Volume 7 The Inverted Hanged Man Chapter 27 The Devil’s Oil Painting
Pritz Harbor, inside some warehouse that was being rebuilt.
Forsyth saw his teacher, Dorian Gray Abraham, once again after a few days.
”Are you ready?” Dorian inquired in a deep voice.
In the previous meeting, he had already told Voorhees about the ritual requirements for the “Apprentice” pathway Sequence 4 “Secret Mage”, so that she could make preparations in advance.
”Almost …… should be able to fulfill the requirements ……” replied Voorhees not too confidently.
The promotion ceremony of “Secret Mage” is relatively simple, but this “simple” is the opposite of “complicated”, not “difficult”! “On the other end of the spectrum, Voorhees would have preferred something else.
–That ritual requires the promoter to seal a creature at the level of a demigod with clear hostile intent, and the more unaided the ritual is, the better the effect will be; as for the target’s own realm, as long as it is not lower than that of a demigod, it is fine, and won’t affect the ritual in a material way.
Hearing the student’s answer, Dorian nodded gently:
”Just about right, that ritual is really too difficult for a Sequence 5 Extraordinary who relies purely on himself, seeking help appropriately is essential, but one must grasp the extent and not exceed the appropriate threshold, otherwise the ritual will definitely fail.”
The advice he had previously provided to Voorhees was to only borrow a “1” grade sealing object, and it was best not to even ask for help at the Saint level.
Voorhees said slightly vaguely:
”I’m only going to make one wish to Mr. ‘Fool’, the wish to increase the success rate of promotion after taking a magic potion, which is closer to getting a good luck while taking a magic potion than getting blessed while sealing that demigod creature.
”Other than that, it’s utilizing that painting you mentioned, sensei.”
That painting wasn’t the “0” grade seal “God’s Scroll”, but a “1” grade seal belonging to the Abraham family called “Demon Oil Painting”.
In the Fourth Age, when many members of the Abraham family had been promoted to Sequence 4 “Secret Mage”, they created that “oil painting” to seal the corresponding demigod level creatures.
However, after being attacked by the Aurora Society and losing a lot of information, Dorian Gray was not quite sure how many other horrible creatures were sealed in the “Demon Oil Painting”, only that there were more than one.
His original intention was to release a demigod level creature that had gone completely crazy and acted on instinct from the “Demon Painting” as the target of the student’s ritual, which was many times easier than dealing with a saint with reason and intelligence, and fully complied with the requirements of the ritual, but he didn’t realize that Forsyth was actually prepared to borrow the “Demon Painting” directly. “Demon Oil Painting.”
Dorian warned with a slight frown:
”‘Demon Oil Painting’ itself only has the effect of imprisonment and sealing, and does not have the ability to actively influence the target, in other words, you’ll have to stuff creatures at the demigod level into the ‘Demon Oil Painting’ yourself. ”
Voorhees nodded his head, indicating that he was aware of this:
”Sensei, you said that the ability to ‘record’ yourself is not considered external help.”
”Right.” Dorian Gray gave a very definite reply.
If one’s ability to ‘record’ was considered an external help, then almost no ‘traveler’ would be able to get promoted, after all, ‘recording’ was a way for an ‘apprentice’ to reach the demigod path. After all, “Record” is the core ability of the “Apprentice” before the path to demigods, once it is “abolished”, Voorhees is almost only run and run related, it is difficult to do anything to the enemy.
”Theoretically this is the case, but you can only record at most four or five demigod level abilities ……” said Dorian, not too assured.
Before the words left his mouth, he thought of Mr. “Fool” and K’s dependents, and his heart settled down a little.
”It’s not impossible if they’re well-matched, they’re just crazy creatures that act on instinct.” Voorhees was convincing both his teacher and himself.
Dorian nodded unnoticeably and said nothing more, immediately summoning his own contracted creature, the music-loving Malmoth, and retrieving the main and auxiliary materials of the “Secret Mage”, mixing a bottle of the “Secret Mage” magic potion for the student on the spot.
”If you can’t complete the seal, you don’t have to take it by force, even if the magic potion and the glass bottle are combined and become a seal, you can return it to its extraordinary characteristics by praying to Mr. ‘Fool’.” Dorian still barked a bit uneasily, then handed the magic potion to Fools.
Inside that glass vial, layers of starlight swirled, as if the Milky Way in the high sky had been collected into the magic potion.
”Hmm.” Voorhees nodded heavily, stating that she definitely wouldn’t worry about the magic potion being wasted.
She had already made a plan in advance, that is, once the released demigod level creatures couldn’t be sealed, she would immediately “teleport” away and make a wish to Mr. “Fool” to ask K to come and solve the problem.
Dorian then took out an oil painting from the suitcase in his hand, which depicted one rather abstract and incomprehensible pattern after another, which could make people dizzy, nauseous and mentally weak just by looking at it for a while.
This was precisely the “Demon Oil Painting” that sealed an unknown number of horrifying creatures.
”If you can succeed in your promotion, I only have one request.” Holding the “Demon Oil Painting”, Dorian solemnly said to Voorhees, “That is, on the night of the full moon, listen to what Mr. Door is actually saying, and ask k the reason for doing that. ”
The members of the Abrahams family still can’t completely accept that the curse they suffered came from their ancestors, and feel that Mr. Door may not have been aware of the consequences of k’s “call for help”.
They longed to get to the bottom of the whole thing.
”Good.” Facing the teacher’s plea, Foerth agreed without any hesitation at all.
Then, she took the “Devil’s Painting” and “teleported” out of Puzzle Harbor to the vast desert where no humans lived.
In this way, even if there was an accident during the ceremony, she would have enough time to solve it without affecting ordinary people.
After checking the surrounding scene and her own preparations, Forsyth inserted the “Demon Painting” into the ground.
She then clasped her hands together and bowed her head to pray to Mr. Fool, wishing for a higher promotion rate after taking the magic potion.
At almost no interval, she saw the illusory gray mist and knew that Mr. Fool had responded.
After a few seconds of stalling, Voorhees finally got the better of herself and took out the pre-prepared powdered herbs and sprinkled them on the “Demon Painting”.
She then recited the unsealing spell in Giantese.
It was a spell that released only one creature at a time.
Without a sound, all of the fluttering herb powder landed on the oil painting and spun rapidly with a point at the center.
As it rotated, the surface of the painting became illusory, as if a deep vortex was also being created.
Suddenly, that “vortex” poked out a greenish-black hand with many traces of decay.
It reached out from inside the painting to the outside world!
Forsyth’s body suddenly became cold, as if she had fallen into the surface of a frozen and cracked lake.
It made her mind clear while she seemed to lose her sense of her body, and even though she tried as hard as she could to move her arms and legs, she couldn’t succeed.
In this instant, Forsyth seemed to return to the state she used to be in at night when she was writing a book and sleeping during the day, when she often felt that she had woken up but couldn’t move, as if she was being pressed by an invisible creature.
Although the horrible creature inside the “demon painting” had not yet completely escaped from the trap, but just by virtue of the influence of divinity on the outside world, it made Forsyth lose most of the power of resistance, and when it was completely detached from the painting, Forsyth would lose control of herself even because she looked directly at it.
The gap between the two sides was unimaginably large on a certain level.
Gradually, Foerth’s consciousness blurred a little, always feeling that she was awake, raising her arms and stepping away from her feet, but in the next moment, she realized that it was nothing more than her own fantasies, while her body was getting colder and colder, and the sensation of being pressed by the invisible creature was becoming more and more obvious.
Luckily, she had a bunch of demigods to provide her with information, so she closed her eyes in time and didn’t look at the “demon painting”, otherwise the consequences would have been disastrous.
Utilizing her meditation technique to maintain a certain level of lucidity, Voorhees did an internal countdown.
–According to the hints given by Mr. World, she knew that it would take five seconds for the horrible creature to completely detach itself from the “Demon Painting”.
4……3……2…… one second short of the time, Forsyth’s eyes appeared in an illusory book, which quickly flipped and settled on one of the pages.
1!Foerth had just finished counting silently when she violently opened her arms.
Around her, a peach blossom instantly drifted down, bright and colorful.
The greenish-black palm that was about to grab her neck moved away from her, and was blocked by a peach forest with flourishing grass and flowers, and by the mountain peak at the end of the water source in the forest, so she could only try to poke out from a not-so-large hole in the mountain.
This is the fairy tale magic that Forsyth “recorded” from Ms. Hermit, called:
”The Source of the Peach Blossoms!”
It creates a boundary that’s hard to connect with the outside world.
Seizing this opportunity, Voorhees, who had barely regained control of her body, took out a Queen’s piece from Rossel’s Chess from her hidden pocket, and threw it at the source of the peach blossoms, and at the cave through which the water flowed.
It was another of her “recorded” fairy tale magic called:
”The Chess Game of the Ages!”
It worked by slowing down the target’s movements, as if they were entering an area where time flowed differently.
As the Queen’s piece fell, the greenish-black palm that was trying to break through the barrier of the Peach Blossom Garden went from probing to writhing.
Without even looking at the effect, Forsyth used his invisible hand to pick up the “Devil’s Oil Painting” that was stuck in the sand, and blocked it toward the cave.
After an interval of one or two seconds, the greenish-black palm returned to normal, and its movements became extremely fast, directly rushing out of the Peach Blossom Garden and crashing into the painting.
In a shaking of the oil painting, that horrible creature pierced through the surface and fell in.
Forsyth was delighted, and without hesitation, he recited the incantation again, closing the outer seal of the “demonic oil painting”.
Fortunately, the demigod creature has been shut down to the point of loss of control, only madness, no intelligence …… also do not know that after taking the magic medicine, will not directly hear the “door” Mr. shout …… Forsyth’s spirit is still tense, took out the bottle of “secret mage” magic potion, poured it into the mouth.