Chapter 570: Ancestor

Lu Mian turned his head to look at the direction of the pier, his body suddenly became thin and melted into the shadows produced because the moonlight couldn't shine on it.

He followed the darkness everywhere, bypassed the guards at the door, and entered that building with quite a religious atmosphere silently.

Just after passing through the foyer, he paused.

He saw that in the depths of the dim "gauze," there were one after another dwarves with deformed large heads, protruding eyes, wrinkled skin like seven or eighty-year-old men, and a height of only a little over one meter.

That was exactly the "Little Devil" in the mouths of Juan Oro and others, a type of Sea Kin.

At this time, these "Little Devils" were utilizing their specialty of being able to sneak into shadows, patrolling in groups of three or five in every darkness within the "Sea Viceroy" mansion, not letting anyone mix in through this.

Lu Mian had dealt with them and was clear that these "Little Devils" weren't considered powerful. Besides being able to merge into shadows, they could use shadows to create illusions. He could easily solve a team.

But no matter how easy it was, he couldn't guarantee that dealing with one of the "Little Devil" teams wouldn't produce a little noise and wouldn't be noticed by other creatures in this building.

Lu Mian concentrated his spirit and sized up the areas not covered by shadows, finding that in the crimson moonlight, there were vaguely many figures swimming in the void, sometimes appearing, sometimes hiding.

Those were fish covered in deep-gray armor-like scales.

They also had protruding eyes, like meat balls embedded at both ends of the body. In the seams of the armor-like scales, there were "thin lines" condensed from starlight hidden.

These strange fish wandered in mid-air, distributed in different areas, and their mouths occasionally spat out bubbles containing formless storms and cracks like thorns.

A large number of bubbles exploded, and countless "thorns" mixed in the formless storm swept toward the surroundings, burying dangerous traps for "guests" who arrived through "teleportation."

At the connection between the hall and different corridors, guards in teams of three walked back and forth without making half a sound. They looked normal and didn't have anything strange, but Lu Mian just blinked his eyes and saw one after another black insects covered with slender, stiff hair drilling out from the back of their necks and the edges of their mouths.

The Batin black worms checked the surroundings and quickly shrank back into the bodies of those guards. And the various marine creature sculptures on the walls seemed to have their eyes come alive, scanning every area with self-awareness.

"Sure enough, as Juan Oro said, there are a large number of different Sea Kin here. Sneaking in silently is indeed very difficult," Lu Mian muttered to himself in his heart, didn't rush forward, stayed in the foyer area, and waited patiently for the opportunity.

In less than two minutes, a loud noise came from the direction of the pier.

Crimson firelight rolled and rose instantly, rushing into mid-air, illuminating every window nearby and making them tremble slightly.

Regardless of whether it was the "Little Devils" patrolling in the shadows, the "Armored Strange Fish" affecting the surrounding void, the Batin black worms controlling the guards, or the special creatures hidden in the eyes of the sculptures, at this time, they all instinctively cast their attention toward the glass window near the pier.

Lu Mian moved.

The noise just now was manufactured by his delayed explosion!

He seized this opportunity, swam past the shadows beside the "Little Devils," and bypassed the area patrolled by the "Armored Strange Fish."

Immediately after, before other Sea Kin noticed, he locked onto the room at the very back of the hall according to the information Juan Oro gave.

The black mark on his right shoulder emitted a faint light, his whole person flashed directly to the door of the target room, and then quickly turned into a shadow, drilling into it from the crack of the door.

What entered Lu Mian's line of sight were many patterns and symbols engraved on the floor, ceiling, and walls. They were like an enlarged version of the sacrificial ring pattern Juan Oro had hand-drawn.

Besides that, there was nothing else.

"During the Vigil Ceremony, several types of Sea Kin will enter here, reduce the patterns on the top, bottom, left, right, front, and back, etch them onto the ring embryo, and immerse them in special energy?" Lu Mian quickly looked around, left the shadows, and activated a black mark on his chest.

The surface of the surrounding walls suddenly had water waves that were almost invisible rippling, but they calmed down quickly.

"Bottle of Fiction"!

Lu Mian "put" these two connected rooms into the "Bottle of Fiction," setting the entry condition as "ordinary human."

Then, he hid by the door, which was the mouth of the "Bottle of Fiction," and deliberately made heavy footsteps.

Almost at the same time, some kind of Sea Kin noticed the movement in this place.

They associated it with the explosion at the pier and the firelight rushing into the sky, instantly understanding that their group had just fallen into someone else's conspiracy and had their attention diverted!

They immediately called out to companions like "Armored Strange Fish," Batin black worms, and "Little Devils," letting them immediately enter the ring-making ceremony location to check for possible intruders.

These Sea Kin opened the door, trying to rush in in various ways, but all inexplicably returned to the original place, returned to the hall.

The "Armored Strange Fish" quickly noticed the essence of the problem and began to spit bubbles containing formless storms toward the entrance and exit of the "Bottle of Fiction."

And as soon as they surged over, with their minds set on entering the room, Lu Mian had already turned into a shadow creature, sticking to the crack at the bottom of the wooden door, quietly leaving the "Bottle of Fiction," and returning to the hall.

His actions just now were still to attract the attention of the Sea Kin, creating an opportunity for himself to change positions!

Good strategies should of course be used multiple times!

And it was very difficult for the other party to think that they would encounter the same strategy in a short time. They would instinctively think that the enemy had other arrangements.

Of course, by the third time, they would be overly vigilant against similar strategies, seeing everything as if it were diverting their attention. By then, Lu Mian could act in the opposite way.

Taking advantage of the fact that the attention of these Sea Kin was attracted to the "Bottle of Fiction," Lu Mian didn't rush, avoided the area where the Little Devils gathered, bypassed the vicinity of the "Armored Strange Fish" to a corner of the hall, and used "Spirit World Shuttle" again.

This time, his destination was the stairwell leading to the basement.

The guards there had also been attracted to the hall.

Lu Mian's figure had just been outlined at the entrance of the stairs, and immediately turned into a shadow again, sneaking into the basement along the large area of darkness.

There were no guards or Sea Kin monitoring here, and it seemed to be considered an unimportant area, just entrusting the respect of the Milo Village villagers for their ancestors.

Lu Mian, who was in the state of a shadow creature, "naturally" possessed dark vision, didn't need to manufacture fireballs, and roughly saw the situation in the dark underground:

Because it was by the sea, the stone-paved floor and walls were somewhat damp, but thanks to the influence of various supernatural powers on the building itself, no musty smell appeared.

In the very middle of the basement, there was a dilapidated stone platform resembling a place for ancestor worship, with a large number of traces of destruction distributed around it, leaving only some disconnected lines, arcs, and partial patterns that couldn't see the original appearance.

"Did the complete symbols and patterns form the emblem of the ancestors of Milo Village? Or does this belong to a pattern with mystical effects?" Lu Mian looked over and over again, finding it difficult to restore the appearance of this place before it was destroyed in his mind.

But he felt that since Noelia of the Abundance Convent said that the symbols and patterns here could reveal some things, he should be able to harvest some information.

What information would it be? Lu Mian maintained the state of a shadow creature, grew a body in the darkness, and looked around.

He frowned slightly and whispered silently:

"Could it be that the 'Mother Goddess of Earth' Church clearly had the ability to completely destroy this place, but still kept the remnants?

"Does this represent that the Sea-Praying Ceremony also has some kind of effect on them?"

Lu Mian cast his gaze toward the stone platform for ancestor worship, naturally recalling the details of the ring-making ceremony that Juan Oro had said:

"After the 'Sea Queen's Ring' is made, it will be placed here for an hour, representing respect for the ancestors.

"Is it placed on this altar that has collapsed by half?" Lu Mian approached the gray-black stone platform and found that there was no dust accumulation on it, and all the remaining lines pointed to the blank space at the center of the circle.

His heart moved, he took out a gold louis, and placed it on the center of the circle on the altar.

Nothing happened.

Lu Mian put away the gold louis, changed to items like gold liso, "Spectator Glasses," "Torture" gloves, etc., and placed them on it one by one.

Still no anomaly.

Lu Mian didn't give up, took out the silver-white "Lie" earring from his pocket, and placed it on the blank space on the surface of the stone platform without lines.

The next second, Lu Mian's whole person seemed to be pulled out of reality.

He saw lines and arcs protruding from the depths of the stone platform. They were illusory and had no substance, yet they truly existed, connecting with the remnants, forming two patterns:

One pattern was layers upon layers of doors drawn with simple techniques, and the other was a circular disk with twelve grids of different sizes on the surface, resembling a clock, but with only one hand.

Lu Mian watched intently, feeling something attached to the "Lie" earring.

In the blink of an eye, the lines protruding from inside the stone platform ruins dimmed, retreated, and shrank back to their original positions. Everything here returned to a normal state.

"Were those two patterns representing the ancestors of Milo Village? Or the knowledge they obtained when they first received inspiration?" Lu Mian felt the Sea Kin surging toward the basement, muttered a sentence, grabbed the "Lie" earring, and "teleported" away directly.

…………

Solo Hotel, inside the master bedroom of the suite.

As soon as Lu Mian's figure was outlined, he sat down and began to write a letter to Lady "Magician"—he couldn't care about checking what changes the "Lie" earring had, and intended to send it together for his Major Arcana card to examine.

After roughly restoring the patterns, symbols, and structures of the sacrificial ring and the various situations he saw in the "Sea Viceroy" mansion, Lu Mian folded the letter paper neatly, set up a ritual, and summoned the "Doll" messenger.

Then, he waited patiently for a reply.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 571 =====

(End of chapter)