IWOL Chapter 318: Opposing Death

Lin Hangzhi searched through the nearest tent. This was probably the place where two people slept. Except for sleeping bags and clothes, there was only a thick black book. Unfortunately, Lin Hangzhi didn’t understand Latin and couldn’t read its specific content.

He searched for something like bandages that could treat wounds, but suddenly, he heard noises outside.

Lin Hangzhi pricked his ears vigilantly. He slipped out of the tent and carefully avoided the five to six men in black robes that were returning. While talking in a low voice, they made their way towards Lin Hangzhi’s direction.

Lin Hangzhi could only move cautiously toward their blind spot, which meant gradually moving to the edge of the cemetery. He was focusing so much on those people that he accidentally slipped and fell to the ground.

The fall was a little painful. With a grimace, Lin Hangzhi tried to get up, but suddenly he felt a hard thing with his hand.

Lin Hangzhi looked down and saw that it was an inverted cross, which indicated a prop or a mechanism to a certain place.

He tried to hold the cross bar with two fingers, and gently lifted it to determine how the thing would start, but he didn’t expect it to be looser than he thought, so that he ended up pulling it out altogether.

Lin Hangzhi: …………

With a bang, the door of the mechanism opened under his feet, and Lin Hangzhi only had time to let out a scream before he started to fall. He stretched out his hand but failed to grab the edge. His whole body fell down the tunnel.

After landing at the bottom of the tunnel, Lin Hangzhi reluctantly got up. It was pitch black. He stared blankly at the light ten meters above his head, and truly realized what it meant to be at a loss.

The incline was very steep, a full seventy degrees. This kind of slope would also ensure that people wouldn’t fall to death despite the height. Lin Hangzhi tried to climb back up but ultimately gave up after a few tries. He would never be able to climb up that way.

He stared at the small cross that was still tightly held in his hand, and cursed vigorously. With the way things were now, he couldn’t return to Xia Qiongyun after all.

He hoped she could take care of herself. He had already sucked out most of the poisonous blood, and so the poison should no longer be a big problem. Lin Hangzhi still believed in Xia Qiongyun. To be honest, almost every aspect of Xia Qiongyun’s abilities was better than his.

Using the slight ray of light above his head, Lin Hangzhi groped along and found a passage that leaned upwards. The only thing was that it was unknown where it led to.

Lin Hangzhi had no choice but to follow the passage. His surroundings were extremely quiet. After walking about fifty or sixty meters, a step appeared and he began to climb up the steps. He walked fearfully in the dark for about twenty minutes when his head suddenly knocked against something.

Lin Hangzhi raised his hand and touched it. The stairs continued, but the upper part was blocked, like the door of a certain cellar.

He pushed hard, felt it loosen, and was overjoyed. He took a deep breath, and with all his strength, pushed.

The long-lost light slipped in and spilled on Lin Hangzhi’s face. He squinted his eyes to adapt, pushed away all the stone slabs blocking the exit, and climbed out.

The surrounding area was filled with white candles, which were also the source of the light that Lin Hangzhi saw. Three to four meters from the cellar was a door. Lin Hangzhi tentatively pushed the door open and walked into a room with no windows and only a cross placed at the center of the wall. Using the flickering candlelight that illuminated the small space, he looked around. From the furnishings, it looked like a confessional.

In the confessional, believers can confess their sins to the priest, repent, and strive to make corrections for their sins. Once the priest pardoned them of their sins, they would be forgiven.

Although he’d finally reached the inside of the church, he hadn’t yet figured what his sin was.
Moreover, there was no priest here. How could he confess?

It would be better to go out first.

Lin Hangzhi turned around, but found that the door he’d come in through was suddenly closed.

As alarm bells sounded in his heart, he rushed to the door and pulled the handle forcefully. But his worries were confirmed; the door was locked.

Someone had quietly locked the door while he was looking at the confessional with his back to the door.

Who could it be?

Someone wanted to trap him here? Then why not attack directly from behind?

Countless speculations flooded Lin Hangzhi heart. After trying to open the door frantically, he quickly stopped his wasteful behavior. Taking a few steps back, he took a deep breath to force himself to calm down and find a way to get out of trouble.

The box won’t allow pilgrims to face a real dead end. There must be a mechanism here somewhere that could open other channels.

The first thing he did was study the cross, which was the most conspicuous thing here. He touched every inch of it, but still found nothing.

Lin Hangzhi frowned and looked around again. He looked up at the ceiling and found that the room seemed a little smaller than when he first came in.

…A little bit smaller?

Lin Hangzhi immediately walked to the wall. He stretched out his arms, placed his palms on the wall, and stood still. After half a minute, he clearly felt the wall move toward him!

The walls were moving!

Lin Hangzhi estimated the distance with his eyes. At this speed, if he couldn’t find his way out in an hour, he would be crushed to death!

Lin Hangzhi broke out in a cold sweat .

He slapped the walls like crazy, trying to find a hidden mechanism, but he couldn’t find anything. After touching all around the room, Lin Hangzhi finally calmed down.

He was a doctor, and so he was exposed to many deaths. The past few years in the Pure White Realm had only made him more open to life and death. Lin Hangzhi had already thought about it countless times. If he never met Dong Zheng and Cui Zuojing, he would have probably died in a corner of a certain box long ago.

The room silently became more and more narrow, turning into a rectangle. The door was still tightly locked. Perhaps, it could only be opened from the outside. Lin Hangzhi looked at all the places he could investigate and found nothing.

There was no other exit in this room.

Kether had set a death trap for him.

Lin Hangzhi sat on the ground. This time, the distance between the two walls were less than a meter apart. He could only barely lean on his side. The overcrowded space made it difficult to breathe. Obviously there was enough oxygen, but there was also a kind of suffocating pain.

It would be too painful to be crushed to death, right?

Since he was destined to die, ‌he must definitely choose a more comfortable way to die.

Once he died, maybe he would meet Xiao Cui, Dong Zheng, and the others in other ways, or…maybe he would meet Allen.

Lin Hangzhi’s heart was completely calm. He touched the mark on his wrist, which housed his customized gun. After taking the gun out, he sighed for a long time. Then he pulled out two dice and the tarot cards from his pocket.

He carried these things with him at all times. After entering the box, they should have been confiscated, but he didn’t know why they were still there.

The walls closed in inch by inch, and so Lin Hangzhi quickly lay out his card array. His tarot divination skills hadn’t declined, and in fact, his accuracy rate had been steadily improving. But he was hesitant to let it reach a certain terrible threshold, because he knew it would bring about unprecedented bad luck. Even if he wanted to learn about a certain matter, his actions could inadvertently influence the future, which wouldn’t be a good thing.

But now, it didn’t matter anymore.

Lin Hangzhi closed his eyes, meditated three times about the question he wanted to divine, and began to draw the cards.

Three tarot cards were opened one by one, and Lin Hangzhi’s eyes widened when he saw the engraving on the cards.

The Tower, the Fool, and Death.

The Death Card, numbered 13 in the Major Arcana, displayed the God of God holding the banner of pestilence, bringing diseases and deaths, but also a hope of rebuilding.

The Fool’s card was numbered 0, and it could also be regarded as the last card. Zero means no beginning, no end. It was chaos, and it was lack of self.

The Tower, number 16 was the most terrifying and destructive card of the 22 Major Arcana. It represented complete disintegration from the foundation to the top, an irretrievable collapse.

The upright tower meant everything would be destroyed.

The righteous fool was not the beginning, nor the end.

He was courting death for a ray of life.

This was…

Lin Hangzhi had never drawn such a collection of cards before. Maybe major changes must be happening in places he couldn’t see. It may be the heirs, it may be the Queen. The God of Death had descended on the devastated land, but the “Pope” and the child survived, turning the desperate situation back to life.

The wall pressed into his back, pushing him with unrejectable force, while the other side squeezed his leg, about to crush him to death.

The cross in the middle was squeezed into a distorted shape. Lin Hangzhi stood up. The wall was only 30 centimeters apart. After a few more minutes, he would be squeezed into a puddle of mangled flesh, just like the cross.

There was no more time to hesitate.

He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and shakingly pointed his gun at his temple.

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