Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability
Chapter Summary
While guarding against a sudden attack from Lumian, Albus quickened his movements, continuously flicking the mostly evaporated bright red blood towards the front. Under extremely urgent circumstances and unable to directly leave Morora, Albus Medici chose to jump into the dark vortex in front of him, falling towards that special mirror world. Just as he was about to sit down against the corpses and skeletons, his legs already unable to support his body weight, he was suddenly pulled by an invisi...
Inside Morora.
Two exiles who were dueling suddenly dropped their swords and clutched their necks with their hands.
Blood seeped through their fingers.
Nearby onlookers and pedestrians also experienced a stuttering effect, as if their heads were being grabbed by invisible hands and forcefully pulled upwards, causing the muscles in their necks to gradually tear.
In the endless graveyard near the Knowledge Cathedral, all the trees suddenly burst into bright red flames. The soil in the corresponding graves writhed as if something was trying to crawl out.
More and more clouds gathered in the sky, taking on the color of burning fire.
At the top of the corpse mountain.
Albus Medici's neck also stung with pain. He raised his hand with great difficulty and weakness, trying to press down on it.
He already understood what was happening. He didn't hastily turn his head to look directly at 0-01, as that would not only result in considerable corruption, but could also break his neck, causing his head to detach!
Albus slowly turned his body to face 0-01, but closed his eyes.
At the same time, he heard rustling and clanging sounds from the wasteland.
Lumian saw those undead soldiers in iron-black full body armor standing up one after another, the dark red or pale flames in their eye sockets clearly flickering.
The huge cloud vortex in the sky tinged with purple firelight was being torn apart and smoothed by an invisible force.
The abnormality had finally manifested.
Albus didn't hesitate. He immediately let his skin take on an iron-black hue, his entire body seeming to transform into a metal-cast puppet.
Keeping his eyes tightly shut, he approached 0-01 step by step.
During this process, his neck was noticeably stretched, causing the iron membrane that made up his skin to be torn into countless tiny metal threads.
Deep, chilling cut marks appeared on his iron-black flesh and bones, with bright red blood visibly oozing out.
In just a few seconds, Albus Medici walked to 0-01's side. He released his right palm that had been weakly pressing on his neck, letting it extend towards the charred flag, carrying his own blood.
As a fellow Hunter, Albus also had very strong spatial perception and positioning abilities. Moreover, 0-01's flag was violently shaking, fluttering loudly, with sounds entering Albus's ears, making it easy for him to determine the target's location.
Of course, if he directly touched 0-01's main body, the corruption would truly occur. This couldn't be avoided just by not looking. But Albus now had no other choice.
Just as he reached out towards that charred flag, Albus heard a "snap" sound- the sound of the iron skin on his metal neck being completely torn apart.
He immediately changed his form, transforming from an iron-black metal-cast puppet into a blue human-shaped flame.
This caused the blood on his palm to evaporate rapidly.
While guarding against a sudden attack from Lumian, Albus quickened his movements, continuously flicking the mostly evaporated bright red blood towards the front.
On the wasteland, Lumian was mingling among the undead soldiers, his palm both scorching hot and ice-cold.
He didn't dare to look towards 0-01, so he naturally didn't know Albus's current actions, but he could roughly guess that the other was making a final gamble.
It's useless, the situation has already spiraled out of your control... Lumian muttered, not moving to stop him.
He was more worried that if he really teleported next to Salinger's Blood Banner to stop Albus Medici from dripping blood on it, he might step into a trap set by the other.
Given the current situation, Albus could completely change his approach-since he couldn't achieve his intended goal, he might as well eliminate all competitors, making his side the more advantageous camp, and then use this to reorganize.
So, Albus was likely pretending to drip Medici family blood onto 0-01's flag, but actually trying to lure Lumian to stop him, thus seizing the opportunity to kill the last competitor.
At the top of the corpse mountain, the human-shaped flame that Albus had transformed into was severely stretched, with the upper and lower parts seeming about to separate.
At the same time, the flaming light he emitted dimmed considerably, like ordinary flames doused with a bucket of ice-cold fresh blood.
Plop, Albus heard the tiny sound of liquid hitting the flag.
After thousands of years, the Medici family's blood finally fell on 0-01's charred flag again.
However, there was no additional change.
This was also within Albus's expectations, after all, the degree of resonance had not yet reached its limit, and 0-01's awakening situation had significantly exceeded any threshold.
Albus's desperate attempt to leave blood on the charred flag was more about reserving a chess piece for the future, making some preparations.
The next second, Albus, existing in the form of a human-shaped flame, felt an intense pain between his eyebrows.
Some strange force extended from 0-01, seeming to want to assimilate him, turning him into its own flame.
Albus suddenly turned around, opened his eyes, and looked towards the wasteland.
He wanted to kill Lumian before being absorbed by 0-01, eliminating the last competitor!
That trash can actually managed to stay calm and didn't come to stop me from smearing blood on 0-01's surface... Amidst Albus's regret, Lumian's figure was "reflected" in his flaming eyes.
Lumian smiled at him, activated the black mark on his right shoulder, and disappeared from his spot.
Albus didn't hide his disappointment and regret, reverting to his human form.
His neck was already torn open, revealing white bones and blackened blood vessels.
He then activated the crystal necklace wrapped around his wrist, causing it to explode directly.
Bang bang bang, the consecutively exploding crystals formed a deep vortex in front of Albus, with a deep, dark world covered by a glass-like barrier at the bottom of the vortex-that special mirror world.
Under extremely urgent circumstances and unable to directly leave Morora, Albus Medici chose to jump into the dark vortex in front of him, falling towards that special mirror world.
At this moment, his neck was about to break, with his cervical vertebrae exposed.
He fell into that special mirror world, disappearing into the deep darkness.
The dark vortex next to 0-01 was immediately ignited by invisible, colorless flames and dissipated completely.
In midair, the blue flame that had lost Albus's maintenance quickly extinguished, with the remaining tiny bit of Julie's filthy blood continuing to fall, touching the charred flag.
All over Morora.
Nearly ten thousand heads dragging white, blood-stained spines flew in the sky, while their headless bodies ran wildly through the streets.
In the graveyard, countless skeletons crawled out from underground, with dark red or pale flames burning in their eye sockets.
Red "rainwater" that could ignite buildings and humans began to fall from the sky.
Inside the Knowledge Cathedral, Archbishop Heraberg of Morora, wearing a plain white robe trimmed with brass wire, stood in front of the open stained glass window, feeling the walls faintly showing signs of melting.
He sighed lightly and raised his palm.
...
In the underground mausoleum, on that anomalous wasteland.
Lumian teleported to the side of the corpse mountain.
Just as he was about to sit down against the corpses and skeletons, his legs already unable to support his body weight, he was suddenly pulled by an invisible force, slowly standing up again and walking towards the group of undead soldiers.
This required no effort from him-he had no strength to use anyway.
Lumian didn't resist or struggle, as if only his self-consciousness still belonged to him.
The burning pain and icy rotting sensation in his right palm kept him basically alert.
As long as my head isn't torn off my neck, everything else is fine... Lumian muttered to himself while listening to the knowledge narrated by the brass talisman, continuing to walk towards the gathering troops in the wasteland as 0-01's puppet with the help of the external force.
The current situation was basically consistent with his expectations.
If he had read even a little less earlier, his head and body would have already gone separate ways by now.
Knowledge is power, knowledge is wealth!
After about ten seconds, the sky suddenly dimmed, and darkness surged back into this area.
0-01 seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand, with its trembling and shaking starting to calm down.
The flames in this area extinguished one after another, and the deathly silent, cold darkness once again ruled this place.
The Church of Knowledge has finally suppressed 0-01's disturbance. If it kept up a while longer, I'd really have become a puppet... Lumian secretly breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the darkness invade his body like an invisible, eerie, cold flow of water.
The Underworld Daoist mark on his right palm emitted an even stronger sense of decay than before, helping him resist this invasion.
Lumian teleported back to the position he had chosen earlier, weakly sitting down against the corpses and skeletons that made up the mountain.
He closed his eyes, focusing on listening to the knowledge transmitted from his ear plugs in this lightless, pure darkness.
...
In Trier, on the sacrificial square at the entrance of the third level of the underground catacombs.
After answering Jenna's question, that blurry and holy female figure disappeared from Jenna's sight, as if it was just part of an illusion.
Jenna shook her head, her gaze returning to reality, seeing Franca's concerned face.
"D-during my advancement, I seemed to sense Lady Krismona again, and even had a few words of dialogue with Her," Jenna carefully told her companion about her recent experience.
Hiss, do Angel-level high-rank beings truly not die? Franca asked curiously, "What did She say?"
Jenna suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. "She said to reconcile with my mirror self, because we are originally one. Sh-She said Her father was... was that 'Blood Emperor'..."
"Huh?" Franca was both shocked and confused, "Why did She tell you this?"
Jenna felt even more embarrassed. "I asked, I asked without thinking..."
"Is it really the 'Blood Emperor'? Then it shouldn't be your hallucination. You couldn't have come up with such an answer even in a hallucination." Franca whispered, gradually getting excited.
"Dammit, what do you mean I couldn't have come up with it even in a hallucination? Well, indeed, who could have thought of that?" Jenna reflexively retorted.
Franca then clapped her hands together.
"That was a good question, a good question indeed! This information is extremely, extremely important!"
Her eyes sparkling, she said, "Lumian previously suspected that the special mirror world was created by the Blood Emperor Alista Tudor to deal with the Primordial Demoness, and the Tamara family might have played a very important role in this matter.
"Now it seems this guess needs to be abandoned. Perhaps that special mirror world was jointly created by the Blood Emperor Alista Tudor and the Primordial Demoness!
"Otherwise, how could a true god of the Hunter pathway without mirror magic create such a special mirror world?"