The seventeen-year-old girl looked toward the lighthouse in the snowstorm:
"Shade, I'm afraid we won't be able to get much help in a while. Most of the church's thirteen-ring warlocks should be heading to the other three ritual sites."
"It doesn't matter, isn't it the same as before?"
Shade said with a smile, Iluna nodded, and walked towards the snowy path on the right with Shade.
They marched forward in the fog, braving the wind and snow. Mushroom-grown ghouls and animated blood-red vines blocked the road, but they were quickly cleared away. The battle on the east side of the island seemed to have begun, but in the fog, only a few light spots could be seen entangled in the air. So far, no one has used large-scale magic such as the Word of Sublimation on this island. It seems that the church landing team is currently taking conservative actions.
And right in front of the old manor that had been abandoned for a hundred years, Shad and Iluna finally encountered the first ring warlock on the island.
From a distance, I saw a figure standing in front of the chained manor that looked like a haunted house in the middle of the night. When I got closer, I saw that it was a middle-aged man holding a kerosene lamp and wearing a snow cape.
He was dressed quite elegantly, with white gloves and shiny leather shoes, and did not look like an outfit that would appear in the swamp.
After the two sides met, the first words Xia De said were:
"You didn't stand here for hours waiting for us, did you?"
He motioned for Iluna to stop, and then said sympathetically:
"The temperature outside is now much lower than freezing."
"Thank you for your concern. The clothes I'm wearing have been treated with alchemy, and I only stood there for half an hour. The lady from the Truth Society said that less than 5% of the church and other ring sorcerers arrive on the island before midnight."
The man spoke in a brisk tone, and his words were obviously those of Miss Pavone.
"We are ring sorcerers of the Church of the Sun."
Xia De introduced himself and asked this rather amiable gentleman:
"I wonder if you are..."
"All things return to one."
He blinked his blue eyes, let out a long breath, and stamped his feet to make the snow fall off the sides of his leather shoes:
"For the enlightenment of the chosen one, the president and the Truth Society have cooperated to a certain extent. We drew lots to decide who would come to this damn place to participate in the operation, and then I was spurned by probability."
The man said helplessly, his Carsenrick accent was not standard and sounded very much like Northern Draerion.
The "Wanshu Guiyi Hui" is an illegal cult organization that believes in the evil god "Probability Demon". Of course, this is a modern name, and its more popular name is "God of Doom", who has the power to make all probabilities evolve in a worse direction, and is a very famous evil god.
This cult organization is quite hostile to the "Prophet Association" and was almost one of the most powerful cult groups in the world during the Fifth Era. However, after entering the Sixth Era, with the growth of the Five Gods Church, the scale of the "All Numbers Return to One" continued to shrink. After the Prophet Association became increasingly powerful in the past few hundred years with the help of the Rhodes Card, the "All Numbers Return to One" declined even more and gradually transformed from an organization that spreads doom and misfortune to a group that studies probability and manipulates fate.
Most of its members now use the identity of mathematicians to cover up their identity as ring sorcerers. Therefore, although the scale has become smaller, it has also successfully achieved a certain degree of elitism. Miss Sylvia's "Digital Divination" comes partly from this group. Her teacher had some conflicts with the "Ten Thousand Numbers Return to One Society" in the past.
"I'm not actually very good at fighting."
The man bent down, put down the kerosene lamp in his hand, took off his gloves and looked at the two people in the snow:
"But since I've accepted the mission, I can't just let you go. How about this, let's discuss it and no one will kill you. If you win, I will be seriously injured and fall here and won't stop you anymore; if I win, you will escape seriously injured and I won't chase you. How do you think?"
He was sincere, but Shade would not easily believe the words of this seventh or eighth ring warlock:
"Of course."
He smiled and said:
"We don't have much time though, so please be careful."
He stood in front of Iluna. The Night Watchman glowed slightly due to the vibration of the spirit. The man opposite looked at the sword hesitantly:
“Looks familiar.”
Suddenly, I found that the sword had disappeared in the snow. When I looked up, I saw that the man had disappeared as well, and his eyes met Iluna's.
"balance!"
The power of the eight-ring warlock was suppressed to the fifth ring in an instant, but this was not the worst, because Shad had appeared behind him, and the Night Watchman stabbed him directly in the right chest.
"Sneak attacks are not a good habit."
The man whose chest was pierced by the long sword grabbed the sword with both hands, then turned his head 180 degrees and looked at Shade:
"That young lady, could she be the chosen one of the Church of the Sun? I actually encountered the worst situation? I knew I shouldn't go out this winter."
Then he turned to the face behind him, and both eyes emitted blue light at the same time. The number 5 appeared in the left eye, and a pattern similar to a question mark appeared in the right eye:
"I am only equivalent to the fifth ring now, but what is your situation?"
His body turned into a pile of rotten wood in the snow. When his real body appeared twenty meters to the left of Shade, Iluna's sunlight gun followed closely.
The life ring of the eight-ring warlock appeared in the wind and snow. Because it was suppressed by the power of "balance", half of the spiritual runes on the life ring were dim, and only a thin layer of steam was gushing out.
Inspiration-The survivor flashed with aura. Under the influence of an unknown magic, the sunlight gun that should have hit the target actually blew up a large rock next to him. Iluna's sunlight gun misjudged the enemy's landing point.
“Probability is interesting, isn’t it?”
The man said with a smile, holding on to the ground to stand up, and touched the bloodstain on his cheek caused by the flying gravel. The life ring behind him slowly rotated, desecrating the corpse, whispering and calling, inspiring the resonance of the story, and the three spirit runes constructed a magic:
"Contact the Skeleton Snow Corpse!"
Rolling black mist poured out from the center of his brass wheel ring until it completely filled the hole in the center of the life ring. A rotten giant hand stretched out from the black mist, and the invisible pressure made Shade and Iluna frown:
"A projection of an evil creature from the Warp?"
Iluna also revealed her life ring, and the brass wheel ring turned into a golden scale suspended behind her. She reached out to catch the night watchman thrown by Shade, and shook the holy bell on her waist with her left hand.
Ding Dong~
As the crisp sound of bells echoed in the snowy night, her right hand grasped the blade of the silver sword. The golden lightning jumped along the blade, and as my heart was clear and the runes of the sword slashing demons flashed, the Night Watcher turned into a dazzling thunder spear like the sun:
"Sunshine Gun!"
The exploding thunder was thrown out from his hand, and the spear containing the sun's light and thunderbolt pierced through the terrifying undead who stretched out his right hand in the black fog in the center of the self-life ring. At the same time that the cursed bone fragments flew around, the sunlight spear pierced through the black fog representing the space connection like a rotten wood.
Snap!
Cracks appeared on the surface of the life ring, and the backlash of the failed spellcasting made the man spit out a mouthful of blood. Before he fell, five holy silver halos flew over:
"Imprisoning Light!"
One bound the hands, two bound the legs, and the remaining two bound the arms and body.
When he fell in the snow, the life ring on his back had disappeared due to the effect of the magic confinement light. The snow fell on the man's body, and the backlash of the magic spell being forcibly interrupted made his face flush abnormally:
"Don't kill me! We agreed. Otherwise, I will use my words of ascension, wind and snow, to blow the ancient mountains and destroy you all!"
He tried to wriggle in the snow, shouting loudly, and before Shade and Iluna could take further action, he added:
"I have a wallet with 100 kronor on it, you can take it."
Hearing this, Shade couldn't help but smile. Iluna's right hand was still leaping with thunder, and she didn't let down her guard. She led the horse to Shade's side and asked:
"What to do with him?"
In fact, it was a question of whether to kill him. Although he acted very kind, he was still a cultist after all.
"I don't want your money. We are church ring sorcerers, not bandits. Now answer me a few questions. Who came up with the plan to set up multiple ritual sites on the island?"
Shade didn't ask if the plan was real.
"The Chosen One, Legins Prisha, the lady from the Truth Society trusts his wisdom. This is indeed a good plan. The Church will not allow the Pantanal Voodoo Society to unseal those terrible things for the sake of the Chosen One. Once they choose to act separately, the difficulty of the Chosen One's ritual will be greatly reduced... He knows the Church very well."
The man's answer came from the snow.
Shade raised his eyebrows, and Iluna snorted and asked:
"How many people are still on the island now? How many people did you leave behind for the so-called 'watching ceremony'?"
"Legins Prisha doesn't have many people around him. He is very knowledgeable and powerful. Your road ahead is destined to be bumpy. As for the other three ritual sites, there are quite a few ring sorcerers. There are eleven high-ring sorcerers from the Pantanal Voodoo Society, nine high-ring professors from the Truth Society, and high-ring sorcerers from other organizations. There are more than a dozen of them in total..."
The ring sorcerer of the "Unification of All Numbers" gave a reply in his strangely accented Kasenric language, but did not continue:
"Although I surrender to you, the answers I have given are enough to buy my life. I will not give any reply next, but I think our deal should have been reached. You will not kill me, right?"
"I actually have some questions."
Although he was unwilling to answer, it did not mean that Xia De could not ask the question in other ways. However, when he approached the man, he found that the man had stopped breathing in the snow.
I bent down and checked:
"This is the first time I've seen such realistic ice sculptures."
Using the Chain of Sin to retrieve the long sword stuck in the snow, Shade swung the sword and smashed the ice sculpture:
“You run really fast.”
"He probably didn't intend to fight us from the beginning."
Iluna said, preparing to set off again with Shade. The 17-year-old girl's voice was very calm:
"Ambitious people are eager to achieve self-realization through the poems of the chosen ones, but there are also many people who are forced to be involved. I am not saying that the cultist is innocent, but there are always people who are forced to be involved in the vortex of fate."
"As the chosen ones appear one by one, the entire material world will be drawn into it sooner or later."
Xia De sighed and looked up at the lighthouse that was getting closer and closer:
"I'm afraid this time, it won't be the most dangerous ceremony for the Chosen One."