Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability

Binding the malevolent dragon here... Erected by the Fifth Celestial Master... Lumian recalled what he had seen in the previous ritual contract, vaguely understanding something.

He did not stop there, passing by the weathered stone stele and entering the wooden tower.

The tower had no gas lamps or lit candles, relying only on the dim sunlight filtering through the thin paper windows to provide some illumination.

This did not hinder Lumian's examination of the surroundings. He found the first floor of the tower to be unusually spacious, with towering and intersecting beams and columns, and a stone staircase leading down to the lower area.

Familiar with the situation, Lumian confidently approached the staircase, seemingly shrouded in shadow.

After a few steps, he suddenly looked up towards the side, and in the exceptionally dark environment, he saw a young man in dark clothing crouching quietly on a round wooden crossbeam.

The man had a thin face, a slightly broader forehead, and reasonably good features overall. His black eyes were bright and lively, his figure seemingly merged with the darkness.

As Lumian was looking up, their gazes met, and his hood lost its concealing effect.

The man immediately muttered something Lumian did not understand, with a disdainful expression, and scurried up the higher floors, disappearing from sight.

Another outsider? He was able to bypass the "monks" and infiltrate this strange wooden tower? Although he did not use any Beyonder powers just now, his capabilities are still impressive... Lumian, with his Night Vision, was not hindered by the darkness above and tried to track-down the man, but could not find any trace of him.
Vaguely feeling that the other person was still observing him, Lumian smiled brightly up at the ceiling.

Charm!

A charm directed at all present beings!

With a thud, the young man suddenly fell from somewhere, crashing onto a horizontal beam.

He cursed in a language Lumian did not understand and scurried up the tower like a lizard, completely escaping the lower floors, as if avoiding a snake or scorpion.

Lumian did not understand his cursing, but felt it sounded similar to the phrase he had heard shouted at him in the telegraph office: "Damn it!"

Confirming that the young man was no longer watching him, Lumian descended the gray stone steps, disappearing into the shadowed stairwell.

After an unknown period, he finally reached the very bottom of the wooden tower, seeing the ancient well hidden in the darkness, the moss-covered stone blocks, and the iron chains extending from the blocks into the depths of the well.

Numerous bas-reliefs were carved onto these chains, depicting countless grotesque and distorted faces, like evil spirits.

It's similar to Chen Tu's armor... Was the Underworld Daoist also involved in this 'binding the malevolent dragon' matter? Or his teacher, his teacher's teacher? Lumian already knew that the Celestial Master corresponded to the Mystery Pryer and Savant pathways, and these dark iron chains did not seem to be His handiwork.

Peeking out, Lumian's gaze descended to the bottom of the well, seeing a surface of what appeared to be the combined blood of thousands upon thousands of people.

The liquid was thick, bizarre, and emanated a strong stench of blood and rust.

Instinctively, Lumian raised his right hand to his nose, but found that he was not bleeding as he had during the previous ritual, and his condition was even quite good.

Is it because I have already accepted the boon of Calamity, and obtained the power of the War Bishop, so I'm essentially one of them? Lumian thought, looking at the dense bloody water that did not reflect his head or face, and spoke in ancient Hermes, "Oh, mighty and great existence at the pinnacle of calamity, your humble Blessed wishes to ask where I can obtain a Beyonder characteristic that can help me advance further."

Lumian had always been thick-skinned, so these words came easily to him.

However, he was not sure if the so-called "malevolent dragon" locked at the bottom of the well would be able to understand his speech.

To facilitate the other's understanding, he did not even use terms like Weather Warlock, Sequence 2, or Mythical Creature.

The people of the Western Continent probably hadn't seen the Blasphemy Slate!

After a brief, indescribable silence, the surface of the blood-colored water revealed a scene.

It was a rotting, pus-oozing arm in broken armor, propping itself up on the ground, higher than the crumbled stone pillars. Pus continuously dripped from the cracks, mixed with invisible flames that ignited the ground, the air, and everything around, burning endlessly.

Lumian hastily retreated a few steps, not daring to look directly.

The residual aura of the Blood Emperor in his palm told him that the scene corresponded to the fallen divine corpse of Alista Tudor in the depths of Fourth Epoch Trier.

Is there a Weather Warlock Beyonder characteristic there? Lumian nodded slightly, returning to the edge of the well and looking at the dense blood water.

The surface of the blood had changed-it was now filled with darkness, and a tall, silent figure seemed to be observing Lumian from within.

Relying on his spiritual intuition, Lumian deduced that this was the mirrored Blood Emperor on the Blue Avenger's vault.

Can I not obtain the Weather Warlock Beyonder characteristic without avoiding Alista Tudor? Wouldn't getting it from the Iron and Blood Cross Order's president be fine? Lumian had just furrowed his brow when a tremendous suction force suddenly emanated from the bottom of the well.

Lumian was unable to resist, as this was both the instinctive pull of a high-level Beyonder characteristic and the boon he had received, given his current pure spiritual or mental state.

He was dragged and fell into the well, sinking deeper.

In the blink of an eye, as he tried to activate the black mark on his right shoulder to teleport away, his body touched the surface of the dense bloody liquid.

He passed through it without creating the slightest ripple, just as a High-Sequence Demoness would enter the mirror world.

Lumian suddenly realized.

Water surfaces are also mirrors...

I'm not entering the place where the malevolent dragon is bound, but the corresponding mirror world.

His vision darkened, then turned red, and his entire being was completely submerged in the bloody water.

The stench of blood and rust permeated his nostrils, trying to fill his lungs and body,

Lumian did not feel any pain, but rather a sense of comfort, as if he had returned to his source, to the homeland he had longed for.

This sea of blood seemed to have no surface, and no matter how he tried to float up, he could not escape it or breathe fresh air.

He saw countless corpses drifting past him, some headless, some with only a head dragging a bony. spine-like tail.

Lumian followed these bodies, wanting to see where they would drift.

Floating along with the corpses, he moved with the flow of the dark blood current.

The headless bodies and those heads with their dangling spines became increasingly dense, gradually forming a blockage.

It was as if there was an exit nearby, but the influx of corpses had clogged it.

Lumian chose to bypass the congested area and approach the "destination" from the side.

While he could not squeeze through, he just wanted to see what the situation was up ahead.

After swimming for a while, Lumian finally saw the target location a dark, gaping hole blocked by thousands of corpses, with an endless "school of fish" surging behind.

The bodies jammed in the hole were already bloated, with patches of blackish-blue decay on their surfaces.

Lumian immediately associated this with the lady riding the rickshaw, using a fan to cover her pus-filled, bruised face.

Did she escape from here? Or is she the controller of these corpses? Lumian shook his head, doubting he had any chance of squeezing through the blocked hole.

There were simply too many bodies jammed there, and he did not know what changes burning them down might bring-it would most likely make the situation worse.

At that moment, the blocked hole shook violently, as if someone on the other side was trying to break through the tunnel.

Splash!

A large number of the corpses blocking the hole were suddenly "swallowed" in, allowing those behind them to finally approach.

This also caused some of the dark, lightless water to ripple outwards.

Affected by the disturbance, Lumian was pushed away, and the blood-red scene before him quickly faded into an illusion.

In the illusion, he saw a huge, coiled black shadow.

The shadow was lying at the bottom of the sea of blood, occupying an area comparable to the size of Trier.

Lumian was drawn towards it, but could not truly approach or clearly see the black shadow.

One was in the mirror, the other in reality.

In front of the black shadow was a square several tens of kilometers wide and long, paved with grayish-white stones, with towering pillars of black, blood-red, and gray-white supporting an invisible barrier, preventing the blood-red sea from invading.

Lumian found himself standing on this square, and before him was a full-length mirror made of pure silver mixed with other metals, its ornate frame in a classic style.

Seeing this mirror, Lumian's mind suddenly tensed.

Isn't this the same mirror from the Blue Avenger's treasure vault, the one concealing the mirrored Alista Tudor?

Why is there also one here?

Or rather, does the one in the Blue Avenger's treasure vault lead to this one?

Are they the results of Alista Tudor's various crazy experiments as the Blood Emperor?

Lumian instinctively wanted to move away from the silver full-length mirror, to avoid having his own image reflected in it, but a figure trapped within the mirror had already become visible on its surface.

The figure was clad in blood-stained black armor, with flowing hair faintly glowing with a reddish light. His facial features were sharp, as if carved by a knife, His lips tightly pursed, exuding a resolute and unyielding aura. His blue eyes were filled with cruelty and madness.

The next moment, this mirror-bound figure extended His armored right hand through the cold, hard mirror surface.

He stepped out of the full-length mirror, as if completely unconcerned about Lumian seizing the opportunity to attack.