Chapter 742: Xia De's Anxiety

As the sun set, the fog that had shrouded Midhill Fort City for three full days grew even thicker. Xia De, in a foul mood, left Count Dalarak's manor together with Father Augustus, leaving only the grief-stricken old butler to clean up the aftermath.

Once the nail was removed, those blurred memories would gradually recover, and the Church should also be able to deduce the disappearance of the third nail based on the next anomaly at Mount Sicar. As for Xia De and Father Augustus, no one would ever know they had been there.

Walking along the street through the thick fog, Xia De looked down at the Luo De Pai card in his hand — 【Ancient Fairy Tale · The Sleeping Princess】:

"Father, are matters of life and death always this sorrowful? I had no real connection to that count, yet I still feel sad at his passing."

"That's perfectly normal, young man. In my life I've witnessed countless partings of life and death — there are simply too many of them. Many people have said it before, but I must stress it again: since we are alive, we must cherish the present, and leave ourselves no regrets."

The priest fondled his pipe as Xia De nodded solemnly, adding the card in his hand to his deck, and used the wonder 【Treasured Possession】 to assimilate it as part of the deck as well:

"Speaking of which, Father — just now in the count's study, I signaled you with my eyes that I wanted to play Luo De Pai with the count. How did you interpret my look?"

Xia De still remembered this matter, and the old priest smiled:

"Your meaning was far too easy to read — before sending the count off, I should obtain a Luo De Pai card from him to satisfy my card-collecting habit. See? Wasn't my guess quite accurate?"

He had actually completely misunderstood.

Father Augustus returned to Limingjiaotang, while Xia De braved the heavy fog up the mountain, preparing to head home. The journey was not smooth — the road into the mountains had actually been temporarily blocked by the local Midhill police. According to a notice issued by City Hall, due to the recent mountain fog and for the safety of citizens, starting today, the seventeenth day of the Withered Leaf Month, for a period of two weeks, from 6 p. m. each afternoon until 7 a. m. the next morning, no ordinary citizen without a special pass would be allowed to enter the mountain area.

Such a simple blockade could of course not stop Xia De, but it also signified that the Church had already realized the urgency of the situation, and that Mount Sicar at night was truly very dangerous.

On the way up the mountain, the fog nearly caused Xia De to lose his bearings. And the undead prowling within the mist gave him considerable trouble as well.

Even though the longsword 【Nightwatcher】 in his hand could ignore the obstruction of the thick fog and detect the locations of those powerful spirits from afar, and the Witch-Emperor's blessing could diminish the malice of the undead, Xia De still sometimes had to face the enemy head-on.

To fight the undead of Midhill, he had actually prepared some measures. For instance, the special alchemical item "Spirit Repelling Talisman" bought from Old John, and the simple potion "Spirit-Repelling Dust" he had tried to make himself. The former could make spirits subconsciously unwilling to approach, while the latter could directly inflict damage on spirits, and also served as a warning when sprinkled around the tent during overnight stays.

But these conventional methods were utterly useless against the powerful individuals among Midhill's evil spirits. The moment Xia De entered their detection range, the evil spirits would immediately pounce on him.

After the two earthquakes, the top-tier evil spirits that came from the Narrow Place were no less powerful than Mid-Ring sorcerers, and even Xia De had to deal with them cautiously.

If facing only one enemy was not a big deal, the mountain fog hid countless souls that should have departed. Thus, in battle, the moment Xia De carelessly shifted the battlefield too far, he would have to face attacks from two or even three enemies at once.

Death's Guidance, Mind Blast, Sunlight Ray, Light, Silver Moon Slash... wonders were cast in rotation, and 【Nightwatcher】, in coordination with 【Great Moonlight Sword】 and 【Blade of Confused Time】, left streak after streak of light and shadow in the fog — countless times over.

Even though he could use 【Moon Shadow's Illusion】 to conceal himself at night, when Xia De approached that abandoned tower in the mountains, three undead trailing thick fog still followed behind him. One was a headless woodcutter, one an armored knight wielding a longsword, and the last a two-headed fierce tiger.

Xia De had no idea what that tiger had gone through in life.

He nearly fled headlong into the abandoned tower, only to discover that the fog inside was actually very thin. Turning to look outside, the three undead in the thick fog beyond the tower merely circled around the perimeter, as if afraid of something and not daring to charge in.

Only then did Xia De feel at ease — he had originally worried that one day, after stepping out from behind the hidden wall, he would suddenly come under attack by the undead.

"Since you lot don't dare come in..."

He set the longsword in his hand aside for the moment, crossed his arms over his chest, aimed at the direction beyond the tower door, traced out a crossing arc of light, then turned sideways and lunged forward:

"I won't hold back, then."

Those evil spirits had chased Xia De all the way here — he had to get his revenge.

(Little Mia running...)

After resolving the third nail, Xia De suddenly realized he no longer had any objective in Midhill Fort City.

When he first set foot in that city in early autumn, it had been to rescue Father Augustus, and along the way he had encountered many, many people. But now, flipping through his notebook, aside from meeting Grace and Helen next week, everything in Midhill was concluded.

Of course, the matter of the Chosen One and the Narrow Place had yet to be resolved, but that was the Church's problem. As for who this Chosen One would actually be, and in what manner the ritual would be held — all of that remained unknown.

For this reason, Xia De visited the Prophets' Association again on Friday morning. When he ran into Vice President Mark, the middle-aged man in formal attire teased him:

"You come almost eight times a week, each time using your cat as an excuse. Next time you don't need to bring the cat — who here doesn't know you're here to see Luvia Annatt?"

The first-floor hall bustled with people, but because they were near the reception desk, the young ladies in uniform all laughed.

"It's your working hours now — I can't exactly call her out alone, that wouldn't follow the rules."

Xia De wasn't embarrassed in the slightest. He still paid the divination fee, then met Luvia in a private divination room on the second floor.

The good news that the third nail had been successfully removed naturally had to be relayed to Luvia. But after hearing Xia De's account, Luvia was instead a little worried:

"【Life and Death Narrow Place】 is an Unknowable-grade relic. Although it cannot itself develop consciousness, it will not remain indifferent to this. Once you remove all four nails anchoring the Narrow Place to the material world, the Narrow Place may erupt ahead of schedule."

"That's why the Church is carrying out the removal of the nails and the preparation of the ritual together. According to Yi Lu Na, as soon as all the nails are dealt with, the ritual begins immediately."

"The question is, what about the Clown taken away by Joey Barton?"

Luvia asked, frowning prettily as she pondered:

"Anything involving the Chosen One absolutely cannot be taken lightly — anything could happen around them... Association headquarters plans to dispatch two High-Ring prophets, arriving in Midhill around the weekend, specifically to divine Joey Barton's location. But the matter probably won't be that easy to resolve."

"The question now is, what exactly is this Chosen One ritual."

Xia De placed the soft Mia cat from his arms onto the tabletop, where it lay down, utterly unwilling to move:

"Items related to the ancient god 【Primordial Death God】, and an understanding of death itself — these two points are mandatory. Beyond that, the remnant chapter also mentions that the ritual site must be a Life-and-Death Boundary region, and the candidate performing the ritual must have personally killed someone who came back from the dead."

He held up his fingers, counting off these requirements:

"But this still isn't the complete ritual. I'm very curious whether Joey Barton knows exactly what the ritual is."

"He must know — that is the fate of the Chosen One."

Luvia said, hesitating for a moment:

"Recently, through a friend out of town, I got wind of the whereabouts of a Poet-grade relic, 【Dandelion Coin】. If luck is on our side, I can get my hands on it this weekend, and use it for divination then. If not, that 【Diviner's Silver Coin】 can also be brought out."

"Should I inform Sister Sister Daifulin that she is the second candidate? Let her prepare in advance?"

Xia De asked, and the purple-eyed Miss narrowed her eyes slightly:

"Xia De, what kind of person do you think that fire-wielding nun is?"

"Reliable, calm, kind, and not very talkative."

Luvia thought for a moment:

"Then, provided you ensure she won't leak the information, go ahead and tell her about the candidacy. The Spirit Cult led by that nun, since it is a modern branch of the Gushen Sect, should not find it difficult to locate items related to the ancient gods' power. We must be prepared. I would actually prefer Joey Barton to die before performing the ritual... that way, Sister Sister Daifulin becoming the Chosen One is, at present, the best outcome."

The reason they did not want it to be the third candidate, Father Augustus, was that neither Xia De nor Luvia wished to drag the priest into such a life-or-death matter.

"No problem."

Xia De nodded, but a vague unease still lingered in his heart. What he was most wary of now was not the Narrow Place issue, but the vampires' issue. What Armand Bernhart, who had come to Midhill Fort City in autumn with his nephew from the southern lands, actually wanted to do — so far he only had an initial guess.

And if that guess was correct, given Xia De's current state, he dared not guarantee he could keep control of every situation. After all, of the three-ring spirit runes, only the last one was missing — the fourth ring was within sight. Yet his divinity had only one final drop remaining.

"Outsider, what do you want to do with this power?"

A murmur reached his ears.

"A me who possesses a drop of divinity, the Church and the Academy joined together, the vampires who don't know what they're doing, the missing Joey Barton, the Circle Mages who have come from elsewhere — there are quite a few players at the table now. I like to think I see the situation most clearly, but I also know best just how dangerous what comes next will be... Perhaps Joey Barton isn't the biggest trouble."