Mystery: The Silver Key

Chapter 41: The Sudden Attack

At the History Department of Backlund University, Sir Ryan glanced at the office where only old Phil sat in a chair, lost in thought, and then raised his hand to knock on the door.

Thump~ thump~

"Come in."

Cyril stopped in front of the desk and calmly looked at the old man opposite him: "Professor Phil, you wanted to see me?"

Old Fells sat motionless in his chair, but his tone changed slightly:

"Did you skip class again this morning?"

"Uh..." Xireen was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that Old Fels, who usually ignored his students, would care about him so much, even though he didn't have any classes this morning.

After a slight hesitation, he nodded gently and said, "Yes, I was a little late this morning."

I was only a morning late.

Old Phil seemed to believe his explanation, skipped over the topic, and said instead, "I have prepared a gift for you."

"what?"

"Thank you, Professor, but I don't think I need the gift."

Cyril stared blankly at the other person, sensing that something was off about old Phil today.

Although old Phil was not exactly stingy at the school, he was by no means the kind of professor who would thoughtfully prepare gifts for his students, especially since he was not one of the most outstanding or cared-for students.

Old Phil didn't mind his refusal. After speaking, he bent down and took out an upside-down picture frame from the drawer of his desk below.

The moment he saw the picture frame, Cyril suddenly felt a spiritual warning and instinctively wanted to escape.

He took several steps back, but he was still a step too slow. Old Fils had already turned the upside-down picture frame around so that it was facing him directly.

The front of the frame depicts a dense, twisted, and dark green forest of dead trees. Above the forest is a pale blue moon, like an eye, looking down at the forest below and also at everything outside the frame.

Cyril's gaze inevitably met the eyes in the picture frame, and for a moment, he felt as if he were being watched from an infinite height.

When he came to his senses, he found himself no longer in old Fils' office, but in a dark, twisted, green forest without a single leaf—the forest in the picture frame.

A world within a painting!

He was pulled into the world of the painting again, and this time it seemed that not only his mind was drawn in, but his body was also drawn in.

After a brief silence, he reached out and gently pressed his hand against the air in front of him. A faint blue light rippled outwards from his palm, but the "door" he had envisioned never appeared.

"So it really didn't work?" Sirion sighed, looking down.

He was just trying to replicate his previous actions, using the "Apprentice's" ability to open the door between the world in the painting and the real world, but he failed.

He had a premonition that the problem lay with him.

"Is it because last time it was only a spirit that it was able to easily break free from the world within the painting based on its own physical form?"

"But this time, my spirit and body are not separated. It's because the soul's status is restricted by the body, or perhaps I don't yet possess the ability to physically traverse dimensions?"

As he muttered to himself, he saw a familiar figure quickly emerge from among several twisted, withered trees not far away—it was old Fils.

He held a black wooden cane in one hand and the top hat that had been on his head in the other, his azure eyes filled with an undisguised madness and excitement.

"You are not Professor Fehr!"

Cyril frowned as he looked at the figure that had suddenly appeared. Apart from his face, he didn't resemble old Fils at all.

Old Fils didn't speak, but walked towards him with a somewhat flamboyant gait. With each step, some of the color on his body would fade until he completely transformed into the appearance of another person.

She was a woman with brown hair and brown eyes, with striking features. She possessed both a fierce and arrogant yet affected and pretentious air about her. Her face was covered in heavy makeup, giving her an incongruous appearance that seemed to forcibly blend a noblewoman with a female bandit.

The top hat and cane in her hands had also changed, becoming a long knife stained with rusty red spots and a black revolver.

Sirion frowned as he looked at the other person, his memory flashing back, and he recognized him.

Zoira Hernandez, leader of the Bloodaxe Gang in East Backlund, a Sequence 8 "Listener" who went mad after hearing voices from the stars.

This was a task Adam had given him beforehand, and he had even received an advance payment for completing the task.

He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about completing the task, but he didn't expect the target to come knocking on his door like this. Now he's starting to wonder if Adam is urging him on.

Xi Ruien felt a pang of pain in his teeth looking at the knife and gun in the other person's hand. He should have just skipped class again.

He came to school to attend classes, not to fight, and he wasn't carrying any weapons. As a result, he just happened to run into criminals who were armed with knives and guns and had him as their target.

Once restored to her original form, Zoira Hernandez made no unnecessary words or movements, raising her gun, aiming, and pulling the trigger in one fluid motion.

boom!boom!

The gleaming bullets landed on a dark curtain without creating a ripple.

"Behind-the-scenes manipulation" + "escape trick"

As a lower-tier form of teleportation, "Escape Trick" is already close to a short-distance teleportation. In the blink of an eye, Cyril appeared beside Zoira Hernandez under the cover of "The Curtain".

But he was met with the dark muzzle of a gun; Zoira saw through his trick and pinpointed his location precisely.

boom!

The moment the gunshot rang out, Zoira's body leaned back uncontrollably, and the muzzle of her gun, which was originally aimed at Cyril, veered off course, and the bullet missed its mark.

Cyril breathed a slight sigh of relief. His actions just now were extremely risky. The owner of the painting had absolute control over the world within it, so no matter how ingenious and brilliant his trick was, it couldn't stop the other party from locking onto him.

Especially for those influenced by "higher-dimensional observers," the other party is likely to possess the ability to observe the true nature of the world, which is very effective against sequences like "master magicians" and "magicians" that require deceptive performances and meticulous manipulation.

Fortunately, the other party was overconfident and did not know enough about the "Master of Tricks'" abilities, which gave him a chance to take a risk.

Taking advantage of the moment when the opponent lost their balance, Cyril extended his left hand, his index finger gently pointing out, and a beam of frost-white light with a bluish tinge shot out from his fingertip, accurately striking the opponent's eyes.

"Freeze!"

This trick isn't very powerful; it can only quickly cool down, frost, or create thin ice. However, if the target is the human eye, which is the most vulnerable part of the body, it can have unexpected effects.

To his surprise, the "frozen" ray failed to produce any effect.

After losing her balance, Zoira's body twisted in an incredible arc, dodging the ray of light that was about to hit her eyes, and even managed to swing her knife back at him.

Cyril dodged the rust-stained longsword immediately; his instincts warned him that the knife was more dangerous than the revolver in her hand.

...magical items?

As his thoughts drifted, he saw a plume of smoke with a pungent sulfurous smell billow out from where the blade had passed. This smoke seemed alive, rushing towards him with a clear purpose.

slap~

As he backed away, Cyril snapped his fingers.

The black smoke that had been rushing toward him vanished into thin air, then suddenly appeared beside Zoira, completely enveloping her.

"Transfer gas"

He had always thought it was a useless trick, since it couldn't directly transfer air to suffocate someone to death, but unexpectedly it came in handy now.

Amidst the black smoke that smelled of sulfur, Cyril heard a cough tinged with pain.

Zoira seemed to have not expected that Cyril could return the extraordinary power she had used to her. Caught off guard, she inhaled some of the black smoke and was poisoned and corroded.

The next second, gunshots rang out again.

boom! boom! boom!

While the black smoke did have some effect on Zoira, it also obstructed Cyril's vision, preventing him from noticing that the other party had once again aimed a gun at him.

Cyril, who only reacted thanks to his spiritual intuition, was unable to dodge the bullets this time. He was shot in the shoulder and side, but thankfully, none of them hit any vital organs.

"Hiss~"

Cyril gritted his teeth and kept changing his position, not daring to stay in one place for even a moment.

He originally wanted to hide behind the surrounding dead trees, but they were like the backdrop of this scene—they looked right in front of him, but he could never actually reach or touch them.

"Damn it, Adam!"

After a slight hesitation, he chose to call out Adam's name, but received no response, as if the world in the painting and the world in his mind did not interact.