“Is this some kind of proverb? The path ahead leads to death, so it's indeed a dead end.”
Xia De reached out and touched the stone tablet, confirming it was just an ordinary object. But given Xia De's understanding of the Witch Council, this stone tablet would likely be taken away and collected by the Great Witches after this matter concluded.
“How interesting.”
He walked around to the back of the stone tablet and found text there as well. But unlike the neatly written letters on the front of the stone tablet, the text on the back looked like casual marks left by an unkempt mathematician on the corner of a piece of paper during calculations.
In fact, the texts on both sides were not even the same language:
“This is...”
He squinted and leaned closer, realizing it was a broken sentence:
“...Deep into the borderland, kill the resurrected. Before death...”
He read out these words, and after a moment of thought, frowned:
“A fragment of a poem?”
Although these words were very short, the grammar and sentence structure were very similar to what Xia De had seen on Mr. Passolo's funerary stone figures.
“This doesn't seem like a sentence to determine the identity of a Chosen One; rather, it's like a requirement for the Selected One Ritual. The location of the ritual needs to be in the border between life and death, and the person performing the ritual must have killed a resurrected being. Then, before true death, certain other things need to be done...”
He recorded these words; they might be useful.
Continuing inward, after leaving the platform, there was another long, narrow passage. The howling black wind, imbued with the power of death, was now almost on par with the depths of the Natural Church in the Gap.
There had clearly been fierce fighting here. The ground was covered with a layer of black dry bones, sprinkled with silver powder and holy water used for exorcism, looking like traces left half an hour ago. Although Miss Aurora and the others had entered earlier, it seemed to have taken a long time to deal with the troubles Xia De hadn't encountered.
When they first entered the passage, it was very narrow, but after walking a few dozen steps, it widened. Unlike the outer passage, the walls here were smooth stone slabs, with faint, unidentifiable traces on them.
The wind imbued with the power of death forced Xia De to raise his right hand to shield his face. He vaguely saw a light ahead.
After quickening his steps, he soon saw the Witches' followers stopped in the passage. Two-thirds of them were casting spells to resist the howling black wind. One lady, a Nine Ring, even held a glowing green orb, using the power of nature to resist death.
Mia would probably like this kind of round bead.
The remaining one-third of the people were using specially prepared black ink, scented with cinnamon and rose, to paint over the mottled ritual symbols on the walls.
The black wind couldn't disperse the strong scent, at least not up close.
After more than two thousand years of erosion, the ancient runes and murals originally on the walls were very blurry. These were the outermost ritual arrays of this seal, equivalent to the silver lines and the talismans and bells on them that Xia De had seen in the Natural Church.
“Miss Swift! Where are Miss Aurora and Grandma Cassandra?”
Xia De asked, and the crowd parted, allowing him to reach the wall.
Grandma Cassandra's young apprentice, Rita Swift, was directing the Sorceresses to restore the ritual traces on the wall according to the Witch Council's records. She replied:
“Mr. Hamilton, how did you get in? Teacher and Miss Aurora have gone further ahead; the core of the ritual is up there.”
“I want to go inside and have a look. Do you have any message you need me to deliver?”
Seeing that Xia De wanted to continue forward, the young woman with flaxen hair quickly stopped him:
“Please do not go any further. Teacher said that place is not somewhere we can approach. It truly is only a hair's breadth from death.”
“It's fine.”
Xia De shook his head:
“Grandma Cassandra showed me the seal on the mountaintop. I can handle it.”
He wasn't going further out of curiosity, but rather thinking that since he had already seen the passages at the foot and summit of the mountain while rescuing Priest Augustus and reuniting with Helen and Grace, seeing the passage at the mountainside would mean he hadn't wasted most of autumn in Middelsburg.
“Alright then, please be very careful.”
Seeing Xia De's persistence, the young woman handed him a smooth, oval gray runestone.
The runestone had large, glowing runes on both sides; the front resembled a spiraling tree pattern, and the back looked like leaf veins.
These were runes in Elvish, meaning “Life” and “Health” respectively. This type of runestone could help resist the wind of death, and based on the Elvish Knowledge Xia De had acquired, he believed that if he had all the materials, he could also create similar alchemical products himself.
“Please be careful!”
“Don't worry.”
Xia De waved his hand and continued walking forward against the strong wind.
The area where Miss Swift and her group were located was the widest part of the passage. Further ahead, the passage narrowed again, and the power of death grew even stronger.
When the biting wind left the first cut on Xia De's face, and the golden specks of light within the wound dragged a halo behind him, he knew he was almost at the end.
The appearance of Divine Radiance made Xia De even more powerful at this moment. Therefore, when rustling sounds appeared in front of him, and a pile of bones, clearly scattered not long ago, reassembled into a pitch-black skeleton, Xia De did not feel panic:
“A resurrected undead?”
Any monster capable of existing in such an extremely close-to-death area must be taken seriously. Xia De frowned, holding Night Watchman in his right hand, and looked at the black bone sword in the black skeleton's hand.
Both charged at each other almost simultaneously, and at the moment of impact, the two swords touched. After a crisp sound, Night Watchman and the black bone sword were simultaneously repelled.
The black skeleton sprayed a cloud of black mist towards Xia De, but before the mist could reach Xia De, it was dispelled by the radiance of Divine Radiance.
Gripping the sword with one hand, he thrust forward, precisely hitting the skeleton's right hand bone. After knocking away the black bone sword, Xia De stepped back, brought the sword slightly to his left chest with his right hand, took a deep breath, and then unleashed all his strength, thrusting the sword rapidly forward.
Relying on his powerful physical constitution and the surged strength at this moment, the three rapid thrusts almost turned into afterimages in the black wind. The golden marks on his arm, at this instant, formed thick golden light pillars in the air.
Through 【Blade of Disordered Time】, six swords appeared almost simultaneously within one second. Night Watchman excellently exerted its power against evil. As Xia De retracted his sword and pressed his wrist, six points on the skeleton's surface showed signs of shattering, and then it re-scattered into a pile of dry bones.
He quickly walked to the black bone sword against the wind, only to find that the bone sword had also disintegrated into bone fragments, which greatly disappointed Xia De, who had thought he could pick up a bargain. He then continued forward. As the golden marks on his body became brighter and brighter, even light specks like embers of fire trailed behind Xia De:
“How did Miss Aurora and Grandma Cassandra even get here?”
Even he felt it was extremely difficult to proceed.
After walking another twenty-odd steps, the temperature of the Witch-detecting badge hanging on his chest finally overcame the temperature of the black wind, allowing Xia De to feel its presence. Continuing forward, the passage kept narrowing, finally ending before a stone door that allowed only one person to pass.
The stone door itself had a seal, but it had already been broken by the Witches. The door was now pushed open, and on the door was a symbol like a holy emblem, with its main body resembling an upside-down question mark. Xia De suddenly had a feeling that this symbol was the holy emblem of the Ancient God, Chaos Witch.
After exiting the stone door, the passage opened into a circular space about the same size as the Witch Council's venue.
Black wind swirled within it. Xia De had to squint to see that in the center of the space was a well. The well was located exactly in the center of the circle, and violent black wind spewed out from it. This was the passage located at the mountainside.
It was very empty here. Besides the well and the already opened stone door, there were only mottled ritual traces on the walls, trash by the walls, and a bronze skeleton by the wall opposite the stone door.
Miss Aurora and Grandma Cassandra were currently standing in front of that metal skeleton. Because of the wind and the strong power of death, they hadn't noticed Xia De's arrival until Xia De approached, when they were surprised to see the dense golden cracks all over Xia De's body.
“Devlin also had this manifestation, but hers was fiery red. Did she give you her flames?”
Grandma Cassandra asked, but Xia De shook his head.
Only then did he notice that both Witches were wearing jewelry that could directly open the Witch Council's passage. Miss Aurora's was the 【Ancient Magic Witches' Golden Ring - Right One】, and Grandma Cassandra's was a golden button on her chest, presumably the 【Ancient Magic Witches' Golden Button】 among the thirteen Witch accessories.
It was these two pieces of jewelry that helped them successfully reach this place.
“Xia De, why are you here? No, how did you get in?”
“Since Miss Jialinna thinks highly of me, I naturally have exceptional qualities.”
He extended his finger, and even the silver light at his fingertip seemed to sway in the wind. The rusty bronze skeleton in front of him looked very familiar.
“Xia De, this is...”
Grandma Cassandra wanted to introduce it, but Xia De had already recognized the object in front of him:
“This is a Soul-Forging Skeleton, a forbidden alchemical weapon created by people of the second epoch using ancient Knowledge. Like the 'Giant God Soldiers' found in the Tobesk underground ruins, they were servants of ancient extraordinary beings. Oh, the Witch Emperor of the late fifth epoch could actually produce something like this?”
Although the details were slightly different, the object in front of him was of the same type as the skeleton Xia De had seen guarding the yeger scroll in the Dead Silence Valley during the fifth epoch. Only this time, the skeleton was not holding a stone slab, but a stone box.
“You know about this too? Then I don't need to explain. Grandma and I believe this was left by the Witch Emperor, Violet Marshall, as a gift for those who came after.”
Miss Aurora looked a bit pale; staying in this place for so long, she was also struggling:
“But we are all living people. Taking the box would surely lead to a fight with this skeleton. In a place like this, none of us want to start a battle.”
“It's fine, I'll do it.”
Xia De said, reaching out his hand.
During the fifth epoch, Miss Olanorde had let Xia De touch a skeleton once, on the grounds that “you haven't been born yet, so you're not a living person.” Xia De then understood that this thing bore him no ill will, definitely not because of time, but because he had once entered the land of death.
Indeed, after extending his hand, he was only stopped by the skeleton, not attacked:
“Answer me, in the void before the world's birth, besides those Ancient Gods, what else was there?”
That Witch Emperor had probably reprogrammed the skeleton's language; it spoke the ancient language of the fifth epoch. This time's question was different from what Xia De had heard last time, but he also had an answer:
“The Original Fire.”
Mr. Edmund of the Light Guidance Hermit Order had said that the Original Fire was what the Ancient Gods used to illuminate the world before its birth.
The skeleton's arm, which had been blocking Xia De, withdrew. Its bronze bone hand held the stone box, offering it to Xia De.
“See, it's very simple.”
He said with a smile to Miss Aurora, and then all three watched as the stone box turned to dust in the black wind.
Only three items remained on the skeleton's bone hand: a comb emitting a rainbow-colored glow, seemingly made of ivory; a wooden key, which looked very familiar to Xia De; and finally, a scroll of parchment, which appeared longer than the pink book manuscript that desire had given Xia De.
None of the three items decayed in the black wind, but only the wooden key was a relic.
“A time key?”
Xia De was slightly surprised. Judging by the sparse wood grain on the key's surface, this key was still a time key leading to the fifth epoch.
“Since it's a time key, then it's yours.”
Miss Aurora reminded him, reaching out to take the comb:
“What is this? It doesn't look like a relic, but... it's pretty.”
“It's a ritual core substitute left by the Guardian of Witten.”
Grandma Cassandra, who had taken the parchment and unrolled it, said. The Old Witch stood beside Xia De, reading the contents of the parchment in the wind, squinting in the light from his body:
“This is a letter from that Emperor to those who came after, containing some historical information, some Knowledge, and yes, at the end, the complete sealing content. To facilitate later generations in repairing the ritual, she condensed the ritual core into this comb. Throwing the comb into the well, combined with guiding and using the Witches' power, can repair most of the ritual. But if we want to fully repair it, I think our preparations are still insufficient.”
“So what other materials does the ritual need... Are you going to repair such a large-scale ritual with just this comb, empty-handed?”
Xia De asked.
“Of course not. We prepared some necessary items beforehand. Besides those, the ritual materials also include this.”
Miss Aurora ran a hand through her long hair:
“The Great Witch's hair is enough to serve as spellcasting material, especially for rituals within the Witch system; hair is often used as a ritual material. Although Ring術士 of the sixth epoch don't know this, it was common Knowledge in the fifth epoch.”
Seeing Xia De hesitate, the lady with curly brown hair added:
“I know what you're thinking, oh, young knight. Controlling the growth rate of hair is one of the Witches' most common secret arts. Besides the malicious 'Baldness Curse,' nothing can stop us from having pretty hair.”
Seeing that Xia De was truly fine standing in such a place, the Witches then gave Xia De some of the blue lizard blood ink and special Nym silver alloy wire from their ritual materials, asking Xia De to help restore the damaged ritual site. And some of the Knowledge from 【Witch's Echo - Felianna】 also helped Xia De better understand the work to be done.
PS: 4K big chapter. Please vote, recommendation votes and monthly votes are both welcome.
