came to the door with Glenda Grimes.

Glenda Grimes put her rapier back in the sheath, then conjured a short and wide wind blade with high speed air flow around the edges, and with Josephine Wong’s input, there were tiny saw teeth appearing on the edges travelling with the air flow as well. After just a few minutes, Glenda Grimes had a very efficient saw in her hand with the basic mechanics similar to that of a chainsaw. And with additional enchantments from Glenda Grimes and Josephine Wong, it also had the ability to crush and burn defense arrays on even hardened surfaces, while the potential disturbance it could cause to the environment would be minimized to the smallest extent possible.

Jianmen wandered around in the hall, looking around as well as keeping his attention on the shadows being buried below the solidified thick liquid - some of which were almost halfway out, while some others were still struggling. Jianmen thought about annihilating them on the spot, but considering the connection these shadows had with the castle and the intricate and unpredictable mechanics of the curse, he decided he should refrain from attempting so.

While walking around, Jianmen was also trying to recall some old books he read while he was still in his clan from the other world - curses like these were uncommon even in his previous world of cultivation, for a very simple reason: bloodlines were complicated things to lay a curse or a blessing on. With the basic knowledge of modern biology and genetics, he knew that the curse could be laid on things like the genetic characteristics. But even so, crafting a curse to “detect” this kind of details would take a huge amount of work. And for people of decades or even hundreds of years ago, it could only be more difficult. He could imagine it being simpler for smaller families and a clearly defined family tree and living members to “pass down” the blessing or curse. But for a bigger family, it would be an easy mistake to make that blessing or curse into a curse of simply good will or ill will towards the family; or in a worse and more complicated case, making it a faith based/dependent construct of the pure power of mind and will, which would be something borderlining on the power Gods, and nothing that should be tried lightly.

Glenda Grimes and Josephine Wong continued with their wind saw and were almost done carving a hole in the metal door. And from the gaps, they could see some fallen debris blocking their way. There was a defense array placed on the back of the metal door, but their wind saw cut through it with only minimal hindrance.

Jianmen watched as the shadow of a Hellinger pulled almost three quarters of her body out of the solidified thick liquid.

“The glory! Of the Hellinger!” This shadow seemed to be almost completely unhinged, her only one eye was bulging out and her right eye socket, while the thread ends from her stained and broken eye patch was gently flapping around: “Shall! Never! Fade!” Then she let out a high pitched scream.

“Gulp…” The sound of dark liquid came from above, and Jianmen could see a giant ball of liquid slowly seeping into the hall from the ceiling.

“Motherfucker. How far along are we?” Jianmen asked Josephine Wong and Glenda Grimes.

“Just half a minute, what now?” Josephine Wong answered but did not look back.

“This is probably the worst case scenario.” Jianmen backed off to the position of his two teammates and said: “The curse mutated and has become some kind of living, possibly parasitic being. You ever watched that movie where the victims of a haunted house become a part of it? It’s like that.”

“Can you hold it off?” Glenda Grimes grunted: “We’re almost there! Just a bit!”

“Okay. I’ll try.” Jianmen nodded: “It looks like it’s just woken up, so I’ll give you five seconds more than I would’ve.”

A gentle clank came from the metal door, both Glenda Grimes and Josephine Wong finally finished their carving on the metal door - they were able to remove a small piece from it, making a hole big enough for one person to go through just by lowering the body a little.

“Okay, we’ve got it! We need to go!” Josephine Wong said.

“You go first, someone needs to stall this thing for now.”

The ball of liquid dripped onto the ground, covering the shadow that was just about to get out. The lowermost portion of the ball of liquid started solidifying, serving as another thick crust to imprison the shadow, while the other liquid stayed in place and its surface rippled as if something within it was vibrating. Then from inside the liquid, a tall, pale human skeleton walked out, something in its eye sockets was glowing, orange on the left and blue on the right.

“Who dares enter the Hellinger Castle?” The skeleton asked with a hoarse voice.

“Hellinger Castle? I thought this was the Vyn castle.” Jianmen shrugged but kept his meat cleaver and broom ready.

The skeleton roared then lunged at Jianmen, but when he was about to make it halfway, something deep underground exploded, and several bolts of completely dark lightning pierced through the ground and impaled the skeleton.

“Ah! No!” The skeleton only managed to say a few words before being exploded into smithereens.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck…” Jianmen sensed the energy signature from the dark lightning and decided to run towards the metal door: “Josephine! Glenda! Come back out! We’ve gotta leave right now!”