Chapter 449: A Miraculous Life

The square stone table was only illuminated in the half where the oil lamp was placed. Beside the table was a round stone stool, which seemed to be fixed to the ground and could not be moved.

Mr. Riddle lifted his robe and sat down, while Xia De stood behind him.

As Mr. Riddle sat, a soft "pop" sound came from across the table. In the thick darkness on the other half of the room, which could not be illuminated, a faint yellow flame appeared.

Almost symmetrically to the kerosene lamp at Mr. Riddle's side, a short, burning white candle appeared on the edge of the stone table on the other side. The candle had been burning for some time, with wax pooled at its base.

Its light was still only the size of a soybean, but it at least illuminated the other half of the table, as well as the figure in a black robe and hood who had appeared at some point, sitting on the other side.

This scene was exceptionally terrifying. Before this, the darkness on the other half of the room had been completely impenetrable. Therefore, neither Mr. Riddle nor Xia De could confirm whether this figure had been sitting there quietly watching their conversation the whole time, or if it had just appeared.

The appearance of the stranger made the air in the room seem to turn from gas to solid in an instant, freezing the entire room. It wasn't just a physical sense of restraint; the pressure perceived by his spirit made Xia De frown.

Mr. Riddle let out a muffled groan and collapsed face-first onto the stone table, taking a long time to lift his head while bracing himself against the tabletop.

Tiny specks of golden light appeared on the surface of Xia De's clothes and skin; the information Mr. Riddle provided was actually correct. This table really did summon a god.

However, the pressure the other party exerted upon appearing was not even as great as that of the 【Innocent Creator】 who claimed to have "no power." Xia De guessed this was because the method of summoning the god was not a ritual, but the use of this Unknown-level relic.

The other party was not the god's true form, nor a saint; they could only be considered a phantom of the god. But this was also reasonable; after all, according to Mr. Riddle's account, the purpose of summoning the god was to conduct a gamble, and if the god's appearance made the gamble impossible to proceed, that would be putting the cart before the horse.

The light from the bowl-like black porcelain oil lamp and the short candle finally allowed Xia De to see the tabletop in front of him clearly.

The surface of the square stone table was not smooth; in front of the black-robed figure and Mr. Riddle, there were ten rectangular grooves each.

The twenty grooves were arranged in two parallel rows. On the side of each square groove facing the center of the table, tiny channels extended. The twenty dense channels connected to each other, making the table surface look like the complex circuit diagrams the Outlander had seen in his hometown.

"God!"

Xia De and Mr. Riddle bowed their heads in salute to the other party together; this was the most basic respect. The figure under the black robe, however, made no sound and no movement.

Instead, amidst the terrifying pressure that had solidified the air, the corpses by the wall were infected by this power and actually began to chant in low voices together. This scene truly made Xia De's scalp tingle.

"This is the game of life!"

"Ten chances, place your life's scenes in order."

"A pathetic life."

"A lamentable life."

"A ridiculous life."

"A terrifying life."

"The God will use the believer's life to compare with yours."

"Each segment of life interacts."

"Until the end."

"Ten segments of life compared against ten segments of life."

"The winner may leave!"

"Praise my Lord!"

The corpses repeated this passage in three different tones, in unison, three times before stopping.

This was likely the rule of the gamble: the ten segments of life were not only to be compared against the opponent's, but one's own life segments would also create chains with each other, generating even greater power.

But Xia De still did not understand:

"What constitutes victory? What is meant by the comparison of lives?"

But those corpses did not answer at all. Mr. Riddle, who was sitting, raised his hand to signal Xia De not to continue speaking. He said in a dazed tone:

"I think I understand. Using all the brilliant moments of one's life to oppose another person's life..."

He placed his hand over the first groove on his left and only moved it away after a long time.

And in the previously empty groove, there was now a card perfectly embedded within it. It was a colorful card; on the card face, Mr. Riddle was huddled under a tombstone, with a terrifying, vast shadow behind the tombstone. Although it was a flat image, to Xia De, it had a distinct sense of three-dimensionality, and even the patches of shadow seemed to be writhing on the card.

Gilded text appeared bit by bit at the top of the card. After interpreting it, the meaning was 【Su Sheng of the Dead】.

"I once encountered a powerful evil spirit."

Mr. Riddle looked down at the card. Xia De showed an expression of surprise; it seemed this gentleman's life experiences were even richer than he had imagined.

"That was about ten years ago. In order to obtain some precious wild medicinal herbs, I entered the eastern mountainous region of the Southern Continent alone and lived with the villagers of a small mountain village for three months, but..."

"You discovered that those villagers had long been dead, and you were actually living with the dead under a hallucination."

Xia De said.

"How did you know?"

Mr. Riddle was quite surprised.

"Um... this is a very common story in my hometown. Sorry to interrupt your story, but Mr. Riddle, how did you escape?"

It wasn't that Xia De looked down on the ancient prophet before him, but with the strength of an ordinary person, let alone a village of the dead in the deep mountains, he might not even be able to contend with an ordinary evil spirit.

The middle-aged man showed a look of confusion:

"How did I escape... Sorry, my memory is a bit blurry. Having lived here for so long, I seem to have lost quite a lot of my memories."

Fortunately, after recalling for a while, Mr. Riddle gave an answer:

"It was a certain dusk. I had returned from gathering herbs and was standing at the village entrance when I had a sudden whim to look at the village through a mirror, and then I discovered that I was actually standing in a dilapidated graveyard. I was terrified and huddled under a tombstone, not daring to move. Those evil spirits called my name and peered at me from all around, but they could never catch me. I didn't dare to move until dawn came again, and then I fled in a hurry. When I met an adventure team entering the mountains, I was almost starving to death... Later, I consulted a witch from the Society, and she didn't know how I had survived either. People followed the map I provided to look for that graveyard again, but they could never find it."

Xia De did not know how to evaluate Mr. Riddle's experience, but it sounded very much like he had encountered a powerful relic. And according to the description, a relic with such a large range and containing so many evil spirits would definitely not be rated lower than Sage-level.

And in the moments the two were talking, in front of the God in black robes across the table, the first square groove lit up, and a card appeared in the groove. It was a scene of a beautiful woman, a witch, holding her right hand high, pointing toward the sun in the sky.

Black light flowed out from the 【Su Sheng of the Dead】 groove, following the thin channels on the tabletop; golden light flowed out from the groove of the card with the witch pointing to the sun, also following the channels on the stone table.

The two streams of flowing light met in the middle of the table. The moment the black and gold met, vast phantoms of evil spirits appeared above 【Su Sheng of the Dead】, and a phantom of the petite woman appeared above the groove in front of the God.

Two illusory images, looking like projections, flew toward the center of the table under Xia De's surprised gaze, and then actually began to fight. The battle lasted for five minutes, after which they each retreated above the slots filled with cards, waiting for their companions to appear.

Xia De was dumbfounded, not because he was surprised by the scene just now; after all, he had read all sorts of strange stories back in his hometown. He just felt that compared to the previous two time exploration experiences, this one was truly... too interesting.

"Mr. Riddle, do you have any other strange experiences?"

Although he knew this emotion was wrong, Xia De still asked his companion beside him with some excitement, 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 sparse-haired head:

"Sorry, I know I have experienced many things, but I really am... A dragon! Yes, I once encountered a dragon!"

Amidst Xia De's surprised and excited expression, the man in the brown robe pressed his hand above the second groove at his side.

After Mr. Riddle's hand was removed, a colorful card was embedded in the groove. The pattern on it was Mr. Riddle running wildly in a forest, with a huge creature in the sky behind him breathing fire.

Gilded text appeared at the top of the card, appearing like flowing fire; the meaning was 【Dragon Disaster】.

Unlike the dragon that looked like a pigeon that Xia De saw in the Maze-Desolate Wilds, the dragon that appeared on the card was a pure-blooded dragon in the true sense. This creature had no sighting records in the Sixth Era at all, and even the textbooks of Saint Byron's only used sketches to depict the general appearance of a dragon. Therefore, this could be considered the first time Xia De saw the true appearance of a dragon.

That dragon was even uglier than Xia De had imagined; it seemed the drawings in Saint Byron's textbooks had been beautified.

"This was my experience when I was twenty years old."

Mr. Riddle held his forehead, struggling to dig information out of his head:

"That year I... went on vacation with friends to the Black Forest in the south of the Eastern Continent."

Xia De found it hard to imagine what kind of person would go on vacation in a forest with such a name. However, combined with this gentleman's life experiences, he was probably quite keen on this kind of adventure.

"We discovered a cave entrance on the cliff of a forest hill and bet on what kind of animal's nest it was. We couldn't agree, so we climbed in together to check, and then..."

He showed a sad expression, but his memory became smoother:

"Only I survived. That dragon probably thought we were going to steal its things and chased me for a long way before being driven away by a witch living in the Black Forest. But that witch also said it was I who lured the dragon to burn down the forest, and forced me to sign a contract to replant one hundred tree seedlings in the forest every year until I died or compensated for all the losses. If I didn't go, my soul would constantly feel the pain of being scorched... I finished replanting this year's quota before setting off to start this trip. Next year, the year after, and the year after that, I have to continue doing it. This has become my life's responsibility, which is why I can remember this experience."

Xia De kept a straight face and did not express an opinion. Judging from the degree of hatred witches had for men in the Fifth Era, Mr. Riddle being punished to replant tree seedlings every year was truly a very light punishment. ===== CHAPTER 450 =====