When Shad and Miss Benedict returned to the Wilde Opera House, Luvia had already arrived and was talking to Miss Lathers about tonight. Luvia also brought them new news:
"The professors of Zarath Academy of Literature will also participate in the operation at the Eldron Lake tonight. Among the three major academies, only the professors of Zarath Academy of Literature have arrived early."
"None of this matters. We'll be waiting outside tonight, but they may not really need us."
Shad said that he did not bring the Night's Watch this time, and he would try to avoid carrying the relic until he was sure of the demon's whereabouts and identity.
"In addition, I received the statue of Edward Marcus yesterday afternoon, which is one of the three auction items that may point to the Heart of the Earth."
The statue was conjured up by Xia De and placed on the coffee table in the study. The three ladies examined it one by one, but found nothing unusual.
"Isn't it this?"
Miss Benanis said suspiciously:
"These stones come from the Randall River Valley, in the southwest, so this is not a petrified body."
At this time, Miss Lathers was using her magic to investigate. When Miss Lathers finished her inspection, Shade said:
"I checked at home last night and found nothing suspicious, so now there is only one last method left."
A brilliant silver arc of light came out from his hand, and in an instant the complete antique statue was cut into a pile of rubble.
Everyone picked up the small stones and checked them, and then confirmed again that they were just ordinary antiques. Of course, the process of obtaining this antique was not a waste of time, at least it gave Shad a reason to contact Stone Oxenfurt.
"Breath of Time."
Xia De took a deep breath, and as the gray smoke flew from the stones into his nostrils, the stone statue reversed time and returned to its original appearance. Because the casting time consumed one-fifth of the time, this casting consumed Xia De's life span of less than 20 seconds.
"Really? I've told you many times not to use this magic so casually. Is your life span infinite?"
Seeing this, Luvia immediately blamed him.
"Perhaps we just can't see the value of this statue, so we keep it intact for now. Maybe it will be useful."
Shade said, and Miss Benannis and Miss Lasser only then realized that Shade's magic that directly affected time and was almost a miracle actually came at the cost of life. They also thought that Shade should not use it casually.
After all, as Shade once said, the only certainty of a mortal's fate is that he or she will eventually die.
One of the three items, the statue, was obtained, and the remaining two, the ceramic vase and the antique key, were in the hands of the local stone statue art exhibition hall and Earl Granger respectively. The curator of the former was the folklorist mentioned by Hela Osenfurt who could be sought for help, and the latter involved whether he was a descendant of Mr. Lyman.
Of course, although it is urgent to find these two items, it must not be done at least this Thursday. It is approaching dusk, and what will happen in the Eldron Lake upstream of the Ailon River will soon be revealed.
Because it was unclear what would happen, the only witches accompanying them this time, besides Shade, Luvia, and Miss Lathers, were three Nine-Ring Witch Followers, who were also the chief accountant and the styling and costume designers of the Golden Dawn Opera Company.
The church did not block the area around Lake Eldron, but instead set up a large camp by the lake, using the camp as a base to prepare a ceremony to dispel the madness of the earth.
The church's ritual is much more complicated than Shade's "Power of the Earth·Healing Aura", and the general ritual takes a long time to completely purify the earth that is heading towards madness. In the past, when "mad earth" appeared, it was not afraid of the long time. After all, as long as the black mud and mad earth were restricted and did not spread outward, it would not take a month or two to solve it. But this time, relying on the water, the madness of the earth spread very quickly. Therefore, in order to speed up the originally long purification ceremony, the Sun Church, which presided over the ceremony, joined forces with the Nature Church in the diocese to act together.
The plan was that in the evening, the church's ring sorcerers would jointly cast a spell to completely freeze the polluted area below the water surface, ensuring that the spread of the pollution was temporarily controlled. Afterwards, a complex divine ritual would be used in conjunction with the sage-level relic, the Great Elf Sage Oak Staff, which was transported from the suburbs of York City in Carsonrick de Colum County, to complete the purification before dawn.
As there was no experience of such hasty purification in the past, the Church had no conclusion on whether this was feasible, so it could only dispatch more teams of ring sorcerers to prepare for possible situations.
But in Shade's opinion, the more people there are, the better. After all, the pollution from the madness of the earth determines that as long as there is no immunity to the effects of the mad earth, it will be useless even if all the ring warlocks in Carsenrick are brought in.
In short, at dusk that day, a group of six people wearing robes and riding horses arrived at the top of the hill on the east side of Lake Eldron. They saw the setting sun in the west shining on the frozen lake. The bright sunset was reflected by the ice, as if the lake was glowing in the sunset.
The nearly circular lake was surrounded by the white winter forest, and in the distance, a few wisps of smoke could be seen coming out of the rural villages. Several large ships were frozen on the lakeside, and small fishing boats were parked next to the pier on the west side of the lake. Around the pier, the church camp was also bathed in the sunset.
The priests in white robes were praying to the last rays of sunset, praying that the power of the sun could still protect them at night. This was the basic divine ritual of the Church of the Sun, the Sun's Blessing. If used by a large number of priests, the effect would be quite powerful.
From the top of the hill, the camp surrounding the dock was quite large. A rough estimate showed that there were at least three digits of people in the camp. Of course, it was impossible for all of them to be ring sorcerers, but this scale was enough to be called a large operation.
Shade pulled the reins and asked Miss Benanis, who was riding on a chestnut horse beside him:
"I remember that there were no thirteenth-ring warlocks stationed in the Randall Valley all year round."
After all, the Church of the Five Gods has a limited number of thirteen-ring warlocks, and they also have to take into account the development of the distant seas and the exploration of new continents.
"Yes, but last week, in order to round up the cultists, the Church of the Sun dispatched the famous 'Earth Shaker', Mr. Pierre Granger. This thirteenth-ring warlock is as skilled in the power of the earth as I am, and is particularly good at creating earthquakes. Unfortunately, this technique cannot be used casually in urban areas."
"Granger?"
Luvia asked curiously, and Miss Lathers took off her hood to reveal her beautiful long hair:
"Yes, this gentleman is also originally from the Randall Valley. It is said that he is a distant relative of the Earl Granger family, but as you know, Granger itself is not a very rare surname, so no one can tell whether he is a relative of the Earl's family."
"Will he show up tonight?"
Shade looked towards the campsite by the lake with great anticipation, but Miss Benannis shook her head slightly:
"Even if the church believes the news transmitted through the black market, they cannot transfer the only Thirteenth Ring out of the city. After all, the cultists are still lurking in the city, and leaving a Thirteenth Ring in the city is the right thing to do... But I heard that the Five Gods Church plans to send a Thirteenth Ring each to arrive in the city next week or later to deal with the matter of the Chosen One of the Earth."
"The epic of the chosen one is really becoming more and more influential... Let's go set up camp and take a rest."
Xia De suggested, and the group turned their horses around. Xia De was the last one left, and he turned around to look at the almost fiery red ice surface:
"What is going to happen tonight?"
In order to avoid being noticed by the church, Shade and his companions chose to set up camp in a forest far from the lake. After simply setting up a bonfire and erecting a fence, Shade even used his newly acquired magic, Moon Thorn, on the entrance to the camp.
When he pointed his finger at the fence, bright silver thorns immediately emerged from the soil, interweaving densely to block the entrance to the camp. And not only did it block the entrance, the thorns then climbed the fence until they were completely integrated with the fence, as if the camp was surrounded by silver thorns.
Miss Benanis tried it. Although she could destroy the thorns from the inside, it also required some means. And destroying the thorns from the outside was difficult even for an eleventh-level witch. Of course, this was also related to her not being good at fighting and not being able to use the maze lock with all her strength.
If you want to fly over the thorns to the camp, the thorns will grow upwards to block you. Unfortunately, if you fly high enough, the bright silver thorn bushes of Shade will not react. Therefore, the most suitable scene for this magic is a relatively closed indoor environment.
"This is somewhat similar to the magic of Thornlight that Yin Luna mastered (Chapter 975)."
Luvia said to Shade:
"But her moves require magic materials, and they are magic unique to the Church of the Sun."
After the evil in Pantanal was burned, Sister Devlin used the First Fire to grant Shad many interesting powers, one of which was that the bonfires he lit himself were warmer, and being around them could quickly restore one's physical strength and spirit.
At this time, the bonfire warmed everyone, and the smoke had disappeared. Since they had eaten before coming, there was no need to cook.
The six people sat around the campfire and chatted. After the sun had completely set, Shad, Luvia and Miss Benannis went to the lake together. Because the three of them had the "power of the earth", Miss Lasser led two high-level female sorcerers to meet them here to ensure that they at least had a way to retreat.
It was obvious that Miss Lathers was not very willing to watch the three of them take risks, but because of Miss Benannis's insistence, she had no choice but to agree.