Mystery: Gray Walker

Chapter 75 The Ritual Before the Tree

"Irwin,"

Green lowered his voice, "This road... goes down. When I was exploring before, my attention was focused on the upper floors of the main building, and I didn't discover that there was such a deep underground space."

"Midnight Poet" Erwin scanned the walls in front of him and on both sides.

"you mean......"

"The basement. I may have missed a crucial part before. Veronica hid the real 'digestion field' underground. The paintings are the blood vessels, the third floor may be the heart or brain, but this... is probably the real stomach for 'eating' and 'transforming'."

He made a quick decision: "I'll go check it out first. You should walk slowly, observe the guard positions and terrain, but don't get too close. If things don't look right inside, I need you to go back immediately and notify Clarice and the others."

Irwin nodded without hesitation, his voice steady: "Understood. Be careful, Green. I have a bad feeling about this place."

Green grunted in response and said nothing more.

He quickly took out the dark gray "Sloth" coat from his pocket and skillfully draped it over his shoulders.

The fabric spread automatically, conforming to his body shape, its color quickly blending into the surrounding dim stone walls and shadows.

That alluring feeling of comfort, which made him want to linger, came back to him, but he forcibly suppressed it.

He moved like a shadowy figure without substance, silently accelerating along the cold stone wall, gliding past the guests with dazed eyes and unsteady steps, even brushing past a red-clad waiter who was bowing his head to lead the way, without the other party noticing.

The corridor forks ahead.

Most of the guests were led to the wider, brighter passageway on the right, where the faint sound of flowing water and a richer aroma of plants could be heard.

To the left was a narrow, dimly lit passage, the only source of light being a slightly ajar door at the end, from which shimmering pink and crimson hues emanated.

Green barely hesitated; he darted into the left passage and quickly approached the half-open door.

From inside the door came suppressed groans, rapid breathing, and a chilling rustling sound that seemed like countless soft vines slowly wriggling.

Green held his breath and slowly walked through the door.

When he entered the room, he froze on the spot, feeling a flush on his cheeks.

Inside the door was a larger space than expected, resembling an underground lair of debauchery.

The light comes from self-illuminating pink crystals or some kind of biological organ embedded in the walls and dome, which pulsate and bathe the entire room in a warm, inviting hue.

The air was so humid and hot it was suffocating, and the sweet aroma was intense.

In the center of the room, there was neither an altar nor a bed, but a huge, naturally formed depression by living vines, moist moss, and a slightly pulsating pinkish-white fungal carpet, like a living 'hotbed' tailor-made for desire.

At this moment, the scene in that 'warm bed' was utterly unbearable to look at.

There were about a dozen pairs of men and women, barely clothed, with fervent eyes, engaging in primal animal instincts, entangled and writhing among them.

Their movements were intense and their voices were loud.

But what's even more terrifying is the 'bed' they're in.

Those seemingly soft vines are gently yet firmly wrapped around the participants' limbs, waists, and even necks, not as a form of restraint, but more like a kind of... guidance and connection.

The tips of the vines pierced their skin slightly, and as the participants moved and their emotions fluctuated, a faint, milky-white halo was drawn out along the vines and flowed into the base of the 'warm bed'.

Around the 'warm bed' were even more vines, swaying slowly like living snakes, their tips secreting a clear, sweet-smelling sap that occasionally dripped onto the people below, causing an even more violent tremor.

The entire room was like a living machine that was operating at high efficiency, extracting the essence of life and the energy of desire.

There is no joy here, only a terrifying blasphemy of being utterly objectified and reduced to nourishment.

Green's gaze swept quickly across the room, and in the corner he saw several red-clad waiters leaning against the wall.

They were expressionless, their eyes vacant, like puppets programmed to perform, simply watching the grand spectacle in silence, ensuring that no part of them strayed from its place.

And at the deepest part of the room, on the largest wall, he saw a huge, living mural!

That was an enlarged version of the twisted and alluring "Tree of Desire" he had seen in the second-floor bedroom.

At this moment, the tree seemed to be breathing, its branches and leaves trembling slightly. The outline of the tree trunk, which resembled the human posture in the 'warm bed' below, was faintly emerging. The milky white halo drawn by the vines was gradually flowing into the mural, making its colors more vivid and lifelike.

This is not the end.

Green instantly understood. This was a preliminary purification and conversion station.

These highly catalyzed and extracted "essences" are being transported elsewhere through this living "Tree of Desire" mural...

It's very likely that it will ascend, merging into the entire manor's 'tree vein' system, its final destination...

Third floor?

He felt a strong wave of nausea and chills.

Veronica's ritual, if it could even be called a ritual, was far beyond his initial imagination in terms of scale and evil.

Green forced himself to look away, suppressing the churning in his stomach and the burning sensation on his cheeks.

The scene in the room on the left was already horrifying enough, but the wider passageway on the right, where a large number of guests were being ushered in, probably concealed a darker side of the ritual.

He silently withdrew from the 'altar of desire,' blending back into the shadows of the corridor and stealthily making his way to the right-hand passage.

The deeper he went, the more horrified Green became.

A rhythmic scraping sound of metal could be faintly heard from ahead, along with a suppressed, muffled sob, as if someone were choking on their own breath.

Green's heart began to race involuntarily.

He pressed himself against the cold stone wall, slowly approaching a heavy iron door at the end of the passage.

He took a deep breath as he passed through the wall.

This space is similar in size to the room on the left, but has a completely different atmosphere.

There are no living vines or warm beds here, only rough black stone walls, cold ground, and a raised stone platform in the center covered with dark brown dirt.

That was an altar.

The ground around the altar was carved with deep grooves that converged into a central hole.

At this moment, a viscous, dark red liquid was slowly flowing into those grooves.

At this moment, a sacrifice is taking place on the altar.

A man, stripped of his shirt and with his eyes glazed over in extreme fear, was pinned down on a stone platform by two expressionless waiters in red armbands.

A third waiter stood beside his head, holding a strangely shaped black dagger with a blade that gleamed coldly.

There was no ceremonial chanting, no superfluous movements.

The waiter with the dagger raised it and swiftly plunged it into the man's left chest.

That's not the heart, but it's a more painful place where death comes slowly.

"Ugh...ha..." The man's body convulsed violently, and a hissing sound like air leaking from his throat came out.

The blood did not splatter, but instead flowed along the blood groove on the dagger and the attendant's precise movements, into the grooves on the surface of the altar, and then into the central hole.

The whole process is fast, quiet, and efficient, with a cold precision reminiscent of an assembly line operation.

What made Green's scalp tingle even more was the room's 'decor'.

The walls were no longer adorned with oil paintings, but with various rusted instruments of torture, chains, and some... dried and twisted specimens that resembled biological organs.

Several bulging burlap sacks were piled up in the corner, their edges stained with dark dirt.

On the wall directly opposite the altar, there is also a huge 'mural'.

But the subject of this painting is a withered, twisted, giant tree with branches reaching towards the sky like skeletons.

The tree trunk was covered with cracks and knots, and piles of bones lay at its base.

Compared to the vibrant and alluring "Tree of Desire" in the room to the left, this "Tree of Death" is filled with an aura of decay and end.

At this moment, the blood flowing on the altar and the pervasive fear of death in the air are transforming into wisps of almost visible gray-black mist, which are being slowly absorbed by the 'Tree of Death' mural.

The withered trees on the mural seemed to have gained an eerie 'luster' because of this.

The room on the left is where 'life' and 'desire' are extracted.

The room on the right is where 'death' and 'pain' are harvested.

Despite their diametrically opposed energy properties, they are extracted, transformed, and transported through two corresponding "tree murals."