The Faceless Man Chapter 188 – Divine Enlightenment
Berkland, inside a basement that resembled a temple.
Mr. A, dressed in a black robe with a hood, quietly knelt in front of the upside-down giant idol and did not move for a long time.
Suddenly, he sidled his ears as if listening for something.
After a brief pause, Mr. A raised his hands violently and snapped and tore off his right index finger with his left palm.
He stuffed the bloody finger into his mouth and chewed it with a crunchy sound like a snack.
Gulp!
Mr. A’s throat wriggled as he swallowed the crunched finger into his stomach.
His body trembled haughtily, as if it was being grabbed and shaken by an invisible person.
In such a state, Mr. A stretched his right hand forward and wrote a word on the ground with the blood that flowed from his wound.
Those words were not the language of giants or dragons that could pry the power of nature, nor were they the Hermetic language used for rituals, but the most ordinary and commonplace Ruin language.
The bright red color coalesced quickly, and that single word pieced together into several paragraphs:
”Found:
”Fools not of this age;
”The mysterious lord above the gray mist;
”The yellow and black king who reigns over good fortune.
”the favorites and the believers, in Birkeland.”
At the end of the message, Mr. A. stopped shaking, and a brand-new finger grew out of the wound.
He buried his head down and looked carefully at the words he had just written down, the corners of his mouth turning up a little in the shadows.
”Only obey your oracle!” Mr. A humbly prostrated himself on the ground and seemed to have found the meaning of existence again.
……
Silver City, upper part of the round tower.
Lovia walked to the window and looked down at the lighted candles in the darkness, her expression gradually becoming softer.
After an unknown amount of time, she heard a knock on the door.
”His Excellency the ‘Chief’?” Lovia lightly turned around and asked with a smile.
The door to the room was windless and opened backward.
Outside stood none other than Colin “The Demon Hunter” Iliad, wearing a brown coat and a belt with hidden compartments around his waist.
”Lovia, the anomaly of the Quest team members has been confirmed.” Colin said flatly, “As the captain, regardless of whether you have a problem or not, you must go to the dungeon for seven days to be baptized with the ‘Crown of Glory’, you should know very well that this is the rule.”
Luowei Ya did not have the slightest bit of anger and smiled calmly:
”I know, I’m already prepared to stay in the dungeon for a long time until it’s over, if you’re still not at ease, I can accept any arrangement.”
As she spoke, she walked towards the door and passed Colin, the Demon Hunter, face to face.
Colin turned in silence and followed her diagonally, descending the coiled staircase step by step.
Halfway down, the two heard heartbreaking cries and shouts.
”Is it starting again?” Lovia asked with a slightly confused expression.
Colin nodded and replied in a hushed voice:
”Well, this is a destiny we can’t escape ……”
At this moment, on the middle floor of the round tower, inside a hall.
The Exploration Squad members and the few Silver City residents they had additionally contaminated were being pressed into place by a divine radiance that was like substance, unable to move, as if they were carrying a huge mountain.
A couple in their forties with dark skin each holding a straight sword with intricate patterns walked up to a young man in his early twenties.
That young man’s body had collapsed like a puddle of mush, but his head was intact, only a thin, blood-colored beard had grown.
Seeing the couple come over, he cried out in terror:
”Dad, mom, what are you doing?
”Didn’t we agree to eat roasted iron scorpions together tonight?
”Dad, mom, I’ve caught a lot of iron scorpions for you ……”
The couple looked sideways in an unforgiving manner, but the straight sword in their hands was raised high.
After two poofs, that young man stopped crying, first twitching, then completely losing signs of life.
On the other side, a girl in her teens also raised her intricately patterned straight sword and stabbed her sister with tears in her eyes.
That woman lying on the ground suddenly let out a laugh and said in a soft tone:
”After today, you will have to live on your own, don’t be naive anymore ……
That girl suddenly cried so hard that her vision blurred, and the straight sword in her hand stopped in mid-air.
However, a strong palm pressed at the back of her hand and violently pushed it forward.
Poof!
The girl was stunned, seemingly unable to hear or see anything.
This was the ancient curse that shrouded everyone in Silver City, one had to kill one’s blood relative with one’s own hands in order to stop him from turning into a scary and bizarre evil spirit after death.
Therefore, even though Dak had completely changed into a monster, and was contaminated by an unknown being, and did not have the value of interrogation, the “Shadow” monitors did not dare to kill him on the spot, but endeavored to control him, and brought him back to the round tower to wait for his parents, otherwise things would be even more troublesome.
The same contaminated members of the exploration team are now being treated as they have been for over two thousand years, and although no one knows if they will still be mutated after death in this state, no one dares to take a gamble.
Fortunately, Silver City’s population wasn’t too large and was stuck in one place, and under the arrangements made by the higher-ups from generation to generation, there were a handful of people who were related to each other, so even if they had to be restricted to three generations or less, they could still find out the better part of the story.
Because of this, when arranging the list of patrol squads, the extraordinary person in charge had to first consider the bloodline factor to prevent accidents from happening.
For the exploration squads, the requirements weren’t as strict because their missions often went deep into the darkness and were so far away from Silver City that even if they died, even if they mutated, it wouldn’t affect everyone’s well-being.
Once any resident no longer had a blood relative within three generations, then he would be strictly monitored, and as soon as he became seriously ill or visibly aged, he would immediately be sent into the depths of darkness, far away from Silver City.
Previously isolated in the dungeon of the former exploration team leader Yudel mutation, the round tower in fact there are three elders in, but ultimately only to take action is the “chief” Colin Iliad, otherwise only to try to seal.
Because that Yudel is his full brother.
”Lovia the Shepherd and Colin the Demon Hunter entered the lowest level of the Round Tower in silence, accompanied by several Knights of the Dawn, and went to the depths of the dungeon.
Soon, they stopped outside a cell, while the Knights of the Dawn spread out in the distance.
Lovia did not look out of the ordinary, and entered the room, which consisted of only a bed, a table, and a single candle, without a moment’s hesitation.
Before the metal door closed, she turned her body and looked at “Demon Hunter” Colin with light gray eyes, and said calmly:
”Your Excellency ‘Chief’, you once told me that when the residents of Silver City stay away from here and die in the depths of the darkness, they don’t instantly change into evil spirits, they have to wait for several days, so the rest of the Exploration Squad has plenty of time to pull away.”
Colin nodded, indicating that this was indeed the case.
Lovia closed her eyes and revealed a smile with a hint of sadness:
”In an exploration two months ago, a team member died in front of me.
”I pretended to be separated from the rest of the team and waited there for five days, but he didn’t even change into an evil spirit.”
”Demon Hunter,” Colin said as he watched her in silence, saying nothing until the metal gate clanged shut and the seal took shape with it.
……
Above the gray mist, inside the ancient palace.
Klein waited for a while, saw that the crimson star symbolizing the small “sun” did not change, and finally sighed with relief.
It should be successful …… He rubbed the corner of his forehead, wrapped himself in spirituality, and fell back to the real world.
Just as he felt the presence of his body, Klein tasted the cold.
He sneezed and hurriedly lifted off the wall of spirituality and reentered his comforter.
Sadly, his comforter was already cold.
Fortunately, after entering the gray mist, my body has been protected to a certain extent, otherwise I’m afraid I’ll catch a cold tomorrow …… Klein wrapped the quilt tightly and sighed.
This current state reminded him of a witty saying he had heard in his past life:
Getting warm basically depends on shaking ……
Until the comforter was warmed up again, he could only roam around scattering his thoughts and considering all sorts of issues.
Hey, I don’t seem to have anything too pressing these days, the “Magician’s Code” has been summarized, even if I don’t challenge the impossible anymore and just do normal “performances”, I can still digest the magic potion around the New Year’s Eve step by step, and my next major arrangement is to collect the “Faceless Man”, which is the only thing I can do. The next main arrangement is to collect the extraordinary materials for the “Faceless Man” magic potion and save up the corresponding money, but this can’t be done in a hurry……. The taut string in Klein’s mind gradually softened, and he suddenly had the idea of taking a break for two or three days.
With the comforter warming up, he fell asleep without realizing it, and when he woke up, he happened to hear the church bell ringing eight times in a row.
Klein stretched out his arm, felt the cold outside, and silently shrunk back.
Today seems to have cooled down again …… nothing urgent to do, it seems to be able to sleep …… his mind relaxed and re closed his eyes.
But after only a little while of lying in bed, he heard the rumbling of his stomach and felt the bulge in his lower abdomen.
Life is really facing hard choices everywhere …… Klein muttered.
After ten or so minutes of trying to fight off those two sensations, he finally gave up and violently lifted the covers to get up and rushed to the washroom next door.
After changing his clothes and washing up, he went down to the first floor and rummaged through the ingredients for the Fennebot noodles.
This time, he wasn’t going to use the meat sauce that he bought, and wanted to try the meat bacon that he had made only two days before, which he had made by carefully selecting ingredients and frying them based on the flavors he remembered, and although the flavors were difficult to truly recreate due to certain ingredients in the two worlds always being a little bit different, Klein tasted it and thought that it was still good.
It didn’t take him long to eat the Feneport noodles tossed with the seasoning sauce and the meat bacon, and he thought that it had been a wonderful morning.
In keeping with the traditions of this world, he flipped through the newspaper as he ate, and was the first to confirm that old Mr. Wise Eyes hadn’t placed an ad yet.
Based on last night’s thoughts, Klein decided to entertain himself today, and considered whether to go to a concert, an opera, or a play.
Many of the concert halls in the West End, Hilston, and Chorwood had tickets that cost at least 6 Soules, or even pounds if you were to meet a famous musician; professional concert halls for the common man cost from 6 to 9 pence; and the ones open to the East End’s poorer people with money to spare cost as little as 1 pence……. Crane looked through the appropriate materials to pick out his entertainment for the day.
It was at this moment that he heard the doorbell.
Ding ding ding.