I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 202 The Valley Constructer in a Breath

As the leader continued chanting, one after another, illusory figures surged out of the secret passage.

These phantoms didn't choose the closest target; they all headed towards Lieutenant Colonel Od.

Richard realized that the leader had focused most of his killing effort on the lieutenant colonel alone.

His mind raced in that instant.

Wentworth's loop is on the verge of spinning out.

Deep ether coagulation is too strong and has very serious side effects.

Moreover, he didn't know how the condensate would react to the loop idling; if it caused secondary damage, he would be finished.

There is only one thing that is fast, immediate, and can specifically activate microcirculation.

【Moon Nail - Reflection】.

Richard's hand had already reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out a long box of silver needles.

This time, he skipped the usual warm-up and compressed the entire needle-penetrating process to its limit.

Connect the needle, guide the breath, and insert the needle.

The condensed ether took shape at the tip of the needle, white with a hint of blue.

Richard spotted Wentworth's location.

The additional bonus of [Perception] allowed him to clearly see the direction of the main circuit within Wentworth's body.

The active end of the circuit is on the inside of his right arm.

That segment of ether was spinning violently, faster and faster, and had reached the point of collapse.

Richard strode forward and shot the silver needle from his fingertip.

The entire mass of pure ether was poured into the Wentworth microcirculation that was spinning idly.

The main circuit, which was on the verge of collapse, was thoroughly cleaned from the inside and reactivated.

Wentworth's flushed face froze at the critical point.

He took a deep breath and stepped back two paces, retreating from the silenced area around the responder.

He glanced down at his right arm, where he had been pricked with an injection, and then looked back at Richard, who was standing in the innermost circle.

The other party has already retreated to their original position.

The inspection team leader didn't have time to think much about it.

He nodded very quickly in Richard's direction.

He then gripped his twin swords tightly again and circled around from the side.

Richard removed the shoulder strap of his Colton 120 camera from his neck, letting the camera hang diagonally at his waist, and reached into his coat pocket to pull out the Webley reel.

The handle was warm from being held by his sweaty palms.

He opened the reel and loaded six enchanted bullets one by one from the ammunition belt.

The afterimage didn't move very fast, and the distance was only a dozen feet.

The dark light at the core of each one is almost directly "visible" to the naked eye at [Perception] Lv.2.

enough.

On the other side, Old Big also raised his revolver.

The old coroner's gun was shorter than Richard's, and the grip was wrapped in burlap, so it wouldn't feel cold in the winter.

The two of them occupied the positions between the light locks.

"Grey Eyes." Old Big didn't dare pronounce the name: "Aim at the ball of light right in the center of its chest, don't aim at its face, the face of an evil creature is deceptive."

A bird-like phantom swept past the outermost edge of the innermost circle, about seven or eight steps away from Richard.

Richard held the wheel horizontally with his right hand and pressed his right wrist with his left hand.

"Bang!"

The gunshots were muffled inside the sealed cave.

The exorcism inscription around the base of the bullet exploded into a tiny silver flower on the ethereal level.

The bird was cut in half, and the entire cloud of fog hissed away.

The recoil pushed Richard's right shoulder back, allowing him to regain his footing and press the muzzle of his gun down slightly.

Old Big also fired a shot.

He shot a faceless child.

The bullet pierced right through his chest, and the entire cloud of fog dispersed vertically in place, without even a flicker of the surrounding lights.

In this coordinated attack, Richard fired four out of the six enchanted bullets from his revolver.

He spared two rather faint phantoms, the kind that would dissipate with a single tap of the enchanted axe's back; there was no need to waste them.

The four that were taken down were the ones that were approaching the innermost circle from two different directions and posed the greatest threat to Mr. Hutton's defensive line.

Old Big took down three of them, and with the two of them working together, some of the pressure on the outer circle was relieved.

Richard looked up and gazed in the direction of the pit's core.

The response leader was entangled by Mr. Hutton's verdict and Mrs. McNeil's seven spirits, and his progress was slowed down.

But he kept walking forward.

The woman weaving the net was about to stretch the thread to its limit.

The wolf spirit's golden net had several holes in it.

The figure of the old woman with the bone bracelet, sitting cross-legged, began to become somewhat transparent.

Mr. Hutton's voice grew weaker and weaker as he read the verdict.

The respondent was pressed so hard he could barely move, yet his chanting never ceased.

The second team leader came over from the other end with his gun raised to provide support, aiming it at the two illusory figures close to the ground.

But just before he pulled the trigger, a certain passage in the response suddenly changed tone.

That wasn't a new sentence being recited; he had picked out a few syllables from the original sentence and rearranged them into an extremely short incantation.

The direction of that spell was aimed at the lieutenant colonel.

Richard, with his hidden spiritual vision, saw everything clearly.

The moment the spell landed on the lieutenant colonel, his breathing rhythm faltered.

It only caused a slight mishap.

The phantom in front of the lieutenant colonel's left leg took advantage of the half-beat gap and pounced at his feet.

The second team leader's shot hit behind the phantom, missing the core.

The phantom's sharp claws slashed across the lieutenant colonel's left leg.

The trouser leg was ripped open, and blood seeped out.

The lieutenant colonel grunted and took a half-step back.

"Lieutenant Colonel!" the second squad leader shouted from the other end.

"It's alright," the lieutenant colonel said steadily.

The main circuit was hit hard by that disturbance spell, causing its efficiency to drop.

The first responder did not stop; his recitation began a new section.

This time, even more phantoms emerged, a full fifteen, and their target remained the lieutenant colonel.

The female team leader with the scar on her brow bone has already dealt with countless phantoms.

She was almost out of silver lead bullets in her rifle, so she switched to enchanted bullets.

On the second team leader's side, he was protecting Xiao Ma, firing his gun as he retreated.

"Little Ma, stay close to me!" the second team leader shouted. "Don't stray from the group!"

Just then, the respondent cast a silencing spell once again.

This time, the silence fell over the area where the second group leader and Xiao Ma were located.

Xiao Ma was close by, and his hand, which was holding the gun, suddenly jerked, causing the flintlock pistol to slip from his grasp.

The second team leader's breathing rhythm was abruptly interrupted by the silence the moment he pulled the trigger.

His technique failed.

The rifle in his hand was inlaid with a mysterious dark silver gemstone bearing his name.

It should have released a silver light at the same time as firing, slicing the phantom that lunged at it.

But the gemstone did not shine.

The phantom pounced on the second group leader's chest.

The second squad leader instinctively tried to block with the butt of his rifle.

But before he could even raise his rifle, the phantom had already burrowed into his chest.

Richard saw it clearly using his hidden spiritual vision.

After the phantom entered the second group leader's chest, the etheric circuit within his body, which had already been disrupted by the silence, was directly severed.

All of this happened in the blink of an eye, so much so that Lieutenant Colonel Ode didn't even have time to come to the rescue.

The second group leader stopped in his tracks.

He looked down at his chest.

The man was a little confused and hadn't quite figured out what was going on.

"What's going on...?"

He muttered something to himself and then fell forward.

"Second Team Leader!" Xiao Ma rushed over.

He wanted to help the fallen second group leader.

But the phantom that had burrowed into his chest had already retreated and pounced on the pony again.

"Little Ma, head down!" a team leader shouted from the other end.

A late-arriving air blast pulverized it in mid-air.

"Drag that child back!" the lieutenant colonel roared.

One of the group leaders rushed over, grabbed Xiao Ma by the back of his collar, and forcibly pulled him back from next to the second group leader.

Xiao Ma staggered a few steps as he was pulled, still clutching a piece of torn cloth tightly in his hand.

On the other side, Richard ignored everyone else and stared intently at the medium in the respondent's hand.

It was a black piece of something woven from an unknown material, which was tightly clenched in his right hand.

His gaze fell on the feet of the responding leader.

The entire overturned core area was not completely dark.

The five activated stone rings were steadily glowing.

Where there is light, there is shadow.

——【Shadow Armor】

Following the improved approach, Richard reversed the flow of ether from the inside out, concentrating all the weight on the shadow on the right hand of the responder.

The responder had already bent down and lunged forward, but just as he was suspended in mid-air, his right hand, which was holding the medium, suddenly sank down.

The weight wasn't particularly heavy for someone of his rank, but it still caused his hand to instinctively loosen under the pressure.

The black medium slipped out from between his fingers.

As his right hand suddenly increased its weight, his center of gravity was pulled off course by half a step.

"Gray Eyes! Go back!"

Mr. Hutton's voice boomed through the cave.

Richard then realized that when he cast [Shadow Armor], he had unknowingly stepped outside the protection range of the light lock.

He immediately withdrew the spell and retreated to the innermost circle of the lamp array.

Several beams of light enveloped him again.

He used the silver ring given to him by Lady Mary, which hung around his neck, to shield his gaze as much as possible.

The person who responded didn't take him seriously at all from beginning to end.

Richard stood quietly in the innermost circle, his gaze fixed on the respondent.

The battle on the outer ring has reached its most intense stage.

The first responder missed the center of the pit, disrupting his rhythm and causing his chanting to become intermittent for the first time.

But the phantoms he summoned kept pouring out.

The responder picked up the piece of medium that had slipped and approached the center of the pit again.

Mr. Hutton's voice was already intermittent as he read the verdict.

The old man was holding onto the inscription table, his whole body trembling.

Mrs. McNeill's seven spirits, the golden web of the wolf spirits, is mostly torn, and the weaver's thread is about to break.

After Wentworth was stabilized by that needle, he moved to the flank.

However, his burst potential was exhausted, and he was no longer able to make a second all-out attack.

The illusory images still surged throughout the venue.

The entire situation has reached a critical point.

Richard's gaze swept over Mrs. McNeil, who was standing to the side.

The medium stood inside the second ring of light locks, holding her own spiritual artifact in her hand.

Her gaze fell on the lieutenant colonel.

That night in Whitcomb, at the most crucial moment, the medium summoned the spirit of her teacher, Mrs. Mary, from the bone bracelet.

Logically speaking, the current situation is even more dangerous than Whitcomb's night.

The bone bracelet in the medium's hand shouldn't be kept closed all the time.

But Mrs. McNeil's left hand remained on the bone bracelet at her waist, without moving any further down.

He thought of the "trump card" that Mr. Hutton had mentioned before and waited silently.

Lieutenant Colonel Odd stood on the outer circle.

The trump card he had been holding back had finally come to the point where he had no choice but to use it.

The lieutenant colonel glanced at the second group leader lying on the ground, then at Xiao Ma, who had been dragged back to kneel on the ground.

"Shut up, all of you. No one is allowed to respond to what's coming next."

The lieutenant colonel slowly raised the steel prosthetic limb toward the starry sky reflected above his head.

The entire core area trembled slightly at that moment.

Richard stood in the innermost circle, not daring to use his spiritual vision to fixate on the lieutenant colonel.

He could only use the minimum amount of sensory radiation to "hear" the moment the lieutenant colonel spoke.

Lieutenant Colonel Ode opened his mouth.

He called out three solfège syllables, each separated by a full breath.

"Standing atop the cloud trails, one with the wind."

The moment the first sentence was uttered, the rocks on the cave ceiling trembled slightly.

A powerful figure, residing deep within the veil of authority, was awakened from his slumber by these words.

"...He who once constructed a deep valley in a single breath."

The moment the second sentence was uttered, Richard heard the sound of a very distant wind blowing from beyond the mountain pass.

The sound of the wind carried countless extremely light breaths, compressed to the point of being almost inaudible.

"The lungs have departed, the bones have become a flute, only the breath remains in the world."

The moment Richard uttered the third sentence, he froze.

He dared not move, nor dared he look.

There was a gaze overhead.

That "above" is neither the ceiling nor the top of the rock.

It is a conceptual "up," the highest, farthest, and most detached from human beings direction that Richard can barely imagine in his mind.

With just that one glance, the entire area where that gaze fell was enveloped in an extremely compressed state.

The point that was being swept along remained still, while everything around it was irresistibly pushed aside.

The air, the ether, and the phantom all receded, as did the chanting from the responder's mouth.

Richard then understood what a "master" really meant.

That one's "secret" is the wind.

The wind has no boundaries, no weight, and no death.

He went to the deepest part of the veil, took out his lungs, made his bones into a flute, and discarded everything except his breath.

What remains is a wisp of something that exists only as a part of the wind.

It doesn't need to be found, nor does it need to respond to anyone.

It only needs to breathe.

Its breath is the breath of the entire curtain in this area.

Lieutenant Colonel Odd's steel prosthetic limb, from his shoulder down to his fingertips, was enveloped in a very thin layer of white airflow.

That layer of airflow was borrowed from the "above" side.

The airflow was diverted, and the lieutenant colonel's face turned ashen in an instant, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

He stretched out his hand in the direction of the responder.

The fingertips of the prosthetic limb point downwards.

The entire core area was filled with an omnipresent low-frequency wind pressure.

The wind pressure was neither blowing, nor moving, nor making a sound.

It simply exists.

Guided by the expert, he gently blew a breath in that direction.

The first respondent couldn't withstand this blow.

The illusory figures around him dissipated first.

The bird-like phantom was crushed into dust by the wind pressure, and the faceless child's phantom was crushed from the middle by the wind pressure.

The lead singer, harmonies, and final notes of the response group were all drowned out by the wind pressure.

No one can recite that part of the real name completely anymore.

The process of generating the true name that was about to be completed in the mouth of the responder was abruptly stopped by the wind pressure.

Richard leaned against the light lock, his entire face turned towards the ground, not daring to lift his gaze even an inch upwards.

In that instant, he suddenly wondered, what if one day he came to that point?

Will his lungs be removed?

Could bones turn into flutes?

Will all that remains of me in the end be a shapeless breath?

Richard couldn't remember how long the wind pressure lasted.

After enduring the initial blows, the person in the response position was on the verge of collapse from the wind pressure.

The compressed airflow on Lieutenant Colonel Od's prosthetic limb dissipated.

The lieutenant colonel staggered forward half a step and spat out a mouthful of blood.

"...Now is the time."

His voice was so hoarse that it was almost unrecognizable.

Wentworth was waiting for this sentence.

This time he didn't need to use his burst of power anymore; the leader was already completely immobilized.

Wentworth circled behind the Responder, the inscriptions on his enchanted twin blades lighting up, a crimson trail passing through the Responder's heart from behind.

The humanoid figure that was about to collapse was completely shattered by this strike.

The true name that was circulating within his body dissipated.

The entire core area is beginning to turn back to its original front.

The sea of ​​stars reflected overhead slowly faded away.

One by one, the stars in the sky dimmed, and the cave ceiling, 150 feet deep, returned to its original state.

The stone slabs underfoot were still there, and the activated light rings within the nine stone rings had stabilized again.

Lieutenant Colonel Odd put down the steel prosthetic limb.

The wind pressure on the prosthetic limb slowly dissipated.

The entire cave fell silent.

"...You won?" Xiao Ma was still kneeling on the ground. He raised his head, his voice hoarse.

No one answered immediately.

Everyone was panting heavily.

Wentworth knelt on one knee, his exhausted body barely able to hold on.

Mr. Hutton leaned on the inscription table, his face deathly pale.

Mrs. McNeil put the seven spirits back into the Spirit Vessel.

Richard stood in the innermost circle.

His use of Shadow Armor and Moon Nail, along with maintaining his spiritual vision for an extended period, had left him utterly exhausted.

But just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, his inspiration caught a very subtle asymmetry.

In the moment before his death, there was no fear on his face.

It's a laugh.

That smile was exactly the same as the smiles on the faces of those fragmented "final notes"—peaceful and content.

Mr. Hutton did not sit down to rest.

The old man was severely exhausted and was trembling all over, but he still managed to pick up the chisel again while holding onto the inscription table.

"The seal has not been broken." Mr. Hutton's voice was weak, but his hands were steady.

"But it was 'asked' a question, and it was infiltrated from the opposite direction."

"Rings six through nine must all be replicated and resealed."

"Furthermore, we need to add a new node."