As soon as Aeron heard the whisper, he jumped forward over the table before turning around and saw a black specter with an ethereal black veil covering it.

[It appeared right when you finished the last line of the book.]

'Mhmm,' Aeron nodded before he 10x Fortified himself by consuming 1000 curse energy and his Vitalis Aegis was still active.

"Please, will you give me your life?" the black specter spoke, and as soon as Aeron heard it, black chain marks appeared over his legs and arms.

'I can't move,' Aeron raised his eyebrows.

[It applied a curse on you. Either you break it forcefully by consuming a lot of your curse energy or answer and proceed.]

"No," Aeron answered with a grin. "I can't give you my life."

The black black specter released a sobbing before it knelt on the ground. "Then will you give half of your life, please?"

[Just initiate the fight. It's a C-grade Haunt anyway, so kill it and leave through that door.] Lapis said, but internally, she was just testing Aeron.

It was utterly unwise to fight this Haunt here in this room.

Aeron rubbed his chin. 'The chains I feel are only binding my movements. I don't think it would directly take my life if I said Yes.'

'Also, this room is darn small and we don't know its powers and attacks. Better to leave first.'

[Good.]

Aeron cracked a smile and answered the black specter. "What will you give me if I give you half of my life?"

The black specter stood up, its two wispy red eyes behind the veil glinted. "I can lead you to the Fountain of Life and give you its water."

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"Oh? Alright, let's go."

"Thank you."

[I guess we won't need to search hard for Fountain of Life.]

'Yep.'

The black specter moved towards the only door in the room and turned to face Aeron, "Please follow me."

The black chain marks on Aeron's limbs vanished while the black specter passed through the door.

Aeron walked towards the door, but he touched the door and it was physical, so he opened it and surprisingly found himself in another cavern.

The cavern looked normal except for the circular black rock platform with a stone coffin in the middle of it.

'We changed the locations.'

[Any of those huts would lead you to the same room forcefully with that hand since it was a subspace. That's how they were designed now that we think about it.]

'True. They were also eerily the same to each other from the outside,' Aeron nodded as he followed the black specter in this huge cavern towards the circular black stone platform that was barely fifteen centimeters above the regular surface of the cavern.

However, there lay a stone coffin in the middle with strange patterns on the platform surrounding the coffin.

After arriving in front of the platform, the black specter continued forward and turned around after positioning beside the coffin.

Aeron didn't enter the platform and stopped a meter away from it.

'This ain't the boss room, right?' Aeron muttered as he looked around. To the right was a small passage.

"Can you please enter this coffin?" the black specter pleaded as the coffin's lid slid off accompanied by a jarring friction sound.

"I will release you once the altar absorbs half of your life."

Aeron rolled his eyes. "What if you don't release me?"

The specter's ethereal black fabric-covered head drooped down. "I will. I swear I will."

Aeron could see its eyes dropping glowing red tears and chuckled. "Lead me to the Fountain of Life first."

"So you will not help a kind and generous druid?" the black specter looked at Aeron. "You are bad."

"He helped everyone, but nobody helped him."

"This is wrong," the black specter grabbed its head and loudly screeched, releasing a meter-big claw projectile toward Aeron.

Aeron easily dashed to the left by using Gale Strider's single wind tube and dodged the attack.

"Humph, you are bad."

'I can't attack while this Vitalis Aegis is activated, lol.'

[You can't use Flamehunt Rambe, but you can attack.] Lapis chuckled. [You just need to figure out how. This is a good chance to practice Emission.]

"Give your life!" the black specter screeched, waving its rotten clawy hands that were hidden beneath the ethereal black body veil all the time and shooting two big claw projectiles at Aeron.