This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!

Chapter 76: Chapter 076 Resurrection

No more nonsense.

Chen Ke retraced his steps back to the main hall of the church. His exploration had taken him nearly an hour, and the cooldown for the Teleportation Gate was drawing closer.

A cluster of bonfires beside the statue of the church goddess caught his attention. It was the Fire-igniting Broadsword’s flame, lit for emergency warmth for Parker in the absence of continuous input of Spiritual Energy, it shouldn’t have been able to burn for so long.

But when Chen Ke saw the long bench next to Parker, he understood.

Who knows what method Parker had used; he had dismantled a long bench to use as firewood. The Fire-igniting Broadsword itself had an affix that allowed it to burn continuously when there was combustible material.

However, the fire was slightly more intense than expected. Even standing at Chen Ke’s position, he could feel a slight warmth.

Parker was still adding firewood to the bonfire, deftly breaking off a piece of wood from the chair and tossing it into the flames. When he saw Chen Ke, he immediately ran over.

“Is it really that cold here?” Chen Ke asked, puzzled.

“Yeah, it’s freezing me to death. Do you have any extra clothes?” Parker rubbed his shoulders.

“No,” Chen Ke spread his hands. His own clothes were torn, where would he have extras for Parker?

“That’s really unlucky. I thought you’d have some useful stuff in your pack.” Parker looked disappointed.

“Did something happen here?” Chen Ke asked, noticing Parker’s odd expression.

“Seems like there’s some issue by the statue of the goddess. Just a few minutes ago. Go take a look,” Parker said urgently, apparently having seen something incredible.

“The statue of the goddess?” Chen Ke asked.

Parker nodded.

Chen Ke turned towards the statue of the goddess. It looked intact, only slightly different from what he remembered, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint the change.

“What’s up with it? I don’t see any difference,” Chen Ke shook his head.

“It’s not the statue itself, but underneath it,” Parker said.

Hmm?

Chen Ke grew curious, took a few steps forward to get a closer look at the statue, and then noticed it had shifted backwards a few meters, revealing a staircase leading downward.

This was a hidden passage! Hidden so deeply, there surely must be something inside.

Chen Ke recalled when he had taken the skull, the small altar’s silver tray slowly rose, perhaps triggering some linked mechanism.

He dared not go down rashly and turned back to look at Brother Discouraged, who still sat squatting pensive, as if he was used to the moving statue and paid it no mind.

Chen Ke stepped forward to strike up a conversation, hoping to gain some useful information.

“Hey, have you seen that? What’s down there?” Chen Ke asked.

“This is just the beginning, friend. You’ve got the skull too, right?” Brother Discouraged looked up and counter-questioned.

Chen Ke cocked his head; this guy sure knew a lot!

“Do you know who it belongs to?” Chen Ke responded with another question.

“Do you know the consequences of returning the skull?” Brother Discouraged replied casually.

“Is this the recurrence of the cycle?” A bead of sweat dripped down Chen Ke’s forehead.

“`

“…”

Brother Discouraged looked at Chen Ke, his blue eyes showing an emotion that was hard to decipher. He stared at Chen Ke’s face for a few seconds.

“It seems you have tried hard, but this method is pointless,” he finally spoke.

Pointless? Chen Ke was confused.

“How did you do it before?” Chen Ke asked.

“We were all wrong, returning the head is meaningless, the dead remain dead, how could chopping a head revive someone… hehehehe…” Brother Discouraged laughed to himself, ignoring Chen Ke and sinking back into his solitary pondering.

Chen Ke sighed. This guy had some issues, speaking always like he was guessing a riddle, but he was certain that Brother Discouraged knew quite a bit.

Unable to get any more information from Brother Discouraged, Chen Ke decided to go down and see for himself.

“I’m going down to take a look, don’t move from here,” Chen Ke said as he approached Parker. “Also, stop burning the chairs, I’m not sure if touching things here will trigger anything strange,” he added.

“Alright, alright, you go check out what’s down there, I’m really scared something might pop out,” Parker said as he squatted at the entrance to the passage, curiously peering inside.

He didn’t tell Parker about the head matter, mainly because it wasn’t necessary and carrying a head around was just too bizarre; Chen Ke didn’t want to have to explain.

Chen Ke descended slowly down the steps into a long corridor. He intended to pull out the black candle holder to light his way, but realized the corridor was illuminated by an intermittently flickering white light.

The light came from a fog at the end of the corridor, resembling a door.

Although the fog door looked too strange, no information box popped up in Chen Ke’s view, so he walked briskly towards it, observing the unusual mist.

The grey-white fog churned. Chen Ke reached out to touch it, unlike an air wall, the fog door had no texture, feeling just like air. Leveraging the life countdown he had, he boldly took a deep breath…

There was no taste.

Without thinking further, Chen Ke walked straight into the fog, and like finding sunlight after parting the clouds, he emerged on the other side to find himself inside a vast cliff within a mountain.

He followed a several meters wide mountain path straight forward, arriving at a circular plateau surrounded by an unseen abyss.

Chen Ke looked to the left, the light source in this space came from a crack in the distant mountain, and the cold wind also poured in through the cracks.

In the center of the round plateau were two white stone pillars, wrapped with thick black iron chains, and in the middle of the pillars, a headless corpse was bound.

It was a female corpse, and like the head, showed no signs of decay even after a long time, dressed in a tattered white off-shoulder dress, her pale and smooth skin resembled a plaster statue.

The female corpse’s neck wound was very neat, a line of dried blood traced from her neck to the middle of her collarbone in a straight line. On the left side of her chest, an odd symbol was branded into her flesh, seemingly some kind of religious mark.

The corpse’s arms were wrapped in thick iron chains, the chains had embedded into the flesh and become part of the arms, her feet bare, kneeling on the spot.

Chen Ke took out the head from his bag, sorted the hair wrapped around the candle holder, hesitating whether to place the head back on the neck.

Brother Discouraged’s words still echoed in his ears, but Chen Ke felt that only by returning the head, could the world move forward again.

He held the head in both hands, hesitated for a long time, and finally slowly put it back on the corpse’s neck.

Nothing happened.

Brother Discouraged had tried this before, so he said it was useless, yet Chen Ke still felt, could he have missed some detail?

“-3 hours”

A flash of information suddenly flickered in the corner of his eye; Chen Ke blinked in surprise, what’s going on?

He looked again at the female corpse, only to see the circle of red cutting scars between the head and the neck was slowly vanishing.

“`