The Devil’s Cage

Everything before his eyes was too strange!

From the sudden closure of the entrance, the ignited fires, the unusual aroma that came from the fire, to the door at the end of the passageway.

Everything that happened was a little too reasonable and it didn’t even give time for one to think about the situation, as though one would unconsciously being rushed to the door after entering the passageway.

Especially the unusual aroma from the fire, it was very thick!

Let alone Kieran who had S+ Intuition, even a regular man could smell it. It completely defied the rule of being soundless, odorless and colorless during poisoning.

The poison itself wasn’t instantly lethal either.

“Numbing and hallucination…”

Grandmaster [Medical and Medicinal Knowledge] allowed Kieran to easily differentiate the components in the poison despite -1 debuff.

Although smelling it for a long time would incur some negative effects on people, that was to regular people. The poison could hardly cause damage to Kieran who had over A rank Constitution.

Since the poison could hardly damage people and the smell of the poison was so obvious…

“Is it to lure people in the passageway to push the door at the end?”

Kieran carefully stepped backward, drawing distance from the door as though he felt killing intent behind it.

It seemed like the door was the key to the trap.

Whether was it the sudden closure of the entrance or the unusual aroma from the poison, they were the components of the trap and their existence was to lure people in the passageway to push the door at the end.

Or more precisely, it was a layer of insurance the late Chief Friar added in case the one who appeared wasn’t the heir of the Marulyn Church.

Thinking about the war-ridden era, what else could have happened?

There was a possibility that the heir might be held hostage and appear before the passageway. If such situation did happen, the passageway was the heir’s only escape path.

“If the heir is being seized and he needed to open the door to escape, then the area of movement shouldn’t be very big, it should be around the stone door. A high chance is that the people who seized the heir would want the heir himself to push open the door, which means the real door is right around the trap door!”

Kieran’s eyes turned at the two spaces beside the trap door. The space wasn’t that big yet it was enough for one to pass through by turning their body.

Then, was it the right or the left space?

Kieran frowned.

He didn’t think both sides would easily lead one to the secret room that the Marulyn Church hid its legacies. Regardless of how the outside had commended the Marulyn Church, when it came down to reviving their own church, the late chief friar would not have shown any mercy.

The trap door was the best example.

Although Kieran didn’t know what was behind the trap door, he was certain it wasn’t something worth anticipating.

Since there was already a trapdoor set in front of him, what were the odds of having another?

The odds were high enough.

Kieran’s mind was thinking about the situation that might happen during that particular moment.

The seized heir might use the seizer to open the trapdoor, or rather, during the moment he was forced to open the trapdoor, he would slip into the real entrance.

The real entrance would have been shut out instantly after entrance.

So then, what will the capturers do?

They would naturally seek another path to enter. No one would give up that easily since they made it in front of the door which behind it all of the Marulyn Church’s legacies.

The trapdoor and the spaces beside would eventually become the focal point for the capturers to search and once they investigated the spots, they would fall into another lethal trap.

Or worse, if the traps were designed to be crueler, when the real entrance was shut out, it would trigger an attack that could wipe out any life within the passageway.

Kieran’s brows furrowed tighter as he thought about the possible outcome.

It might look like a 50% chance but he would need to face 100% death if he chose incorrectly. He would not simply take the risk, especially when he had other methods to determine the right path.

Spots of white radiance gathered on Kieran’s hand.

The faint Dawn Force was giving out its own unique aura, an aura of dauntless spirit.

Kieran didn’t forget he triggered the changes from the statue accidentally.

Although the changes were one time only and no further changes appeared after that, the situation before his eyes didn’t stop him from trying again.

Wung!

The moment Dawn Force gathered, Kieran clearly felt the left space of the trap door tremble.

Kieran then walked into the left side without further ado.

It didn’t require much effort from Kieran because when his hand touched the wall on the left space, the wall vanished and an unknown suction force appeared, sucking him into the space.

The wall then reappeared again, concealing the real entrance.

An even denser unusual aroma followed right after that as well.

On a scale of 1 to 100, if the scent Kieran picked up in the passageway was 1, then the current density has been elevated to 100 after the wall reappeared!

The density kept climbing higher and higher.

Everything unfolded was just as Kieran had expected.

However, Kieran didn’t have any spare energy to care about all of that behind him.

After being sucked into the wall, his body started to spin rapidly, as if he had been sucked into a washing machine on maximum power.

The familiar feeling reminded Kieran of the first time he entered the Broker’s secret bazaar but it was much more intense.

Kieran clenched his teeth hard, preventing himself from throwing up but the dizziness grew and he didn’t know how long he could hold on.

As seconds flew by and at the verge of throwing up, the spinning stopped, abruptly!

Kieran’s feet landed on the ground as well but the excessive spinning made him stagger.

Only after a full 20 seconds did Kieran only regain his steadiness.

He shook his head and discarded the last bit of dizziness out of his brain before sizing up the place he was in.

An average room, less than 20 square feet.

The room was empty except for the statue of Sister Reid that Kieran brought over and a table that looked like a desk or an altar in front of the statue.

But none of it was within Kieran’s concern because his attention was instantly captured by the large area of intertwining golden and orange glows on the table the moment he saw it.

One golden and two orange, a total of three items.

Despite having expected the loot, his breaths still became heavy and rushed beyond his control.

After multiple heavy breaths later, Kieran forced himself to calm down.

He sized up the room once more and made sure there wasn’t any lingering danger before slowly going up to Sister Reid’s statue.

As he approached the table, he suddenly noticed there was not only three items on the table but four!

A dark cover book was placed in the middle of the table.