Chapter 324
The Twin Mirrors are a bit ruthless.
Supervisor Cornelius led Eivass and Miss Beyad to the end of the secret tunnel.
— In fact, for him to personally escort Miss Beyad through the secret tunnel as the supervisor could be considered a form of sincerity.
Although they were all Children of the Moon and had a close working relationship, and Crescent Moon Manor might even need to borrow money from Miss Beyad in the future, stuffing someone directly into a dark corner where no one would know and no help could be summoned… sounded too dangerous.
Whether there were any traps, rituals, seals, or ambushes along the way, any of them could be fatal. Furthermore, the space was so narrow, there wouldn’t even be room to dodge if a fight broke out.
“Is there only one secret tunnel?”
Feeling Eivass’s fingertips gently tickling her palm, Miss Beyad asked with some premonition, “This passageway is so narrow… What if someone happens to come from the outside while we’re walking?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. We’ll expand it later.”
Supervisor Cornelius shrugged, “Having too many secret tunnels isn’t necessarily a good thing. We can’t supervise so many entrances and exits at once, it would only make the manor less secure. One is enough, no more, no less—besides, not that many people use it normally. If too many people get stuck, we can just turn into bats, can’t we?”
“That’s true.”
Miss Beyad nodded in agreement.
Her sharp fingernails scraped Eivass’s palm, signaling that she had confirmed there was only one secret tunnel.
“And if we go out from here…”
Supervisor Cornelius reached out and pressed a rune on the wall.
As he moved, three interlocking rings of white, yellow, and black gradually appeared. The places where they intersected were filled with a blood-like red. In the center was the rune on the wall, which meant “secret.”
“Wind, Earth, and Dark. Injecting the same proportion of these three types of mana can open this secret door. It requires a total of three units of mana to be injected simultaneously… this can also be considered a simple form of identification.”
Cornelius chuckled, “But any Child of the Moon should be able to open it. If you wish to return to the banquet, you can also go back the same way. That end is also opened by injecting mana into a rune.”
Child of the Moon was both a race and an extraordinary profession.
As darlings of Hengwo, this profession possessed a mana pool of three attributes—wind representing change, earth representing burial, and dark representing curses. This was the foundation of the Child of the Moon’s all-around and versatile abilities.
Whether it was transforming into a bat, changing one’s appearance, or controlling others through “Charm,” all relied on wind-attribute mana to drive them; the soil from their homeland could strengthen the power of the Children of the Moon, and after death, they would turn into ashes and then be reborn from the ashes, a form of rebirth akin to that of the Und; as for the dark attribute, it was related to their abilities such as curses and corrosion.
…Wait.
Eivass’s pupils constricted slightly.
She suddenly realized.
…Fortunately, she hadn’t believed that cursed mission prompt, Eivass thought.
She knew that the New Moon Ritual would never have a proper “cooperative mission.”
If they entered the secret tunnel, they would find that they couldn’t open this door at all.
Although there were certainly people among them with these three attributes of mana, there were three people.
Three untrained people could absolutely not “simultaneously” inject mana in exactly the same proportion. Not to mention that their mana was already scarce, leaving very little room for trial and error.
To forcibly break through this secret door, one would need blood.
Inject mana into blood, then mix them in proportion, and smear it on the rune… this would also open the door.
But the problem was that by the time they reached here, they had likely just had their blood drained. If they were asked to provide mana and fresh blood again, it was even possible they would faint—they didn’t have any mana-storing mediums like Flame Essence, and pure blood couldn’t contain much mana, so a large amount of blood would be needed.
So they would definitely be unwilling.
But if a person died, it would be different—no matter how much mana a person had when they were alive, after death, the mana pool itself would separate into blood and organs. Anything exceeding ten points would enter the organs, brain, and bone marrow, while blood could only retain up to ten points.
No. 14 had at most three units of dark-attribute mana in her body. After she was killed, one-third of her remaining blood contained one unit of dark-attribute mana. The same applied to others.
Find people with dark, wind, and earth attributes, kill them, mix their blood, and splash it on the rune… this would yield three units of simultaneously injected mana in a one-to-one-to-one ratio.
In other words, even if they cooperated, they might not know how to open this door when they reached it. Most likely, only a Mage of the Path of Wisdom or an Extraordinary under the Path of Love could understand this rune.
Then they would have to kill two or three people to open the door—if there was a Mage of the Path of Wisdom as a sacrifice, one person could be saved, as he alone could provide both wind and earth attributes of mana.
And if they regretted it and turned back, they would find that the door on the other side had also closed.
— It still required killing people to open the door.
If fewer than three people reached this point, they wouldn’t even be able to open the door and would be trapped to die, quietly waiting for time to pass. And this long period of more than ten hours… would be enough for some of them to change their minds, or wait for newcomers tricked into the secret tunnel by the mission, and then upset the balance.
“The Twin Mirrors’ mission is so ruthless…”
Eivass’s heart skipped a beat.
Fortunately, she hadn’t harbored any侥幸 (jiǎoxìng – slim hope), giving up on the possibility of a “loving” cooperation from the very beginning.
The last New Moon Ritual was clearly not so blatant… Of course, perhaps it was too blatant, which made Eivass feel it was fair. In any case, killing everyone was victory, very much in the style of a Knight.
And this time, she finally felt what a “bloody ritual” was.
Lies, deception, betrayal…
— Unlike the Full Moon Ritual, the New Moon Ritual symbolized the deviation and confrontation of the Nine Great Paths.
As expected, they had to regard each other as enemies…
Her mindset changed slightly.
Just as Eivass was thinking this, the three eye-like red lights were simultaneously filled.
The sealed door finally appeared—at the end of what was originally a dead end, a portal suddenly materialized.
This was not a long-distance teleportation portal, but a door concealed by the Preserver using souls as materials and the concept of a “tomb.” As Eivass passed through it, she felt an intense chill… like walking through a graveyard at night wearing only a thin garment.
Passing through this door, they did not arrive at some dark cave or labyrinthine cavern.
Instead, they entered a lightless secret chamber where thick curtains covered all the windows.
The building was made of wood, and the air had a faint aroma of essential oils, clearly indicating that some ritual had just been performed.
“This is…”
Miss Beyad felt that this place seemed somewhat familiar.
“This is Teresa Monastery.”
Supervisor Cornelius stood with his hands behind his back, his spine straight and his expression calm.
He introduced it seriously, “The Secret Cult that worships Sister Sasha. You must have been here before—when you first became a Child of the Moon, you were usually brought here to spend the initial period when you lacked reason.”
“Teresa Monastery…”
Eivass also murmured, her eyes shining.
“So that’s where it is…”
“Are you also interested in Sister Sasha?”
Miss Beyad was somewhat surprised.
It was rare to see humans interested in Sister Sasha.
Eivass nodded vigorously, “Yes, I am very interested!”
— Because this is a fixed location for dropping equipment.
