CHAPTER 111 CHOICE

Darren was surprised for a split second. He then held Elsa's hand and followed the man in dark.

As they walked further, Darren found that the array which trapped them before was made up of simple

threads, not as complicated as he thought at first. He could easily crack the threads if he wanted to. As

they went forward, the view on both sides changed. There weren't any gray walls anymore.

At the end of the palace was a door. After they entered the door, they were greeted with a narrow

tunnel, with kerosene lamps lit on both sides. The dust over the lamps produced a general air of

decrepitude and neglect.

"Look, Darren! Who are they?"

Many people in black robes sat on both sides of the tunnel. Many of them had black iron chains

piercing through their chests. And the others had their hands and feet shackled. They were like

withered flowers. It seemed that they had been dead for centuries.

"Are they rule cultivators?" Darren guessed.

"Not quite. Witchers! We are all witchers,"

said the elder in front of them, with his hoarse voice.

"Aren't you a rule cultivator, sir? And what makes a witcher different?" Darren asked out of curiosity.

The answer the elder offered proved that his former speculations were wrong.

The elder, who walked very slowly, made no answer to Darren's question and kept teetering.

All of a sudden, a strange roar came from the end of the tunnel.

The roar was faint but powerful.

What happened next knocked Darren and Elsa down to the ground in an instant. Green flames blazed

in the dead men's eyes, and they all turned their heads towards the end of the tunnel simultaneously.

"They are still alive!"

Darren's jaw dropped after seeing what happened. He had never expected those men in black robes to

be alive.

When the faint roar disappeared, the green light in their eyes slowly faded until they completely went

out. The tunnel went back to its former state, in absolute silence as if nothing had ever happened.

Elsa held Darren's arm tightly and said in a low voice, "I'm scared, Darren."

Darren made no answer but held her hand tightly to comfort her.

The absolute silence went on for several hours.

"It's human blood!"

Some elders, in the same black robes, walked over to the elder in front of Darren and Elsa. Green

flames were burning in their eyes. Their glares exuded hostility towards Darren and Elsa.

Then the elder, who was leading Darren and Elsa, talked to them in their language that Darren didn't

understand.

At first, they were whispering. Every now and then, they would look at Darren. Then they had a dispute.

But in the end, it seemed that they had reached an agreement.

An elder, who came here later, walked over and looked at Darren with his green eyes. Then he reached

out his withered hand and placed it over Darren's head.

After a moment, he spoke hoarsely, "Level three Spirit Power!"

Darren didn't understand what the elder meant. Although he was curious, he dared not to speak out of

fear. So he kept quiet and waited.

"Be a witcher! Or die!"

said the elder. He left the choice to Darren without any warning.

"Sir!" Elsa exclaimed out of concern. No matter which one Darren chose, neither would earn him a

good result. She bowed to the elder and spoke reverently, "Sir, please forgive him! He is here for

saving my life. He hasn't done this on purpose. I have a better idea, sir. Take me instead! Make me a

witcher. But please spare Darren's life."

The elder and the others shook their heads when they heard Elsa. One of them said, "We can't afford

to send you out of here and frankly, your Spirit Power is not qualified to turn you into a witcher. In other

words..."

Darren knew well what they meant. Since Elsa was not qualified to be a witcher, the only choice she

had was death.

Darren widened his eyes with shock and interrupted, "Sir! I know we have no choice. But at least, we

have the right to know why we have to die."

Obviously, Darren had made his choice. It was to die with Elsa.

After all, they didn't have the power to go against the witchers.

The elders were speechless for a while. Then one of them waved his withered hand. Then a ray of

green light shot into Darren's head.

An aggressive headache overwhelmed Darren, as if a powerful explosion was taking place inside his

head. Meanwhile, thousands of fragmented images flooded his mind.

Elsa's face grew pale with worries. She burst out her sword intent, targeting the elders, and threatened

them, "Let Darren go! Stop that!"

However, her sword intent faded into nothing before it could even approach them. And she was

shackled by an unknown force, which rendered her immobile. In an instant, one of the elders waved his

hand. The next second, Elsa closed her eyes and passed out.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!"

Darren held his head and fell on his knees, crying out in pain.

But after a while, he closed his eyes, frowned deeply, and stopped yelling.

The fragments in his mind came together like puzzle pieces and formed vivid images.

As time went by, Darren remained speechless. His eyes rolled behind his eyelids.

Streams of tears escaped from his eyes. Then he looked up, and began weeping and laughing at the

same time. A mixture of reluctance and desperation could be seen on his face.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Everything that happened all seemed to him like a long dream. Darren opened his eyes in a daze.

"Now! You have learned the reason," a hoarse voice said.

"It's not because we are cruel. You just saw how much the ancestors of the human race have paid for

that. Pools of blood. Millions of people sacrificed their lives. We don't want history to repeat itself. And

now Hiram the Great has passed away. If the same thing happened, who else would save the world?"

"I understand now, sir!" Darren answered with a deep sigh.

The pictures he saw in his mind were so real. He felt as if he was there in all of them.

Under the dark sky, millions of strong cultivators rushed to the colossal monster. The cultivators used

their bodies to form a powerful shield from the dark aura surrounding the monster and kept attacking,

but they died one after the other.

The leader of the witchers exerted all of his power to fight the monster, but the death toll continued to

increase sharply.

Hiram the Great, the legendary hero, rushed over but soon was thrown away by the monster. However,

he didn't give up no matter how much he had to repeat the entire process. He continued to fight the

monster until his last breath.

Darren, like most people on the spot, was the smallest being. He knelt down and wept like them,

praying to heaven for help. But the monster kept throwing back corpse after corpse.

The pictures were the same as the murals he and Elsa just saw. What Darren saw in his mind were

pictures of the same war.

In that war, the human race won but the cost was huge. They sacrificed millions of warriors including

Hiram the Great. It was a tragic victory.

"Is the monster locked up in this place?" Darren asked.

The elders nodded.

"And a drop of blood will unleash it, right? It will escape from here and run back to the human world."

"Yes, you are right. Although we can send you two out of here by Witcher Power, it would escape out of

here when most of the power is shifted from guarding it. That's the last thing we want to see. That's

why no one ever got out of here alive."

"Look at us!"

The one who spoke took off his black robe.

His body was skeleton-like but covered in withered skin.

"We have no blood running in our bodies. Technically, we are not human beings. We are witchers."

"Now! Tell us your choice! You want to die or be a witcher? If you choose to be one of us, you will stay

here and guard the monster."

Darren looked at the unconscious Elsa and gave it some thought. Then he made up his mind. Since

Elsa had no choice but to die, he decided to be with her forever. Darren answered, "Sorry, sir! I choose

the first one. I choose to die with her." NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Silence swept over the tunnel once again.

"Alas! It's better for you to die under the palace's hands than be killed by us," an elder said with a sigh.

"That's all right. I'm ready now, sir!"

Then the elder reached out his hands and made a strange gesture. The next second, the Witcher

Power targeted Darren's head.

"Ken, what are you doing? Why don't you use the Death Rule? The rule could melt his blood

thoroughly. It's safer," another elder asked with doubt.

"I want him to die with ease. After all, everyone is scared of death."

"That's right."

The elder who just exerted the Witcher Power was destroying Darren's soul before melting his blood.

Then Darren would feel less pain before dying.

But when his power got into Darren's soul, a destructive force burst out.

The elder felt the aggressive force, which was strong enough to destroy everything in the world. In the

end of the tunnel, twelve men in black robes, whose power auras were mighty and invincible, lit up the

green flames in their eyes.