“This is bad.”
After adding the spell to the Priest, Xia De painstakingly took out the small book. Using it required a price, so Xia De didn't dare to write anything too excessive. Instead, he dipped his finger in his own blood and wrote on a blank page:
“Even if barbaric and evil forces plunge me into slumber, I will be able to awaken at the right moment.”
He did this to prevent himself from also falling unconscious, leaving no one to lead them to escape. Using this precious relic in such a way was certainly wasteful, but it was the safest thing he dared to write when using a keeper-level relic.
Actually, he could have written “Xia De defeated the evil god,” but the price for that would probably send him to meet Sparrow Detective immediately.
At this moment, Doctor Schneider, who was battling Mrs. Lasoya, also retreated to the banquet hall entrance as Xia De struggled to get up again. His boots crunched on the red carpet shattered by the explosion.
Behind the Doctor, a brass-colored, pentagonal metal ring spun at an unprecedented speed. Four-colored Ling Runes shimmered and floated above his Destiny Ring, but the Doctor continued to fall back; he was also nearing his limit.
“Why are you here?”
Also surprised by Xia De's appearance, and seeing his companions fallen, the Doctor gritted his teeth and used his body to block Xia De's view:
“Xia De, I have never told you about a Ring術士's strongest power. By rights, you shouldn't know about it yet. But there's no other way. Please observe my power carefully. After using this power, I may fall into a coma. If I win, remember to take us all...”
A silver flash appeared from inside the banquet hall. The Doctor suddenly recoiled a step, and a crack actually appeared on the Destiny Ring behind him.
“Watch carefully, Detective! This is not a power to be used lightly; the Ring術士's Sublimation is not that simple!”
Doctor Schneider suddenly shouted loudly. With the eruption of suppressed power, a brand new figure appeared in the hot steam mist behind him.
Xia De's eyes widened:
“This is...”
“...His ‘other self’.”
“What is the Doctor doing? Wait!”
Xia De, by the wall, suddenly twitched his nose. In the scent of blood mist, he smelled a very distinct odor of sulfur. He seemed to hear wild laughter, he seemed to hear soft sobbing, but then heard nothing at all:
“Sulfur? Wait, Professor Sanchez said that the Doctor might have...”
Xia De didn't expect his first encounter with the truth to be at such a moment.
The figure that emerged behind the Doctor was obscured by the steam mist. It stood behind the Doctor, almost symmetrically positioned across from the Doctor's Destiny Ring.
Then, the blurred, tall figure in the steam and Doctor Schneider jointly raised their right hands. Their voices overlapped, but Xia De understood both the Doctor's delarion and the tall figure's strange and evil language.
Roaring wind rushed into the corridor, and the light seemed to dim at that moment. A new power surged through the Doctor, and this space changed because of this power.
Both shouted loudly:
“Light's Hound...”
Xia De's eyes widened.
Behind Doctor Schneider, the golden Miracle Ling Rune 【Light】 and the brass-colored inspiration Ling Rune 【Hound】 detached from the ring body and floated towards the center of the spinning brass ring.
The voice deepened, and the last half of the sentence was like the final whisper of life:
“...Run through malicious dreams.”
The black-iron 【whisper】, the silver 【blasphemy】, and the Doctor's own core Ling Rune 【Dream】 gathered in the center of the Destiny Ring. The five Ling Runes connected into a single entity, then emitted identical silver light.
In this sound, all surrounding light vanished. Darkness completely descended.
Xia De completely lost his vision, as if someone had pulled him from a bright corridor into an abyss. Cold wind swept all around, and countless whispers and murmurs appeared in his ears. This was even more terrifying than the darkness box losing control.
He felt himself sinking into a dark quagmire, and felt countless hands pulling at him. But a pure white light suddenly appeared, and he looked at the Doctor, who seemed to be standing in a black, muddy swamp. The figure blurred; what his eyes saw was the Doctor, but what was reflected in his pupils was a hound emanating pure white holy light.
“Is this Sublimation Words?”
The hound in the holy light charged forward along the dark path, pouncing on the enemy in this malicious, muddy dream. The power of the moment could not be described by the inexperienced Outsider, but at this moment, he actually felt a decaying aura extremely similar to that of the Old God, The Innocent Creator, who was about to fall.
That aura was vast, yet it represented an end; this was not the power of mortals.
“What exactly is a Ring術士's Sublimation Words?”
The running Light's Hound seemed to draw power from the ground beneath its feet and the sky above its head. It tore through the darkness and slammed forward. Mrs. Lasoya, also within this malicious dark dream, appeared and was directly struck by the glowing, holy white hound:
“Damn it, it's Sublimation Words! Where in the world did you, you lunatic, come from?!”
The woman, her makeup smeared, cursed loudly, but upon contact with the Light's Hound, her entire being seemed to explode with light from within, disappearing into the holy light.
The surrounding darkness receded the next moment, and the cold wind, whispers, and murmurs also departed. Xia De once again smelled the thick, almost bloody stench in the air and saw the blood mist, like a curtain, floating in the corridor.
Looking ahead, the hound had disappeared, and Doctor Schneider, unconscious, lay sprawled on his back in front of Xia De. Xia De had never seen the dignified Psychologist look so disheveled. His eyes were tightly shut, and his face was like Sparrow Hamilton Detective's a week before he was about to die, but at least he was still alive.
So Xia De also reached out and touched the Doctor. He hadn't expected his greatest contribution in this battle to be like this.
“Why hasn't Miss Annette returned yet? Will I need to touch her later too?”
If the spell effect wasn't limited to severely injured targets, Xia De would definitely touch himself first.
He struggled to get up, wanting to move the Doctor, the Priest, and the Writer together, waiting for Miss Annette to return and take them away. But then, at the chaotic entrance of the banquet hall, where dust and wall plaster were falling, a sound was heard again.
Xia De looked up. Mrs. Lasoya, covered in blood and looking like she had only one breath left, actually crawled out from the debris of the banquet hall door:
“Your friend is truly a lunatic.”
She also looked like she was about to die, but she still stared at the masked Xia De with mad eyes, her tone particularly frightening.
Then, Xia De saw that in the woman's scarred, almost charred left hand, she held her severed right hand.
She held the severed hand with her chin, and with her left hand, took off the pebble ring on the severed hand, kissing it lightly.
“Oh~ no!”
