The old witch listened to Leilin's words and stared at the dark-haired, handsome young man before her for a long while before a dry, hoarse voice scraped its way out of her throat.
"I've known you for nearly two years now, but I never realized you were such a cowardly wizard..."
The impression Leilin had always given her was one of recklessness and boldness—someone who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals, someone without any limits.
"Wizards live extremely long lives. Two years isn't really that long at all. Besides, choosing to turn away because of obvious danger isn't a sign of cowardice..." Leilin said with a smile.
"So you absolutely refuse to continue?" the old witch asked.
A silence answered her.
"Bang!" The old witch hadn't said another word, but Jay, standing behind her, had already moved without hesitation.
A cyclone of cyan energy instantly engulfed the area where Leilin stood.
Snap! Crisp sounds exploded one after another.
Then black flames erupted from within the cyclone, engulfing half the small hall and chasing after Jay.
"Hmph!" Jay snorted coldly, his cloak billowing without wind, stirring up a ring of dark energy particles.
The flames and energy particles met in midair, and a violent explosion detonated between them.
Jay's body shuddered, and he stumbled back three full steps, his aura fluctuating unsteadily.
"Enough!" The old witch stepped in front of Jay, and green light shot from her eyes.
Leilin, whose powers of observation were razor-sharp, recognized this as a sign that she was on the verge of losing control. He didn't want to fall out with the old witch just yet, so he simply smiled faintly, retreated to the side, and released the magical fluctuations from his body.
"And you too, Jay—Bloody Hand and I are friends. There's no need to be so on guard!" The old witch saw Leilin step aside, and the green glow in her eyes dimmed as she spoke to Jay behind her.
"Understood!" Jay answered in a low voice.
"Bloody Hand, even though you and I haven't known each other that long, we both know each other's character. Just state your terms directly!"
Things had unfolded in a way Leilin hadn't expected.
He had assumed that with the strength he'd displayed and his lack of intention to compete with the old witch, she would rationally allow him to leave or explore other locations instead.
Leilin was a rational person. Knowing there was danger inside the laboratory, with nothing clearly worth his attention, he naturally wouldn't take the risk.
But now it was obvious that something inside Laboratory Number One required Leilin's help to open or pass through. That was why the old witch was behaving in such a conciliatory manner.
"As a show of good faith, give me the remaining portion of the compressed spiritual power data I received last time!" Leilin put forward a condition directly.
"Done!" Without a moment's hesitation, the old witch tossed a green leaf toward Leilin.
Leilin caught it, and the Chip immediately notified him that it had received a large volume of information and visual data.
According to the Chip's analysis, this data was exactly the rest of what the old witch had provided previously.
"And add this as well! How about it? That should be enough for you to take one risk, right?"
Seeing Leilin fall into contemplation, the old witch tossed a black bag to him.
"These items would even give you a high chance of success if you were inviting some peak First-rank Wizards to help. What do you say?"
Leilin caught the bag and opened it, his expression shifting slightly.
He then gave the old witch a long, measured look. "For the sake of our friendship over the past two years, I'll take one risk with you. But the moment something feels off, I'm pulling out immediately, and I won't be involved in anything after that..."
"Naturally!" the old witch agreed.
Then she stepped past Leilin and inserted the brass key into the lock.
Clank!
Clank!
As the old witch turned the key, the sound of internal mechanisms whirring to life began to fill the hall.
At first the sound was barely audible, but it steadily grew louder, until finally the entire hall echoed with the clatter of interlocking gears.
Crack!
The black iron door split open along jagged seams, then rapidly shattered into countless small black iron fragments along those lines. The fragments flew apart to both sides, revealing the scene within Laboratory Number One.
Corpses! As far as Leilin's eye could see, there were countless white human skeletal remains.
Densely packed bones, layered one atop another, piled into a small mountain of white.
Then a wave of decay—long sealed away—mixed with the stench of death and rot and thick, suffocating Negative Energy Particles, swept over the three of them in a dark gray tide.
The Number One Laboratory inside this ancient Soul-Slaughtering Cult secret realm turned out to be nothing more than a massive human slaughterhouse!
Faced with this wave of Negative Energy, a ring of black light flashed around Leilin's body, and then he took several deep, almost satisfied breaths.