Chapter 19: Stepping into the Void (Part 2)

Hearing this, Oliver smiled slightly and reached out to pick up the red candle.

Under the sunlight, the candle showed a strange dark red color, like congealed blood.

“This is normal,” he said.

“Void Walk is not just an ability. More importantly, it allows you to come into contact with existence outside of the world for the first time. A change in perception is more important than a change in ability.”

Oliver put the red candle back in its place and turned to face Mel.

“From today on, you will see this world from a completely new perspective, but this also means greater danger.”

“I will be careful, Lord Bishop.”

Mel nodded, her gaze inadvertently sweeping across the tabletop.

That ten-pound note was still lying there quietly, but in Mel's eyes, it seemed to be emitting a strange light.

The young girl stood up to leave.

Taking the ten-pound banknote, she came to the front of the donation box, her slender fingertips gently caressing the ten-pound note.

Then, under the watchful eyes of the crowd, she put the ten-pound note into the cast iron donation box.

The priest in charge gave her a satisfied smile, and the other believers also showed expressions of approval and admiration towards Mel.

As the ten-pound note was swallowed by the donation box, the cast iron box emitted a dull sound, like the gurgle of some ancient creature swallowing a gold coin.

When Mel withdrew her fingers, she found them stained with a thin layer of rust, which had a dark red color like bloodstains under the sunlight.

It was as if after feeding a pet, she had been licked by the pet's tongue.

She gently rubbed off the layer of rust, then turned and walked towards the church's main entrance.

The sunlight stretched Mel's shadow long and thin.

As the young girl's left foot was about to cross the threshold, a fine, sharp pain suddenly appeared on the back of her neck.

Mel whipped her head around.

The cast iron patterns on the donation box twisted in the light and shadow into countless eyes, which slowly turned in the direction of her movement.

“Miss Mel?”

The priest in charge of reception looked over in confusion.

The eyes on the donation box instantly returned to their normal rose patterns.

Mel rubbed her temples, which were aching slightly, and forced a smile at the priest.

The Quintessence overdrawn from brewing the potion at noon, coupled with the consumption from using Void Walk just now, had caused a momentary confusion in her perception.

Mel left the church.

The sunlight poured down like molten gold, stretching the young girl's shadow very long, swaying on the stone-paved road like a black silk ribbon.

The midday sun baked the stone road until it was hot, but a lingering chill always surrounded the back of the young girl's neck, as if she had been lightly touched by something cold.

This time it had nothing to do with the church; rather, she once again felt that sense of being watched from the soul.

Someone else was targeting her.

She subconsciously quickened her pace, the heels of her leather boots making crisp sounds as they struck the stone road.

“Tap, tap, tap——”

(Who is following me? Why?)

Mel's brain worked rapidly, trying to find a reasonable explanation.

(No, now is not the time to think about this. I should shake them off first.)

Thinking this, Mel suddenly dodged into the gap between two red brick buildings.

Decaying rose vines hung down on her shoulders, their petals having long been marinated by coal ash into a withered, scorched black.

The young girl held a copper coin in her palm, her fingertips rubbing the serrated edge of the coin, and Quintessence seeped into the metal along the lines of her palm.

As she passed by her front door, the copper coin slipped from her sleeve and embedded itself silently into a crack in the stone.

That gaze still followed closely behind, like an invisible thread, entwining her soul.

Mel's gaze scanned the surroundings, then landed on a clothing store.

The next moment, an idea flashed through her mind.

The young girl quickened her pace, pushed open the glass door of the clothing store.

A bell chimed crisply, accompanied by a faint smell of camphor mixed with the fragrance of lace and silk.

The store was quite crowded at this time, so when the shopkeeper noticed a new customer coming in, she only gave Mel a professional smile before continuing to focus on serving the noble young lady in front of her.

And this was exactly what Mel wanted to see.

A crystal chandelier refracted mottled light and shadow on the ceiling, illuminating rows of racks hung with gorgeous clothes.

Each dress seemed to be alive, swaying gently in the breeze.

(That gaze is still there....)

Mel frowned slightly, then pretended to be interested in a deep purple evening gown.

Her slender fingers lightly brushed over the silk fabric, then Mel turned to look at the shopkeeper.

“Excuse me, may I try on this dress”

“Of course, third fitting room on the right, second floor, madam.”

The shopkeeper nodded slightly.

Hearing this, Mel went upstairs with the dress and slipped into the fitting room.

The space inside the fitting room was more spacious than imagined.

A mirror occupied the entire wall.

She stood in front of the mirror and saw her pale face flushed with an unnatural blush.

Mel took a deep breath, feeling the flow of Quintessence within her.

Her fingers traced the walls of the fitting room.

The residual Quintessence in the copper coin trembled in the crack of the bricks at her front door.

The moment she felt the prying gaze getting closer, Mel closed her eyes and silently recited the incantation from the sheepskin scroll.

Space shattered around her, and the curtain of reality was torn open.

Mel felt as if she had become a snake with its spine removed.

First came a cold touch from her feet, as if she were stepping barefoot on frosted glass.

Next came an aching numbness as if her kneecaps were being gnawed by a swarm of ants.

The moment the incantation was completely chanted, her internal organs suddenly lost all weight collectively.

As if someone had pulled the floor out from under the entire world.

The silk dress fell powerlessly downwards.

The Void enveloped Mel like the amniotic fluid of a womb.

Here, there was no direction, no gravity.

Mel floated in The Void, surrounded by a boundless darkness.

The feeling was like being immersed in the deep sea, but without the feeling of suffocation.

The halo of the chandelier reflected in the fitting room mirror still lingered on Mel's retina, but The Void had already swallowed her into the folds of another dimension.

The feeling of weightlessness climbed from her ankles to her spine.

She suddenly realized she was existing in three places at once.

The dress in the fitting room was slowly falling, countless mirrors in The Void folded out her distorted afterimages, and the copper coin in the stone peak by her front door was getting hot.

The pain of this torn cognition was far beyond the limits of what her mind could bear.

Mel saw her fingernails peeling off, each piece turning into a drifting symbol.

Something in The Void seemed to be sucking on these symbols.

A hunger older than darkness was crawling along her nerve endings.

Anchor point.

The young girl spoke with difficulty, and the tip of her tongue immediately tasted the smell of rust.

The light of the distant flashing copper coin suddenly surged, turning into a rope to pull her soul.

“Hum——”

Mel felt her body being pulled by some force.

This feeling was completely different from when she entered The Void, more like being dragged out from under the water by something.

The curtain of reality was torn open.

Mel fell out of The Void, her feet landing steadily on the stone-paved road in front of her own house.

The copper coin that served as the anchor point had already melted into a liquid, filling the gap between the stone bricks.

“Thud——”

The dress in the fitting room on the second floor only truly landed at this moment.

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