436.Chapter 434 433 The Pollution of Avalon and the Guessing of the Divine Spirit’s Face

Chapter 434 433.Avalon’s Pollution and the Speculation of the Divine Spirit Facade
“These people can’t be let go!”

The crowd did not leave immediately after taking care of the aftermath in the Snegov family.

They waited until the Thorn Clan sent someone to take over the property to talk to the other party about the disposition of those innocents who had been rescued from the mob’s cage.

The Thorn Vampires, due to their constant dealings with things of shadow, made them knowledgeable about certain evil things and evil spells, and after seeing the strange patterns that had been inscribed on the bodies of those prisoners, the local head of the Thorn Clan immediately stopped to:

“This is some kind of transforming evil spell originating from the Dark Regions, we don’t know much about it, but it’s certain that these guys have become an integral part of some large-scale spell. They must be guarded until the threat is lifted!”

Speaking of this, this Thorn Vampire swept over the rescued civilians with a grim gaze as she whispered:

“According to our previous style of action, these guys need to be killed off to ensure that it’s all over, but Archduke Shani has specifically instructed that matters related to the Snegov family are to be handled by you guys, so the fate of these deplorables has fallen into your hands as well.

My compatriots.”

She looked to Sister Pomegranate and Uncle Giant Shark.

At the sight of Giant Sharkbear’s iconic large bald head, the head of the Thorn Clan was a little too taut even if she wanted to maintain her grim aura.

The corners of her mouth twitched for a moment, and again tried to make herself ignore the strange gesture of the existential bald vampire in front of her that didn’t fit the midnight elegance and exquisiteness at all, and was still probing her head, as she said to Sister Pomegranate:

“All I can suggest to you is not to trouble yourself; in the event that you can’t determine the role of the runes on these people, taking them out is the easiest and most harmless option. Of course, I have also heard about some of your Blood Vulture Clan’s marvelous actions that have somewhat broken the constraints of the Blood Clan’s morality lately, so this is just a suggestion on my part.

The portal back to the Scarlet Fortress is ready for you.

Don’t worry, it’s personally hosted by a caster from our clan who specializes in spatial psychic energy, and it won’t send you into the Astral Realm.”

“Thanks.”

Sister Pomegranate grunted.

Though impatient, she gave the other woman a standard blood vulture salute to show her appreciation for her damned “little offer”.

Truth be told, however, taking out these innocents was never an option for Garnet, not only because she herself was an order-keeper, but also because Turner, the Shadowfinder’s Master Martial Artist, was watching.

If she dared to order the execution of these people, Turner would probably flip out on the spot.

Alas, although the ordinary martial arts monks are not a special profession of the Oath Keepers like the Ring Bearers, some of the “hidden constraints” of this profession do really exist.

No matter what kind of legends, martial arts monks are known for their strong willpower, and in order to cultivate a will as strong as steel, then these troublesome rules and regulations are necessary.

Sister Pomegranate watched the members of the Thorn Clan disappear into the Snegov Clan’s fortress, and she turned back to discuss a few words with Cat, and then harmonized her views with Master Li and Master Yang, before walking over to Master Turner.

She said seriously:

“We need to take these people who have homes to return to back to the Scarlet Fortress first, and we can’t just release them back into the community until Madame Tris confirms that they’re harmless. This is a Dusk-related matter, after all, and no amount of vigilance is too much to ask.”

“Well, a very proper choice.”

Turner hadn’t been involved in the decision-making process the entire time, but he was very pleased with the choices his ‘apprentices’ had made.

Whether it was the handling of ill-gotten gains or the acceptance of these poor people in front of him, it was all very much in line with the decency and wisdom of an order-abiding martial monk.

This made him more and more satisfied with the behavioral style of the Shadow Trail Sect.

For a monk who was used to a “lone wolf” career, staying with these order-abiding people would always help to dissipate the discomfort in his heart.

“In order to avoid a long night’s sleep, let’s depart now and return.”

Turner glanced back at the large ice sculpture of “Failed Mann” behind him, which was being lifted onto the crate by the combined efforts of Giant Sharkbear, Rin, and Star Soul Eagle, and he said in a deep voice:
“The Binding Ice only lasts for 12 hours, but I suspect that Dusk must have left something else in this guy’s body. This isn’t our area of expertise, so we’ll have to leave it to someone more specialized.

Although we weren’t able to directly capture the Dusk believer who made peace with the Snegov family, but being able to bring back such a clear clue can still be seen as a hard-earned victory.

Gentlemen, I have seen your minds and your choices in my eyes, so from tomorrow onwards, I will be teaching you my insights into the ways of the martial monks!
The acquisition of power is necessary for the dangerous state of affairs we are about to face, to protect us and what we guard from the darkness that taints us.

But let me state in advance!

The special training of the Winter Wolf Martial Monks will be very grueling, and I hope you will be prepared for it.”
—
“There’s no mistaking the emblem of the Mejva family! Although all thirteen families of Shadow Elves use the ‘Life-Weaving Spider’ as their crest, there are always various embellishments between the family crests to distinguish the differences.

The spider of this emblem possesses the teeth of the Phantom Gemstone, which is exactly the characteristic of the Mejva family.”

Several hours later, in the underground chamber of the Blood Vulture’s Cloister, Adele, who had been summoned, was wearing gloves and carefully distinguishing the emblems that the players had seized from House Snegov.

Adele’s voice was filled with a certain disgust.

She hated everything related to Shadow Elves, but fate had always been so unforgiving, letting her repeatedly come into contact with these things related to the quarter of her bloodline, which could even be called the “curse of the bloodline”.

“So, the Dusk Believers who are in cahoots with the Snegovs are from the Dark Regions under the Rift of Eternity.”

Murphy sat on a chair, the opened envelope in his hand.

These rats in the darkness used coded language to communicate with each other, and on the surface it looked like ordinary letters, which were very difficult to crack without knowing the encryption method.

Behind him, Tris was setting up a whole new set of binding rituals for trapping the twisted arachnid that was still frozen at this point.

Murphy was very satisfied with the results of this operation of the Shadow Trail Faction, but he knew very well that the players had fulfilled their duties and missions, they had brought back the evidence they needed for Murphy and Tris, but whether or not they could glean the information that Murphy needed from this evidence depended on the means of the Vampire Lords and the Archduke of the Blood Vulture.

“Can you decipher these letters?”

Murphy asked, and Adele shook her head:

“I was born in the Dark Valley, master, my knowledge of the Shadow Elves is limited to my hearsay, I have never really lived in the Shadow Elf’s society, and I do not have a deep understanding of their customs.

But I’m guessing that Uncle Bella and Aunt Bernice would definitely be willing to help.

They are both half-elf gladiators born in the city of Mejva, and they might be familiar with the secret language used among these shadow elves.

I urge you not to put too much faith in them, though.”

The Phantom Intelligence Officer said softly while picking up those letters:

“If even a third of what I know of the Shadow Elves’ mode of operation were true, then the hidden cultists among them would not have left such obvious, exploitable loopholes in their regular work.

I’m guessing that even if Uncle Bella deciphered the coded messages, we’d have a hard time capturing specific information about that Dusk Believer directly from them.

When it comes to covert operations, the Shadow Elves might not be on par with the Thorn Clan.

But when it comes to the skill of hiding oneself and keeping one’s head above water, I guess even a shrewd character like Lady Shani can only become the head of a city at most in the society of the Shadow Elves.

Shadow elves are born of lies!
They grow up soaking in pools of intrigue and feeding on cunning, and every adult male Shadow Elf has been assassinated at least three times by his peers to ensure that they don’t make foolish mistakes when they take up positions of power in the various houses.

And every female Shadow Elf who makes it to adulthood is usually ten times more experienced than a man.
In a society as horrible as that, a fool who doesn’t know how to hide his ego is unlikely to survive.”

“I have heard of these secret stories, I just can’t understand why the Shadow Elves maintain such a social model that is abnormal no matter which way you look at it.”

Murphy said, shaking his head:

“But as Turner said in his report, I am as unsurprised as he is that the Shadow Elves would be involved in the affairs of the Twilight. But, Adele, have you ever seen one of these arachnids before?”

The vampire lord asked, pointing to the frozen up arachnid behind him, and Adele glanced at the twisted thing as she shook her head:
“No, I’ve never even heard of it, apparently my mother hid a lot of the dark things she saw in the elven city to protect my young mind.

I am sorry, master, that I cannot help you much in this matter.”

“That’s okay, everyone is bad at something.”

Murphy’s tone of voice waved his hand in a gentle manner as he got up and said:

“Then I’ll trouble you to invite Lord Bella to decipher these letter messages for us, and I’ll be the first to share any discoveries over here with you.”

“No, master, I don’t need to.”

Adele took a step back holding the letters, disgust and resistance written all over her pretty and more and more delicate face, she said to Murphy very seriously:

“I don’t want to hear any information related to Shadow Elves, I have no interest in those rats born in the shadowy regions, but I know it’s my job.

I will keep an eye out for that aspect. But there is really no need for you to specifically share this with me.”

“Well, I respect your choice.”

Murphy nodded and watched as Adele gave him a very elegant ladylike salute then turned to leave, and the moment the door to the underground chamber closed, Tris, who was busy, suddenly spoke up:

“Her collar is a few points lower.”

“Huh?”

Murphy pretended to be unaware and turned back with a surprised expression, saying:

“Why do you pay attention to these strange details?”

“Because my stupid little boyfriend is completely oblivious to the fact that his undersized subordinate is trying to seduce him, or maybe he actually noticed and just pretended he didn’t see it but didn’t explicitly put a stop to it out of some male mischief.”

Tris said in a calm tone:

“At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if Adele shows up in front of you in nothing but a corset someday… Hey, what a clumsy girl, doesn’t know how to use her strengths at all.

I can see that she’s actually anxious in this regard, but the advancement stemming from the bloodline contract makes her involuntarily want to show her charms in front of you.

She may not even realize it herself.”

“Tris.”

Murphy covered his eyes in pain, stretching his voice to take on a pleading tone, causing the Lord Scarlet Witch to cover her mouth and laugh, then cough twice and say:

“Well, enough of that, move that large block of ice over here, I’m going to re-bind it and start a series of studies on it.”

Murphy immediately stepped forward and used his psychic energy to hold up the frozen ice to levitate and propel it into the center of the binding ritual set up by Tris.

As Tris activated the ritual, a fuchsia stream of light converged and interlaced rapidly to isolate the inside and outside of the ritual, not just physically, but with subtle control of space and time.

Allowing the flow of time within the cage to be reduced to a point where it could be freely manipulated by Tris.

As we all know, any power related to time is considered to be great, and this unassuming binding ceremony in front of us actually represents the unique power that Tris acquired when she achieved the golden level of Spiritual Energy Master, which she called “Transcendent Law – Time”.

Tris had never really shown her hidden power.

From the time she was dragged into this “game” by Murphy until now, she was too weak to fight in the first half of the game, and after acquiring Salokdar’s Golden Heart, she had not yet encountered the kind of dilemma in which she had to activate her bottom card in order to survive.

The Scarlet Witch had always been called a “genius” by Lord Payeng, so don’t underestimate the weight of those two words in the mouth of someone like him.

“I’m going to spend some time thawing it next, Turner’s North Wind Heavy Strike comes with the faint divinity of the God of the North Wind, it’s going to be a pain in the ass to defuse this thing.”

Tris fine-tuned the parameters of the binding ritual as she spoke to Murphy:
“The exact results of the research may take a bit of time, you can leave now, I’ll let you know if there’s any news.”

“I want to stay a little longer.”

Murphy shrugged.

He looked at the twisted humanoid frozen in the ice in front of him, this thing in front of him resembled the arachnid elves he remembered, but it didn’t have that kind of unique feeling, it was more like the remnants of a “failed evolution”.

“Can’t we just search for information in its mind?”

He asked:
“Even Femis can use that kind of search technique, can’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, that thing is more of a form of torture than an information search, and it’s inefficient enough to make any blood torturer let out a laugh.”

Tris said, shaking her head:
“Not to mention the fact that the guy in front of us has gone through the ‘Arachnization Ritual’, and while its form has been twisted and corrupted, its will and mind have been shattered into a labyrinth of irretrievable fragments. Trying to put that information back together requires a great deal of patience and great skill, and you should be glad I’ve done this before.

I have some experience.

Maybe from the memories of this guy’s mind we can find that face with some information we’re trying to capture.”

“Okay, have you seen this before?”

Murphy asked again.

His awesome girlfriend grunted and crossed her arms:

“Who do you think I am? Not just an arachnid? I’ve seen plenty of them when I traveled in the Spectral Regions over two hundred years ago. This thing is actually a way that Shadow Elves use to torture prisoners, and it’s principle is taken from the ‘Weaving Fate Blessing’ ritual in the Shadow Elf family.

Those Shadow Elf females who had gained the favor of Avalon, the Spider Lady, would perform this ritual at some point.

They would offer everything they had to the Spider Lady in exchange for the blessing of the Avalon of Shadows, and after the ritual was over, those Shadow Elf women would become half-human, half-spider beings.

But to be honest, the genuine ‘Life Weaver Maiden’ was much prettier than the impostor in front of me.

That is the Shadow Elf race’s iconic power holders and each family’s senior, according to what I saw and heard back then, each of the Shadow Elf’s thirteen families will have a priestess order made up entirely of life-weaving maidens.

That is the most intimidating force under the command of the family master mother.

That is also the authority of Avalon of Shadows in the Shadow Elf race.

Legend has it that those gifted Fate Weaving Maidens can use their eyes to see through the course of the River of Fate and make quite accurate prophecies.

Although there has never been a real case proving this, from the time when the Shadow Elves were expelled from the Castile Peninsula by the other three races of elves until now, for so many years, not only have they not declined and died out, but they have instead lived more and more vigorously, we can see that these prophecies about destiny might not be empty words.

They gradually occupied half of the dark region under the Eternal Rift Valley, and formed a complex system of fallen kingdom there.

Seriously, if you look at the power and war potential alone, the Shadow Elves nowadays have already formed a faction of their own, and can compete with the Castilian Elven Kingdom.

Luckily, the two groups are separated by half of the continent and the obstacle of the Genoa Peninsula, otherwise the civil war between the elves would definitely have been fought a long time ago.”

Tris said with a shake of her head:

“Anyway, don’t underestimate these crazy women who use spiders as their symbols, if a tender little tit like you falls into the hands of the Shadow Elves, I’m afraid that those hopelessly lecherous women will really eat you up.

In the physical sense of the word.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, with you here, I’m still afraid of them?”

Murphy grunted, but then he frowned:
“Tris, you’re the best theologian on the continent, can you answer a doubt I have? Why is there such a big gap between Ms. Spider and the other three faces among the four phases of Avalon?

The Moon Maiden, the Storm Queen, and the Mother of the Forest are all clearly in the order-keeping camp, but this Spider Lady is considered to be the extreme kind even in the eyes of vampires.

This doesn’t make sense at all.”

“Hmm, good question.”

Tris looked around as she lowered her voice:

“I went to the Spectral Regions back in the day with the intention of finding that answer, and obviously I could get a concrete answer, but my travels through the Thirteen Families gave me an idea.

There was no proof.

But my guess is that the birth of Ms. Spider isn’t a coincidence.
Avalon may have been ‘tainted’ and the Spider Lady, is the manifestation of that tainted part of Him in terms of His divinity”

“Bang.”

A knock on the door sounded at just the right moment, causing Tris to immediately shut up also causing Murphy’s heart to jump, discussing the secrets of these gods in a world where they actually existed was just troublesome.

You have to guard against being overheard by Him at all times.

“Come in!”

Murphy turned around and Bonnie “Madwoman”, the head of Tris’s personal guard, poked her head out and peeked around the room.

When she didn’t see the picture she wanted to see, the anticipation in Bonnie’s eyes quickly transformed into a touch of disappointment, then she said in a jarred voice:
“Grand Duke Shani has arrived, she is waiting for the two of you.”

(End of chapter)