Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability

After describing the Fire of Destruction, Lumian frowned and said, "I've heard that members of the Demoness sect have a tradition of turning their lovers into females. Are there no Beyonders of the Hunter pathway among their lovers?"

This question was essentially still asking "Why me?"

Couldn't they just find any Sequence 5 of the Hunter pathway, seduce them to jump to Demoness of Despair, and satisfy the requirement of "yin contains yang, yang contains yin"? Why did I have to be arranged?

"Perhaps only you could very easily enter the area around the Samaritan Woman's Spring and obtain the remnant aura of the Blood Emperor, thus having mystical similarity with 0-01." Madam Magician fully understood what Lumian was concerned about.

Lumian continued asking, as if talking to himself, "The Red Angel has ways to control 0-01 without relying on mystical similarity. Since that individual has no selfish motives and isn't afraid of the Red Angel's revenge, why not directly reinvest in Him, instead of grooming a 'weakling' like me?"

Isn't this a waste of time?

Madam Magician glanced at the field ridge under her feet.

"I can answer this for you. First, the Red Angel can't get as close to the top powers of the two Calamity pathways as you can, unless His next step isn't to reclaim 0-01 and become the Red Priest, but to find a way to replace the Primordial Demoness. Second, the birth of a Red Priest is inevitably accompanied by competition, chaos, and disaster. Only through multi-party competition can a Red Priest emerge in the shortest time in the best way. If only the Red Angel were to walk this path, it wouldn't go smoothly."

"Am I competing with Him?" Lumian curled his lips in a self-mocking smile. "Then I should thank that individual for giving me this qualification."

As for ability, that was still far off.

Madam Magician continued, "Many members of the Demoness sect indeed have lovers from the Hunter pathway, but they rarely let these male lovers switch pathways and become female at Sequence 5. On the one hand, there are very few members of the Demoness sect who can get their hands on two Demoness of Despair Beyonder characteristics. On the other hand, they seem to be avoiding similar things. As far as I know, among the demigod-level Demonesses, only one was formerly a Hunter."

"Who?" Lumian immediately became alert like a Hunter.

Madam Magician smiled and said, "The Demoness of Cyan, Yalenna.

"She is a Sequence 3 Demoness of Unaging. Her mother is the leader of the Demoness sect, the Demoness of Gray Judith. Her father was a Hunter, who later went missing, suspected to have been killed by the Demoness of Gray."

Lumian pondered for a moment and said, "Could the Demoness of Gray have also been a Hunter before?

"Her twin sister Krismona was born female, born a Demoness. As a contrast, is it possible that She was born male, born a Hunter, until She transformed into a Demoness at Sequence 4?

"The Demoness of Black only mentioned that the Demoness of Black was Sequence 9 at birth, but never said that her Sequence 9 equaled Assassin."

"It's possible, but currently unverifiable. The Demoness of Gray is older than all of our Tarot Club's Major Arcana card holders combined. We don't know much about Her," Madam Magician said, a hint of a smile appearing on her face as if she had thought of something.

Is that so? I thought you were an Angel from the early Fifth Epoch, given that your teacher was Mr. Door, the strongest King of Angels of the Fourth Epoch… Lumian didn't voice these words about a woman's age.

He began to walk slowly again, pondering as he spoke, "Is the Demoness sect, or rather the Primordial Demoness's hatred for pure female Demonesses really due to inner distortion? Is there no other mystical reason?"

Pure female Demonesses apparently wouldn't have the chance to touch the power at the top of the two Calamity pathways, so they should pose the least threat to the Primordial Demoness.

"Inner distortion is one reason, but my intuition tells me it's not the whole reason," Madam Magician said, turning her head to look at the New City of Silver where lights were gradually coming on. "The Seven of Cups is about to advance to Demoness of Affliction. You can try to get some intelligence on this from Krismona's remnant projection."

Lumian didn't continue this topic, instead returning to discuss the changes in his abilities after becoming a Demoness of Despair.

This was also something he had to do after his condition initially stabilized.

"At the Demoness of Despair stage, Disease has evolved into Plague that can cover a range of three kilometers. I currently have mastered three types of plagues. One is derived from the original Disease, targeting the flesh of relatively common creatures, mainly infecting organs such as the heart, brain, and lungs. From the incubation period to the outbreak of symptoms to becoming severe, it only takes about ten seconds, and then within another minute, it can cause the target to deteriorate to near death. The specific time varies depending on the enemy's status and constitution.

"The second type of plague is Weakening, originating from the mystical pathogen inherent in Black Tear. It can gradually strip away the target's strength until even their heart is too weak to beat. At the same time, it causes a gradual loss of spirituality. In other words, it can not only target relatively common creatures but also affect special creatures and even the dead. Any target with spirituality or relying on spirituality will gradually weaken because of it.

"The third type of plague is Rigidity. Over time, it causes even zombies to become rigid and stiff, becoming inflexible. This is a more mystically oriented plague.

"The fusion of Hunter traits with the plagues has given these mystical pathogens a certain resistance to fire. They won't quickly wither away under fire burning conditions and can persist for a longer time. Among them, the Weakening plague can inherently survive in high temperatures for a period, and its current fire resistance is the strongest among the three plagues.

"For dealing with these plagues, the burning of Demoness black flames and freezing over a certain range are better methods.

"I can also create my own unique plague varieties by combining my own traits, corresponding mystical knowledge, specific ideas and experiments, and possibly required special materials. This takes a long time and can't yield results quickly. But regardless, a Demoness's Plague can only target things with spirituality and cannot cause rocks or metals to weather, rust, or decay like the demigods of the Order of All Extinction.

"In using Precision, a Hunter's Precision can help me maintain two types of plagues simultaneously, but it requires three to four times the spirituality consumption of maintaining a single plague."

Madam Magician nodded lightly, not interrupting Lumian's self-analysis.

"The Demoness of Despair's mastery of the mirror world and mirror magic has reached a considerably deep stage. I can locate mirrors within a five-kilometer range and mirrors I've visited before. I can traverse freely in the mirror world and transmit information through the mirror world to those located mirrors, displaying it. This is much more convenient than messengers, but there's a possibility of the information being intercepted by mirror world creatures. Some curses need to be attached to the information to avoid most troubles.

"I can also use located mirrors to project myself there, looking just like the real thing. Currently, this projection has distance limitations and cannot exceed a city.

"A Hunter's Precision has also fused with this Mirror Projection ability, allowing me to complete three to five projections simultaneously, with each projection having some power and able to accomplish some things, though they cannot leave the range reflected by the corresponding mirror."

When fighting against the Order of All Extinction demigod, Higdon, Lumian had used the power of the special mirror world to create many Mirror Projections. If Higdon had ignored them at that time, these illusions and projections could have caused a certain degree of damage!

"Other mirror magic, such as Mirror Maze, Mirror Substitution, and Magic Mirror Divination, have also reached the level of Sequence 4. Among them, curses completed through mirrors include normal types, those fused with Cull that can erupt fiercely in an extremely short time, and those mixed with the power of Inevitability that can complete fate-related curses," Lumian pondered as he spoke. "Fate-related curses can put the target in a state of misfortune for a period of time. This is not easily noticed by them and is used against enemies who inherently have strong curse prevention abilities."

Lumian paused, then continued, "Like other Demonesses of Despair, if enemies can't replace themselves with a substitution before I lock onto them and complete the curse, they won't be able to transfer or share the damage even if they have a Mirror Substitution or Paper Figurine Substitute.

"The Demoness's spider silk has also changed, becoming more solid, more tough, able to complete more tasks, including restraining, binding, interfering, transmitting pleasure, black flames, and curses. At the same time, the fusion of Hunter traits has made these spider silks sharper, able to directly cause a certain degree of damage.

"My hair is the source of spider silk. If an enemy's body is touched by my hair, the corresponding part will experience some petrification symptoms.

"Weakness Investigation is no longer limited to discovering weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the flesh, soul, and defenses, as well as fate streams that can lead to death, but also includes the target's emotional and desire weaknesses and trigger points.

"Cull has fused with the Demoness pathway's Mighty Blow, capable of bringing more terrifying damage. I can take out some physically fragile demigods in one strike."

"Physically fragile demigods often have many mystically oriented life-saving abilities, or make it impossible for you to find their true form," Madam Magician reminded at this point.

Lumian nodded, indicating he would remember.

"Other abilities include black magic like Invisibility, the ability to manipulate frost, Wand Substitution, basic divination abilities, which are all the same as a normal Demoness of Despair.

"Instigation and Provocation have fused together, granting me the ability to use language and attached mystical power to stir up the target's emotions and desires, making them do what I anticipate.

"Pleasure can be combined with Cull and Precision…

"…

"That's about it."

Madam Magician nodded thoughtfully and remarked, "Jumping to a neighboring pathway indeed brings many strange changes and mixed abilities. This is not something that can be achieved by using the neighboring pathways' Sealed Artifacts."

Lumian gave an affirmative sound, then asked, "Should we still have Franca continue undercover in the Demoness sect?"