No reminder from Stonemason was needed. The others understood it was time for a desperate fight, and they each unleashed their skills, attacking the withered head.

Ur Wunnian led the charge. A Gryphon-shaped, fiery-red sigil emerged on the back of his hand, and he condensed a ball of dark-red energy in his palms, launching it toward the withered head through the air.

Forest Cat also gripped his teaching whip tightly and swung it fiercely toward the gap in the wall, releasing a large pink hand to clutch at the air in front.

The intangible, formless energy effortlessly blocked all kinds of attacks and even had the strength to constrict Ur Wunnian's limbs through the air, slowly bending his arms and legs backward.

In the chaos of battle, Li Ang silently unleashed the "Drown in Misfortune Assassination Method" on the withered head.

PFFT—

The head erupted like a geyser, spewing out a stream of warm water that ceaselessly flowed from the severed trachea at its neck, spreading over the table and splashing onto the ground.

The intangible, formless energy inexplicably paused for a moment. Taking advantage of this brief gap, Li Ang activated the Ripple Breathing Method and charged into the room, swinging his stone arm to smash the withered head.

Even though it had turned into a fountain, the shriveled, gray head still stared with its desiccated eyeballs, fixating on Li Ang.

Li Ang felt the resistance before him grow stronger, the air heavier, as if it were trying to immerse him within it like amber, to freeze and solidify him.

Just as he was about to be completely frozen, Li Ang used the "Fragment Scatter" skill, not aiming for the withered head, but for the drawer under the wooden table holding the head.

He noticed that beneath the wooden table, several aged, twisted wires extended from its drawers. One end connected to a series of generators, the other to the back of the withered head's neck.

Were these wires charging the head? he wondered. He'd only heard of eating walnuts to boost brainpower, never about plugging wires into a brain.

"Fragment Scatter" ignored the invisible barrier and exploded directly near the wooden table's drawer, completely severing the old wire connecting the head to the generators and sending the entire section flying.

As the wire flew off, the desiccated head seemed to lose power, its eyes slowly closing, silent once more.

The System then sounded an alert, notifying everyone that the abnormal head had been cleared, with three more abnormal organs remaining.

A few teammates hurried into the room. Stonemason glanced at the quiet, shriveled old woman's head on the table, lifting the wet half of the wire with his gloved hand, puzzled. "What is this thing?"

"That's your old man, the small-headed version," Li Ang blurted out.

Ignoring Stonemason's confused face, he picked up the head with his stone arm and examined it closely. "Hmm... it kind of looks like a Jivaro shrunken head? There's an electrical socket at the back of the neck, and behind the socket, there's an extremely complicated metal cylindrical component. It seems to convert voltage..."

That was probably why the withered head had paused its attack just now, Li Ang thought. The water from the Drown in Misfortune Assassination Method must have short-circuited the wires below.

Li Ang tossed the shriveled head up and down in his hand, unexpectedly discovering a deep vertical scar at the back of the skull. Through the scar, he could see the cranial cavity was empty, devoid of anything.

"So, it really is brainless, huh," Li Ang remarked. At that moment, Forest Cat also noticed something. He stood in the center of a pile of generators and said to his teammates, "There's a pre-set Mysterious Studies Formation here!"

Stonemason and Ur Wunnian walked over. Stonemason glanced at the intricate Magic Circle drawn in dried red and white strokes and looked up to ask Forest Cat, "Can you understand the specific effects of this Formation?"

"Hmm..." Forest Cat furrowed his brows in thought and cautiously said, "This Magic Circle seems to be set to activate every five years. At that time, it will open the valve of an oil storage device located behind the wall, fill the generators with oil, and start them. The Formation will last for two hours."

Stonemason was taken aback. He had heard of Arrays for summoning demons, creating landslides, or calling down thunder, but he had never heard of a Mysterious Studies Formation with an effect similar to a mechanism.

"These generators, apart from turning on the mansion's lights, also provided electricity to the withered head," Stonemason analyzed. "It's possible that the Formation itself was set up by the head in anticipation of this very moment."

He lowered his head, frowning as he said, "But why did it attack us directly? Moreover, this time the abnormal organ doesn't seem to have triggered any illusions..."

"Hey," Li Ang called out, drawing his teammates' attention. By this time, he had already put the head into his backpack slot and had flipped the wooden table upside down onto the floor.

When his teammates came over, Li Ang pointed to the underside of the wooden table, gesturing for them to take a closer look.

Densely inscribed on the relatively small underside of the wooden table were many English words. Everyone examined them carefully without reading them aloud—in the field of Mysterious Studies, reading an unknown text aloud was already reckless, let alone in such an eerie environment.

The text read:

"Hello, unknown visitor who has entered Williams Mansion. You must have seen my head on the table, right?

"I am Helen Leslie, the former owner of Williams Mansion.

"I don't know if you are a descendant of the Lesley family, part of the Witch Alliance here to vanquish evil, or just an ordinary person who has accidentally stumbled into this place, but I hope you will carefully read this text, as it will be key to your survival."

The four players looked at each other, a sense of absurdity rising in their hearts. This head... it seemed to have foreseen visitors entering the house?

"The history of Williams Mansion dates back to a Mysterious Scholar named William, who was originally a member of the Far Eastern Dawn Magic Society. In the early nineteenth century, he fled to the New World and settled on Roanoke Island.

"He learned about the colonial mass disappearance case, entered the dense forest to search, and uncovered the truth: on this island lived a Reindeer God named Croatoan.

"This being originated from the primeval beliefs of the indigenous peoples of the islands off eastern America, symbolizing medicine, longevity, and health. However, due to tribal migrations and decline, the Reindeer God continually weakened, becoming twisted, evil, chaotic, and disordered.

"The colonial mass disappearance case was a conspiracy orchestrated by the Reindeer God. He struck the colony with plague and famine, forcing the English colonists to pledge loyalty to him and follow him into the foggy swamps deep in the forest, where they became his servants.

"Humans would undergo various changes under the Reindeer God's influence: their bodies became distorted and inhuman, their minds grew dull, and they became bloodthirsty fools. They no longer deserved to be called human. William, in his notes, referred to them as 'Children of the Forest' or 'Forest People.'"

Li Ang's eyes brightened. The Children of the Forest mentioned here are probably the same creatures I saw crawling on all fours in the forest, he thought.