Chapter 162 The Witch

Falling to the very bottom, there was a pool of water.

Just as I was about to crash into the surface, Xia Xinyan instantly transformed into a black cat, leaping from Ling Mo’s embrace and landing gracefully in the water.

Ling Mo only felt an emptiness in his arms, left with a cold, incomplete body. Before he could react, he plunged into the water, instantly surrounded by the biting cold, choking on several mouthfuls before he finally managed to pull up the incomplete body to the surface.

As soon as he emerged from the water, he shouted, “Xinyan! Where are you?!”

It was pitch black, and he couldn’t see a thing, nor could he spot Xia Xinyan.

At that moment, Xia Xinyan was struggling to swim towards the shore not far away. Upon hearing his call, she turned back to respond, “Over here! Quickly! There’s land!”

However, her voice had a strange, high-pitched sound now that she had turned into a cat.

Ling Mo didn’t have time to worry about that; he swam toward the source of the sound, carrying the witch along.

Xia Xinyan was the first to reach the shore, then transformed back into her cat-girl form, helping Ling Mo and the witch onto the land.

As soon as Ling Mo got onshore, he pulled out a lantern from his spatial watch to illuminate the surroundings, revealing the environment.

They seemed to be in a cave, with a large pool of water in the center, and not far on their side of the shore was a dark cloth-covered exit — likely an exit.

After confirming there was no danger around, he set aside the passage and went to Xia Xinyan’s side, asking, “Xinyan, are you injured?”

“No, are you?”

“I’m fine.” Ling Mo felt a bit relieved and then looked down at the witch lying on the ground. “Why are we saving her?”

He originally thought she was a vengeful spirit, but it wasn’t until Xia Xinyan shoved her into his arms that he realized the witch was indeed tangible…

But looking at her, she seemed on the brink of death; her lower half was completely missing, her eyes were gouged out, and after being drenched, she looked even more terrifying. Even if she wasn’t a ghost, she looked rather close to being one.

The witch lay there weakly, completely still, with only her chest gently rising and falling to show she was still alive.

Xia Xinyan was silent for a moment before she stood up and walked towards the witch. “Maybe we were wrong from the start.”

She now had a bold guess.

Ling Mo paused for a moment and followed her. He didn’t believe the witch could attack them in such a condition, but he figured it was best to stay cautious.

Xia Xinyan didn’t care about his actions; she crouched beside the witch, pulling out a healing potion from her spatial watch — a high-grade healing potion purchased in the game mall — and directly poured it down the witch’s throat.

The witch didn’t resist and opened her mouth to drink the potion.

When she opened her mouth, Xia Xinyan noticed she didn’t have a tongue.

So that’s why she couldn’t speak at all?

Xia Xinyan’s expression grew serious.

Once the potion was finished, the witch seemed to regain some strength and struggled to get up. She kept mumbling something, but without a tongue, her words broke into fragments.

Xia Xinyan watched her in silence for a few seconds before suddenly asking, “Is that Liliya the real witch?”

Ling Mo froze.

The witch also stiffened at her words and then became agitated, grabbing hold of her arm and trying to say something. Xia Xinyan calmed her down, softly saying, “Don’t be agitated. If I’m right, just nod.”

Upon hearing this, the witch suddenly quieted down and after a while, slowly nodded her head.

Xia Xinyan quickly continued, “Did you accidentally enter this castle and then get turned into this by the witch?”

The witch looked even more excited and almost immediately nodded.

At the same time, Tianji suddenly provided a prompt —

[Mission Complete: Find the Real Girl]

Xia Xinyan: “…”

Well, that’s that.

After thinking for a moment, she couldn’t help but internally ask, ‘Were you doing this on purpose?’

[This system is just providing normal prompts.]

‘Hmph.’

Xia Xinyan pulled at her mouth.

She had never seen a mission completion prompt from this guy before.

Wiping her face, she turned to Ling Mo. “We need to find a way to get her out; she’s the target.”

“Her?” Ling Mo’s expression was a bit strange. “Do you believe her?”

“I believe her.” Xia Xinyan draped her arm over his shoulder, softly saying, “Mo Mo, she’s the biggest challenge in this dungeon.”

The most witch-like wasn’t the witch herself, and the person who resembled the target the least was not actually the target; this could very well be the biggest smokescreen this dungeon threw at them.

In fact, the dungeon had given very subtle hints from the start — [Innocent Girl], and Liliya’s previous actions had no relation to that term whatsoever.

But what truly made her suspicious were the suddenly issued suspicious mission prompts from Tianji.

After keeping a wary eye, she found it hard to ignore Liliya’s unusual behaviors, and what confirmed her suspicion was Liliya’s recent reaction to the witch — even if the previous situations could be explained by Liliya being scared silly, her emotionless declaration to “kill her” in the face of such a terrifying witch clearly didn’t seem like something a pure girl would say.

If Tang NianNian had killed the witch back then, this dungeon would have likely failed completely.

Sure enough… this was the highest difficulty dungeon after all…

What a cunning trap.

But… why did the target girl turn out like this? And how was she still alive in this situation?

Unfortunately, she had no way to ask the girl what had happened right now.

Speaking of which, Xia Xinyan actually had a method to completely heal the witch — with over ten thousand points from Tianji’s store, she could not only restore her to health but could even make someone on the verge of death run a hundred meters.

However, she was unsure if she wanted to do that; ten thousand points was no small sum, and if there was a way to help the witch recover later, that would mean a waste of points.

Moreover, these resources were meant to be her last resort, so she didn’t need to pull them out unless it was critical.

Ling Mo unconditionally trusted Xia Xinyan, so once she decided to believe the witch, he hoisted her up and prepared to leave with Xia Xinyan — after all, regardless of her identity as a witch… well, fine, she wasn’t a witch. Looking at her current state certainly made her easy to pity, as long as she didn’t scare anyone.

Ling Mo had already been scared enough; now he was starting to feel compassion.

If Liliya really was the witch behind all this, then he’d definitely think of a way to teach that witch a lesson.