Lakeside Ghost Story 21

Zhuo Yu hadn't expected the film to be so meticulous.

The book Marcus held was called The Key of Solomon. Legend had it that King Solomon of Israel, inspired by divine revelation in the Middle Ages, had received a book of laws for summoning angels and demons. In reality, it had been compiled by occultists, and its contents were black magic through and through.

The book advocated killing sacrifices, so to the Church of the Fountain of Youth, a priest's blood was the finest catalyst.

Zhuo Yu had once studied The Key of Solomon in detail for an occult murder case. A bad feeling rose in him. Surely these people weren't about to...

"It's already noon. We're running out of time. Set up the array, now."

With a sweep of his hand, Marcus turned to the section on magic arrays, then took out the six bottles he had brought, each filled with ritual components.

They contained rusty iron nails, moldy food that had been eaten, dead insects, cemetery dirt, hair and nail clippings soaked in urine, and rosemary mixed with salt and vinegar.

The stench was appalling, but Marcus solemnly handed the bottles to the believers. They showed no disgust at the filth, beginning to smear the foul materials over the grass with the precision of machines.

These were the ingredients for European folk-magic witch bottles. They could create a protective field like a barrier. Combined with the array from The Key of Solomon, Zhuo Yu understood: these people intended to protect themselves with religious power.

Drawing Solomon's magic array consumed an enormous amount of concentration and mental energy for ordinary people. They did not even have time to deal with Zhuo Yu and Asha first; they had to finish the array before nightfall.

Time crept by. Zhuo Yu's pretend sleep nearly became real sleep. He could sense Liu Jingyun growing restless too, her stiff body making the slightest movements.

To get through the unbearable wait, Zhuo Yu could only secretly study the array the Church of the Fountain of Youth was drawing. The sun gradually sank westward, and the enormous design finally revealed its true form.

Two adjacent concentric circles formed its border, with a smaller concentric circle nested within them. A ring of cryptic script filled the gap between the two, and a six-pointed star representing Solomon's seal hung at the top.

Inside the circular array was an image of an arm. Its index finger pointed east.

If Zhuo Yu remembered correctly, this was the Third Moon Magic Array. In The Key of Solomon, it was a defensive array representing water's protection, capable of resisting all harm and curses beneath the moonlight.

Mayor Marcus knew about Golden Lake's seven-day curse too?!

"The fifth night. Tonight is the day of 'sowing'!" Marcus looked up at the sky. "The moon is about to take its place. It will bring us protection!"

Damn it. That old bastard really did know what was going on.

Yet Zhuo Yu was not worried in the slightest, because the enormous array had enclosed him and Asha as well...

The sky darkened. The believers finally completed the array. Everyone looked dazed, as though their energy had been drained; some could barely stand. Yet their spirits were feverishly exhilarated.

"Every member present will represent your family and receive this supreme honor." Marcus's voice was booming, clear and resolute as it reached every member's ears. "Here, you will accept a trial from God. Should you succeed, you will enjoy life without end, just as I do."

"And if we fail? We can never fail!"

Marcus was exceedingly confident. He had encountered the seven-day curse fifty years ago, and over all those years, he had devised a countermeasure: fight poison with poison, use Solomon's black magic to cancel out Golden Lake's Incan curse.

As long as they remained within the array until dawn, they would naturally clear this ordeal.

Golden Lake had already sensed an alien array on its land. To it, this was undoubtedly a provocation, especially when the intruders were the scum most eager to seize its resources and claim Golden Lake for themselves.

The setting sun vanished behind the mountains. In its place rose a mist-shrouded hunter's moon, like an eyeball staring at a deathtrap, ready to judge who would be the final victor.

"The time has come. Place the ritual objects!"

The six bottles were refilled with holy water and mixed with the priest's blood, then set at the six points of the hexagram. In an instant, the moonlight was drawn onto the array, and the three concentric circles began to shine with silver light in unison.

The solemn color seemed to intimidate Marcus. He involuntarily stepped back.

At the same time, the lake began to boil. Countless drowned revenants floated belly-up, wanting another taste of blood.

But tonight, they had something important to do.

For humans who had once persuaded a god to become a member of their tribe, this was the sowing of an idea. The drowned revenants did not possess such lofty intelligence, however, so they only wanted to turn humans into "one of us."

This night was the drowned revenants' breeding night.

Just as Zhuo Yu had expected, the drowned revenants were corpses swollen to grotesque proportions. They had long since lost the ability to reproduce as humans, but Golden Lake's curse had turned them into another strange kind of life-form.

Naturally, the fifth night, which symbolized "sowing," would be an eye-opening experience for the believers.

[Actor Mu Ying has died. Cause of death: complete transformation.]

Like a notification, the System's voice sent the drowned revenants into a frenzy. They scrambled onto the shore, and at the sight of such a supernatural spectacle, all the believers were terrified and wanted to flee back to their vehicles.

Marcus's furious rebuke, however, steadied them.

The drowned revenants lunged onto shore, only to seem to strike a glass dome. They could not get a single step closer to the array.

Faint moonlight flowed across the concentric circles, forming a half-visible dome. The drowned revenants bared their teeth and claws. Some were squeezed so hard their organs spilled out, but they paid it no mind. Like hounds that had scented prey, they shrieked and howled as they tried to force their way into the circle.

"All right. There is no need to worry." Marcus smiled coldly. "Next, we will execute the guardian before Golden Lake."

At the other end of the forest, Zhou Wu, who had escaped in the chaos yesterday, froze in his tracks.

He had heard the System's death announcement.

Mu Ying's hand... was really cold.

"Keh-keh... keh-keh-keh..." A hair-raising sound came from behind him. Zhou Wu slowly turned his head and saw that, in the moonlight, Mu Ying's face was terrifyingly pale.

"Hahh..." Mu Ying's eyes had turned completely cloudy, rolling like those of some deep-sea creature. She opened her mouth, and water mixed with algae spilled from it. Then she fixed her gaze on Zhou Wu.

In that gaze, it was as though she saw the finest feast imaginable.

"No, don't come any closer!" Zhou Wu immediately let go of her hand, grabbed a rock, and raised it to smash Mu Ying's head. But Mu Ying moved faster. She rammed into Zhou Wu headfirst, sending both man and rock flying into a tree trunk.

"Cough! Mu Ying, wake up! It's me!" Zhou Wu had barely begun to struggle to his feet when Mu Ying pounced on him again.

Her icy hands clamped around Zhou Wu's head like pincers. Mu Ying pried open his mouth, then, with a retching heave, blasted a torrent from her own. The stream, a mixture of gastric fluid and lake water, surged straight into Zhou Wu's mouth.

"Mmph! Mmph, mmph, mmph, mmph!!!!"

Zhou Wu felt a massive volume of liquid burst down his throat and pour into his stomach. He was terrified and nauseated, yet he could not break free of the drowned revenant's brute strength.

Before long, his belly swelled like that of a woman about to give birth.

Mu Ying released him. There was no need to keep hold of one of her own kind anymore.

Zhou Wu scrambled to his feet in utter panic, only to lose his balance and collapse again under the weight of his abdomen. Excruciating pain tore through his belly. The water he had swallowed burned with corrosive agony, like sulfuric acid.

An urge to vomit seized him. Supporting himself against the tree trunk, Zhou Wu opened his mouth wide and spewed, just as Mu Ying had.

But what he vomited was not water. It was bright-red blood and fragments of viscera.

Mu Ying crawled across the ground in a twisted posture, eagerly lapping at Zhou Wu's blood.

[Actor Zhou Wu has died. Cause of death: complete transformation.]

[Monster Update: The drowned revenants have lived at the bottom of the lake for so long that they inevitably grow lonely, so they possess a surprising method of propagation. If they want humans to slowly experience the joy of transformation, they use saliva for a gradual infection; in about five days, they can turn a human into a drowned revenant. On breeding night, the drowned revenants use gastric fluid to transform prey quickly. The process is extremely painful, though, and probably no human would want to try it.]

Zhuo Yu received the final death announcement. By now, every actor except himself and Liu Jingyun had died here.

Mayor Marcus held a holy urn filled with holy water. He cradled its bottom with some trepidation, watching droplets spill over the rim and fall one by one onto the grass.

"Golden Lake, acknowledge your true name. Only the strong are worthy of possessing the Fountain of Youth. Witness the sacrifice I offer you."

Marcus looked at the nightmare that had haunted him for fifty years.

The crocodile-headed monster.

He thrust both hands forward and violently splashed the highly concentrated holy water at it.

"Hahahaha! I've finally succeeded!" Marcus threw away the holy urn and howled with cathartic laughter, as though he wanted to cast off fifty years of humiliation along with the holy water.

But...

"What are you so happy about?"

The Boss tore free of the ropes in one pull, utterly unafraid of the holy water. That urnful of liquid had merely washed the dust from his mask.

Marcus's smile instantly froze. Like the exorcists who had died, he too was left with an impossible question.

That monster... had a human body?!

"You people really are slow. Waiting has left my whole body sore." Zhuo Yu smiled at Marcus at just the right moment. "Little Liu, you're up."

Liu Jingyun rose right after him. Before any of the believers could stop her, she kicked away the rusty nails and filthy materials that formed the concentric circles. The design was ruined, and half the array went out in an instant.

Never had the drowned revenants' roars been so clear. A mass of arms flooded into the array like hands scooping for goldfish, yanking the terrified, helpless believers out of the barrier one after another. Right before Marcus's eyes, they tore open the people's mouths and sprayed gastric fluid down their throats.

Human screams and retching filled the air, mingling with the drowned revenants' ecstatic howls.

The emerald grass was drenched in a deluge of blood. The rusty scent of blood, the stench of the array, and the fishy lake reek vomited up by the drowned revenants turned Golden Lake's embankment into a living hell. The believers, in agony beyond endurance, writhed across the ground.

Soon, they stopped struggling. They became fresh drowned revenants, waving their arms as they tried to rush into the array and tear into the remaining living humans.

Marcus stared at the scene before him. Fifty years of painstaking effort had gone to ruin. He went completely mad.

The Boss had no desire to look at this human evildoer any longer. He raised his axe and brought it down.

Something unexpected happened.

Marcus shed his robe and suddenly hurled himself into Golden Lake.