Chapter 3043: Dense Greenery in the Long Summer Days (41)

Schiller looked them over.

The woman was dressed in a typical witch's attire, with long curly red hair cascading down her back and red glimmers in her eyes, while the man was exceptionally short, seemingly afflicted with dwarfism, his features quite ugly, and in the dim light, he even resembled a monster.

Schiller realized that he was suspended in midair, magically imprisoned, obviously by the woman who resembled a witch. He wasn't surprised to have been discovered and even greeted them leisurely.

"Hello," Schiller said.

"Who are you?!" the witch furrowed her brows deeply.

"Wait, wait…" The dwarf man, as if he had recognized something, circled around Schiller and came back to his original spot, staring at Schiller's face, he said, "Are you Schiller, Schiller Rodriguez?"

The witch immediately turned to him and said, "You know him?"

"Don't be so surprised, he's a celebrity, the world's most famous psychologist... Haha, a talentless commoner," the dwarf man mocked.

"Surely you see me here because I'm so ordinary," Schiller smiled and retorted.

The dwarf man exploded like a lit fuse, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Commoners always lack vision; they only see the surface, things like good looks and noble temperament, but they fail to recognize real talent! They overlook the golden souls beneath every ugly facade, like the Bell Tower Monster!"

"The Bell Tower Monster is taller than you," Schiller remarked.

The dwarf man was struck speechless, his face turning beet red in seconds, as if choked, making a sound like a squawking duck.

"Obnoxious man," the witch suddenly became irate. She said, "Living with this monster is disgusting enough, and now another one shows up! I'll kill you both!"

"Before that, ma'am, I have a question for you, what do you want with the souls of so many children?"

The witch's gaze snapped onto Schiller's face, then she turned to the dwarf man and grabbed him by his throat with her magical power, "Swear you didn't tell our plan to anyone! How did this damned bastard find out about it?!"

"I don't know, maybe the police told him…"

"I figured it out myself," Schiller said. "You look down on commoners, yet you have never truly understood them. Those three fools obviously don't have the ability to kill hundreds of children over a few years without slipping up—their ends must have been tied up by someone using unconventional means, like magic."

"Magicians never make a loss in trade. If they helped someone, they certainly would have claimed more in return. In this case, the only thing of value would likely be the children's souls," Schiller surmised.

"I'm not some magician, I'm a witch," she said haughtily.

"I thought witches were just a branch of magicians…"

"Not at all the same. But why am I even talking to you about this?"

"Don't rush! Don't rush, Circe!" the dwarf man hanging mid-air cried out, "Let me read his mind! Then, I'll know how he found out our plan! Put me down first!"

"I warned you not to call me by my name!" the witch screamed, her fearsome witchcraft power filling the room.

Schiller seemed annoyed by the noise; he frowned and sighed, which only infuriated the witch known as Circe, prompting her to point a finger angrily at him.

In an instant, a beam of red light hit Schiller.

With a whoosh, Schiller vanished.

The dwarf man suspended in mid-air suddenly screamed, "No! You're too impulsive; you shouldn't turn him into an animal directly, you should have let me read his mind first!!!"

"Shut up, you daft fool, Edgar, what makes you think you have the right to speak to me like that?! The only reason I can barely tolerate being in the same room with you is that you're barely even a man! You're just a broken monster," the witch said coldly.

Without further ado, the witch turned around, but her footsteps stalled abruptly as she was about to move forward.

"Did you hear something?" she whispered.

The dwarf man known as Edgar shook his head, but suddenly, as if he had heard the wind, that kind which is most commonly heard over boundless wilderness.

"What trickery is this?" Circe turned, looking towards the door.

This was a sealed-off passage with no open ends, where the oxygen was maintained through magic; there should not have been any wind at all.

Suddenly, in the corridor reflected in the witch's pupils, something seemed to be quickly closing in.

The witch raised her hand, ready to stop it with her witchcraft, but in the next moment, the fireplace went out and darkness engulfed everything.

Only the red light of the witchcraft in Circe's eyes, like two lonely will-o'-the-wisps, flickered incessantly in the night. She yelled into the air in front of her.

"Come out, stop this foolery! Or else I'll make you regret it!"

Suddenly, the witch felt a vast shadow looming over her, an endless chill slowly climbing up her spine, as if she was standing in a snowfield.

The sound of panpipes, flutes, and muffled singing echoed in her ears, a cold hand lay on her shoulder, but as she turned, there was nothing there again.

The flames in the fireplace surged back to life, and everything that had just happened seemed like an illusion. Circe turned to look at Edgar, but Edgar seemed oblivious and even asked her in confusion, "What's wrong with you? Why did you suddenly stop?"

"Well, madam, I know none of this is your fault, and you shouldn't be too upset. Just put me down, we still need to discuss our next steps..."

"What?" Circe looked at him and said, "Do you not know why you were hung up? You..."

But when she turned her head, she saw the door of the room was closed, there was no sign of Schiller in mid-air, and even the footprints on the ground had disappeared.

"Where did that man go?" Circe asked.

"Man? What man?"

"The man we just caught, you know him, you said his name was... what was it... Schiller..."

"Are you serious? There's been no one else here, we're hundreds of meters underground, and there's the barrier you set up around us. How could anyone sneak in?"

Circe turned her head in uncertainty to look around, certain she had not experienced an illusion. The bone-chilling cold still clung to her like a painful affliction, causing her to break out in cold sweat. What exactly was that thing?

"Madam, don't space out," Edgar sighed. "Do you have any clue at all? What was with that sudden curse? Are you saying even you can't lift it?"

"Shut up!" Circe, as though a sore spot had been hit, yelled at Edgar. Too many things had gone beyond her expectations lately, and she had a strong premonition of bad omens.

"The plan remains unchanged," Circe said. "We must find that girl with the mark. If you can't use those humans you control anymore, then find others. Ordinary people will never trace it back to me."

"Alright, madam, but what about Wonder Woman..."

"Don't worry about her. She won't find me," Circe said, turning her back and flicking her hand dismissively. "She's nothing more than a pitiful sacrifice, after all. The gods of Mount Olympus will ultimately receive their due retribution, and Wonder Woman is no exception."

Hysterical laughter echoed through the office at Arkham Asylum. Brand was slapping the table, laughing so hard he couldn't straighten up, but the person sitting opposite him wasn't Schiller, or to be more accurate, wasn't Schiller in human form.

Sitting on the white chair across from him was a small black snake coiled up. The snake was purely black with scales that slightly reflected light, about as long as an adult's arm. But if one looked closely, they could see a snake rolling its eyes.

"Hahaha, Schiller, to see you like this, hahahaha!!!" Brand couldn't laugh any more wildly, not even a clown hired from a chorus could outdo him today.

"Cut the crap and change me back!" the black snake hissed, "Stop laughing, how was I supposed to know she'd act so decisively?"

Wiping away tears, Brand said, "Did you really think everyone would fall for your tricks? Some people won't reason with you."

"Hurry up! Change me! Back!"

"Don't look at me like that," Brand coughed twice and said, "This is a witchcraft curse, not the same kind of power I have. I can't change you back."

Schiller looked at him with disbelief, which was no longer just skepticism but outright distrust.

"I'm telling the truth. Witchcraft is a very special kind of power, it's the source of the cosmos' magic power, at least for now. If I tamper with it recklessly, the source might notice. Are you sure you want me to risk startling the snake by grasping at its tail?"

Schiller tried to control his new body, then with effort, he raised the front half of his body and said, "So how am I supposed to change back?"

"You need the person who put the Beastification Curse on you to lift it... If she's unwilling, you'll have to find a way to neutralize her power so she can't maintain the connection with the curse. Only then can you break the curse."

"What can you do then? Just stand there and watch?"

"I can still laugh..." Brand, seeing Schiller was angry enough to want to bite him, waved his hand and turned away, then said, "Wait, there's this too..."

He turned and seemingly pulled something out of thin air, placing it on Schiller's face.

It was a pair of miniature glasses.

"Snake vision isn't very good, this will allow you to see like a normal person, but you'll also have a snake's sense of smell. Consider it a kind of enhancement," Brand said.

"I don't want this kind of enhancement," Growled Schiller, "You must have arrived early and stood aside to enjoy the show. I really misjudged you!"

"You can't think so poorly of me," Brand protested earnestly. "I rushed over here immediately after receiving your message, but you had to encounter trouble during rush hour! I was stuck in traffic for half an hour!"

"You decided to drive when I was in danger? I can see right through you, Brand!"

After a few more arguments, Schiller finally remembered the pressing issue. "At least we got something out of this mess. We finally know who is pulling the strings behind the scenes."

"I may have been late, but I didn't leave early," Brand suddenly said. "I overheard a bit of their conversation. That redhead witch, the one who cursed you, seems to be looking for a little girl."

Schiller frowned but soon felt tired maintaining his upright posture, so he coiled up again, laying down and resting his chin on a section of his own body, then said.

"Circe Witch... I think Constantine would remember her. Where did you send him off to?"

"He had some things to take care of, and I think it would be the same if you asked his girlfriend..."

"That won't work," Schiller said, somewhat helplessly. "She's afraid of snakes."