Chapter 717: Red Butterflies

Looking at the arm extended toward him by the black-dressed girl, Xia De sighed, and after communicating with the voice in his ear, he extended his hand wanting to grab the other party's hand, but the black-dressed girl withdrew her hand at the last moment.

"Clearly we only brushed past each other, but why give me such trust?"

She looked at Xia De with her hands behind her back, and Xia De shook his head:

"Helen, when I helped you at the wine party back then, was there a reason?"

Helen Black stared at Xia De, 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 very successful; I had a hard time convincing little Qina to help me."

"The disguise was very successful?"

Xia De asked suspiciously.

"That's not important; I just wanted to see, sir, what kind of person you are in your own era."

She stepped back with her hands behind her back, closer to the cave spraying black mist:

"You are truly an interesting person, more interesting than my sister and I thought. But below, it's not a place you should come to. Please wait for me for a moment; I need to get something. To welcome my sister's return, I need a sacrifice."

Saying this, her body tilted backward until she fell into the bottomless abyss.

Two-thirds of the red butterflies followed her and fell into the abyss cave, leaving only one-third still protecting Xia De here.

The surroundings were extremely quiet, with only the sounds of reviving evil spirits wandering in the distance of the mine tunnel:

"Helen... Grace... didn't expect Sister Devlin to cooperate with them in lying."

The calm did not last long. With the dust falling again from the top of his head, an astonishing roar exploded in the extremely quiet mine tunnel. The sound came from underground, from the deepest part of the relic. Just hearing that sound, Xia De felt as if he could see the twisted behemoth entrenched underground, wriggling and releasing its malice.

He was startled and hurriedly retreated a few steps. Soon after, red light shone again at the entrance of the underground cave, and not long after, red butterflies formed stairs at the entrance.

Helen stepped on the stairs, holding a thin little girl who looked no more than ten years old in each of her hands, and walked back up.

After the two girls reached the ground, they held hands and ran away along the mine tunnel amidst a series of strange laughter, leaving only a red stone in Helen's hand.

"Look, Mr. Hamilton, this is what I came to find."

She showed the stone that looked plain and unremarkable to Xia De; there wasn't even a whisper element on it:

"What is this?"

Xia De asked curiously, but his eyes were still looking at the backs of the little girls running away. They were also evil ghosts, and according to the judgment of the voice in his ear, even if all the evil ghosts he had seen just now were added together, they might not be their opponents.

"Sacrifice, spell stone, a specialty of the previous era. The two girls just now were girls I and my sister saved when we passed by this mountain village in the previous era. Their souls were forever trapped here, but because of this, they can produce this kind of stone."

"They... in the end, still didn't leave?"

"But they successfully stayed together forever."

That childish laughter still lingered in his ears. Xia De turned to look at Helen, and the latter had a smile on her face:

"Wanting to call back an existence that has already departed requires a sacrifice as a price; every time, finding a spell stone is truly not easy."

Speaking of this, her expression was somewhat desolate, but she quickly returned to normal.

She threw the stone in her hand to the side, and the red butterfly swarm automatically wrapped around it:

"Alright, sir, now we can leave this terrible place."

She grabbed Xia De's wrist again:

"However, it's not by jumping down."

She blinked at Xia De playfully:

"Please follow me; now I will take you to the mountaintop; there is a shortcut here. Oh, please take that sword further away; it is truly not friendly to me."

Saying this, she raised her right arm and slashed downward in the air. A scarlet mark immediately appeared in the air, and as light spots like butterflies spread in all directions, white mist emerged from that scarlet crack until it completely swallowed Xia De and Helen with black hair.

【Outsider, you have entered the gap between life and death. Physical power and soul power are reversed; please do not stay here for too long.】

Because she had entered once before, "she" easily judged the current situation.

The white mist was so thick that Xia De could hardly see the situation in front of him, and when the cold white mist dissipated, they were actually standing on a steep stone staircase in the mountains.

Everything around was in black, white, and gray, and unlike when Xia De came last time, this time black was clearly more prominent. After two earthquakes, the gap itself had changed a lot. Although Xia De only felt a bit cold when walking in it last time, at this moment he felt a bone-chilling cold that almost immediately invaded his bone marrow.

【That is because you didn't hold the "Youthful Leaf" in your mouth.】

"She" reminded him gently, and Xia De immediately found the pocket watch and held the leaf in his mouth. But the cold still didn't dissipate, and the malice of

"Please follow me."

The young lady in the black dress took Xia De's hand, and the two walked upward along the stone steps together. Swarms of red butterflies flew up and down along the mountain stone steps until they dyed the staircase red.

The sky full of red butterflies and crimson light spots added a touch of warmth to a world that only had monotonous colors, just like fresh lines painted with red oil on a sketchpad.

The red butterflies were protecting them, and the evil spirits patrolling the Abyss were driven into the deeper parts of the mountain forest. Looking at those red butterflies, Xia De felt inexplicably sad.

The stone steps led directly to the summit of the Abyss world. The summit of Mount Sicar in the real world had several small peaks, but it was generally flat, and the trees on the summit were very sparse. After walking a few dozen steps on the stone path connected to the stone steps, he saw the sparkling mountain lake ahead.

But in the Abyss of Life and Death, after crossing the last step and formally stepping onto the large platform at the summit, what was surrounded by those strange black withered trees was the large summit rift that Yin Luna had mentioned.

Violent black wind surged from within, wantonly spraying ash toward the terrifying black-gray sky.

Xia De was very familiar with this black fog; the black wind blowing from the Gate of Death at the foot of the mountain had the same composition. Therefore, the large summit rift before his eyes was the passage from the Abyss summit to true death.

The sky full of red butterflies retracted along the stone steps behind them, circling around the two again:

"Mr. Hamilton, please follow me."

Helen let go of Xia De's hand and moved forward with him to the edge of the rift.

At this moment, even the red butterfly swarm could not protect the two of them from the black wind unscathed. The gale representing the power of death blew past, the light of the red butterfly swarm gradually dimmed, Helen's face turned pale, and cracks appeared on Xia De's body.

The cracks appeared not only on his exposed skin but also on his clothes. As the wind brushed his cheeks, the golden light traces dragged out a flame-like afterglow behind him, as if golden flames were ignited on Xia De's body.

He reached out to support Helen:

"If you cannot hold on, then let me do it."

"No."

She shook her head gently, and for some reason, she began to shed tears in the wind, her blue eyes fixed on the front:

"It has been done countless times, yes, countless times, so long that we have forgotten time."

The red butterfly swarm brought the red sacrifice—the spell stone—to her side. Helen used a small knife to cut her wrist, letting her blood soak the stone. Her blood was not normal red, but a bright red like the red butterflies.

Afterward, she picked up the stone and threw it into the abyss. The next moment, crimson light surged from the bottom of the large summit rift, and in that light, dense red butterflies flew out from the abyss.

The butterfly swarm wrapped around a figure, a figure exactly the same as Helen.

"Sister... Grace..."

Helen looked at her with tears in her eyes:

"We meet again."

The young lady who appeared from the rift was wearing a white dress. When she opened her eyes and looked at Helen by the edge of the rift, the sky full of red butterflies overwhelmed the chill of the black wind of death for the first time:

"Helen..."

They opened their arms and embraced each other. The light flickering from the red butterfly pendants at their waists almost turned the entire summit red. Xia De immediately took a few steps back; he did not want to disturb this moment of reunion, and the whisper elements on Grace and Helen were already so powerful that he could not get close at all.

"This is the ritual."

The old witch's voice came from behind. Xia De turned his head to look; Grandma Cassandra, Sister Daifulin, and the witch's apprentice, Miss Rita Swift, were all behind him. In a place so close to the passage of death, all three had green rune stones hanging at their waists, protecting them so they could be temporarily safe.

"Is this what you meant by catching up?"

Xia De asked with a sigh.

His body surface was still in the appearance of divine radiance at this moment, but the old witch was not surprised at all, as if she had long known this would happen. Sister Daifulin, who "saw" everything, did not ask anything either; only the young witch apprentice had a look of wanting to ask but not daring to.

She was very curious about the current situation, the marks on Xia De's body, and what the humanoid object Xia De was carrying on his back was.

"Look, didn't we catch up in the end?"

The old witch said with a smile, then looked up at the two people hugging in the sky full of red butterflies in front of the large summit rift:

"The ritual, a ritual once every 22 years. The teachers can only meet once every 22 years, and the time they spend together is one year. After this, the one who has lived alone for 21 years returns to death, while the one awakened from death walks alone in the world. She will live alone for another 21 years until she returns here again to welcome the reunion of sisters, spend a year together, and then enter the 22-year cycle again."

She sighed. As the person who had witnessed the most rituals in the past hundred years, Qina Cassandra was the one who felt it most deeply:

"This is the blessing of the Great Old One, the 【Twin Gods】, to be together forever. As long as they follow the cycle of the ritual, they will always be together... Hami... Xia De, do you know what the meaning of the red butterfly is?"

Xia De looked blankly at the two people in the red butterflies:

"The red butterfly is the holy emblem of the Old God, the 【Twin Gods】."

"The Twin Gods are two in one, one in heart."

Sister Daifulin gave the correct answer for Xia De.

The old witch nodded and explained softly:

"In this ritual, the red butterfly symbolizes parting. When the reunion that happens every 22 years ends, the teachers will return here, and then the one who needs to wait for another 21 years will personally strangle her sister and throw her body into the rift at the summit. This is not only to restart the cycle but also a means used by the benevolent god who once descended on the Mount Sicar region to assist in suppressing the Abyss."

The witch apprentice gasped.

Xia De bit his lip:

"I once saw the phoenix under this rift in a dream, and saw dense bones surrounding it (Chapter 708). Are those..."

Xia De did not continue, but he already understood.

"Red butterflies."

Sister Daifulin asked softly:

"These flying red butterflies should be related to the ritual, right?"

"Yes, you say, what do the red butterflies look like?"

Xia De had already guessed.

"The body falls into the large rift, and the red strangle marks on the neck will fly out again and turn into red butterflies."

The four people on the cliff looked at the red butterflies flying all over the sky at this moment. The old witch's voice was very soft:

"Every red butterfly here symbolizes a long parting, a sorrow of killing a sister, a ritual of twisted love, and the next reunion... Mr. Hamilton, do you know how many red butterflies are here?"

Xia De could no longer describe the feelings in his heart at this moment. He had thought this would not be a heartwarming story, but he did not expect it to be like this:

"I don't know, but... it should have been a long time, right?"

They had originally participated in that divine banquet to escape the separation of life and death, and to let the twins of their family's future generations escape this fate. They got the answer they wanted and even gained eternal life, but in the end, they still did not escape the fate of parting.

It was just that the permanent separation turned into the pain and waiting of a 22-year cycle. This would be eternal pain; everything was for the meeting and reunion once every 22 years.

Someone seemed to be singing in the wind, and "She" in his ears was also echoing that faint sound. The ancient language that came across the curtain of time was telling the story of meeting, waiting, blood ties, and love:

【The red butterfly spreads its wings and flies,】

【Flying over the towering mountain,】

【Crossing the black river.】

【May the wind take away the eternal longing,】

【Until the end of life and death.】

This was the nursery rhyme that Professor Manning had mentioned, and it was also the method Old John used to make the pendant, but until this moment, Xia De finally understood the meaning of this nursery rhyme.

It was not a ritual step, nor was it a recipe for an alchemical item; it was really just a story.

A true story, their story, spanning two eras, representing longing and bonds, the story of the red butterflies.