Looking at the girl in the black dress who stretched out her arms to him, Xia De sighed, and after communicating with the voice in his ear, he stretched out his hand to hold the other person's hand, but the girl in the black dress took her hand back at the last moment.
"You just passed by us, but why do you trust me like this?"
She put her hands behind her back and looked at Shade, who shook his head.
"Helen, was there a reason why I helped you at the party?"
Helen Blake stared at Shade, and the corners of her mouth slowly curled up. The two looked at each other until Helen suddenly laughed:
"Oh, sir, I thought my disguise was successful. It was with great difficulty that I persuaded little Zina to help me."
"The disguise was successful?"
Shade asked suspiciously.
"That's not important. I just want to see what kind of person you are in your own time, sir."
She took a step back with her hands behind her back, getting closer to the hole spewing black mist:
"You are such an interesting person, more interesting than my sister and I thought. But down there is no place for you. Please wait for me for a moment. I need to get something to welcome my sister back. I need a sacrifice."
As she spoke, her body tilted backwards until she fell into the bottomless abyss.
Two-thirds of the red butterflies followed her into the abyss cave, leaving only one-third here to protect Shade.
The surroundings were extremely quiet, with only the sounds of revived evil spirits wandering in the distance of the mine:
"Helen... Grace... I didn't expect Sister Defulin would cooperate with them in lying."
The calm didn't last long. As the dust above his head fell again, a shocking roar suddenly exploded in the extremely quiet mine. The sound came from underground, from the deepest part of the relic. Just by hearing the sound, Shade seemed to be able to see the twisted behemoth entrenched in the ground, squirming and releasing its malice.
He was startled and quickly took a few steps back. Then, the entrance of the underground cave glowed with red light again, and soon, red butterflies formed a staircase at the entrance.
Helen walked back up the stairs, holding in each hand a thin little girl who looked no more than ten years old.
After the two girls came to the surface, they held hands and ran away along the mine tunnel with a series of strange laughter, leaving only a red stone in Helen's hand.
"Look, Mr. Hamilton, that's what I came here for."
She showed Shade the ordinary-looking stone, which didn't even have the whisper element:
"What's this?"
Xia De asked curiously, but his eyes were still on the backs of the little girls going away. They were also evil spirits, and judging from the sounds in his ears, all the evil spirits he had seen just now might not be their opponents.
"The offering, the Curse Stone, is a specialty of the last century. The two girls just now were the ones my sister and I rescued when we passed by this village in the last century. Their souls are forever imprisoned here, but this is also why this kind of stone can be produced."
"They... ...didn't leave in the end?"
"But they managed to stay together forever."
The childish laughter still lingered in his ears. Xia De turned to look at Helen, who had a smile on her face:
"If you want to call back a being that has already left, you must offer a sacrifice as a price. It's not easy to find the spell stone every time."
When she said this, she looked a little lonely, but quickly returned to normal.
He threw the stone in his hand aside, and a group of red butterflies automatically enveloped it:
"Well, sir, now we can get out of this horrible place."
She pulled Shade's wrist again:
"But don't jump."
Winking at Xia De playfully:
"Please follow me. I will take you to the top of the mountain. There is a shortcut here. Oh, please put the sword away. It is really unfriendly to me."
As she spoke, she raised her right arm and slashed it in the air. Immediately, a red mark appeared in the air, and as the light spread in all directions like a butterfly, white mist emerged from the red crack until it completely engulfed Shade and the black-haired Helen.
Outsider, you have entered the narrow space between life and death. The physical strength and the spiritual strength are reversed, please do not stay here for too long.
Because she had entered there once before, she could easily judge the current situation.
The white fog was so thick that Xia De could hardly see what was happening in front of him. When the damp and cold fog dissipated, they were actually standing on a steep stone staircase in the mountains.
Everything around was black, white and gray, and unlike the last time Xia De came, the black was more prominent this time. After the two earthquakes, the narrow space itself had also changed a lot. The last time Xia De walked in it, he just felt a little cold, but now he felt the bone-chilling cold almost immediately penetrated his bones.
That’s because you didn’t hold the “Leaf of Eternal Youth” in your mouth.
"She" reminded him gently, and Xia De immediately took out his pocket watch and held the leaf in his mouth. But the chill still did not dissipate, and the whole world's malice towards the living almost became tangible, making him think that some giant was watching him.
"Please follow me."
The girl in the black dress took Shade's hand, and they walked up the stone steps together. Groups of red butterflies flew up and down the stone steps, until they dyed the steps red.
The red butterflies and scarlet spots of light all over the sky add a bit of warmth to the world of monotonous colors, just like vivid lines painted with red oil in a sketch book.
The red butterflies were protecting them, and the evil spirits that were lingering in the narrow space were driven deeper into the forest. Looking at those red butterflies, Xia De felt a little sad for some reason.
The stone steps lead directly to the top of the mountain in the narrow world. There are several small peaks on the top of Mount Xikar in the real world, but it is generally flat. The trees on the top of the mountain are very sparse. After walking a few dozen steps on the stone road connected to the stone steps, you can see the sparkling mountaintop lake in front.
But in the narrow space between life and death, when I stepped over the last step and officially reached the large platform on the top of the mountain, surrounded by those strange black dead trees, was the large crack on the top of the mountain that Iluna mentioned.
A violent black wind gushed out from it, wantonly spraying ashes towards the terrifying black and gray sky.
This black fog was very familiar to Shade. The black wind that blew out from the Gate of Death at the foot of the mountain was of the same composition. Therefore, the large crack on the top of the mountain in front of him was the narrow passage leading to the real death on the top of the mountain.
The red butterflies in the sky shrank along the stone steps behind them and circled around the two again:
"Mr. Hamilton, please follow me."
Helen let go of Shad's hand and walked forward with Shad to the edge of the crack.
At this moment, even the red butterflies could not protect the two people in the black wind intact. The strong wind representing the power of death blew past, and the light of the red butterflies gradually dimmed. Helen's face turned pale, and cracks appeared on Xia De's body.
The cracks appeared not only on the exposed skin, but also on the clothes. As the wind blew across his cheeks, the golden light trailed back like a flame tail, as if a golden flame had ignited on Shade's body.
He reached out and supported Helen:
"If you can't hold on, then I'll do it."
"No."
She shook her head gently, and tears began to flow in the wind without her knowing. Her blue eyes stared ahead:
"We have done it countless times, yes, countless times, so long that we have lost track of time."
The red butterflies came to her with the red offering - the spell stone. Helen cut her wrist with a knife and let her blood soak the stone. Her blood was not normal red, but bright red like the red butterflies.
Then, she picked up the stone and threw it into the abyss. The next moment, a red light gushed out from the bottom of the big crack on the top of the mountain, and in that light, dense red butterflies flew out of the abyss.
The group of butterflies wrapped around a figure, a figure that looked exactly like Helen.
"Sister... Grace..."
Helen looked at her with tears in her eyes:
"We meet again."
The girl who emerged from the crack was wearing a white dress. When she opened her eyes and looked at Helen at the edge of the crack, the red butterflies in the sky overwhelmed the sharpness of the black wind of death for the first time:
"Helen..."
They opened their arms and hugged each other. The red butterfly pendants on their waists flashed, almost turning the entire mountaintop red. Shade immediately stepped back. He didn't want to disturb this moment of reunion. Moreover, the whispering elements of Grace and Helen were so strong that he couldn't get close to them.
“This is the ritual.”
The old witch's voice came from behind him. Shade turned around and saw Granny Cassandra, Sister Develyn, and the witch's apprentice Miss Rita Swift behind him. So close to the death passage, the three of them had green runes hanging around their waists to protect them from temporary safety.
"Is this what you said about catching up?"
Shade asked with a sigh.
His body surface still showed the afterglow of divinity, but the old witch seemed to have known that this would happen and was not surprised at all. Sister Defulin, who "saw" everything, did not ask anything. Only the young witch apprentice looked like she wanted to ask something but did not dare to.
She was very curious about the current situation, the marks on Shad's body, and what the human-shaped object Shad was carrying was.
"Look, didn't we catch up in the end?"
The old witch smiled and said, then looked up at the two people hugging each other in front of the big crack on the top of the mountain, in the sky full of red butterflies:
"It's a ceremony that takes place every 22 years. The teachers can only get together once every 22 years, and the time they get together is one year. After that, the one who has lived alone for 21 years will return to death, and the one who has been awakened from death will walk alone in the world. She will live alone for another 21 years, until she returns here again to meet her sisters again. After spending a year together, they will enter the 22-year cycle again."
She sighed. As the person who had witnessed the most ceremonies in the past hundred years, Xena Cassandra was the one who could relate to the situation the most:
"This is the blessing of the great twin gods of the old days. They will be together forever. As long as they follow the cycle of the ritual, they will always be together... Hami... Shade, do you know what the red butterfly means?"
Xia De stared at the two people in the red butterfly in a daze:
"The Red Butterfly is the holy emblem of the Old Gods, the Twin Gods."
"The Twin Gods are two persons in one, one mind and one soul."
Sister Defulyn gave the correct answer for Shad.
The old witch nodded and explained softly:
"In this ceremony, the red butterfly symbolizes separation. When the reunion every 22 years is over, the teachers will return here again, and then the one who has to wait for another 21 years will strangle their sister to death and throw her body into the crack on the top of the mountain. This is not only to start the cycle again, but also a means for the good god who once descended on the Xikar Mountain area to help suppress the narrow space."
The witch apprentice gasped.
Xia De bit his lip:
"I have seen the phoenix under this crack in my dream, and saw that it was surrounded by densely packed bones (Chapter 708). Those were..."
Xia De didn't say anything else, but he already understood.
"Red Butterfly."
Sister Defulin asked softly:
“These fluttering red butterflies should be related to the ritual, right?”
"Yes, what do you think the red butterfly looks like?"
Shade had guessed it.
"The body will fall into the big crack, and the red pinch marks on the neck will fly out again and turn into a red butterfly."
The four people on the cliff looked at the red butterflies flying in the sky. The old witch said softly:
"Each of the red butterflies here symbolizes a long separation, a sorrow that killed a sister, a twisted ritual of love, and the next reunion... Mr. Hamilton, do you know how many red butterflies there are here?"
Xia De couldn't describe the feeling in his heart at this moment. He thought this wouldn't be a warm story, but he didn't expect it to be like this:
"I don't know, but... it should have been a long time, right?"
They originally participated in the God's Wine Party in order to escape the separation between life and death, and also to help the twins in the family escape this fate. They got the answers they wanted and even gained immortality, but in the end they still couldn't escape the fate of separation.
However, the eternal separation has turned into a 22-year cycle of pain and waiting. This will be eternal pain, and everything is for the meeting and reunion once every 22 years.
Someone seems to be singing in the wind, and the "she" beside my ear is also responding to the faint sound. The ancient language that has come through the curtain of time tells the story of meeting, waiting, blood relationship and love:
The red butterfly spreads its wings and flies,
Flying over the towering mountains,
Across the black river.
May the wind take away the eternal yearning,
Until the end of life and death.
This was the nursery rhyme that Professor Manning had mentioned, and it was also the method that Old John used to make the pendant, but it was not until this moment that Shad understood the meaning of the nursery rhyme.
It's not a ritual step, it's not an alchemical recipe, it's really just a story.
The true story, their story, spans two eras, representing the story of the red butterflies, which represents longing and attachment.
Chapter 732 Red Butterfly