Amid the steam of the industrial revolution, mysteries surge beneath the surface. Cults and secret societies seek the extraordinary in the shadows, while hidden gods gaze upon humanity from the hea...
"I see..." Dorothy nodded slightly after listening to Anna's words. She had indeed put forward her opinions to Charles IV through Anna before, but she did not expect Charles IV to adopt them so straightforwardly.
The reason why Dorothy proposed that Isabel should inherit the throne was that the main host of the Dark Moon Ceremony was Isabel, who was possessed by the previous kings of the Wind Dynasty. After performing such a high-level divine descent ceremony with so many previous secret-keeping kings, Isabel's legal connection with Pritt was very strong. Even if the legal deduction caused by violating the inheritance law was deducted, Isabel's legal right to be king after completing the ceremony was still far greater than any of her brothers and sisters.
If Dorothy wanted to use Pritt's legal power to cause trouble in the future, then letting Isabel succeed to the throne would be the most correct choice. With her as the node, Dorothy could use Pritt's legal power to a greater extent. Therefore, Dorothy suggested to Charles IV that Isabel be made his successor.
Although according to the inheritance law, Isabel was not qualified to succeed the throne, and this princess had not been trained as a queen and lacked experience in governing. After taking the throne, it would inevitably lead to political turmoil in Pritt, but as long as there was support from the church, the overall situation would be stable. With the assistance of an extraordinary person like Anna, the governing experience would be enough to control the overall situation. On the civilian level, Isabel herself had the best reputation in the royal family, so she was the least worried.
Therefore, if Isabel succeeds to the throne, the main uncertainty is whether it will be due to the church. However, considering Dorothy's current influence on the Council of Cardinals, it should not be too difficult to get them to recognize her.
"Before I knew it, I had become a big shot who could influence the throne of a great country with just one word..."
Sitting in her seat, Dorothy was thinking like this in her heart, and at this time Anna continued to speak.
"Oh, there is one more thing. His Majesty wants you to attend Isabel's coronation ceremony and crown her. What do you mean by that?"
Anna said this to Dorothy, and Dorothy paused for a moment. She seemed to have never expected that Charles IV would have such an idea.
"Let me crown the new king? Actually, it seems to make sense. The so-called coronation is essentially a ceremony that symbolizes the divine right of kings. If Isabel is the new king, then in their eyes, it is completely reasonable for me, as the messenger of the night sky, to be the representative of 'God'."
After listening to Anna's words, Dorothy was silent for a while, thought for a while, and then smiled and spoke again.
"Let's forget about the public coronation ceremony. This is Hui Guang's job and I don't want to steal it. If there is a secret ceremony that is not open to the public, I can come and take part in it."
Dorothy responded in this way. No matter what, on the surface, Pritt was still a country of the Glorious Church, and the public coronation ceremony must be attended by the Glorious people. If she robbed it herself, it would be purely a deliberate attempt to make things difficult for the church, which was not in line with Dorothy's style.
Besides, Dorothy has no plans to make such a public appearance at present.
…
After meeting Anna and having a brief exchange with her, and getting to know each other, Dorothy said goodbye to her, left the cafe and went out onto the bustling street.
On the street, Dorothy got into her own carriage, and then was carried by the corpse-puppet driver and drove back in the direction of return.
In the carriage, Dorothy took out her magic box, and then took out the "Hai Hai Voyage" from it. After flipping through it briefly, she turned to one of the contact pages. On this page was written a string of crooked and distorted Pratt text.
"Dear Mr. Bachelor, I have already asked the teacher about your previous question. According to his response... it is not impossible to borrow the location of the Wild Sacrifice. He is willing to go to the nearest Wild Sacrifice altar and communicate with the great shaman there. Since you have eliminated the traitors of the Wuling Cult before, it should not be difficult for you to obtain the qualification to borrow it..."
Dorothy looked at the words that appeared on the page in front of her. This was written by her contact in the New World, Capac of the Tupa tribe. Dorothy had previously communicated with Capac and his master Shaman Uta about the ceremony of Neveu's promotion, and now she had received a preliminary response.
"Is there a chance that we can use the ritual site of the wild festival? That would be great... This is the reward for getting rid of Chabakunka, it's pretty good..."
Looking at Capac's response on the page, Dorothy nodded and thought to herself, then she continued to read the following content.
"In addition, Teacher Uta also responded to the steps required for the other rituals you mentioned. He said that it is very difficult for one person to control the will of a thousand souls. This is a great challenge to the willpower of the controller. It is almost impossible to accomplish it by one person alone. However, he can find some special wilderness spirits to assist, but these wilderness spirits are unwilling to go far away, so the ritualist is also needed to come here.
"Also, Mr. Uta said that it is very dangerous for a soul to go to the depths of the netherworld alone. If you are not careful, you will be summoned by a great soul and will unconsciously embark on a journey from which you cannot return. It will be very difficult to come back on your own. He did not have any good suggestions in this regard."
Capac's handwriting was written on the page in front of Dorothy. After reading it, Dorothy sighed slightly, and then thought to herself.
"The Thousand Souls Ritual has special wilderness spirits that can assist? That's great... But according to Uta, the Netherworld Ritual can only rely on Neveu herself. With her willpower... can she complete this ritual without help? Or does she dare to risk her life and go to the Netherworld alone?"
Dorothy thought about this again. Although Nephnis seemed very brave in many events, she knew that she had Dorothy's support behind her all the time. This time, she went deep into the underworld in the form of a soul. Dorothy could hardly give her much support. At that time, it was a question whether she dared to go. Dorothy understood that her senior sister also lacked motivation in all aspects because there was no important matter behind her.
"In short, it's always a good idea to let Neveu go to the New World first. At least she can complete the Yuming Ritual and the Thousand Souls Ritual first. As for the last Netherworld Ritual, she can postpone it until she has the chance."
Just like this, Dorothy thought in her heart, and then began to arrange Nefernis's trip to the New World in her heart.
Dorothy was not in a hurry to contact Neveu immediately to inform her of Capac's response, because Dorothy knew that Neveu also had her own things to do at this time.
…
A sparsely populated townhouse suite in a suburb somewhere in North Tivian.
Deep inside the apartment, in a large room, the chilly air was spreading throughout the room. In the dim room, only a few green soul fires were suspended and burning in the air, illuminating the entire closed room with a bleak chill.
On the floor of the room, a complicated "Silence" magic circle was drawn. Above the magic circle, the ghost of a foreign warrior in armor was slowly floating. Next to the magic circle, a girl in a grey robe was sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed and a focused expression.
The dead soul on the magic circle was Rahman, the former king of Northern Uadus, and in front of it, Nefernis was sitting there, concentrating on performing the ceremony, the ceremony of sending the soul away.
In the previous events, in order to understand Pritt's past story, Dorothy asked Uta to send Rahman's spirit to Tivian, and Neveu received it in a ritual. What Neveu is doing now is to cooperate with Uta in the new world to send Rahman's spirit back again, after all, the environment there is more suitable for the dead to live.
Originally, this soul-sending ceremony should have been carried out long ago, but before that, Nefnis relied on the Lamp of the Underworld to overload her own abilities, and at the same time relied on Uta and Rahman to communicate with each other through blood, and pulled out the previous kings of the Prit Wind Dynasty from the great soul. This advanced level of operation almost completely drained all of Nefnis's spiritual power in one breath, and also made her very weak for a while. It was not until many days after the incident that she recovered and could perform the ceremony to send Rahman back.
Uta's soul was only at the chalk level, and he himself was also a psychic, so he could go back easily. Rahman, as a spirit of the 5th level, was not a psychic himself, so rituals were necessary to assist at both ends of the communication.
Sitting in front of the magic circle, Nefernis chanted the spell with a focused look. As her mysterious spell echoed in the space, the magic circle of the spiritual ritual gradually emitted a cold glow, and then became brighter and brighter. The transparency of Rahman's translucent figure also began to gradually increase, becoming more and more blurred.
"go……"
Finally, after the last spell was chanted, Nefernis greatly activated her own spirituality, and then the magic circle in the room suddenly lit up with a shining light, and Rahman seemed to quickly disappear in this light.
At this moment, the light above the magic circle suddenly dimmed, and the faint ghost fire floating in the space suddenly went out. The magic circle returned to its original state. The entire ceremony was suddenly interrupted, and Rahman's soul was still floating above the magic circle, with no sign of being sent out.
"What happened? Did the ritual fail?"
Looking at the situation around him, Rahman checked the surroundings and then examined himself. Then he asked Nefernis in a puzzled tone, and Nefernis sat there for two seconds before slowly answering.
"Well... it looks like I've lost... What's going on? Is there something wrong?"
Nephnis said this doubtfully, then she stood up and walked around the magic circle. As she walked, she began to carefully inspect the magic circle and the entire ceremony site, trying to find what went wrong.
"That's weird... There doesn't seem to be anything wrong... Why did the ritual fail all of a sudden? Oh, oh, how about you help take a look? I might have missed something due to my carelessness..."
After checking it all over and not finding anything, Neve scratched her head and said in confusion, "There's really no other way." She asked Rahman to help check her ritual. Rahman smiled helplessly, floated down from the magic circle, and helped Neve check her ritual, but after checking it for a long time, he didn't find anything wrong.
"The arrangement of the ritual is correct... the magic circle is not drawn incorrectly... there should be no problem on your side. I'm afraid something went wrong with Uta Shaman."
After checking the surroundings, Rahman analyzed to Nef, and Nef breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Rahman say that he had not arranged anything wrong. This sending off ceremony is a two-way process. If he has to hold it, Uta also has to do it. If there is no problem on his side, the problem must be with Uta.
After confirming that there was no problem with her ritual, Neveu closed her eyes and prayed to Akka, sending a message to Dorothy, hoping that Dorothy would convey the message to Capak.
"Is there something wrong with this funeral ceremony?"
Dorothy, who was sitting on the carriage at this time, was slightly startled after receiving Neveu's information communication. After recalling it, she felt that this seemed to be the first time she saw a problem with the spiritual ceremony. However, she did not think too much at this time, but directly followed Neveu's request and used the information communication to quickly contact Capac in the New World, asking him and Uta to check if there was any problem with the ceremony on their side.
After completing the transfer notification, Dorothy sat down and began to wait. After waiting for several minutes, she finally received a reply from the New World.
No problem, everything is normal! In Kapak's response, there was no abnormality in Uta's spiritual ritual. He was a little annoyed by Dorothy's doubts and felt that Dorothy was questioning her ability.
"The teacher said that he has been a shaman for decades, and there have never been any problems with the procedures and arrangements in various ceremonies. If there is a problem, it must be on Miss Thief's side."
Capac's words echoed in Dorothy's mind, and for a moment Dorothy couldn't help but frown slightly in confusion. Then she directly told Neveu about Capac's response, which made Neveu feel very surprised.
"What...the other side also said there is no problem? That's strange, why did the ceremony fail?" In the dim room, after listening to Dorothy's words, Neveu couldn't help but speak in confusion. Rahman, who was standing next to her, couldn't help but look a little froze after hearing Neveu's words.
"Miss Dorothy, I can guarantee that there is no problem with my ceremony either. Mr. Rahman and I have checked it together. You may suspect that I missed something due to carelessness, but you cannot doubt Mr. Rahman. If you don't believe me, you can check it yourself from my perspective."
Raising one hand, Neveu said this to Dorothy in her heart, and Dorothy paused slightly and then responded to Neveu.
"Okay, then I'll take a look..."
Then, Dorothy began to follow Neveu's vision and check the situation on her side of the ceremony site. Dorothy had the relevant knowledge, and after checking for a long time, she did not find anything unusual in the arrangement. Then Neveu took the initiative to show Dorothy her memory of the ceremony she had just performed, and Dorothy could not find any problems with the process of the ceremony.
"This is strange, everything is correct, how come the ceremony failed?" Faced with this question, Dorothy couldn't help but touch her chin and thought in her heart. While thinking, she also thought of Neveu asking some other questions about the details. Neveu also answered them one by one in a fluent manner without any problems.
Dorothy confirmed step by step, but couldn't find the cause of the problem. Just when she thought that something happened in the underworld that affected the ceremony, she suddenly thought of a seemingly basic point, and then asked Neveu in her heart.
"By the way, Senior Neveu, do you have enough spiritual power to perform the ritual?"
"Spirituality, that's enough... eh..."
Listening to Dorothy's words, Neveu answered in words as a matter of course, but halfway through her answer, she froze as if she realized something, and she froze in a daze, patting herself hurriedly and starting to check herself. After the check, an extremely embarrassed look appeared on her face.
"Uh... eh... this... this... seems to be... a spiritual, spiritual problem... My spirituality seems to be a little lacking...
"Oh... Miss Dorothy, I'm sorry! How could I make such a stupid mistake! I forgot such a basic point!"
Neveu stammered to Dorothy in an extremely embarrassed tone. At the end of her words, she couldn't hold back her emotions and covered her face with her hands, shaking her head in shame. She couldn't believe that she would make such a low-level mistake.
Neve's behavior just now was like a driver who wanted to drive the car but couldn't start it no matter what. After checking every part of the car for a long time, he didn't find any faults. He even sent the car back to the manufacturer for inspection, but no abnormalities were found. Finally, after being reminded by others, he found that the reason why the car couldn't move was because there was no refueling.
"Huh... this is really..."
Dorothy was speechless for a moment in front of Neveu's cheap trick. She knew that Neveu was sometimes careless, but she didn't expect that she would be so careless this time. In her situation, she couldn't even think about completing the underworld ritual alone.
"Senior Neveu, I'm not saying anything bad about you...how could you forget something like this? You've been resting for so many days, so your spiritual energy should be enough. How come you're still short of it? Did you lose your spiritual energy somewhere else?"
Weiwei held her forehead and spoke to Neveu, and Neveu, who was so embarrassed that she wanted to find a hole to crawl into, responded eagerly.
"This... I don't know why I would forget such a basic thing. This didn't happen before. This is my own spirituality. It shouldn't be impossible for me not to know it...
"Also! According to the time, after my weakness ended, my spiritual power should have recovered to the point where I could perform this ritual... I don't understand why it went wrong. According to the recovery rate, this shouldn't be the case...
"Also, I can guarantee that I haven't used any of my abilities in the past few days! I may not be focused on doing things, but I am definitely focused on resting! It's impossible for me to use my spiritual power when I'm resting, Miss Dorothy, please believe me on this! If you don't believe me, I'll show you my memory!"
At the end of her words, Neveu immediately raised one hand, straightened her chest, and made a solemn promise. Hearing Neveu's words, Dorothy's expression froze, and the look of blame on Neveu disappeared.
"Yes... no matter how careless she is, she shouldn't be confused about her spiritual state. According to the time, Neveu's spirituality should have recovered enough to perform the ritual... but now she has lost her spirituality for no apparent reason and doesn't even know it... why is that?"
Sitting on the seat of the carriage, Dorothy could not help but fall into deep thought again.
…
In the middle of the continent, on top of Mount Shenglin.
Inside the Holy Cathedral, which is as huge as a town, in the court area, there is a tall room supported by several marble columns.
The room was covered with exquisite carpets, and decorated all around by stone statues of stern-looking priests holding scriptures and hammers. On the ceiling of the room, there was a huge religious picture painted on it. A male angel with wings on his back and a solemn face was holding a scale in one hand and a long-handled hammer in the other, sweeping away the many mortals below. The mortals' bodies were smashed to pieces in panic, and all kinds of monsters escaped from the broken bodies.
㱗On one side of the room, on a tall desk that looked like a courtroom table, Judge Shu Kramar was writing on the documents on the desk with a look of anger. 㱗In front of him, there were countless documents piled up, and on the huge bookshelf behind him, there were layers of books and archives.
Kramar was writing furiously on his desk. Suddenly, he stopped writing as if he was reading something worth noting. Then he picked up a document and looked at it. Among the densely packed words on the document, he could see the front profile of a nun. It was Vanya.
Holding the document in his hand, Kramar was silent for a long time. Then he snorted coldly, put the pen on the table, stood up with the document, left his sitting position, looked at it by the window for a few more times, then rolled up the document and put it on his body. He walked quickly to the door of his office, opened the door and walked out.
After Krama left, the huge space returned to complete tranquility for a while. This tranquility did not last long before a black shadow rose from the shadow in the corner of the room and gradually condensed into a human shape in the space. After the black shadow gained color, Atcherie's petite figure appeared in the room.
Standing in her colleague's office, Atcherie stared silently at the door where Kramer left for two seconds, then turned her gaze to other places in the room, finally stopping at the piles of documents on Kramer's desk and the huge bookshelf behind it.