Chapter 296: Physical Exorcism (Part 1)
With his medallion resting calmly on his neck, Lynn scanned his surroundings but found no anomalies. He slowly approached the wall where the portrait was hung. The painting depicted a lady in a silk gown adorned with thorny rose patterns.
She had a beautiful face and exquisite makeup, and her expression was as gentle as sunlight. A gorgeous, gilded headdress sat atop her golden hair, and a heavy gemstone necklace hung from her pale, delicate neck. The fact that her portrait was in such a prominent position in the castle meant she was undoubtedly its former mistress.
But just as that thought crossed his mind, his Witcher medallion began to vibrate violently. In the portrait, the lady's skin started to shrivel and wrinkle like a dried apple. Her teeth fell out, and her eyes transformed into two balls of ghostly fire. With a monstrous grimace, she struggled to climb out of the painting.
Without hesitation, Lynn back-jumped to create distance and thrust his hand forward, spewing a jet of fire. "Igni."
Whoosh!
The ferocious red flame sprayed onto the portrait and the wall, quickly setting both ablaze. The now-charred portrait fell to the ground.
Lynn blinked. The wraith of the lady had already vanished. He took a deep breath of the dusty air, his vigilance heightened. He surveyed the surroundings, noticing a winding wooden staircase on the right side of the ground floor hall. To the left, there was a closed door, which likely led to other rooms on the first floor of the keep.
After a moment of thought, Lynn came to a conclusion. He chose not to ascend the staircase to the second floor. Instead, he walked toward the door on the left side of the hall. The door opened to a long corridor. The corridor connected to a number of rooms, but the Witcher found nothing in any of them.
There was nothing but thick cobwebs, dust, badly molded furniture, rusted weapons, and iron and broken leather armor. Lynn had even checked the weapons and armor. Their level of corrosion was so severe that it had compromised their internal structure, rendering them useless for even smelting and reforging. They were now completely worthless junk.
He sighed and walked toward the last room in the corridor. It looked much like the others, not as if it held any treasure. So Lynn didn't even bother to go inside. But just as he turned to leave, a force pushed him from behind.
It felt as though someone was standing right behind him, pushing him hard. The Quen shield covering him remained intact, but the force was enough to push him into the room. Then, with a loud bang, the door slammed shut. A dozen or so specters, holding eerie green lanterns and rusty swords, materialized in the room, surrounding the Witcher.
Faced with the wailing horde of wraiths, Lynn was completely unfazed. He formed the Igni Sign with his left hand and swept out a fiery red stream like a flamethrower. The first few specters instantly turned to ash with a wail, and the others quickly scattered to dodge the attack.
But soon, two Higher Moon Dust bombs flew out. Any specter hit by the powder from the explosions began to sizzle and smoke as if splashed with acid. Lynn stomped his foot hard and lunged forward like a hunting ice wolf. His Grandmaster silver sword flashed a silver streak, dispatching three more specters.
The remaining specters, oblivious to their impending doom, charged at him again, but Lynn slammed his hand onto the floor. The light of a Yrden trap enveloped the entire room, and the remaining wraiths slowed to a crawl as if they were trapped in a bog. For Lynn, dealing with the last few specters was as easy as swinging his sword a few times.
After Lynn had killed all the specters, the door that had closed on its own, now creaked open by itself. "Thanks," Lynn said, twirling his sword and muttering a word of thanks to the empty air before leaving the room. Having searched the entire ground floor, the Witcher returned to the hall where he had entered.
But just as he was about to step onto the wooden staircase leading to the second floor, his expression changed slightly, and he back-jumped several feet. The moment he moved, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling suddenly crashed down, slamming into the exact spot where he had just been standing. Lynn looked up. The fracture where the chandelier had been attached to the ceiling was clean, with no dust on it. It was a fresh break. It was obvious that a wraith was to blame.
And not just any wraith. Behind these low-level lantern specters, there must be a master, a controller. Only by eliminating the master could this castle truly be cleansed.
Lynn stepped onto the crooked wooden staircase, and with every step, the stairs groaned and creaked under his weight. It sounded as if the entire thing could collapse at any moment. Lynn looked down. Thankfully, a Witcher in the real world wasn't as fragile as in a video game; even if the stairs broke, a fall from this height wouldn't kill him.
As expected, Lynn made it to the second floor without incident. Before him was another hall. The layout of the second-floor hall was similar to the one on the ground floor, but there were many more portraits on the walls. Besides the portrait of the lady he had seen downstairs, there was also a portrait of a knight.
The knight was a middle-aged man with a weathered face, but his gaze was as sharp as an eagle's, giving off an air of quiet authority. He wore a set of exquisite, ornate full-plate armor, also decorated with the thorny rose emblem, and held a heavy halberd in his hand, exuding an imposing aura.
The other portraits were all of the knight and the lady in different poses and clothing. This made Lynn a little curious. Normally, a noble's castle would have portraits of the family's ancestors. It was strange that there were only portraits of the lord and the lady.
While Lynn was lost in thought, the doors around the second-floor hall suddenly slammed shut. The wooden staircase he had just climbed collapsed with a loud roar, turning into countless fragments and falling below. Suddenly, a heavy thudding sound and the scraping of something being dragged along the floor echoed through the hall.
(End of Chapter)
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