I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Lillian is already a professional in the field.

But in this hall, whether you're a professional or just a dabbler, you're still there.

Before sitting down, he was just a shadow whose face was not even clearly visible.

Pick one of the people already at the table and pull him off the chair.

The one he empties out is yours.

Those who fall will become heads in the darkness at the top of the hall.

Whether it was a deceased person who lost a challenge or a deceased person who was dragged off their seat.

Anyone who dies in this hall will have their head raised and hung on the ceiling.

What was hung up was certainly not a decoration.

Loki on the high chair, and the queen below him who held the reins of a doomed kingdom.

They can all draw strength from the heads above.

Therefore, Loki never interfered with the matter of arguing over seats.

He was hoping someone would compete with him.

He won, and a new face appeared at the table; he wanted to see something new.

Even if he loses, he'll still have an extra head on top, adding to his strength.

Ms. Holloway said that sometimes he would even get involved and encourage people to take action.

After a fierce battle, someone's head will inevitably fall into his net.

A sure-fire way to make money.

Lillian stood in the corner, reviewing her tactics.

She was ready to choose Badr.

To challenge Badr in this hall is tantamount to suicide.

Everyone at the table knew about his protective amulet, which claimed to be "sworn to by all things."

Fire cannot burn him, iron cannot harm him, water cannot drown him, and poison cannot bite him; no one dared to touch his chair.

Lillian dared to do this because she possessed something that others didn't.

Ms. Holloway already knew the two people in this hall.

It was because of this relationship that the token was passed to her through this connection.

Ms. Holloway confided in her about Bader.

The person in the head seat was most wary of this golden-haired, smiling fellow.

A person whom no one can touch sits on the table; he is a nail.

Loki is a master at setting traps to harm people, but how can you outsmart someone who is immune to fire, iron, water, and poison?

He sat in that chair, and now he's almost a master of it.

Once Baldr breaks through to the Great Mastery, Loki will be even less able to suppress him.

Hela was annoyed with him too; she collected all the dead bodies on the table, but this one alone wouldn't come through her door.

Both of them wanted to remove the nail, but neither wanted to do it themselves.

So, following Ms. Holloway's lead, the task was assigned to the most unassuming girl, who had only been brought in a few months ago.

They succeeded; they gained a valuable asset to leverage and eliminated a major threat.

If we fail, it's just another insignificant head on top.

Ms. Holloway said one last thing to her.

"Choose another seat; killing him would be pointless." The woman pointed her finger at Badr's name.

"But if you kill him, take his place, and inherit the power he accumulated... it can make up for a portion of your strength."

Lillian knew exactly what she needed to supplement.

The path to the abyss is swift to climb, but the things you lose also drop swiftly.

The warmth and flavor that ordinary people take decades to lose, she has been losing them one by one in the past six months.

The most fatal thing is that even her foundation is decaying inch by inch.

Badr, however, was the best preserved one in the hall.

He possesses an invulnerable body that all things swear to, and is the most favored among the gods. Fire, iron, water, and poison cannot leave a single mark on his body.

Bright, whole, and never damaged in the slightest.

Inheriting a portion of that power would perfectly fill the void left by the abyss that had eroded her foundation.

This was the key reason why Ms. Holloway chose Bader for her.

That's also why she willingly made this knife herself.

If a knife can still be passed forward, then it still has value.

The girl was going to engage in a positional exchange battle, so she didn't rush to choose a god's name.

The rule of this hall is that before the challenge, the candidate can first light up their own divine name.

Borrow a strand of knowledge accumulated over thousands of years to give yourself some strength.

But the name of God is a double-edged sword.

Every divine name has its origins, its glory, and naturally its shortcomings.

By revealing your name, you gain power, but you also expose your weaknesses.

Badr is a prime example.

He revealed his divine name and displayed his protective aura to everyone.

But the mistletoe that no one paid any attention to also ended up hanging on his head.

Lillian will win this battle without relying on borrowed strength.

She relied on the wondrous object she had signed and her own hands.

"Tonight, someone wants to take over."

From his high chair, Loki raised a finger and pointed across most of the hall at the shadow standing in the corner.

"After observing the newcomers all summer, she wants to sit down tonight."

Lillian bowed slightly towards the high chair.

"If you want to sit down, someone has to make room for you."

Loki's voice descended from all directions, slowly: "She chose one of those present."

"Tell me, who did you choose?"

Lillian spoke up.

"Badr."

The hall fell silent for a moment.

Then, Fenrir let out a muffled laugh from beneath his wolf-mouth mask;

Tyr's iron-grey mask turned towards Lillian;

Hela's face, half alive and half dead, showed little expression.

At the very last chair, Freya stopped dipping her finger in the saucer.

Beneath that dark gold mask, the woman's eyes turned colder.

The third chair was hers back then; it was Bader who pulled her off that chair.

According to the rules, the loser should be hung on the roof as a head.

But her divine duties as the master of love, war, and witchcraft are too important.

It's a waste to just make a head; leaving a living witch on the table would be more useful to the one on the high chair.

So Loki broke his own rules.

She didn't die, but was pushed to the very end.

From then on, she kept looking forward to it.

She longs for the day when the golden thing that pulled her off the chair will become the head on top of her.

Badr himself was taken aback for a moment, then burst out laughing.

"Me?" He put his legs down, his blond hair swaying.

"You? A nobody who doesn't even dare to reveal his name dares to sit in my chair?"

His smile was genuine, without a trace of anger.

"You've been standing there the whole time, and I've never even gotten a good look at what you look like."

Badr stood up, his body radiating golden light: "Do you know what my divine name means?"

Lillian did not answer.

"All things have sworn an oath to me." Badr stretched out his hand, palm up.

He said, word by word:

"Nothing in this hall can leave a mark on me."

Fenrir can't bite me, Tyr can't cut me, and even Freya's witchcraft can't penetrate my skin.

As he spoke, his gaze swept across the faces of the people at the table.

No one spoke up, and no one thought there was anything interesting about this match.

Badr finally turned his gaze back to the gray shadow.

"What are you using to touch me?"

Lillian still didn't answer.

Loki's voice echoed again from the high chair.

"You all know the rules."

Loki's voice only carried a mocking, spectator-like tone.

"This game isn't over until one side dies. We don't accept losers who walk out alive."

"Let's begin."

Lillian silently hid her needle in her palm.

The needle had an indescribable pale color, and the end of the needle was still wrapped in green.

This is her signature item, and also a memento passed down from her mother.

The Abyss Path combined with the Scholar's path grants her the ability to both "create" and "bestow".

After signing her name, the strange object allowed her to peel off the "nature" of something from that thing and nurture it into a needle.

Lillian spent the entire summer nurturing this needle.

She knew Badr's only weakness: the mistletoe whose vow had been omitted.

But she also knew that mistletoe alone was far from enough.

Over the years, more than one person has tried using mistletoe on Badr.

Badr built a thick, invisible armor specifically to exploit this weakness.

Whether ordinary mistletoe is shaved into darts or ground into arrows, it cannot even penetrate the outermost layer of armor.

So those people, one by one, were defeated.

Lillian, however, was different; she spent the entire summer sharpening her needles.

This needle now has two things: penetrating power, and the "mistletoe" properties that have been incorporated into it.

Bader grew impatient as he watched the other man stand still.

"Since you won't reveal your name, then so be it. You chose this yourself."

He reached out his hand to Lillian.

A beam of light pressed down on her, threatening to flip her and the curtain over.

This beam of light is lazy and casual.

He didn't even intend to actually kill the candidate... Humiliating him first, then executing him, was a trick he was used to playing.

The man on the high chair was quietly adding firewood to his brazier.

He was a liar, and under his influence, Baldr couldn't see through Lillian's true nature at all.

There was no murderous intent in sight; all I saw was an overconfident practitioner.

Freya's witchcraft silently seeped into the last chair as well.

Baldr possesses an unharmed body that all things swear to, a power bestowed upon him by his name, but the price lies within it.

The longer one holds onto a title, the deeper this sense of "no need to defend oneself" becomes ingrained.

Freya deepened her already ingrained sense of "no need to be on guard" at this moment.

Badr is not only not dodging now... he's actually going to meet him.

On the other side, the girl turned to the side so that the beam of light grazed her shoulder.

She had rehearsed this dodge countless times.

I didn't manage to dodge properly; my shoulder and arm were charred black, and a sharp pain shot up my back.

She handed the needle to Badr.

Like giving a specimen its final prick, her attack struck the invisible armor covering Badr.

The needle tip paused for a moment.

Then, it pierced in with extreme lightness and smoothness.

What's wrapped in that needle is a strand of nature that no one has ever sworn an oath to.

He was burdened with vows, but that didn't matter.

Bader stopped.

His hand, poised to deliver the slap, froze in mid-air.

Lillian held onto the needle tightly, not letting go.

The moment the needle pierces through, it begins its job... to stop things from moving.

The light emanating from Badr solidified starting from his chest.

When light ceases to flow, it ceases to be light.

The golden luster faded to a deathly gray from the spot on the chest.

The man stood in front of Lillian, still in the gesture of raising his hand.

But it was frozen in that moment forever, just like every specimen she made.

The outcome was decided, and the entire Hall of False Oaths came alive.

Fenrir tensed up, staring intently at the victor;

Freya licked her fingers clean, her shoulders shaking, barely managing to suppress a laugh;

Tyr stroked his chin, equally surprised by the result.

Badr's golden head was slowly pulled out of his body.

The impenetrable darkness rising to the ceiling became the brightest star within.

Loki and Hela both benefited.

But the strength Badr had accumulated little by little while sitting in that chair for so long did not rise with his head.

Lillian stood there, feeling as if someone had stuffed something thick and heavy into her chest.

Ms. Holloway was right.

This surge of power flowed back down the path, filling in the hollowed-out areas one by one.

She climbed the ladder faster than anyone else.

But tonight's irrigation has miraculously held up the collapsing foundation.

The veil covering her was then lifted by an unseen hand.

The curtain was rolled up to the top, and the name of God was projected.

It was a patch of snow that never melted, hanging silently.

Beneath the snow were thick snow boots and a hunting bow.

God's name - Skadi.

She is the goddess who governs winter and hunting.

Living in a snow-capped mountain where the snow never melts, the place is so cold that even the sunlight freezes solid.

Skadi's power seeped into Lillian's body, thread by thread, through her name.

The chill and the hunt that had settled over thousands of years began to gather around her.

She's gotten even stronger than before.

"Come sit down, Skadi." Loki had already had his fill of the spectacle.

When the god of light falls, the long winter begins.

Skadi, the goddess of winter, entered the Temple of Forgotten Oaths at this moment.

Lillian placed her hands on her knees and sat in the spot that used to be the brightest.

The burned hand was cold, and the other hand was also cold.

She can't feel the cold, and from now on she probably won't feel the warmth either.

In the corner, the spot where the substitutes had stood was now empty.

The seventh empty chair remains vacant, awaiting the next batch of candidates.