Chapter 725 – Recasting
Chapter 725 Recasting
Such a familiar phrase caused Sherry to fall into a brief trance, her memories seeming to ebb and flow in a sea of fading colors, some long ago warmth and color flooding from those illusory and hazy bubbles, and then after a long time she sluggishly snapped back to her senses and looked at the abnormally large Phantom Hound not far away.
It was still waiting there, with hesitation and nervousness and a little confusion.
As if there is a layer of sticky mud covering the mind, Dog feels that there are many wrong places in his mind, past memories are blurred, and his thoughts are intermittent at this moment, it is not sure where exactly there is a problem, it only feels that …… something seems to be missing in his heart.
Empty eye sockets shimmering, Dog looked at the not far away that has a strange skeleton knuckle limbs, some familiar appearance of the profound demon, feel a burst of trance.
It had never seen her before, but it knew her – from a long, long time ago.
Why has the memory of Little Bit …… become like this?
After hesitating for an unknown amount of time, Dog finally cautiously stepped forward, sniffing around for a scent before crossing over to Sherry’s slender knobby limbs, which were strewn with barbs.
Shirley gazed at the tall, spectral hound silently for a few minutes before she slowly rose and reached out to press her hand to the top of Dog’s head, “Why have you gotten weird too?”
Dog tilted his head sluggishly, as if to say something, but before he could, he felt a push from the back of his neck – Shirley suddenly reached out and wrapped her hand around Dog’s neck, then forcefully held him in her arms.
“…… I thought I wouldn’t be able to find you ……” she muttered in a small voice, her voice shaking slightly with belated fear, “You suddenly just fell, I couldn’t even pull ……”
Dog felt his mind growing more and more foggy, his sluggish thoughts disconnected, barely able to form coherent thoughts, but just then it suddenly heard something.
Plop, plop – it was the familiar sound of a heartbeat!
It was pressed against Shirley’s chest, through the layer of hideously intertwined skeletons, and the sound of two slowly beating hearts seemed to suddenly chisel through the sluggishness of the mind, and it jolted awake from a long, muddled dream, quickly recalling everything in each heartbeat, and the light in its orbits gradually brightened, and finally opened its mouth to break the silence, while struggling slightly, “Shirley, I …… then ……”
Shirley, however, didn’t let go of her arm, but just continued to hug Dog’s neck while whispering, “I know, Dog …… I know it all.”
The fire in A Dog s eyes flickered momentarily, it stopped struggling, and its tone was hesitant: “When did you …… know?”
“At the time when I first learned that the Profound Demon did not have a heart.” Sherry replied softly.
Dog fell silent as it held this position of being held by the neck, motionless and unsure of what it was thinking, and only after a long time did it grunt and speak, “I’m sorry ……”
“It’s okay,” Sherry said almost immediately, then she let go of Dog’s neck slightly, looking very seriously at the Spectral Hound who had been with her for twelve years and had practically sort of raised her, nodding slowly as if for emphasis, “It’s okay- -you guys have always been there for me.”
Dog nodded sluggishly, but while it felt a slight relief in its heart, it simultaneously and suddenly felt a slight trance in its mind.
That feeling of sluggish thinking and disjointed memories came back with a vengeance.
“Shirley, I feel like my mind is foggy ……” it subconsciously spoke.
“It’s probably because of that,” Shirley responded instantly, and looked down at her chest immediately afterward – two hearts were beating in her chest cavity, though she soon frowned again, ” …… but I can’t seem to get them out anymore ……”
As she spoke, she reached out and touched the crisscrossed bone armor on her chest, as if she wanted to try to reopen the sturdy “bone cage”.
“Don’t move them,” Dog immediately spoke up to stop Shirley’s next move, “You’ll be killed!”
Shirley stopped and looked at Dog with a bemused expression, “What about …… that?”
Dog didn’t say anything, but his gaze fell on Shirley’s right hand – the broken chain was dangling there, and a ghostly green flame could vaguely be seen burning at the end of the chain.
Shirley responded right afterward, her eyes falling in line with Dog’s, thinking together.
“…… fix this?” She spoke hesitantly, “Is that okay?”
“Theoretically I think it would work, after all, we’ve always relied on symbiosis to keep each other balanced, except ……” Dog muttered, his tone not so sure, “It’s never happened before, and the chains breaking after the The fact that the symbiote can survive for so long is an unprecedented situation in itself, and as for repairing the chains again …… that’s even more incredible. To be honest, I don’t know how to get it.” Shirley listened to Dog’s narration with a serious searching expression on her face, then she picked up the broken chain and found another part of it near Dog’s neck, fiddled with the two breaks together for half a minute, and lifted her head, “…… Putting it together directly doesn’t seem to work. ”
“Nonsense, of course it does not work – it is the ordinary chain broken you want to repair at least have to find a blacksmith it!” Dog whipped his head around at once, but then plopped down immediately afterward from the vertigo in his consciousness, “This thing might need a rigorous ‘remodeling’ process …… What’s important isn’t fixing the chain, it’s fixing the symbiotic between our relationship ……”
Sherry listened attentively, trying to think, while at the same time resisting the urge to mutter, “After all …… how on earth did this chain suddenly break in the first place? All I remember is that you suddenly said you didn’t feel well when we were in that cave, and then you sank into the ground ……”
“Anyway, it must have something to do with the Profound Sacred Lord, and also with the fact that you suddenly ‘saw’ a lot of ‘truths’ in that square before,” Dog fought against the drowsiness in his head While analyzing it as best it could, “Things were foreshadowed before the chains were broken, and the initial change happened right after you ‘saw’ the memories of the island of the Holy Land ……”
It stopped abruptly in mid-sentence, as if catching on to some possibility, only to continue speaking a moment later, “…… Those cultists were instantly tainted and twisted after learning the ‘truth’, reduced from human to ‘Rough Billet’, while you appeared to be untainted by the contaminated image at the time because you were sheltered by the Captain – but is it possible that the contamination was actually still in effect?”
Sherry froze for a moment, looking down at her own torso at the moment.
Dog, on the other hand, pondered on the sidelines while saying, “You’ve been symbiotic with me, a Profound Demon, from the very beginning, and that was long before you met the Captain, so the ‘contamination’ has actually been rooted in your essence for a long time, and the memory of the Island of the Sacred Ground activated it and awakened your side as a Profound Demon, because it was originally within you, so it amounts to a partial bypass of the Captain’s Asylum ……
“The essence of the chains between humans and Profound Demons is a ‘symbiotic contract’ between the two creatures, and this contract has strict conditions for its establishment; in other words, when your essence changes, it is the same as breaking the conditions for the establishment of the contract… …
“It’s just like a contract entered into between businessmen, when one of the parties to the contract loses the ability to perform due to force majeure, the contract naturally lapses ……”
Shirley listened in a daze beside her, and only after a long time did she venture out, “And …… so what?”
Dog thought hard, “If we can’t fix it, we’ll get a new one, and maybe we can consider reestablishing the symbiotic contract once more – no longer in the state you were in before, but in the state you’re in now.”
Sherry finally listened for once.
Hope was rekindled in her heart, and she was instantly motivated again, “So what should we do? How does this symbiotic contract normally work?”
Although she and Dog had been “symbiotic” for more than ten years, it was not a normal contractual relationship from the very beginning, and she had never performed any summoning rituals like ordinary Annihilationists, so her knowledge in this area was almost completely blank.
But Dog obviously knew more than she did.
“The most difficult part of the ‘symbiotic contract’, if you follow the kind of ‘symbiotic contract’ that Annihilationists do, is the preparation part beforehand. Annihilationists usually need to transform themselves through a series of ritualistic acts, including various bloody ‘surgeries’, as well as spiritual level remodeling, which is accompanied by a lot of evil and dark hooks, in order to ultimately bring their life forms closer to the ‘original ‘ and thus be able to withstand the power of the Ethereal Demon – but for you, this is rather the least important part.
“Because you can skip this process entirely, you are now closer to the so-called ‘original’ state than any Annihilationist could ever be, and have long since adapted to the power of the demons.
“So all you have to do is perform a simple summoning ritual – which is instead the easiest part.”
Dog said as he staggered to his feet, walking slowly across the gravel-strewn wilderness while leaving deep grooves in the earth with his paws – he was drawing a complex set of runes to write the ‘text’ of the contract.
“Establishing the connection …… summoning the demon …… is simple enough for both of us, I can help you prepare all the runes and the site for the ritual, and I’ll provide the magic needed to activate them! –All you have to do is stand at the node at the edge of the ritual field and when I’m ready, you outline in your mind the demon you wish to summon.”
It raised its head and looked into the eyes of Yukari, who was watching curiously from the sidelines, and continued to speak very seriously-
“Normally, this summoning process will last for a whole day or even longer, and it will open a rift until the demon willing to respond to the summoning appears in the center of the Rune Matrix, and the contract is then established, but ……”
As it spoke, it slowly walked towards the center of the countless runes, and beside it, the many runes were gradually lighting up.
“But Sherry, you don’t have to wait that long – I’m right here.”
(End of chapter)