Pale, ash-white arms stretched out from the stone floor in dense, almost lifelike clusters. Tinged with intense resentment and malice, they clawed at the empty air above, as though once they caught hold of something, they would never let go—either tearing it to shreds or dragging it down into the depths of hell.
On the left wall and the right bookshelves, arms with bulging but translucent, ghastly-white muscles reached outward as well. Together, they formed what legend called the Wall of Limbs—the innermost barrier of hell itself.
The pale arms surrounding Lucian, Charlotte, and Sandra sensed the presence of the living and scrambled to grab at them. Some seized at ankles and heels, others tried to clutch at the hems of robes and sleeves.
The moment they touched Lucian's body, the eleven spheres of light orbiting the crystal orb atop his head blazed with dazzling radiance. Under its illumination, all the pale arms sizzled and dissolved into white smoke.
Sandra's remaining three Energy Spheres orbited around herself and Susan's bodies, continuously firing beams that shattered every surrounding pale arm into fragments, reducing them to nothingness. The arms that had seized Charlotte's body detached involuntarily from the floor and walls, drawn one by one into the Spell Absorption Barrier. The flowing arcane runes within began to swell and enlarge, as though they would soon burst apart.
While waiting for Bill's account, neither Charlotte, Sandra, nor Lucian had released their defensive magic.
Yet the pale arms from the floor, walls, and bookshelves seemed endless. The more that were destroyed, the more emerged—raising the terrifying suspicion that they were connected to the deepest recesses of hell itself.
At that moment, three ethereal lines extended from Sandra's head, reaching toward Lucian, Charlotte, and Susan respectively.
Recognizing this as the third-circle spell Minor Psychic Link, Lucian and Charlotte did not resist. They opened their minds and allowed the connection to form. Susan, seeing that both mages had accepted the link, opened her mind as well.
"We can only resolve this by going to the Binding Room and destroying the Summoning Circle. If we flee outside, we'd only give the creature a chance to fully resurrect and toy with us at will." Sandra's thoughts, transmitted through the psychic link that had already merged with the void, entered the minds of Lucian and the others.
This spell could transmit a mage's thoughts directly—many times faster than speaking. It and its higher-tier variants were the best options for mages in combat and adventuring. The only drawbacks were range limitations and vulnerability to mind-affecting magic.
Charlotte agreed with Sandra without hesitation: "The mist outside blocks the way. I suspect that unless we destroy the Summoning Circle in the Binding Room and kill that creature for good, it won't dissipate at all. And the moment we flee into the mist, that's when the creature will hunt us down one by one!"
Both battle mages chose to press forward on the offensive. With their connection to the outside world severed, they had two options: hunker down and wait for rescue, or carve a bloody path—whether to flee or to attack. The first option was only viable when hope was already slim, a last act of desperate waiting. And from the fact that only the Wall of Limbs had appeared while the creature had yet to launch an attack, they could tell it was still in the process of resurrecting. They had to seize this opportunity!
Moreover, fleeing risked panic and rout, making it impossible to combine their strength.
"To the Binding Room." As the team leader, Lucian wasted no words, making his decision directly.
Glancing toward the sealed chamber where Bill had shut himself inside again upon the appearance of the Wall of Limbs, Sandra didn't waste time confirming his safety. She beckoned to the terrified Susan to follow closely.
If Susan fell behind or left her protection in such a dangerous environment, Sandra would certainly not risk her own life to save her.
As one of only two survivors who had escaped the castle, Susan was not one to go weak in the knees. The more terrified she became, the more her strength manifested. She kept close to Sandra, who had recast her Energy Spheres, and ran forward.
Lucian followed at a distance in the rear, fully utilizing the speed of a knight enhanced by the Haste spell, sprinting step by step with afterimages trailing behind him. The starlight shed by the "Star of
Fortunately, Lucian still had the Death Ward and the Greater Flame Shield. The pale arms dissolved into nothingness the instant they touched him.
Arm after arm stretched out, and Lucian stepped on them as though treading on slippery, repulsive moss or the soft decay of rotting flesh—a bone-chilling sensation rising from beneath his feet.
This time, the mages pressed on without hesitation. After knocking over more than a dozen bookshelves, they burst into a corridor.
The corridor was even more revolting and terrifying than the apprentice hall, because it had walls on both sides. What reached out from them were no longer just pale, translucent spectral arms—there were also corpse arms trailing rotting flesh and bloody wounds. Even from the ceiling, crimson tongues descended, writhing toward them.
Sandra, still running, pointed her staff. The entire corridor instantly blazed with searing brightness as all surrounding light was drawn inward. The translucent arms, the blood-drenched arms, and the writhing tongues were all burned and rapidly dissolved into smoke.
Charlotte cast her spell as well. Two roaring walls of flame erupted along both sides of the corridor. Any arm trying to reach through had to pass through the fire. The flames were especially effective against the corpse arms and also dealt considerable damage to the translucent spectral hands. Even when they managed to push through the fire wall, they usually lacked the strength to do anything, and Sandra's Solar Flare purified them with ease.
The two battle mages worked in perfect tandem to carve out a path, allowing Lucian—following several meters behind—to advance rapidly without needing to cast any spells himself. This freed up his mental energy to focus entirely on other developments, so that if they ran into danger, he could intervene immediately!
This was, in fact, the essential teamwork that mages required in combat!