Chapter 1129: Cursed

Chapter 1129: Cursed

On the dark mottled bridge, Li Luo's face turned gloomy. He stared at the old lady who had remained unfazed after receiving the brunt of his Duke Art, the Underworld River's Black Dragon Banner.

Lu Ming and the group were simply terrified at this result.

"Is that an Other?" Lu Ming asked.

Li Luo shook his head and replied, "It doesn't give off the feel of an Other. Rather, it feels like she doesn't really exist."

He began to ponder over the current situation for a moment. Suddenly, he took the initiative to walk up and gradually approached the old lady. Lu Ming and the rest could only grit their teeth and reluctantly tail him.

"Do you want to get out of here, children?" the old lady asked once more with a grin.

Li Luo looked back at her. His eyes lit up and he nodded. "Yes we do," he replied.

As soon as the old lady heard this, her gaze changed and her wrinkled face appeared lively. She then reached into her sleeve and pulled out four bowls of dark tea with trembling hands and placed them in front of her.

"Four bowls of tea. Three of them contain a curse and one of them will dispel the ward. If you drink one bowl each, you can all get out," the old lady said with a cackle.

"Who would dare to drink this strange liquid?!" Lu Ming scolded back angrily. Lightning sparks appeared on her palm, and she fired straight at the old lady.

When the lightning bolt hit her face, it slid off like slippery mud. However, a few moments later, the old lady recovered and simply stared back at the four of them with a grin.

Li Luo frowned. "This seems to be some kind of illusionary ward that requires us to follow specific rules. Since we cannot break out forcefully, we have to follow the rules that have been set here."

"Are we really going to drink this?" Sun Dasheng cried out.

"Let's ignore her. Shall we keep walking on and see?" Jing Taixu suggested.

Li Luo nodded. That was a feasible idea as well, so the four of them ignored the old lady. They walked around her and continued down the bridge.

After dozens of minutes, they came to a stop again. Their faces turned ugly when they realized who was before them. The strange old lady had appeared yet again.

The old lady grinned and looked back at them. "Do you want to get out, children?"

The eerie voice sent chills up their spines.

Lu Ming sighed dejectedly. "It's not working. It's impossible to get out."

"Damn it, go to hell!"

Sun Dasheng took out his iron rod and swung it at the old lady. However, it was just a waste of strength. As he was panting from the exertion, the old lady reappeared in front of them, intact as usual.

Jing Taixu had been quiet. He stared at the four bowls of black tea in front of the old lady. "If there's really no choice, shall we try following the rules?"

"Three out of the four bowls contain a curse. The probability is too high," Lu Ming responded.

"But we have no other choice. We can't be trapped in this illusionary realm forever. I have a feeling that if we hang around too long, there will be even greater danger," Jing Taixu said in a serious tone.

Li Luo frowned. This illusion realm was likely a creation of the All-Beings Devil King. How could they dare to underestimate it? It was hard to tell what would happen if they continued to linger around. It was likely that their situation would become even more perilous.

Their priority right now was to get out of this illusionary realm.

"There is no other choice. We'll have to do it since the rules have been set. It's unlikely our situation will resolve itself if we continue to wait. When we get out, we can find our comrades and seek help," Li Luo said slowly.

After that, he reached out and took a bowl. nove(l)bi(n.)com

Li Luo stared at the old lady and said slowly, "You mentioned just now that everyone has to drink one bowl each?"

The old lady smiled back gently. "One bowl each indeed."

Li Luo pondered for a while. "So are you counted as well?"

Lu Ming and the others were stunned when they heard this. What did Li Luo mean?

Li Luo slowly moved the bowl of black tea over to the old lady's mouth. He whispered to himself, "It does not matter whether this bowl contains a curse or dispels the ward. If you're the one that drinks it, we'll minimize our risk, right? If drinking what's in this bowl dispels the ward and you drink it, the ward will naturally be dispelled. If it contains a curse, will it be strong enough to get rid of you too? And if we destroy you, will it be considered as dispelling the illusionary realm?

"In conclusion, the last bowl... should be for you. Right?"

The old lady continued to grin at him, though she did not pull away.

Lu Ming and the rest finally understood. They exclaimed in surprise, "You can do that?!"

None of them had considered the old lady in front of them as one of the people to drink the black tea.

"We'll know after giving it a try," Li Luo said. He poured the tea into the old lady's dark mouth directly. The old lady did not dodge it and let him do whatever he wanted.

In the blink of an eye, all the tea was poured in. The four of them stared at the old lady nervously.

The old woman smiled back at them gently. However, this only lasted for a while before she slowly turned vicious and her body began to dissolve.

After a few moments, the old lady had completely melted. She turned into black smoke and disappeared into thin air.

"She was destroyed like that?!" Lu Ming and the group were astonished by this.

At the next moment, the surrounding world space began to twist. The mottled black bridge below them disappeared, replaced with street with dark water flowing beside it.

It seemed like they had entered the Black Swamp City without even realizing it.

"Has the illusionary realm been dispelled?" The three looked at each other with eyes full of excitement.

Li Luo heaved a sigh of relief. "Seems like my guess was right. The old lady was the way to dispel the ward. All four bowls were curses. If we drank them, we might have been unable to escape from the ward. In fact, things could have worsened. The old lady was simply a strange existence that we could not defeat with force. We had to get rid of her using the tea."

"Then it looks like we drank the bowls of tea for nothing!" Sun Dasheng cried sadly.

Lu Ming, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind her decision. "It was not really for nothing. If we hadn't figured out that the three bowls were cursed, Li Luo may not have thought about letting the old lady have the fourth bowl. After all, who else would have thought of that?"

After seeing what had happened to the three of them, there was a high chance the fourth bowl was another trap. From there, Li Luo had luckily managed to find the right answer.

It was perhaps a decision born out of desperation.

Li Luo did feel a little guilty. If he had figured out the trick to the realm sooner, Lu Ming and the rest would not have had to drink the tea themselves.

"How are you all feeling? Is everything..." Li Luo asked.

Before he could finish, he froze and his eyes turned solemn.

His eyes widened, and the trio had flustered looks on their faces. Their bodies suddenly began to expand rapidly.

Their skin was expanding as if air was being blown into them. They continued to bulge, and their flesh was separated from their blood. Finally, they turned into round human skin lanterns.

Their heads were at the top of the lanterns, and their pupils were like black vortexes. They had fallen into a deep slumber.

Right in front of Li Luo's eyes, the human skin lanterns began to rise into the air.