Scaling the Tower of the Forsaken

Headlines of a missing young woman dominated the news. She had chosen to go hiking in the mountains to avoid the holiday crowds.

Her family members looked haggard as they cried their hearts out in front of the cameras, praying to anyone and everyone to give them a clue of her whereabouts.

The search and rescue team scoured the mountains for days, but they couldn't find the woman.

She had ventured into the mountains alone. She had been missing for a week, and there were wild beasts prowling around the forest.

Unless there was a miracle, it was likely that tragedy had befallen her.

…

I noticed that I had lots of notifications when I logged into my social media account.

Everyone had tagged me, asking me to locate the woman's whereabouts.

I was slightly stunned as I stared at the sprawling mountain range in the video. I then did a quick divination to determine the woman's location.

Unfortunately, she had already departed from this world as I'd expected, but I was still able to locate her body.

"Venture into the valley in the mountains. Look for a place with water and rocks where the light doesn't reach."

My reply was immediately pinned to the top of the comments section. The netizens then began to tag the woman's parents, urging them to take a look.

I had just wrapped up a big case. I hadn't slept in days and was struggling to keep my eyes open.

I placed my phone down and immediately fell asleep.

I slept for two days before I was jolted awake by the sound of my phone ringing.

"Ms. Clearwind, we searched the area according to your instructions and found my daughter's backpack in a cave."

After using a few seconds to clear the haze of sleep from my mind, I finally realized that the person on the other end of the line was the woman's father.

Their current location was near the place I had described. The woman was definitely inside the cave, so they should be able to locate her body.

However, I had a feeling that the situation couldn't be that simple since they had decided to seek me out.

My voice was still thick with sleep when I asked, "Did you find her? She should be inside the cave."

The man on the other line fell silent for a few moments. He probably didn't expect the famous shaman, Clearwind, to be a young woman.

He quickly regained his composure. He sounded devastated and exhausted when he answered, "There's a deep pit inside the cave. There's the smell of rotting corpses coming from it. They told me that Soleil's body was in the pit.

"But the pit is too deep and dark. We couldn't find her even after searching for two days. The shaman told us that she's been trapped in the pit. Can you please help us?"

It wasn't surprising that there were strange creatures lurking in the old forests in the mountains.

I rubbed my puffy eyes before doing another divination. As expected, something was trapping the woman, Soleil Barton, in the pit. Not only that, but whatever that something was, it was going to be troublesome to deal with.

If it refused to let go of Soleil, they wouldn't be able to retrieve Soleil's body no matter how many people they sent into the pit.

I had planned to take a break for the next few days, but it seemed that I would have to start working again.

I asked Soleil's father, Ashton Barton, for some information about her. He sent it to me almost immediately after he hung up.

I frowned as I scrolled through the information on the screen.

Soleil Barton was born on July 15th. Unfortunately, she was born under an unlucky star. As a result, she was fated to attract evil spirits. It was also why her parents named her "Soleil", hoping to ward off these spirits.

Soleil would have led a safe and peaceful life if she had stayed in bright places with positive energy. But if she strayed to places like cemeteries, mountains, cliffs, and bodies of water, she would become an easy target for malicious spirits.

In fact, I noticed that Soleil had been accosted by evil spirits multiple times as she was growing up, but she had been lucky enough to escape with her life each time.

She was haunted by a spirit when her parents took her to a funeral when she was only a few months old.

She nearly lost her life to a drowned spirit when she was playing near some water when she was five years old.

When she was ten years old, she ran off to play in a cemetery and was trapped there for three days. She had been teetering between life and death when her parents finally found her.

Ashton told me that my divination was accurate when I sent my results to him. He also told me that Soleil only managed to slip through the clutches of death so many times because there had been a powerful shaman in their village.

They enjoyed an extended period of peace after they moved to the city, but they didn't expect Soleil to suddenly develop a taste for adventure after she grew up.

Soleil was extremely brave. She often made plans with her friends to go bungee jumping and hiking. They also frequented abandoned buildings with rumors of paranormal activity.

At first, Soleil hadn't planned to go hiking through the mountains herself. However, her friends already had other plans for the holidays. On top of that, the mountains were too far away.

It was why Soleil had ventured into the mountains alone. She had even lied to her parents because she was worried that they would stop her.

When her parents realized that she wasn't with her friends and had gone missing, they swiftly contacted the police and began searching for her.

They had no idea that they would receive such terrible news.

"We just want to get Soleil back since the situation has already turned out like this," Ashton said.

"Alright. I'll be arriving tomorrow afternoon," I replied.

Ashton thanked me profusely when he realized that I was willing to help them out. He then told me that he would send me the exact address later.

I lowered my gaze as I typed, "No need. I know where it is."

In fact, not only did I know where the mountains were, but I was also quite familiar with the location.