“Lady.” Camile Jensen came up to Lady Marza O’Gul and whispered to this woman wearing a face mask covering half her face: “The songs in the air...”

“I noticed, just stop listening.” Lady Marza O’Gul shook her head: “It’s the protection array from the castle itself. They’re meant to confuse and terrorize those who came in uninvited. The Hellingers were known to be experts at it. So be careful, the theoretical things you learn about terrorizing magic, and the control of dark energy like rot and malice in the Grant Academy will be severely outdated here.”

“No, not just that.” Camile Jensen said: “I get this feeling that there’s something in the song, and it seems like it’s trying to break out, somehow.”

“Voice Wraiths, or to be precise, Spirit of Melody.” Lady Marza O’Gul hesitated for a short moment: “Good job noticing it.” Then she turned around to the witches following her and delivered a short message: “Focus on yourselves, and don’t be shaken by the songs.”

“Don’t worry, Lady O’Gul.” Assistant Professor Vyn said from a remote distance: “Just stick to what we told you, and your crew will be fine. Unless, of course, there are some amongst your crew harboring ill will against the Hellinger Family and the Castle, then it can’t be helped.”

“Of course not.” Lady Marza O’Gul narrowed her eyes: “Just lead the way and find our way in. I don’t think it will be good for anyone to linger in this place for long, even for you and your crew.”

“Don’t worry. We’re almost there.” Assistant Professor Vyn turned around and said as he led the team to a place in front of the gates of the inner ward.

The inner ward was built with thick stones and bricks, and had several metal places with relief sculptures of demons, monsters and morbid ghosts layered on them.

The gates were completely made of metal and had a height of around three adult men, and on its both sides there were two statues that were around two adult men’s height. Just by looking at them, Camile Jensen got the feeling that if they acted in any way inappropriate the two statues would just lunge from their positions and start attacking them.

Assistant Professor Vyn got down on his right knee and extended his right arm forward. The slashed wounds on his right palm started dripping blood. The droplets of blood did not reach the ground when they fell, instead they floated towards the gate and the two statues and were instantly absorbed on contact.

“My child …. my child… my child ...” faint voices from many different voices came from every direction and flowed towards Assistant Professor Vyn like streams in a turbulent river. The gate opened from the middle, and the torches in the interior lit up in orange, green and blue flames. What appeared before the team was the rest of the pathway towards the front gate of the castle itself, which also started to slowly open.

“Crack!” A loud explosion of tens, if not hundreds of thunder strikes came from the distant sky. When everyone aside from Assistant Professor Vyn looked back, they saw a giant crack of space glowing in dark blue appeared in the sky.

“Summers is here.” Lucias Vyn said: “Earlier than we thought. Let’s get in and trigger the defence.”

Just this moment, two men wearing face masks in Lucias Vyn’s team, and one witch from Lady Marza O’Gul’s team started shaking, laughing and even dancing clumsily. And right in front of everyone, they began to sing uncontrollably in high voices and bad pitches: “Tears in the wind, tears in the wind. Mama’s … crying ... and there’s tears in the wind… Daddy asked: ‘why’ ...”

The emotions on Lucias Vyn and Assistant Professor Vyn’s faces turned stern and terrible. The other members of their respective teams immediately backed off from them and watched these individuals twiched, their eyes rolled up, their faces turned pale and full of dark veins, and their mouth opened wider and wider - even to extents that were impossible for humans; their eyes was sucked into their skull, and before long they all stopped breathing and collapsed onto the ground like three skin sacks.

A pair of hands appeared from within these individuals’ mouths and grabbed onto the edges of their mouths. Then the hands pushed outwards, these mouths opened even wider, the skins, muscles, ligaments and bones cracked and broken from the violent expansion. Shortly after the sudden outburst of weird behavior, three infants covered in blood and dark green slime with abnormally big eyes and only the upper halves of their bodies crawled out from their mouths and throats. At the end of each of their bodies, there were a couple of long and winding tubes and veins attached to a beating heart.

“Looks like we found the traitors among us.” Lucias Vyn smiled when faced with the stares of horror and anger from the other individuals present: “Now, let’s proceed.”

When the team continued on their way, the three bloody infants attached to beating hearts crawled with them from behind, and were avoided by everyone.

The singing voices finally completely died down when the team entered the main hall of the castle building and the front gate shut behind them. Camile Jensen let out a sigh of relief in secret, just like many members of her team.

“Poof” flames of orange, green and blue lit up in a chandelier above them, and the entirety of the interior was shown to all members of the team.