Part 4 The Undead Chapter 166 Payback
Putting the candle away, Colin Iliad found a piece of sterling silver, picked up a nearby carving knife, and swished out a palm-sized piece of the spell carrier.
Then, according to Derek Berg’s description, he drew and engraved the hidden symbol of the “Fool” on both sides of the silver piece.
The whole process was so fast that an onlooker would not have been able to see it clearly, but the final product was flawless, like a work of art that had taken days to slowly carve out.
Immediately after that, Colin Iliad found a bottle of mercury, and directly used his powerful spirituality to guide the liquid inside into the spell, filling all the lines, and letting the downward-facing side of the mercury not droop due to gravity.
After repeating the process and making the second piece of the sigil, Colin Iliad set them up in front of the candle, placing a small worm with a transparent link on each.
Compared to when he had first risen from his silence, Colin’s every move now seemed calm, serene, and determined, no longer hesitating for an instant, as he had when facing those powerful monsters in the darkness.
Preparing for the ritual, he took two steps back, removed the straight swords hanging crosswise on the wall, and thrust them into the cracks of the floor tiles in the doorway.
And as Colin’s eyes closed and whispered, a little bit of pure, thick light bubbled up from the void around him, covering the two straight swords with a sense of holiness and honor.
The more this light gathered, the more it slowly turned into water, along the room floor tiles and wall gaps, forming a division between the inside and outside of the “cage”.
As a veteran demon hunter, Colin Iliad didn’t really want to make similar defensive moves during the ceremony, as there was a small chance that it might anger the object of his prayers and bring about even more dangerous changes, but he had to do it, he had to make sure that even if the ceremony failed, and even if the “Fool” was full of fear and anger, he would be able to make sure that the “Fool” would be able to do it. He had to make sure that even if the ritual failed, even if the “Fool” was full of malice, even if he died in front of the altar, the whole Silver City would not suffer too much from it.
Colin, the Chief of Silver City, was still quite confident in the defense ability of this “cage”, because it was directly derived from a divine seal, the crown worn by the Giant King Olmir:
”Certificate of Glory!”
This was one of the main factors that allowed Silver City to withstand wave after wave of monsters in the darkness during the Deep Dark Age!
Seeing that all the preparations had been completed, Colin Iliad used the desk as an altar and, purely by spirituality, created an environment that was holy and clean and undisturbed, and lit the three candles.
The dim glow wavered gently and reflected in his eyes as he lowered his head and either sprinkled the powdered plants and monster hides mentioned by Derek Burger into the candle flame or lit them and threw them into the cauldron to please the Hidden Being he was about to pray to.
Similar activities were not uncommon in Silver City, with sacrifices to the Creator on the surface, and covertly, from time to time, a variety of rituals performed by certain inhabitants who were tempted by an unknown presence during patrols or explorations.
Most of the latter are passive, but there are also a small number of active attempts. On the one hand, the despair accumulated over thousands of years of serving the Creator without any response has made some people’s mentality break down, and they desperately hope to seize other reliance, and on the other hand, the “Council of Six” in Silver City has already formed a consensus many generations ago that the Creator, who had abandoned this land, would probably not come back again. The Creator who abandoned this land will probably not come back, and looking for other ways out must be on the agenda, but unfortunately, such attempts, in addition to ineffective and death, there has never been a third end.
That is why, no matter what the difficulties, no matter how many city-states were found that were destroyed by the Evil One, the exploration of the surrounding area and beyond, Silver City persisted.
As for Colin Iliad himself, the discovery of Jack the Outsider brought untold surprises and hope, while his encounters with the Afternoon Town, the plots of the Kings, and the prophecies of the Acolytes gave him a greater sense of urgency, and no longer any expectation that the Creator would ever return.
The combination of these two factors, together with the anomalies of Lovia and Derek, and the prophecy of the apocalyptic catastrophe, Colin Iliad, the chief of the Council of Six, the senior demigod, and the mighty Demon Hunter, had to try to dance on the edge of the blade, to consider the existence of a hidden presence, and to realize the importance of his own life. He had to consider making a deal with a secretive being.
Exhaling silently, Colin took a step back and chanted in a voice with a slight sense of vicissitude:
”Fools not of this age;
”The mysterious lord above the gray mist;
”The yellow and black king who reigns over good fortune;
”I pray to you, pray for power born of mystery, pray for gifts from good fortune, pray that you will allow the items on the altar to form the sigil ……”
Colin’s very staccato rhythmic mystical voice had just fallen, and the altar he saw in front of him suddenly became dark and deep, as if an indescribable and ineffable divinity was permeating out of the candle flame in the center.
The candle flame leapt up and became larger, but failed to illuminate the surrounding area, instead making everything even more illusory, allowing countless transparent shadows of various shapes and forms as if they didn’t exist to be presented, covering every place, either sparsely or densely.
High above this illusory world and countless figures, there were seven different colors of pure light perched on top of each other, seemingly containing endless knowledge.
Above these seven pure lights was a boundless gray mist, an ancient palace that looked down on everything.
”Demon hunter” Colin briefly forgot about other things, and looked intently at the picture on the altar, as if a thing that only existed in books and ancient books had stepped through the obstacles of illusion and reality, and truly came to his face.
If he remembered correctly, this should be the projection of the spirit world.
Before that disaster, before the Creator abandoned this land, it was easy to observe and even enter the Spirit World!
The Spirit Realm that now only existed in Silver City’s textbooks and various materials, and was no longer within anyone’s reach!
Just then, a creaking illusory sound suddenly rang out, and doors seemed to open within the ancient palace that overlooked the gray mist overlooking the Spirit World.
Immediately afterward, Colin saw the unformed spells in front of the candle-flame glow with a grayish luster, and their lines were “lit” one after another, intertwined, and erupted into a blinding, intense glow that enveloped the sterling silver flakes and the ringed insects.
The entire dark world on the altar then also had a momentary distortion.
Everything soon returned to normal, but on the altar there were two more strange spells made of black crystal, which seemed to be a pair of eyes of a certain being, quietly watching the world.
”Demon Hunter,” Colin said in a hushed voice as he was stunned for a moment, collecting his gaze and burying his head:
”Thank you for your gifts;
”Praise for your presence.”
Without delay, he immediately ended the ceremony and lifted the blockade.
After doing so, the chief of the Silver City’s “Council of Six” returned to his desk and picked up the two talismans made from the relics of Amon’s bilocation.
Until now, the image he had just seen still lingered in his mind:
According to his occult knowledge, located high above the spirit world should be the Seven Lights mentioned in some of the ancient texts, which was considered to have a bit close to the gods, but all the information, there was no record of what was above the Seven Lights, what did that gray mist symbolize, and which bit was represented by the ancient palace surrounded by the gray mist and overlooking the entire spirit world.
Throughout the ceremony, Colin Iliad only felt that the “Fool” he was praying to was deep, mysterious, and superior, unlike some evil creatures that always like to flaunt their power and can’t wait to show something.
This kind of behavior is similarly described in the records of Silver City, belonging to the Creator!
Looking at the spell in his hand and checking his condition, the white-haired “Demon Hunter” Colin suddenly closed his eyes as one figure after another inexplicably flashed in his mind:
They were his father, his mother, his brother, his sister, his eldest son, his youngest son, his daughter, and his eldest grandson, all of whom he had killed with his own hands.
The chief, who was already a bit old, was silent for a long time and suddenly let out a low sigh:
”Two thousand five hundred and eighty-three years ……”
It had been two thousand five hundred and eighty-three years, and Silver City had finally gotten a normal response for once again.
……
In the library of the Spire.
Derek found a note that he hadn’t read before in the area of ancient myths that he often looked through.
The cover of this notebook was made of some kind of monster’s leather, and a distinct pattern could be seen, and inside, the paper was old and yellowish, recording the experiences of that original owner when he encountered different monsters.
The vast majority of these monsters could be found in Silver City’s textbooks, right down to the characteristics, however, the notes had a lot more battle reflections and experiences that made Derek look at them with interest and care.
As he flipped through the pages, he suddenly noticed a type of monster called “shapeshifter”.
This kind of monster does not have the intelligence to communicate, but is good at setting traps and dealing with the target, and can disguise itself as another person and use all kinds of seemingly unbelievable methods to complete the capture and kill …….
The owner of the notes commented that it was weird and dangerous.
This is very similar to Mr. World’s speculation on the characteristics of the evil monster of arts and crafts. …… Could it be that the “Shapeshifter” is the evil monster of arts and crafts? Derek’s heart was happy, quickly browsed back, and found that this kind of monster lives in a city-state ruins in the more remote north, and because the monsters in the darkness of that area are powerful and terrifying, even the “Council of Six” can’t deal with some of them, so after the first two attempts, Silver City’s exploration of the vicinity was temporarily suspended, and has not been resumed even now, based on the similarity of the monsters in the darkness. For the same reason, the textbooks of Silver City did not tell about the special monsters over there.
After reading these accounts, Derek subconsciously turned his notes to the end page, wondering who had personally experienced those two thrilling explorations.
With a clattering sound, he scanned for a name:
”Colin Iliad.”
……
Port Escoson, Dixie.
Klein returned to the real world, rubbed the corner of his forehead, and headed straight for his bed, collapsing violently.
In order to make the chief of Silver City have a better impression of the “Fool” and generate more trust, he took the initiative to add special effects when responding to the “Secret Contract Ritual” and “Sacrifice and Giving Ceremony” just now. When he responded just now, he took the initiative to add special effects, forcibly displaying the mysterious spatial compartments above the gray mist that only appear in the “Secret Contract Ceremony” and the “Sacrifice and Giving Ceremony”, which caused him to consume a lot of spirituality, and made him even more tired and more eager to sleep.
Waiting to wake up to find food for the “writhing hunger”, now let it rest in the gray fog above the …… Klein thought in a daze, and soon slept, from the morning to the late afternoon, until woken up by the sound of his stomach grumbling.