The square stone table only prevented the general area of the oil lamp from being illuminated. There was a round stone bench next to the table, and it seemed to be fixed to the ground and could not be moved.
Mr. Riddle lifted his robes and sat down, with Shad standing behind him.
As Mr. Riddle sat down, a soft "puff" sound came from the other side of the table. In the thick darkness that could not be illuminated at all in the other half of the room, a faint yellow flame appeared.
Almost in the symmetrical position of the kerosene lamp next to Mr. Riddle, a short white candle was burning on the edge of the table on the other side of the stone table. The candle had been burned, and wax had accumulated at the bottom of the candle.
Its light was still as big as a soybean, but it at least illuminated the other half of the table, as well as a hooded figure in a black robe who had appeared at some point and was sitting on the other side of the table.
This scene was particularly terrifying. Before this, the darkness on the other half of the room was completely invisible. Therefore, neither Mr. Riddle nor Shade could confirm whether this figure had been sitting here quietly watching the two people's conversation, or had just appeared.
The appearance of the stranger made the air in the room turn from gas to solid in an instant, freezing the entire room. Not only did his body feel restrained, but the pressure he felt mentally also made Xia De frown.
Mr. Riddle groaned and fell headfirst onto the stone table in front of him. It took him a long time to raise his head by holding onto the table.
Some subtle golden light appeared on the surface of Shade's clothes and skin. The information provided by Mr. Riddle was actually correct. This table really summoned a god.
However, the pressure that the other party gave to the two when they appeared was not even as strong as that of the innocent creator who claimed to be "powerless". Xia De guessed that this was because the way to summon the gods was not a ritual, but the use of this unknowable relic.
The other party was not the real body of God, nor was he a saint, but only the phantom of God. But this was also reasonable. After all, according to Mr. Riddle, the purpose of summoning God was to conduct gambling, and if the gambling could not be conducted because of the appearance of God, then it would be putting the cart before the horse.
The light from the bowl-shaped black porcelain oil lamp and the short candle finally allowed Xia De to see the table in front of him clearly.
The surface of the square stone table was not flat. There were ten rectangular grooves in front of the black-robed figure and Mr. Riddle.
Twenty grooves are arranged in two parallel rows. On the side of all the square grooves facing the center of the square table, tiny grooves extend out. Twenty densely packed grooves are connected to each other, making the surface of the table look like the complex circuit patterns that outsiders have seen in their hometowns.
"god!"
Shade and Mr. Riddle bowed to each other, which was the most basic respect. But there was no sound or movement from the black-robed figure.
On the contrary, in the terrifying pressure that solidified the air, the corpses against the wall were infected by this power and actually began to chant in a low voice together. This scene really made Shade's scalp tingle.
“It’s the game of life!”
"Ten chances to place the pictures of your life in order."
“It’s a sad life.”
“What a lamentable life.”
“What a ridiculous life.”
“It’s a horrible life.”
"God will use the lives of believers to compare with yours."
“Every life interacts with each other.”
"Until the end."
"Ten lives compared to ten lives."
"The winner can leave!"
"Praise the Lord!"
The corpses repeated this sentence three times in unison in three different tones before stopping.
This is probably the rule of the gambling game. Not only do the ten lives have to be compared with each other, but one's own lives will also be linked to each other, generating a more powerful force.
But Shade still didn't understand:
"What is victory? What is the comparison of life?"
But the corpses did not answer at all. Mr. Riddle, who was sitting, raised his hand to signal Shade not to continue. He said in a trance:
"I think I understand. I should use all the wonderful moments in my life to fight against another person's life..."
He placed his hand on the first groove on his left hand side and took a long time before moving his hand away.
And in the originally empty groove, there was a card that just happened to be embedded in it. It was a colorful card. Mr. Riddle on the card was huddled under a tombstone, and behind the tombstone was a terrifying large shadow. It was obviously a flat pattern, but to Shade it looked quite three-dimensional, and the shadows even seemed to be crawling on the card.
Gilded words gradually appear on the top of the card. After interpreting them, their meaning is the resurrection of the dead.
"I have encountered powerful evil spirits."
Mr. Riddle looked down at the card, and Shad showed a surprised expression. It seemed that this gentleman's life experience was richer than he thought.
"That was about ten years ago. In order to obtain some precious wild medicinal herbs, I went to the eastern mountainous area of the southern continent alone and lived with the villagers living in a small village in the mountains for three months, but..."
"You discovered that those villagers had long been dead. You were actually living with the dead for three months under hallucination."
Shad said.
"How do you know?"
Mr. Riddle was quite surprised.
"Well... this is a common story where I come from. Sorry to interrupt your story, but Mr. Riddle, how did you escape?"
It’s not that Shade looked down on the ancient prophet in front of him, but with the strength of an ordinary person, he might not be able to fight against even ordinary evil spirits, let alone the undead village in the mountains.
The middle-aged man looked puzzled:
"How did I escape... Sorry, my memory is a little fuzzy. I've lived here for so long that I seem to have lost a lot of my memory."
Fortunately, Mr. Riddle recalled for a while and gave an answer:
"It was one evening. I came back from collecting herbs and stood at the entrance of the village. I suddenly had the idea of using a mirror to look at the village, and then I found that I was actually standing in a dilapidated cemetery. I was so scared that I curled up under the tombstone and dared not move. The evil spirits called my name and spied on me from all around, but they could not catch me. I dared not move until the next daybreak, then I fled in a hurry. When I met the adventure team entering the mountain, I was almost starving to death... Later, I asked the witch of the association for advice, but she didn't know how I survived. People followed the map I provided to look for the cemetery, but they couldn't find it."
Shade didn't know how to evaluate Mr. Riddle's experience, but it sounded like he had encountered a powerful relic. And according to the description, a relic with such a large scope and containing so many evil spirits would definitely not be rated lower than the sage level.
At the moment when the two were talking, the first square groove in front of the black-robed god across the table lit up, and a card appeared in the groove. It was a scene of a beautiful woman, the witch, raising her right hand and pointing to the sun in the sky.
The black light flowed out from the groove of the resurrection of the dead along the slender groove on the table; the golden light flowed out from the groove of the witch's card pointing to the sun along the groove on the stone table.
Two streams of light met in the middle of the table. At the moment when black and gold met, a large shadow of evil spirits appeared above the resurrection of the dead, and a small shadow of a woman appeared above the groove in front of the god.
Two virtual images that looked like projections flew to the center of the table in front of Shade's surprised eyes, and then they actually started fighting. The battle lasted for five minutes, and then they retreated to the grooves filled with cards, waiting for their companions to appear.
Xia De was stunned. He was not surprised by the scene just now. After all, he had read all kinds of strange stories in his hometown. He just felt that compared with the previous two time exploration experiences, this one was really... ... too interesting.
"Mr. Riddle, have you had any other strange experiences?"
Although he knew that this emotion was wrong, Xia De still asked his companions around him excitedly, hoping to get more stories.
The middle-aged man with thick eyebrows wearing a brown robe frowned, then suddenly raised his hand and patted his sparsely haired head:
"I'm sorry, I know I've been through a lot, but I really am... a dragon! Yes, I have encountered a dragon!"
Amid Shad's surprise and excitement, the man in the brown robe placed his hand on top of the second groove.
When Mr. Riddle took his hand away, a colorful card was embedded in the groove. The pattern on it showed Mr. Riddle running wildly in the forest, with a huge creature breathing fire in the sky behind him.
Gilded text appears on the top of the card, like flowing fire, meaning the disaster of the dragon.
Unlike the pigeon-like dragon that Shade saw in the maze-wild wilderness, the dragon that appeared on the card was a real pure-blooded dragon. There was no record of sightings of this creature in the Sixth Era, and even Saint Byron's textbook only used sketches to describe the general appearance of the dragon, so this could be considered the first time Shade saw the true appearance of a dragon.
The dragon was uglier than Shad had imagined, and it looked like the painting in St. Byron's textbook had been beautified.
“This is what happened when I was twenty.”
Mr. Riddle held his forehead and tried hard to dig out information from his head:
"That year, I went on vacation with my friends to the Black Forest in the southern part of the East Continent."
It was hard for Shade to imagine who would go on vacation in a forest with such a name, but considering this gentleman's life experience, he was probably quite keen on this kind of adventure.
"We found a hole on the cliff of a forest hill, and we bet on what animal's nest it was. After arguing for a while, we climbed in together to check, and then..."
He looked sad, but the memory came more easily:
"I was the only one who survived. The dragon probably thought we were going to steal his stuff, so it chased me for a long distance before I was driven away by the witch who lived in the Black Forest. But the witch said that it was me who attracted the dragon to burn down the forest, and she forced me to sign a contract to replant a hundred saplings in the forest every year until I died or made up for all the losses. If I didn't go, my soul would always feel the pain of being burned... I replanted this year's share before I set out on this journey. I will continue to do this next year, the year after, and the year after that. This has become my lifelong responsibility, so I can remember this experience."
Shade kept a stern face and did not comment. Considering how much the Fifth Epoch witches hated men, Mr. Riddle was only punished to replant saplings every year, which was really a very light punishment.