My esoteric uncle Jules

Chapter 131 Internal and External Exchange
The statue shattered, turning into a pile of stones that rolled across the ground with a crash.

However, the four did not let their guard down—the frost that covered the entire chapel did not recede, but instead became even more crystal clear.

The sunlight shone lazily down, reflecting back and forth on the mirror-like smooth ice surface.

Ultimately, the light refracted and converged at a single point, forming a picture of an intact chapel, without a trace of decay.

Jules's eyes flickered slightly upon seeing the scene before him.

"This is...the past?"

He had never seen this place before, but that seems to be the most reasonable explanation.

At that time, the statue was still intact.

It was through this that Jules was finally able to see what the statue looked like when it was intact.

It was a marble statue, but the carving techniques used on it were terrifying.

The material, which should have been rough or at most delicate, was sculpted to have a mirror-like texture.

The statue has no face; where the face should be is an incredibly smooth mirror.

The slender figure and gorgeous long dress suggest that this statue belongs to a woman, or perhaps a feminine deity.

"A statue of a crescent moon..." Jules narrowed his eyes.

For some reason, even though the scene in front of him was just like a projection, he inexplicably felt like he was being stared at by the statue.

Beneath the statue, a shirtless believer kneels with a devout expression.

He gripped a small knife, muttering to himself:

"Queen in the mirror, please peel away my outer skin, so that my inner self may kiss this cold world."

"Internal and external things change, appearance and reality alternate; I will practice your laws, whether real or illusory, forever..."

As he spoke, he pressed the knife against his skin and began to slowly and firmly draw lines.

Even Jules, who was used to seeing bloody scenes, couldn't help but twitch at the sight.

I've seen too many bloody scenes; those crazy people who follow the rules of drinking have far more elaborate ways of doing things.

However, they were all driven by desire or passion, lacking the devout yet rational expression of the believers in the picture.

The combination of the two creates an extremely eerie effect.

Jules was engrossed in watching, while Ram was somewhat frightened and kept looking around.

As for Logan and Cliff, after their initial shock, they calmed down and their eyes gleamed thoughtfully as they saw the sudden scene.

One knife, another knife.

The believer's entire body was stained crimson with blood, but he seemed unaffected by the horrific wounds and continued to cut his own skin.

"Should we leave first? This place is really weird, and there's nothing here." Logan frowned.

Jules glanced at Logan and said:
"What? In such a hurry to go and die?"

Logan was speechless, wanting to retort but finding himself at a loss for words—it was indeed Jules who had saved them just now.

Therefore, his face turned red with embarrassment, and it was Cliff who came to his rescue:
“Mr. Jules, we know you are exceptionally capable, but we are, after all, cooperating under Mr. Uriel’s leadership, so it would be best if we respected and understood each other more.”

His words carried a subtle threat.

Jules curled his lip in disdain, but was too lazy to argue with the two of them, and said lazily:

"Let's go."

He was quite curious about what Uriel—or rather, the great nobleman behind him—was looking for.

He didn't believe it was really as simple as just finding a sufficiently old antique.

Britain has everything, but it has no shortage of antiques.

During the process of colonization and expansion, regardless of the ethnicity, anything that looked artistic or had collectible value was brought back and placed in the British Museum.

Over time, a considerable number of antiques have become circulating among the people, and acquiring them does not require much effort.

The nobleman behind the scenes must have some secret that outsiders don't know, for he specifically sent Ram to this monastery to look for her.

Just as the three were about to leave, Ram suddenly spoke up:

"Wait a minute, I've made a new discovery."

Cliff turned his head and said impatiently:

"What have you found this time? Don't waste our time!"

Ram shook his head, rummaged through the pile of rubble next to him, groped around for a while, and then pulled hard.

A corpse, its skin completely peeled off and its flesh dried up, was pulled out of the rubble.

When Rama saw what she had excreted, even she gasped and threw it away as if afraid of bad luck.

The corpse's muscles and blood vessels were twisted and exposed, like a bizarre specimen that had been meticulously prepared.

Strangely, instead of a pungent, putrid odor, a strong, irritating fragrance wafted from it.

Logan and Cliff stopped and looked at the corpse.

"He's been dead for at least a month."

Their professionalism as adventurers led them to quickly reach the same conclusion.

Although Jules lacked their expertise in adventure, he was able to see the corpse from a different perspective.

The corpse's limbs were unnaturally twisted, and its withered fingers, like eagle claws, were deeply dug into the rubble on the ground, as if it had suffered great pain before death and was struggling desperately.

Its chest was open, its ribs were clearly visible, and there was only an empty hole where its heart should have been.

Judging from the direction of the force... it seems as if the deceased himself dug it out.

"The lingering influence of the principles of enlightenment..."

Jules stared at the corpse, pondered for a long time, and thought of the crescent moon believer in the picture.

If that believer had continued the ritual to the end, perhaps this would have happened?

Just as he was about to turn around, a sudden gust of cold wind blew by.

A faint murmur suddenly rose from the previously quiet chapel, as if it were coming from all directions, or perhaps from the throat of the corpse.

The low murmur grew clearer, like some ancient incantation swirling and echoing in the air.

Jules sensed something and turned around abruptly, only to be shocked to see that the believer in the scene had stopped self-harming at some point and was staring straight at him with a fanatical and eerie look in his eyes, as if Jules was the object of his entire faith.

The believer's lips moved rapidly, chanting a prayer never before heard:
"The illusion in the mirror, the real and the unreal, I use my devotion to make you real."

Every word seemed to possess a magical power, reverberating and echoing within the chapel, causing a slight ache in everyone's eardrums.

As the prayer was chanted, the originally still scene began to ripple.

Immediately afterwards, the believer plunged the blade into himself again without hesitation!
This time, however, three screams rang out simultaneously.

All four of them sustained a wound, but only Jules endured the pain without uttering a sound.

After Logan and Cliff screamed, they rushed toward the door without hesitation.

However, after a dizzying moment, the two found themselves still motionless in the same spot.

"What's going on?!" The two were filled with surprise and doubt. Ram glanced at them and said:
“You guys were just standing there, running around like idiots.”

Upon hearing this, the two men's expressions quickly turned ugly.

Cliff went even further and started hurling insults:
"If we had left sooner, none of this would have happened! Ram, you damned bastard!"

Ram, not to be outdone, sneered:

"If you two hadn't acted rashly at the beginning, we wouldn't have ended up in such a passive situation."

While the three were arguing, Jules seemed to be detached, quietly touching the wound on his arm without saying a word.

His eyes were fixed on the scene, never leaving it for a moment.

Just now, when the wound was opened, he seemed to have made a momentary connection with some strange place.

The believer cut along the lines again, peeling back a piece of his own flesh.

This time, the same skin and flesh were torn off all four of them again.

The screams filled the air, but Jules only felt excited.

The strange place he sensed seemed to be real.

Moreover, it is very likely that there is a real world inside what is called the "mirror"!

Is the scene before us what is called a "projection in a mirror"?

Are those wandering spirits also hidden among them?

However, it seems that the people in the mirror believe that they are the real people in the mirror and want to rescue them from "reality" and turn them into "nothingness".

"Is this the law of the crescent moon... the inner and outer exchange, the surface and the interior replace each other?" Jules felt a sudden understanding.

At this moment, his understanding of the mysticism deepened.

But before he could think any further, a third scream rang out.

"What if we end up like that corpse?!" Ram exclaimed in utter terror.

He has discovered that his skin is being peeled off, just like that of the corpse!

“If this drags on any longer, Ram might not be able to hold on.” Upon hearing the shout, Jules quickly and calmly made a judgment.

As for Logan and Cliff's fate? It wouldn't matter much if he killed them both without lifting a finger.

A thought flashed through his mind: he wanted to imitate his previous actions and use his sharp words to shred the scene before him.

However, the invincible concept of "sharpness" eventually encountered something it couldn't cut.

Under the sharp impact of the concept, the image continued to shake, but there was never any sign of it breaking down.

"No impact?"

Jules's eyes narrowed slightly; he hadn't expected such a change at all.

Although light has no physical form, what it uses to strike is not some simple sharp tool, but the concept of "sharpness" itself!
Only another abstract being can sever an abstract thing.

If he cannot solve the problem of the image formed by the refraction of light, he will have to start from other places.

Based on the characteristics of the crescent moon, and the various strange phenomena related to the "mirror" exhibited here...

It's very likely that the biggest mystery here is the mirror!

However, how could a dilapidated chapel have a perfectly intact mirror?

Jules almost immediately thought of the source—the frost that covered the entire chapel!

They are as smooth as mirrors, refracting and converging light into one place. If there is anything here that can be called a "mirror", it is these!

With this in mind, Jules no longer hesitated. Before the believer in the picture could peel off his skin again, he took the initiative to sharpen his nails and cut a line of blood through his skin!
Blood splattered everywhere, spreading across the ice.

The ice they passed over was either scratched so badly that nothing could be seen, or blocked by bloodstains, rendering it unusable as a mirror in any sense.

As the number of "mirrors" decreased, Jules clearly felt that the scene in front of him became noticeably more unstable.

The believer in the picture showed a look of shock, even panic.

Seeing this, he sneered and, without the slightest hesitation, began to remove the mirrors from the chapel!

"Stop dawdling and clean up all the mirrors here right now!"

As he spoke, he didn't forget to block the sunlight from shining in from the other side.

Of course, just as he had guessed, even though the sunlight used for refraction disappeared, the image of believers practicing the way of the crescent moon did not disappear.

Its power does not come from the refracted light, but from the mirror itself.

The three of them snapped out of their daze and quickly followed Jules, smashing and scratching the smooth, mirror-like ice surface around them with all their might.

The believers' expressions in the video ranged from surprise to panic, and then to anger.

"Impossible! The ritual cannot fail! Queen of the Mirror, please descend—"

Just as he was about to cut off the last large piece of intact skin from his body, the image completely disappeared.

At the same time, the wounds that had peeled off their skin also disappeared.

The bleeding wound began to close gradually, as if it had never existed.

"Done." Jules said casually, flicking the ice shavings off his hands.

Just now, he removed everything in the entire chapel that could serve as a mirror.

Either destroy it completely, or damage it to the point where it can no longer be used as a mirror.

Logan and Cliff breathed a sigh of relief after they managed to leave.

"Finally, it's over..." They even seemed a little exhausted.

Ram, on the other hand, was even more emboldened, turning pale with fright.

Seeing Jules approach, he stammered:
"I... I thought I would never get out of here alive..."

Jules stared at Ram and said calmly:
"Don't worry, there will be many more things like this in the future."

He finally understood why the priest, as a transcendent being of the Winter Code, should have been adept at dealing with such spiritual enemies, yet had never set foot in this place for so long.

There's nothing we can do. These enemies might not even have a physical form, or they might not even exist in the same world or the same space as him.

If the enemy is hiding in the mirror, and harming the mirror will not harm it, but will only make it escape, then anyone who comes will be as powerless as punching cotton.

Jules had initially thought so too, but when he discovered that there might actually be a world in the mirror, he had a new idea.

"Perhaps... the so-called treasure is actually in the mirror?"

He was lost in thought.

This made him even more curious about what would happen here during the full moon.

Just as Jules was lost in thought, Lam adjusted his mindset and said:
"Now that the danger here has been resolved, why don't we see if there are any treasures here?"

Jules narrowed his eyes upon hearing this and said:
"No, we're going in."

He had a premonition that perhaps the real secret here was hidden in the mirror.

(End of this chapter)