"Are you looking for me..."
As soon as the voice reached his ears, Derrick stiffened, his skin tightened, every hair stood on end.
How is he behind me?
How did he appear in my room?
The seal?
The effect of that mystical item?
Cold sweat beaded on Derrick's forehead, and he instinctively wanted to turn his head.
But his instinct stopped him.
And this came from the teachings of "Monster Knowledge" class in Silver City and some bizarre scenes he had encountered after joining the patrol:
When someone speaks behind you, don't be hasty to turn around!
Derrick raised his hands, clasped them into fists at his chest, and then, in a state of high alert, slowly, little by little, he half-turned.
The room was shrouded in deep darkness, making it impossible to see anything, but in Derrick's two eyes, golden points expanded, turning into two miniature suns.
With the ability of a "Light Supplicant", he saw a dark silhouette sitting silently on the edge of his bed.
The silhouette quickly became clear, revealing a head split vertically!
In the middle of the head, greyish-white brain matter wriggled as if alive, trying to come together but failing.
From the severed surface of the brain, viscous liquid dripped into thin strands, but they contracted upwards like maggots.
The eyes were far apart, the nose split in the middle, blood vivid red.
The left half of the mouth grinned, but the right half was tightly shut.
This terrifying monster was naked, covered with crisscrossing dark red wounds.
Countless wounds gaped hideously, revealing rows of white teeth, and they all spoke the same words in unison:
"Are you looking for me..."
It paused, the corners of its mouth and the edges of the wounds all turned up:
"See, I'm perfectly normal..."
Derrick's pupils constricted, and without thinking, he raised his clasped fists to his chin, as if in prayer.
The small room suddenly became bright, and a pure beam of light wrapped in flame fell from the ceiling, striking the monster.
This beam was not as dazzling as when Derrick used it outside the Round Tower, because the seal and the mystical item here isolated the inside from the outside.
But at that moment, Derrick was astonished to see the sacred beam he had summoned suddenly thicken, becoming so brilliant that he couldn't help but want to close his eyes.
Vaguely, from that majestic and resplendent pillar of light, something purer and denser separated, like a being of light with no facial features and no clothes!
This "Light Being" flickered and pounced on the monster.
All the "mouths" of the monster suddenly opened wide, as if uttering a piercing scream.
However, Derrick heard nothing.
The monster trembled violently and quickly disintegrated under the scorching and shining of the "Light Being", dissolving and disappearing.
When it became nearly transparent, a strange phantom suddenly appeared there—a phantom in a black classical robe and a pointed soft hat!
This phantom had black hair, black eyes, a wide forehead, a thin face, and wore a monocle carved from crystal.
As soon as it emerged, the "Light Being" suddenly exploded, and Derrick's eyes were filled with a white radiance.
When his vision returned, he found himself already outside the room, in the corridor with metal lamp holders, bathed in a dim yellow light.
He dazedly turned his head, looking into the room, and saw a tall, robust figure in dark trousers and a brown coat, his back to him.
In front of the figure, on Derrick's original bed, specks of light like dawn quickly gathered around a white leg bone, turning it into a pure white, sharp straight sword.
Beside the sword lay quietly a semi-transparent worm.
It was only as long as a thumb, slender nearly as a child's little finger, and its body was divided into many segments by completely transparent rings.
Derrick glanced at it, not counting the rings, but vaguely felt there were about ten.
The tall figure with his back to him reached out and picked up the strange semi-transparent worm, then turned around, and sighed:
"Almost..."
At this moment, Derrick finally saw the front of the tall figure:
His hair was white, unkempt, quite messy; his nasolabial folds were deep, but no wrinkles on the corners of his eyes or forehead; his cheeks bore some old scars, some deep, some twisted.
He wore a linen shirt inside, a belt with many compartments around his waist; his light blue eyes were deep and weathered, and he was like a book full of stories.
Derrick was first stunned, then, as if surviving a danger, he pleasantly opened his mouth: