Chapter 1631: Chapter 1631

Seeing that the eerie manor’s “guards” paid no mind to the cat’s meow in the deepening night, Jenkins nodded in understanding. He picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it toward the estate.

The stone carved a perfect parabola through the air. The instant it neared the wall, a stout, cyan-colored animated stone creature leaped down from the rampart and crushed it to dust beneath a massive foot.

“They don’t react to anything outside, yet they harbor extreme hostility toward any object that approaches... While there are many Mysterious Objects associated with manors, there seems to be only one with guards like these.”

Jenkins thought to himself, arriving at an answer:

“This is bad. It’s A-10-1-0988, the Night Manor.”

The Night Manor was a large-scale, location-based Mysterious Object. According to records, its origins traced back to the 12th Epoch. It first circulated in the material world in the form of grotesque horror stories before being confirmed as a genuine Mysterious Object.

The Night Manor would only manifest over the location of an existing estate. When it appeared, the real manor’s interior structure and exterior would become significantly distorted. After the Night Manor vanished, seventy to eighty percent of the original inhabitants would still be alive, but most survivors would suffer severe memory loss and be plagued by terrifying nightmares and visions for the rest of their lives.

They claimed to have seen the abyss.

Legend held that the Night Manor existed to seal away the estate’s master, but the Church had never managed to explore its deepest recesses to find out what lay within. They only knew of its danger, its strangeness, and its horror.

The materials for this large-scale summoning ritual were not strictly defined, but it had to include one Series A Mysterious Object, one Series B Extraordinary item, and one Series C Bestowal. In addition, it required an incantation recited in a special language. That incantation was considered taboo and had long since vanished. Today, only fragmented characters might be found in books chronicling arcane history, in the poems of madmen, or on stone tablets in lost ruins.

Jenkins knew of the Night Manor only because he had once casually asked Papa Oliver about the differences between item-based, event-based, humanoid, and location-based Mysterious Objects. Papa Oliver had used the Night Manor as an example, explaining that location-based Mysterious Objects were exceptionally perilous, as they could very well spawn derivative items, entities, or even events that were themselves Mysterious Objects.

The problem now was that Jenkins knew the legends and origins of the Night Manor, but he had no idea of its rules of operation. Papa Oliver hadn't mentioned them, simply because he didn't know them either.

Jenkins couldn't possibly abandon Hathaway and Briny to wait outside for twenty minutes until Church support arrived so he could get a full briefing on the Night Manor. He hesitated for a moment, weighing the pros and cons, and after concluding that rushing in would be sheer folly, he pushed himself up from the grassy ground. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel[f]ire.net

He dusted himself off and walked brazenly to the manor's main gate. The wrought-iron gate was shut tight. In the gloom of night, both sides were decorated with twisted, ghoulish faces and grotesque monsters wrought from iron wire.

The stone gargoyles did not obstruct anyone at the entrance; they only guarded the walls. The watchman at the gate was an undead gatekeeper just inside, holding a lantern made from a human head.

The lantern was not a skull, but a fresh human head, still dripping blood from its severed neck. The gatekeeper, its skin a desiccated, cyanotic blue like a mummy’s, wore tattered black robes. It clutched the head by its matted hair, forcing its tormented face forward. A white candle had been crudely thrust into the stump of the neck below. The inverted candle burned quietly, and not even the blood dripping down its length could extinguish the eerie blue candlelight.

As he drew closer to the manor, Jenkins felt a growing unease. This Mysterious Object was more terrifying than almost any he had ever encountered. He took a deep breath, placed the cat from his shoulder onto the ground, and then crouched down to pat its back.

“Go, Chocolate! People will be here soon. You need to lead them.”

This place was far too dangerous, even more so than the blood-soaked banquet hall covered by the vampire’s arcane maze. Jenkins suspected that the moment he stepped into the manor, his fragile cat would be warped by the Mysterious Object’s power and mutate into some horrific thing with five legs, three heads, and drooling disgusting yellow saliva.

Chocolate let out a soft cry. It tilted its head and rubbed against Jenkins's hand, understanding his intentions. The cat looked up at the manor, clearly sensing the terrible things that lay within the estate that had descended upon the material world.

It gave an uncharacteristic lick to the back of Jenkins’s hand before darting away toward the distant forest.

With Chocolate gone, Jenkins finally felt a sense of relief. He reached a hand into his pocket, feeling the oversized metal block that made it bulge. Taking a deep breath, he leaned on his cane and strode quickly to the terrible iron gate. The undead creature inside rigidly lifted its neck to look at him. The eyes of the bleeding head-lantern also seemed to fix upon him, its agonized face appearing to struggle.

“I wish to pay a visit.”

He spoke, suppressing the sudden surge of crisis that rose in his heart. His worry and concern for the girls were the greatest source of his strength at that moment. Even though someone had warned him not to approach a “manor” in that bizarre, danger-free strange realm not long ago, he still had no desire to retreat.

He had always weighed his gains and losses. Hathaway and Briny were his most precious treasures... some of them, anyway.

The only rule Jenkins knew about the Night Manor was that any visitor who requested entry from the gatekeeper would be granted permission. This was the most basic discovery from the Church's explorations.

Sure enough, the undead gatekeeper sized Jenkins up and let out a horrifying roar. Then it took a step back, and the iron gate swung open with a sharp, grating screech.

Stepping through the gate was like entering another world. The twin moons that had hung in the dark night sky were gone, replaced by churning black clouds that constantly shifted into terrifying patterns. The very ground beneath his feet radiated a corrupting influence on the human mind; a normal person would likely have gone completely mad the instant they entered.

The undead gatekeeper watched Jenkins step inside, then swayed its body and waved him forward, leading the way with its dripping, blood-soaked head-lantern.