The mory torrent from the wooden bird, originating from [Reverberation Touch], flooded Lin Jie's mind.
This funeral, decades overdue, subjected Lin Jie's spiritual world to a baptism and reshaping, and he struggled free from the ocean of sorrowful mories.
He regained control over his own body and saw the Wolpertinger's ruby-like eyes gazing at him.
Within that gaze was a kind of understanding and sorrow that transcended species.
Lin Jie slowly stood up, carefully placing the decayed wooden bird into the inner pocket of his chest.
He knew this wasn't just a toy;
it was proof of Lina's bravery and sacrifice.
He bowed solemnly to the Spirit before him.
"Thank you for guarding her for so long," he said softly.
"The road ahead, leave it to us."
The Wolpertinger understood his words, its long rabbit ears twitching slightly.
Then, it vigorously rubbed its furry head against Lin Jie's pant leg.
It no longer emitted sorrowful whimpers, only giving the pocket on Lin Jie's chest one last deep look with its clear red eyes.
Then it turned around and, hopping away, disappeared into the deeper forest it had guarded without looking back.
It had fulfilled its entrustnt.
And Lin Jie had taken up its mission.
When Lin Jie returned to William and Julian's side with a heavy sense of resolve, his two partners sensed a subtle change had co over him.
His eyes were deeper than before.
He didn't explain the recent experience in detail, only recounting the mory of the Wolpertinger guarding the toy to his teammates in concise language.
After listening, William also fell into silence involuntarily.
The Wolpertinger's goodwill did not lighten the team's atmosphere;
instead, it placed the shackles of responsibility upon each person's heart in an even heavier manner.
The team set off once more, this ti no longer needing a map or navigation.
Because the violent and deathly spiritual fluctuations emanating from the depths of the marsh already acted like a lighthouse in the dark night, pointing them towards their final destination.
They trekked through the forest for another half hour or so.
The surrounding vegetation grew sparse, tall trees replaced by low, twisted shrubs, and the ground beneath their feet beca muddy and soft.
Each step sank in, oozing black, foul-slling water.
The air was thick with a nauseating mix of marsh gas and the stench of rotting aquatic plants.
Beyond a grove of ghostly, withered black trees, the nightmare land that had appeared many tis in Karl's diary, the "Fairy Marsh" that had swallowed his childhood and happiness, appeared before them.
It was a vast, dead, black marsh, its stagnant dark green mire surface floating with large patches of rotting aquatic plants and the corpses of creatures.
Bubbles of varying sizes rose from below the water, bursting on the surface and releasing an even more pungent stench.
The entire swamp was shrouded in a perennial, thick grayish-white fog.
The mist writhed slowly, sealing out sunlight and vitality from this land of death. This was the lair of the "Swamp Tree Fiend."
A domain of despair, death, decay, and sorrow.
Just as the team reached the edge of the marsh, the modified "Ether Spectrum Analyzer" lent to Lin Jie by Gretchen suddenly emitted a sharp, urgent alarm.
Lin Jie imdiately looked down.
On the instrunt's display screen, composed of the Hertz crystal, the needle representing spiritual fluctuations was swinging wildly and irregularly.
The spiritual wave spectrum displayed below the screen showed a chaotic, bizarre pattern full of breaks and noise.
"The spiritual field here is unstable!" Julian said, his expression grave as he looked at the chaotic spectrum.
Gretchen's instrunt had scientifically corroborated Karl's diary and Lin Jie's reverberations.
"Everyone, prepare for combat," William's voice was low and calm. He had already chambered an alchemical round.
"Whatever it is, we're digging it out of this mire today."
However, just as all three team mbers were at their highest combat alert, ready to step into the deathly swamp, Lin Jie suddenly saw a vision that froze his blood.
On a small patch of land in the center of the fog-shrouded swamp, a little girl wearing a simple dress, with flaxen braids, stood quietly.
An innocent, guileless smile was on her face.
She was facing Lin Jie's direction, slowly raising her small hand and gently waving.
Then, wordlessly, she mouthed a sentence at him, one that would be enough to shatter anyone who had read Karl's diary.
"Big brother... co play with ."
In that mont, Lin Jie felt his mind go blank.
Reason scread, telling him it was fake, impossible, a trap created by the UMA.
Lina had died long ago;
her bones still awaited their retrieval.
But his senses, his perception, were captured by that phantom in that instant.
That smile was too real, that anticipation too pure.
He could feel the cold wooden bird in his chest pocket grow slightly warm, as if resonating with that phantom.
His always calm, deep black eyes began to grow confused.
The entire world before him, that black swamp of death and decay, was rapidly losing its color.
Replacing it was the tranquil, beautiful Black Forest afternoon depicted in Karl's diary, filled with sunlight and birdsong.
He felt as if he had beco the carefree, genius young boy, taking his beloved little sister on a sketching adventure in the woods.
"Lina..."
A na he shouldn't have uttered slipped softly from his lips like a dream whisper.
William and Julian saw nothing.
In their vision, the swamp ahead remained dead and silent, with no anomalies.
But they saw the change in Lin Jie.
They saw Lin Jie's usually placid face break into an infatuated, gentle smile.
They saw Lin Jie's pupils losing focus, becoming empty and distant.
His soul was being dragged from his body by an invisible force.
"Not good! It's a ntal attack!" Julian was the first to react, exclaiming in alarm.
"It's targeting Lin Jie!"
William's reaction was more direct. He had no ti to think about what was happening.
He simply followed the most primal, correct combat instinct when facing a comrade's crisis.
He lunged forward in a sudden stride, his powerful hand clamping down hard on Lin Jie's shoulder.
Then, with all his might, he roared into Lin Jie's ear.
"Lin Jie—!!!"
"Snap out of it!!"
William's roar detonated like thunder in Lin Jie's nearly subrged ntal world.
That wave of sound, full of masculine, iron-blooded energy, forcibly dispersed the beguiling mist woven from false warmth.
Lin Jie's consciousness, on the verge of leaving his body, shuddered violently. A sliver of clarity returned to his confused eyes.
He saw William's face, twisted with anxiety, and heard Julian urgently calling his na beside him.
However—
The lethal "psychic link" from the depths of the marsh had not been severed.
That innocent smiling face belonging to "Lina" and Karl's personality mory remained branded in his mind, grotesquely overlapping with William's anxious visage.
Two realities were engaged in a brutal tug-of-war within his spiritual world.
His soul was the rope about to be torn apart.
His hand had already, unconsciously, slowly closed around the grip of the [Serene Heart] at his waist.
The Guardian Scale was transmitting a Zen-like force field, trying to keep him lucid.
But at the sa ti, he felt the voice from the swamp's depths whispering in his soul's core with an even more gentle, irresistible tone.
"Big brother..."
"Don't be afraid."
"Aim the gun... at them."
"They... are bad people."
"They... want to... separate us..."
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