PD -Chapter 157 The Lightning Archmage

I carefully put away the soul-capturing talisman, and at last a weight lifted from my chest. I had almost given up hope. Of all the places, I thought this psychiatric hospital was the least likely location where Shen Fang would be found. Yet in the end, I found her here—or perhaps more accurately, she found me.

Letting out a sigh, I gathered myself and bent down, preparing to enter the boiler room hidden behind the secret door.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness washed over me.

When I regained my footing, I realized the surroundings had completely changed.

The cramped, cluttered room from moments ago had somehow become much larger. Most striking of all, a massive rust-covered boiler now stood in the center of the room, riddled with several holes.

I was stunned.

I clearly hadn’t stepped through the low doorway yet. Could something have dragged me inside?

The thought seemed impossible.

With my current strength, not even the Ten Yama Kings could relocate me without my noticing.

That left only one possibility.

Like the personal hells of the Ten Yama Kings, this boiler room was a barrier—a pocket domain that could appear according to someone’s will.

At some point just now, I had already been trapped inside it.

I cursed under my breath and immediately drew a talisman.

A figure in a white lab coat flickered before me, and a middle-aged man suddenly appeared.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll cure you.”

The eerie voice crawled out from deep within his throat.

He raised both hands toward my head.

To my shock, arcs of electricity crackled between his fingers.

Was he seriously trying to perform electroshock therapy on me with his bare hands?

Earlier, I had seen an old photograph in one of the offices.

The vicious spirit before me was clearly the ghost of Yang Yingzhe.

“To hell with you!”

Anger surged through me.

I stepped backward and casually flung out a talisman.

Crackle…

To my surprise, the spirit released a stream of electricity that struck my talisman directly.

The talisman and the electrical current collided midair, exploding with a sharp hiss.

Blue lightning snakes danced through the air.

The spirit vanished instantly.

A chill ran down my back.

I spun around.

Sure enough, he had appeared behind me, his hands once again reaching for my temples.

I cursed again.

This time, however, I didn’t dodge.

Instead, I unleashed the Golden Light Spell.

Nowadays, I no longer needed hand seals or incantations to activate it.

Golden radiance burst from my body, forming a shield that blocked the spirit.

His hands stopped less than five centimeters from my temples, unable to advance any farther.

Yet the spirit showed no intention of retreating.

The electricity in his hands intensified.

Countless thumb-thick lightning serpents erupted from his palms, trying to pierce my Golden Light and drill into my brain.

“Pretty impressive.”

I sneered.

“If you want to play with lightning, let’s see who’s better at it.”

Fixing my eyes on the spirit, I rapidly recited the Flying Thunder Spell:

“Taiyi Xuanming, essence of Bing and Ding. Messenger of lightning, illuminate heaven and earth!”

Crackle…

As the incantation echoed, blue electric serpents began appearing throughout the room.

Then—

BOOM!

A pillar of lightning materialized out of nowhere.

Like a divine blade, it shot horizontally through the spirit’s head.

“AAAAAHHHH!”

A miserable scream erupted before me.

The spirit was blasted backward by the strike.

“Still want more?”

I stood where I was and looked at the now-fading figure with a provocative grin.

Having his head pierced by lightning, he had finally experienced a taste of the brain-shocking treatments he’d inflicted on others his entire life.

In a way, I had avenged all the patients who had suffered under him.

Before he could even get back up, I casually threw another talisman.

This time it struck him directly.

The spirit exploded apart and instantly dispersed.

At that moment, the surroundings changed once again.

The boiler room vanished, reverting to the original small room.

I looked toward the tiny secret doorway I still hadn’t crossed and was about to enter when I sensed someone slip through the entrance behind me.

I turned immediately.

To my surprise, Li Zi had returned.

Frowning, I asked,

“Did you get those two kids out?”

Li Zi nodded.

“Yeah. Got them out safely. They headed home on their own.”

“Then why did you come back in? Aren’t you scared?”

He laughed awkwardly.

“Didn’t you say the ghosts here don’t attack people?”

“That doesn’t include the Lightning Mage.”

I sighed.

Li Zi blinked.

“Lightning Mage?”

“Yang Yingzhe. The guy who loved experimenting with electroshock treatments.”

I sighed again.

“I just fought him.”

“That old bastard dared to fight you?”

Li Zi immediately put on an aggressive pose.

I shook my head and didn’t continue the conversation.

Instead, I simply warned him to be careful.

The spirit formed from Yang Yingzhe was extremely cunning.

When he realized he couldn’t defeat me, he hid himself rather than fighting to the death.

I hadn’t actually destroyed him completely.

Eliminating a crafty spirit like that was difficult.

Such entities always concealed themselves before reaching the point of soul destruction.

There was only one reliable way to eradicate him completely:

Find his corpse and burn it.

Ignoring Li Zi, I crouched down and climbed through the secret doorway.

Inside, the room was indeed identical to the barrier I had just experienced.

It was a boiler room.

The only difference was that I noticed intricate inscriptions carved across the surface of the boiler itself.

They looked like formations and talismans etched into the metal.

My heart skipped a beat.

A glance was enough for me to recognize several different arrays.

A Spirit-Gathering Array.

A Spirit-Confining Array.

Soul-Seizing Talismans.

Together, they formed an extraordinarily complex composite formation.

Combining the functions of all these components, I could infer only one ultimate purpose:

When activated, the formation would capture souls, preserve them permanently within the barrier, and continuously provide them with spiritual energy.

It finally became clear.

This formation was the true reason the abandoned hospital was haunted.

Because of its existence, the restless souls here had been unable to enter the cycle of reincarnation. Instead, they remained trapped for years, endlessly reliving the suffering they had endured in life.

I couldn’t help but marvel at Yang Yingzhe’s cruelty.

He had designed all of this so that even after death, his patients would remain under his control and continue serving as subjects for his insane experiments.

A formation this powerful required an enormous supply of spiritual energy.

Yang Yingzhe himself likely possessed no spiritual power.

That meant he must have hired a true expert to create it back then.

However, without a continuous source of spiritual energy, the formation could not sustain itself.

Someone had to be sacrificed to keep it running.

A possibility suddenly occurred to me.

Perhaps the riot all those years ago had been orchestrated by Yang Yingzhe himself.

He manipulated the patients into killing him.

Then he offered up his own corpse as a sacrifice.

In doing so, he permanently imprisoned both his own soul and the souls of every patient within this place.

As for why…

It seemed he was pursuing something he found even more enticing than life itself.