Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability

1058  Meeting

In front of the grayish-white fog surrounding the area of the Samaritan Women's Spring.

Lumian and Jenna both lowered their heads, pressed their hands to their chests, and recited Mr. Fool's honorific name.

When they raised their heads, they had already arrived on the other side of the gray fog.

The two followed the slope downward, and soon heard faint, ethereal splashing sounds.

A few steps later, they saw the figure of a beautiful and holy woman in white robes.

The child of the Primordial Demoness—Krismona.

Jenna examined the target's pale, transparent face for a few seconds and stepped forward on her own, to see if her special nature would elicit any additional reaction.

Suddenly, a gleam of light appeared in Krismona's empty, blank eyes.

It was sharp, cold, and extraordinarily vicious!

Almost simultaneously, around Lumian and Jenna, from the sloped ground, the gray mist above, and the air in all directions, emerged one thick, slippery black poisonous snake after another, each with distinct black and white eyeballs rolling on their heads.

In less time than it takes to blink, this place had become a forest of black snakes, obscuring the earth and piercing the sky.

With these changes, the temperature dropped dramatically, and the area around the Samaritan Women's Spring instantly became a world ruled by ice and snow.

Icicles were interspersed among the dense black snakes, covering them with a layer of crystalline white.

Jenna had already frozen stiff, with ice particles and icicles forming on her flaxen hair, face, and all over her clothes.

Around Lumian, intense white flames with a blue tinge burned, but these flames were also freezing rapidly, with crystalline ice layers spreading quickly.

For Lumian, blocking for this brief moment was enough. He raised his right palm, activating the residual aura of the Blood Emperor in his palm.

The splashing sound instantly intensified, and Jenna, who was already nearly frozen and petrified, immediately lost consciousness.

Lumian felt the familiar aura of madness and the deathly cold emanating from the Underworld Daoist.

The water of the Samaritan Women's Spring receded into its deep source, pulling Krismona's shadow along with it, making it bob up and down.

Both the Black Snake Forest that filled this space and the frost world that was cold enough to be almost unbearable even for a Sequence 3 Saint dissipated.

Everything returned to normal.

Jenna gradually regained her thoughts, and as the spring water began flowing again, she heard Krismona's fearful, hateful voice filled with intense cursing: "Do not advance to Demoness of Unaging!

"Do not advance to Demoness of Unaging!"

The high-tier Demoness's figure lingering near the spring water repeated these words, Her voice shrill and terrifying.

Seeing that the world of ice and snow was about to descend again, and thick hair like black poisonous snakes was about to pierce from the ground toward the sky, Lumian pulled Jenna back two steps.

Krismona's figure no longer showed any abnormality, Her eyes once again becoming empty and blank.

"How do you feel?" Lumian had also heard what Krismona was shouting, but he was more interested in knowing if the pure female Demoness had any special sensations.

Jenna paused for two seconds, then recalled, "It's different from what I sensed during an advancement. The current Lady Krismona is more like the Primordial Demoness…

"This isn't about similarities in temperament or feeling, but rather that the malice toward pure female demonesses is almost identical—the kind of malice that would personally strangle the corresponding possibility. Well, there are still subtle differences—Lady Krismona's malice stems more from fear.

"She seems terrified of seeing a Sequence 3 pure female demoness…"

"Is the Krismona here a remnant of obsession and malice, so it manifests more directly and obviously?" Lumian nodded with understanding. "Looking at it this way, there shouldn't be much problem with pure female demonesses advancing to Sequence 4. The hidden danger and risk lie in reconciling with the Mirror Person when becoming Sequence 3."

Lumian gazed at Krismona's figure beside the Samaritan Women's Spring and said thoughtfully,

"What was Her relationship with Her Mirror Person—enslavement, infatuation, or reconciliation?"

"You suspect something went wrong with Lady Krismona before She perished?" Jenna asked, turning her head.

After pondering for two seconds, Lumian said, "The one lingering around the Samaritan Women's Spring might be fine, but who knows what the one near the Krismona Night Pillar in Fourth Epoch Trier is."

Jenna nodded solemnly.

"Let's go, we can't communicate normally anymore." Lumian turned around.

He then smiled and said, "This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Normal communication might involve instigation and deception, while curse-like shouts based on obsession are more authentic. Through this, we can confirm there are no hidden dangers in advancing to Demoness of Despair."

As he spoke, Lumian turned back to look at Krismona's body.

Through the thin gray fog, he saw the holy and beautiful high-tier Demoness continuing to wander beside the spring eye flowing with pale water, day after day, year after year, Her face pale and transparent, Her gaze empty and blank.

Suddenly, Krismona looked toward them.

This time, inexplicable fear appeared in Her blank eyes.

The gleam of fear vanished instantly, completely swallowed by endless emptiness.

"What did She see?" Lumian muttered as he walked back.

But with just himself there, Krismona showed no reaction. When Jenna joined, the previous events merely repeated, with no additional information gained.

At this point, Lumian and Jenna finally abandoned their desire to continue probing and left the Samaritan Women's Spring.

…

The next morning, in the New City of Silver, at the bottom of the spire, at the end of the mottled stairs, in a room filled with morning light, black hair strands, various plants, and different mushrooms.

Under Mr. Sun's watch, Lumian walked to the brownish soil pile and placed both hands on the withered, huge grayish-brown tree trunk. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

At this moment, Lumian felt as if the human-like patterns on the tree trunk were staring at him intently.

Two huge crimson flowers served as the eyes.

"Best not to exceed two minutes, or random effects will occur," the tall Mr. Sun reminded Lumian.

Lumian made a sound of acknowledgment, then exerted force with both hands to forcibly pull up Omebella's remains, known as the Gift of the Land.

The entire New City of Silver suddenly shook, as if experiencing a mild earthquake.

The morning light in the room grew brighter, and the surrounding black hair strands, plants, and mushrooms began to grow and multiply at a visible rate.

Lumian quickly placed the Gift of the Land into a specially allocated space within the Traveler's Bag, then teleported to somewhere in the mirror world.

Madam Magician—wearing the previous silver-starred black robe—along with Jenna and Franca, were already waiting for him in the dark, pitch-black mirror realm.

According to the agreement with the Church of Knowledge, Lumian and Jenna couldn't go to the City of Exiles through normal means, but the Church would create a gap in Morora's seal somehow, allowing them to enter using the power of the mirror world and high-tier beings of the Door pathway.

"I borrowed it," Lumian said extremely concisely about the result.

Madam Magician nodded, making all the silver stars on her wizard robe light up.

A dreamlike starry sky appeared, and endless stars quickly formed a passage.

Surrounded by brilliant light, Lumian and Jenna instantly arrived in the City of Exiles Morora, at the square outside the cathedral.

Using the authority of 0-01, Lumian gathered enough serious criminals to meet the ritual requirements—a sea of people. These exiles were already nearby, as if waiting for the reaper to arrive.

Without wasting time, Lumian quickly said to Jenna, "Finally, let me tell you a fact."

Jenna had already begun quietly spreading the plague using the Demoness of Despair's Beyonder characteristic and the Sequence 5 level charm given by Franca. "What?"

Lumian said seriously, "Even if you really become a Sequence 4 demigod, you won't be able to do much when the apocalypse comes. Whether you can protect your loved ones and friends is another matter entirely."

Jenna opened her mouth but couldn't refute.

She actually understood this clearly but was unwilling to accept it.

"Are you in despair?" Lumian smiled. "If you're in despair, then go ahead and advance. Advance with this despair, with the intense desire to change this reality."

Jenna understood Lumian's intention, sighed softly, and said with a laugh, "Dammit, good thing I'm relatively strong, otherwise I'd definitely lose control during the ritual."

"I wouldn't say this to someone who isn't strong," Lumian didn't delay any further and, relying on the mystical connection between himself and 0-01, directly entered the underground mausoleum.

Jenna turned around and looked at the criminals bound by commands in the square.

Her gaze was like water, both deep and calm, as if looking at the villains from her past life and their various endings, both good and bad.

After a while, Jenna walked through the crowd, heading outside the square.

This was to ensure that the serious criminals at the edges also received fair treatment, experiencing the same plague.

When thousands of exiles showed symptoms, growing weaker amidst violent coughing, Jenna took out the ingredients and began preparing the potion.

As one wave after another of serious criminals fell to the ground, she drank the liquid in one gulp.

As soon as she began advancing, Madam Magician used the pre-given mental imprint to transfer her out through the beautiful dreamlike starry sky to an area in the mirror world shrouded in thin gray fog.

As long as the ritual was achieved and the time limit hadn't passed, advancement could occur anywhere—it didn't have to be in Morora!

Of course, this assumed the seal's gap still existed and Jenna's connection to the ritual hadn't been severed.

This thin gray fog was obtained by Franca through prayer to Mr. Fool, aimed at deceiving the Primordial Demoness and preventing Her observation.

During Jenna's advancement, Lumian also arrived at the mountain peak of corpses where 0-01 was planted, next to Hand Bro who patrolled back and forth like the steel puppets and undead soldiers, nearly perfect, like a work of art.

With time running short, Lumian directly pulled out the Gift of the Land from the Traveler's Bag and planted this withered, huge trunk in the wilderness.

The Abscessed Hand, who had been walking, suddenly stopped, His beautiful crystalline crimson eyes looking over.

His face, which was almost at the limit of beauty, instantly twisted, with emotions like pain, hatred, malice, pleasure, and mockery overflowing.

He opened his mouth and shouted fiercely in the Jotun, "Omebella!"

"I curse you!

"I curse you to die by the hand of your direct descendant!"