"The Goddess' Smile?!?"

Claudia felt a little familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before, and fell into deep thought. After a while, she thought of something, and her expression immediately changed.

When she was a child, she once saw a record of this thing in a very simple book. The Goddess's smile was not as nice as its name.

It is a particularly evil way of cursing: intercepting a trace of the other party's soul and sealing it in a statue with a special technique, building an altar in a place rich in dark elements, and placing the statue in the center to steal the opponent's vitality silently. When the statue was filled to the brim with vitality, the victim would die.

It didn't end there. After the target died, the caster could devour the vitality inside the statue, and they would be able to return to youth and prolong life without any side effects.

But she recalled that this practice had been abolished and banned early in The Age of God and Demon's War. If she hadn't accidentally peeked at the family's ancient records, she would not have known this thing existed.

"Captain, if it's really as you guess, Lady Vidal's life is already in danger!"

Claudia felt bad when she thought of the innocent girl lying on the bed in the verge of death.

"Yes, Miss Vidal's current situation can only last a day at most, so we need to move faster."

"So, Captain, you already know that the caster is hiding in the Garden of Death."

Aurora smiled faintly and stretched out her hand to flick Claudia's forehead. "You're not that stupid."

"Hmmph... Captain, you bully me!" Claudia covered her forehead, and her cheeks bulged like a squirrel, pouting.

"We're almost there." Aurora said softly.

Claudia immediately looked out the window. At this moment, she could already see the slightly worn-out black railings on the side of the road. There were irregular tombstones erected inside the railings, looking extraordinarily gloomy and desolate under the tranquil moonlight.

This was where many civilians, mercenaries, and wanderers who died in accidents and whose identities were not known were buried.

The carriage slowly stopped outside a rusty iron gate. Aurora and Claudia got out of the carriage, and looking at the desolate cemetery, there was a hint of fear in Claudia's eyes.

After telling the coachmen to wait nearby, Aurora slowly pushed open the iron door, and walked towards the interior with the oil lamp.

"Captain... it's so big here, where is the spell caster?"

Claudia followed closely behind Aurora along the way, and the atmosphere here made her feel particularly uncomfortable and scared, more so when she heard the cawing of crows around.

"Don't worry, just follow me." Aurora groped forward according to the route in her memory. "Turn left at the moon-shaped tombstone... walk straight to the sword-shaped tombstone and take a few steps to the right to see a dilapidated nameless monument... go left..."

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Aurora fumbled forward with the oil lamp in her hand, because she had only roughly read the walkthrough shared by the player.

But in fact, there were still some discrepancies between the real scene and his story, for example, the sword-shaped tombstone became a shield-shaped tombstone, and the like, so sometimes you have to stop and take a good look.

"Okay, it should be here."

Eventually, the two came to a tombstone that had fallen to the ground.

"Hey... there's no one here, Captain, did you go the wrong way?" Claudia looked around, but she didn't see a single person in the dark and quiet surroundings.

Aurora squatted on the ground and groped the ground along the edge of the tombstone with her hands, as if she were looking for something.

'This is it!'

Aurora's eyes lit up when her hand reached for an iron chain, and she grabbed a handle along the iron chain and pulled it violently.

With the metallic sound of sharp teeth, the tombstone slowly moved forward to reveal the hidden steps below.

"Gulp." Claudia looked at the dark hole and swallowed unnaturally, "Captain, we won't go there just the two of us, won't we?"

"Of course not."

As soon as the words fell, a beam of light lit up, and Flamme appeared beside her.

"Flamme, protect Claudia after going down for a while." Aurora gave the order and carefully walked down the steps.

Although Claudia was a little scared, she walked down closely under the protection of Flamme, and the tombstone slowly returned to its original position shortly after the three of them went down.

After walking down for a long distance, they finally came to flat ground. It looked like a huge cave here. Aurora took a lamp and looked around, and there was almost nothing there apart from a passage leading to the inside.

The three of them proceeded very carefully, and, when a cold wind blew in front of her, Aurora's footsteps suddenly halted.

"What's wrong, Captain?"

Claudia wondered why she stopped suddenly and saw Aurora pull out the Flamberge Waltz and aim it at the darkness in front.

"We've been discovered, prepare to fight!"

Accompanied by the sound of howling ghosts and wolves reverberating in the passage, Aurora threw the oil lamp forward. The oil lamp hit something and shattered suddenly, the oil inside splashed out and was ignited by the fire to illuminate the road ahead. Some abominable creatures were walking toward them, covered in flames.

"Ah! What the hell is this?!" Claudia almost vomited when she saw it clearly.

"It's a ghoul. It must be a guard transformed by the caster using the dead in this cemetery." Aurora swung her sword and slashed at the ghoul. It felt like she was cutting a stone slab, and at the same time, there was a foul smell blowing towards her face.

"Grrrr!!!"

The ghoul howled and slapped Aurora fiercely. She kicked its body strongly before pulling out her sword and rolling to the side to avoid its attack.

This thing's defense is too robust!

Rolling to the side, Aurora opened her left hand and aimed at the ghoul, blasting it with several magic cannons before barely knocking it back a few steps.

"Claudia, cast [Cure] on that monster!"

"Roger!"

Claudia, who was perplexed, quickly chanted a spell and cast the holy light on the ghoul.

As a warm light fell on it, something that Claudia didn't expect happened.

The ghoul, which was originally invulnerable, melted as if it had been sprayed with hot oil. It howled and charged towards them like an enraged bull.

[Elemental transformation has been completed—transformed into light element]

Aurora won the time for elemental transformation because Claudia's spell was able to stall the ghoul for a while, allowing her to successfully transform the fire element in her body into a light element.

She used magic power to enhance the sword with light elements, and thus with the transformation, Flamberge Waltz was enveloped in golden light.

"Graaaa!!"

When the ghoul was about to rush them, Aurora tilted the sword sideways and flashed past the incoming enemy.

Slash—

The originally tough skin was sliced as easily as cutting butter under the enhancement of the light element.

After the ghoul staggered slightly, its body split in two from the chest to the waist, and the two halves fell to the ground.

[Ding! Congratulations to player Aurora for gaining 500 experience]

"Huff... huff... C-captain… is it over?"

"Not yet." Aurora looked around vigilantly and whispered in a solemn tone, "This is just the beginning."