Watching the Black Dress Girl extend her arm towards him, Xia De sighed. After communicating with the voice in his ear, he reached out his hand to grasp hers, but the Black Dress Girl pulled her hand back at the last moment.
"You merely brushed past us, so why do you give me such trust?"
She stood with her hands behind her back, looking at Xia De, who shook his head: "Helen, when I helped you at the banquet back then, was there any reason for it?"
Helen Black gazed at Xia De, a slow smile curving her lips. They looked at each other until Helen suddenly laughed: "Oh, Mr. Hamilton, I thought my disguise was quite successful. It wasn't easy to convince Qi Na to help me."
"Successful disguise?" Xia De asked suspiciously.
"That's not important. I just wanted to see what kind of person you are in your own era, Mr. Hamilton."
She stepped back, her hands still behind her, moving closer to the black mist-spewing hole: "You truly are an interesting person, more interesting than my sister and I imagined. But below is not a place you should be. Please wait for me for a moment; I need to retrieve something. We need a sacrifice to welcome my sister's return."
With that, her body tilted backward until she fell into the bottomless abyss.
Two-thirds of the Red Butterfly followed her into the abyssal hole, leaving only one-third to protect Xia De.
The surroundings were extremely quiet, with only the sounds of the reanimated evil spirits wandering in the distance of the mine tunnel.
"Helen Grace. I didn't expect Sister Devlin to cooperate with their lies."
The calm did not last long. As dust once again fell from above, an astonishing roar suddenly erupted in the extremely quiet mine tunnel. The sound came from underground, from the deepest part of the relic. Just hearing that sound, Xia De felt as if he could see the twisted behemoth coiling underground, squirming and releasing its malevolence.
He was startled and quickly retreated a few steps. Then, the entrance to the underground cave glowed crimson again. Before long, Red Butterfly formed a staircase at the entrance.
Helen stepped onto the staircase, each hand holding a thin little girl who looked no older than ten, and walked back up.
Once on the ground, the two girls held hands and, with a series of eerie giggles, ran off along the mine tunnel, leaving only a red stone in Helen's hand.
"Look, Mr. Hamilton, this is what I came for."
She showed Xia De the seemingly unremarkable stone; it didn't even have any whisper element on it.
"What is this?" Xia De asked curiously, but his eyes remained on the retreating figures of the little girls. They were also evil spirits, and according to the voice in his ear, all the evil spirits he had seen earlier combined might not be their match.
"A sacrifice, a Cursed Stone, a specialty of the previous era. The two girls just now were girls my sister and I rescued when we passed through this village in the previous era. Their souls are forever imprisoned here, but because of that, they can produce these stones."
"They... still haven't left in the end?"
"But they succeeded in being together forever."
The childish laughter still lingered in his ears. Xia De turned to look at Helen, who had a smile on her lips: "To summon back a departed existence, one must offer a sacrifice as a price. It's truly not easy to find a Cursed Stone every time."
At this point, her expression became somewhat melancholic, but she quickly returned to normal.
She tossed the stone in her hand aside, and the Red Butterfly swarm automatically enveloped it: "Alright, Mr. Hamilton, now we can leave this terrifying place."
She grabbed Xia De's wrist again: "But we're not jumping down."
She winked playfully at Xia De: "Please follow me. I'll take you to the mountaintop now; there's a shortcut here. Oh, please keep that sword a bit further away; it's really not friendly to me."
With that, she raised her right arm and sharply slashed downwards in the air. A crimson mark immediately appeared in the air. As light points like butterflies spread around, white mist emerged from the crimson rift until it completely engulfed Xia De and the black-haired Helen.
【Outsider, you have entered the Between Life and Death. Physical strength and soul power are reversed. Please do not stay here for too long.】
Because he had entered once before, "she" easily determined the current situation.
The white mist was so thick that Xia De could barely see what was in front of him. When the cold, damp white mist dissipated, they were standing on a steep stone staircase on a mountain.
Everything around them was in shades of black, white, and gray, and unlike Xia De's last visit, this time black was much more prominent. After two earthquakes, the Gap itself had changed a lot. While Xia De had only felt a bit cold when walking through it last time, now he felt a bone-chilling coldness almost immediately penetrate his marrow.
【That's because you weren't holding the youth everlasting leaf.】
"She" gently reminded him, and Xia De immediately rummaged for his pocket watch and held the leaf in his mouth. But the coldness still didn't dissipate, and the malice of the entire world towards the living was almost tangible, making him feel as if some colossal entity was watching him.
"Please follow me."
The Black Dress Girl held Xia De's hand, and they walked up the stone steps together. Swarms of Red Butterfly flew up and down along the mountain steps until they dyed the staircase red.
The sky full of Red Butterfly and crimson light points added a touch of warmth to the monochromatic world, like red oil paint applied to a sketch book, creating vibrant lines.
The Red Butterfly protected them, driving the evil spirits patrolling the Gap deeper into the mountain forest. And looking at those Red Butterfly, Xia De somehow felt a sense of sadness.
The stone steps led directly to the mountaintop of the Gap world. The Sicar Mountain in the real world had several small peaks but was generally flat. The trees on the mountaintop were sparse, and after walking a few dozen steps on the flagstone path connected to the stone steps, they saw the shimmering mountaintop lake ahead.
But in the Between Life and Death, when they stepped over the last stair and officially ascended to the large platform on the mountaintop, surrounded by strange black withered trees, was the large mountaintop rift that Iluna had mentioned.
Violent black winds surged from within it, wantonly spewing Ashes into the terrifying black-gray sky.
Xia De was very familiar with this black mist; the black wind blowing from the Death Door at the foot of the mountain had the same composition. Therefore, the large mountaintop rift before him was the passage from the Gap's mountaintop to true death.
The sky full of Red Butterfly contracted along the stone steps behind them, once again circling around the two of them.
"Mr. Hamilton, please follow me."
Helen let go of Xia De's hand, and together they walked forward to the edge of the rift.
At this moment, even the Red Butterfly swarm could not perfectly protect the two in the black wind. As the violent wind representing the power of death blew, the Red Butterfly swarm's light gradually dimmed, Helen's face turned pale, and cracks appeared on Xia De's body.
The cracks appeared not only on his exposed skin but also on his clothes. As the wind brushed against his face, golden light traces dragged behind him like a flame's tail, as if golden flames had ignited on Xia De's body.
He reached out and supported Helen: "If you can't hold on, then I'll do it."
"No." She gently shook her head, and somehow tears had begun to stream down her face against the wind. Her blue eyes gazed forward: "It's been done countless times, yes, countless times, so long that we've forgotten time."
The Red Butterfly swarm brought the red sacrifice - the Cursed Stone - to her side. Helen cut her wrist with a small knife, letting her blood soak the stone. Her blood was not normal red, but a bright red like a Red Butterfly.
Then, she picked up the stone and threw it into the abyss. The next moment, a crimson light burst forth from the bottom of the large mountaintop rift, and in that light, countless red butterflies flew out of the abyss.
The swarm of butterflies enveloped a figure, a figure identical to Helen.
"Sister... Grace..."
Helen looked at her through tears: "We meet again."
The girl who emerged from the rift wore a white dress. When she opened her eyes and looked at Helen by the rift, the countless Red Butterfly for the first time overpowered the biting black wind of death.
"Helen."
They opened their arms and embraced each other. The Red Butterfly pendants at their waists glowed, almost painting the entire mountaintop red. Xia De immediately retreated a few steps; he didn't want to disturb this moment of reunion, and the whisper element on Grace and Helen was already so powerful that he couldn't even get close.
"This is the ritual."
The Old Witch's voice came from behind him. Xia De turned to look; Grandma Cassandra, Sister Devlin, and the witch apprentice Miss Rita Swift were all behind him. In such close proximity to the Death Door, all three wore green runes at their waists, protecting them to be temporarily safe.
"This is what you meant by catching up?" Xia De asked with a sigh.
His body was still in the form of Divine Radiance, but the Old Witch seemed to have known this would happen and showed no surprise. Sister Devlin, who "saw" everything, also asked nothing. Only the young witch apprentice looked like she wanted to ask but didn't dare.
She was very curious about the current situation, the marks on Xia De's body, and what the humanoid object Xia De was carrying on his back was.
"See? We caught up in the end, didn't we?" The Old Witch said with a smile, then looked up at the two embracing in the countless Red Butterfly in front of the large mountaintop rift: "The ritual, a ritual once every 22 years. The teachers can only meet once every 22 years, and their time together is one year. After this, the one who has lived alone for 21 years returns to death, while the one awakened from death walks alone in the world. She will again live alone for 21 years until she returns here again to greet her sister's reunion, and after spending a year together, re-enter that 22-year cycle."
She sighed. As the person who had witnessed the most rituals in the past hundred years, Qi Na Cassandra was the one who felt the most empathy: "This is the blessing of the Old God 【twin gods】, to be together forever. As long as they follow the cycle of the ritual, they will always be together... Hamilton Xia De, do you know the meaning of the Red Butterfly?"
Xia De stared blankly at the two in the Red Butterfly: "The Red Butterfly is the holy emblem of the Old God 【twin gods】."
"The twin gods are a Twin Union, with one heart and mind."
Sister Devlin provided the correct answer for Xia De.
The Old Witch nodded and gently explained: "In this ritual, the Red Butterfly symbolizes separation. When the reunion, once every 22 years, ends, the teachers will return here, and the one who needs to wait another 21 years will personally strangle her sister and throw her body into the rift on the mountaintop. This is not only for the cycle to begin again but also a means used by the benevolent god who once descended upon the Sicar Mountain region to assist in suppressing the Gap."
The witch apprentice gasped.
Xia De bit his lip: "I once saw the Phoenix beneath this rift in a dream, and saw countless skeletons surrounding it (Chapter 708). Those are..."
Xia De didn't finish, but he already understood.
"Red Butterfly." Sister Devlin gently asked: "These flying Red Butterfly, should be related to the ritual, right?"
"Yes, what do you say the Red Butterfly resemble?"
Xia De had already guessed.
"The body falls into the great rift, and the red choke marks on the neck will fly out again, transforming into Red Butterfly."
The four people on the cliff's edge looked at the Red Butterfly flying everywhere at that moment. The Old Witch's voice was very soft: "Every Red Butterfly here symbolizes a long separation, the sadness of killing a sister, a ritual of twisted love, and the next reunion... Mr. Hamilton, do you know how many Red Butterfly there are here?"
Xia De could no longer describe his feelings at that moment. He had thought this wouldn't be a heartwarming story, but he hadn't expected it to be like this.
“I don’t know, but it must have been a long time, right?”
They had originally participated in that divine banquet to escape the separation of life and death, and also to free the future twins of their family from this fate. They got the answer they wanted, even gaining longevity, but in the end, they still couldn't escape the fate of separation.
However, permanent separation turned into a 22-year cycle of pain and waiting. This would be eternal suffering, all for the once-every-22-year meeting and reunion.
Someone seemed to be singing in the wind, and "she" in his ear was also echoing that faint sound. Ancient words, crossing the curtain of time, told a story of reunion, waiting, kinship, and love:
【Red Butterfly spread wings and fly,】
【Fly over towering mountains,】
【Cross black rivers.】
【May the wind carry eternal longing,】
【Until the end of life and death.】
This was the nursery rhyme Professor Manning had mentioned, and also Old John's method for making the pendant, but only at this moment did Xia De understand the meaning of this nursery rhyme.
Not a ritual step, nor an alchemical formula, this was truly just a story.
A true story, their story, spanning two eras, representing longing and bonds, the story of the Red Butterfly.
