Chapter 72: Underground (Requesting Monthly Votes)

They? Lu Mi was startled by Ryan Cos’s answer.

He had assumed Ryan Cos had drowned “on his own” in the river, becoming a sacrifice to some entity—but now it seemed others had been involved, not just some invisible force dragging him under.

“Who are they?” Aurora asked the question.

Ryan Cos’s expression twisted and stiffened, his eyes filled with hatred yet blank, and he shouted with furious intensity:

“Pons Béne—it’s Pons Béne and his men!”

“They held me under the water!”

After we left the water’s edge with Ava, Pons Béne and those thugs appeared at the spot where Ryan Cos had climbed ashore, shoved him back into the river, and drowned him alive as a sacrifice? Lu Mi reconstructed the scene from Ryan Cos’s fragmented words.

The entire Lenten Festival had become a ritual of sacrifice to something unholy!

Aurora pressed for more details, but Ryan Cos repeated only those few phrases, as if they were all his memories contained.

Huh, I missed the optimal window for spirit communication—only residual obsession remains… Aurora considered for a moment, then decided to ask something Ryan Cos might—or might not—remember deeply:

“Did they sacrifice you to some entity?”

“What are its traits? Where is it?”

This time, Aurora had learned caution—she didn’t ask for the full honorific name, only gathering peripheral clues to aid her judgment.

She believed that during his sacrifice, if his spirit retained awareness, it must have “seen,” “heard,” or “felt” certain things, leaving deep impressions—otherwise, it wouldn’t.

Ryan Cos froze, his tear ducts filling with increasingly thick, blood-tinted tears.

Lu Mi’s face darkened as he watched him, his hands clenched tight without him even noticing.

Suddenly, Ryan Cos screamed:

“Underground! Beneath the church!”

What? Aurora nearly doubted her own ears.

Combined with her question, Ryan Cos was clearly saying the hidden entity to whom he was sacrificed resided beneath the church!

Impossible—this is the Fifth Era; how could a god walk the earth? Aurora steadied herself, thinking Ryan Cos’s spirit retained only fragments of obsession and faint spiritual residue, making his answers chaotic, fixated on just a few points—he wasn’t necessarily pointing to the entity hidden beneath the church, just reacting instinctively.

But regardless of whether Ryan Cos was giving a true answer or repeating his obsession, the church’s basement must be problematic—it held the key to the sacrifice ritual!

Aurora only hoped whatever was hidden there wouldn’t be too terrifying, too extreme.

She asked other questions, but Ryan Cos’s spirit only repeated: “They drowned me,” “Pons Béne,” “beneath the church.”

Seeing no further gains, Aurora ended the spirit communication, watching Ryan Cos’s figure vanish above the candle flame, the altar’s pale blue hue rapidly fading.

After dissolving the wall of spiritual energy, she found Lu Mi standing there, lost in thought, silent.

“Hey, what are you thinking?” Aurora waved her hand before her brother’s face.

Lu Mi pulled at his lips, forcing a smile:

“I’m regretting I didn’t hit Pons Béne harder yesterday.”

Though he had kneed Pons Béne hard enough to cause him great pain, he’d held back, knowing he had to wait until the Twelfth Night—better not escalate tensions with the parish priest and his men yet, so he’d restrained his strength, avoiding turning Pons Béne into a cripple.

“There’ll be chances,” Aurora comforted him.

Lu Mi nodded, letting out a dry “Ha”:

“Actually, we’ve fallen into a misconception. Before Lent, not only were we afraid of escalating tensions—so were the parish priest and his men. They weren’t ready yet; they hadn’t begun the ritual.”

In other words, if he’d truly inflicted irreversible injuries on Pons Béne, the parish priest and his men would’ve merely pretended to retaliate, taking no real action.

They’d bide their time until Lent—and whether or not Lu Mi had offended them, once the Lenten Festival “began,” every sane person in the village would become their target.

Aurora understood what Lu Mi meant, nodding gently:

“You decide how to retaliate against Pons Béne.”

“Right now, we need to consider: once the parish priest and his men gain great power during Lent, how do we survive—how do we live until the Twelfth Night?”

Lu Mi immediately fell into deep thought.

Aurora voiced her own ideas:

“So far, there are only two options: ally with those three outsiders, or find a way to strengthen ourselves.”

She hesitated, then added:

“If we can confirm Madame Pualis has no connection to the Cycle, and is also trapped here, we might even cooperate with her to some extent.”

“Huh?” Lu Mi was stunned.

Madame Pualis was such a terrifying, unholy adept!

Aurora sighed:

“In my homeland, a philosopher once said: when acting, distinguish between primary and secondary contradictions—unite every possible force.”

“Hmm, the church’s basement must be problematic—it holds key clues. Before Lent, we absolutely must investigate it; after that, we may never get another chance.”

According to Aurora’s knowledge, most churches in this world had underground areas—some to store sealed objects, others to bury the remains of important figures. Though the church in Cordeu Village had neither sealed objects nor anyone of significance to bury, it was still built with a sizable basement according to standard design.

“Alright,” Lu Mi agreed. “I’ll talk to those three outsiders tomorrow.”

He shifted to Ryan Cos’s condition:

“Why can he only say those few phrases? Didn’t we successfully summon his spirit?”

Aurora sighed again:

“Spirit communication has a critical window: within one hour after death.”

“After that, the dead spirit disperses rapidly, losing all original memories—only the strongest obsessions, emotions, and images remain. In the technical terms of my homeland, we call them ‘obsessions.’”

Lu Mi nodded slightly, listening.

“Next cycle, if we summon Ryan Cos right at the start, does that count as within one hour of death?”

“Wait—why does Ryan Cos remember events from the previous cycle?”

He suddenly realized the problem: after the cycle restarted, shouldn’t Ryan Cos have forgotten being drowned?

That stumped Aurora. She weighed her thoughts from the ritual and replied carefully:

“I think it does.”

“At this point in time, Lent hasn’t arrived yet. According to the worldline, Ryan Cos hasn’t been drowned yet—he shouldn’t know who his killers are. But since he lost his body and exists only as a spirit, he’s effectively dead, so his obsession lingers. That’s why the spirit we just summoned remembers certain events from the previous cycle.”

“In short: Ryan Cos’s state, altered by losing his body, causes partial memory retention upon cycle restart!”

“Heh, we’ve exploited a bug.”

The cycle had developed a minor glitch because Ryan Cos’s body was sacrificed? Lu Mi roughly understood his sister’s meaning.

Aurora smiled:

“This suggests the force driving the cycle is mechanical, rigid—no longer under its original master’s control, running on autopilot. Otherwise, it could’ve directly dealt with Ryan Cos’s spirit.”

As she spoke, she seemed to relax slightly:

“Ha, if that’s true, we still have a chance to break the cycle.”

Influenced by his sister’s mood, Lu Mi’s gloom lifted a little:

After all this effort, they’d finally glimpsed a sliver of hope.

Together, they cleaned the altar, climbed to the second-floor study, and Aurora taught Lu Mi the correct Hermesian and Ancient Hermesian words, one by one, following the chaotic, incorrect order he’d written down from memory.

Some of the words were already familiar to Lu Mi, so his progress was decent.

Beneath the bright desk lamp, Aurora sometimes explained pronunciation and structure to her brother, sometimes mixed incense, clove, blood, and other materials to craft the next batch of candles while he reviewed.

As Lu Mi studied intently, he occasionally looked up at his busy sister beside him, feeling as if he’d returned to his old, warm life—no cycle, no dark gods.

Outside, the night was quiet.

…………

In the bedroom thick with faint gray mist, Lu Mi woke.

He sprang from bed, went to the desk, pulled out paper and pen, and wrote down the Ancient Hermesian and Hermesian words he still remembered, in their incorrect order—then assigned them the correct numbering.

After finishing, Lu Mi exhaled, studying the items before him.

On the wooden desk near the window lay four things: two gray-white musk candles made by Aurora (one with Lu Mi’s blood, one without), the bottle of gray amber perfume, the small metal vial containing tulip powder, and the silver dagger provided by Aurora.

The lady truly sent them in… Seeing this, Lu Mi’s heart settled considerably.

He took the items, found an incense stick Aurora had made, descended to the first floor, placed them on the dining table, then went to the kitchen for a cup of clear water and a dish of coarse salt.

All ritual materials were now prepared.

Before sleeping, Aurora had worried Lu Mi hadn’t invoked the corresponding symbol for his request, unable to draw it on faux parchment and burn it to convey his desire to the target deity—but she reasoned that since the mysterious lady hadn’t mentioned it, it must not be necessary—after all, the ritual fundamentally appealed to the power within Lu Mi himself, which could directly “hear” all prayers without needing extra “documents.”

Gazing at the items on the dining table, Lu Mi took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

Without hesitation, he placed the gray-white candle containing his blood directly above the altar’s divine position, and the other one before himself.

Following the order of deity first, then human, he ignited the candles by rubbing them with spiritual energy, then clumsily consecrated the ritual silver dagger and formed the wall of spiritual energy.

As spiritual energy surged from the dagger’s tip, weaving through the surrounding air, he suddenly felt—this was true occultism.

Soon, the wall of spiritual energy was complete, and Lu Mi’s spiritual energy was half-depleted.

Using the incense from his home and his own meditation, he cleared his awareness, entering the state required for ritual magic.

In the quiet hum, Lu Mi “dripped” the gray amber perfume and tulip powder into the candle representing the deity.

An odd fragrance spread, and everything seemed to turn fantastical.

Lu Mi glanced at the crib sheet beside the altar, stepped back, and stared at the burning candle, chanting in Ancient Hermesian with a low, steady voice:

“O power of fate!”

ps: Requesting monthly votes~

(End of chapter)