I loaded the Mysticism panel.

The hunter put the horn back up, and everyone in the queue simultaneously reached under their ribs.

One by one, the ribs were pulled out.

When they were pulled out, they still retained the shape of their respective eras: some were straight, some were curved, and some had a crack on them that hadn't fully healed back then.

The one the barefoot man pulled out was pitifully short, so short that he himself looked at it twice in mid-air and laughed.

After it was pulled out, the ribs bent into an arc on their own.

There were no arrows on the bow.

The shadow has no ribs, but the rule is to shoot something with all your might, and what you shoot is up to you.

Richard, controlling his shadow in accordance with the rules of the hunt, condensed a moon nail.

The hunter raised his hand.

"put."

Tens of thousands of bone bows were released at the same time, and the projectiles twisted together in mid-air, causing the entire cloud to be twisted and flipped to both sides.

Those people on the lowlands who were lining up to walk back all looked up at the same time.

"boom!!!"

The ball of yellowish-green poisonous gas was pierced through by the giant arrow and exploded, failing to reform for a long time.

The pack of dogs rushed into that yellowish-green area, and from the pit came the last breaths of tens of thousands of people who were dying.

The hunter reined in his horse and stood in mid-air, searching amidst the churning yellow and green.

The words were still hanging there: "One night that makes people vomit their lungs dry."

The hunter found the location and waved his hand.

The old dog with a patch of white fur on its forehead darted out from the front of the group.

It didn't bark once all night, nor did it try to be the first to bark.

This time, the bite was both precise and deep, causing the entire battlefront to tremble.

The hunter raised his hand, and the pack of dogs retreated from the yellow-green patch.

They retreated completely, without lingering in the fight.

"Not going to chase?" The young man wielding the axe held it high in the air until his arm ached.

"Don't chase."

"Take one more bite and it'll fall apart!"

"It won't dissipate," the hunter said, without a trace of regret in his voice.

"It's no longer ownerless."

It looked toward the deepest part of the curtain.

"I don't recognize the person sitting on it."

"Don't you recognize him?" The young man was a little surprised, as his hunter was considered a veteran among experts.

"I don't recognize it," the hunter said.

"That's a newly established tradition, and the person in charge never shows up."

"Then we should seize the opportunity now..."

"Go ahead."

The young man's hand, which was holding the axe, froze in mid-air.

"I'm telling the truth." The hunter didn't sound like he was joking.

"Go down now, I definitely won't stop you."

"If you go and come back, all the spoils from tonight are yours."

No one spoke in the clouds.

The young man held the axe and slowly put it down.

"I...I'm not quite sure how deep it is down there."

"Hmm... I don't know either. I never touch what I don't know."

The hunter straightened the horn beside the saddle.

"If we really have to fight to the death with that newly promoted expert here, most of your team members will probably be wiped out."

"Moreover, if those Germans dare to invite the first person tonight, they dare to invite the second and third."

The people over there always discuss and agree before taking action.

When that sentence was uttered, the clouds were so quiet that only the wind remained.

Richard slowly came to his senses while sitting in the wicker chair.

The Gale Master sent by the Empire was a last-minute replacement, while the other two had made all the preparations years in advance.

"Know when to stop."

After the hunter finished speaking, he turned his head.

"I've already made enough money tonight."

The hunter himself had a much more detailed calculation in mind.

It won this night by seizing an opportunity, one that might not come along even once in hundreds of years.

If you manage to tear off even a small piece, that's already a huge gain.

To truly encapsulate a master entirely within the horn... it placed its hand on the horn.

Inside the horn cavity, the three syllables of the Black Soil River Master are still there.

The hunter kept repeating the concept of "real name" in his mind.

It cannot be pierced by a bow, chewed up by a dog, or restrained by a rope; it kneels at the slightest sound.

To truly control a master and make their fate entirely in their own hands... one must possess their full, real name.

The hunter hung the horn back on the saddle.

"Finish cleaning up everything before dawn."

In the distant cellar, the legal officer was taking notes in his notebook.

Halfway through taking notes, the pen tip poked a hole in the paper.

The legal officer looked up, and everyone in the cellar simultaneously sensed something.

Professor Hohenheim is back.

It... no... it's a size smaller than when it went out.

"Professor?" the engineering captain tried calling out, but there was no response.

………………

In the capital city, it was just getting dark.

Fisher spread the sheet music out on the piano bench in the chapel.

"One more time."

The baritone in the choir loosened his collar.

"Mr. Fisher, this is the third edition."

"It should be the third edition."

Fisher tapped on the piano bench.

"You sang the first two versions too fast, like you were rushing to a market."

"This stuff can't be made quickly, or it won't taste right."

"Then how should we sing it?"

Fisher thought about it for a long time.

"To give an example, imagine someone is standing outside the door, and you are sitting inside. Neither of you is in a hurry."

The baritone looked at him, his eyes clearly saying: Are you kidding me?

Fisher ignored him, finding the tune his classmate had written amusing.

He stole a skeleton from church evening prayers and modified it three times until he himself felt it looked pretty good.

"It's the eve of May Day." He shrugged.

"In previous years, pillars would be erected in the south of the city at this time, but they can't be erected this year."

"If we can't stand up, we have to sing something."

A large number of people were already standing at the entrance of the chapel.

There were girls' school students, wives coming from the laundry room, and two policemen with their hands in their pockets.

One of the patrolmen had the penny booklet in his pocket, its edges worn and frayed.

"It's starting," Fisher said.

The baritone started a note.

When the first line was sung, the people at the door were still standing there watching the spectacle.

When the second line was sung, the ladies from the laundry room started singing along.

They hummed this tune as they rubbed the edge of the wooden tub, and they knew it better than anyone else.

By the third line, the girls' school students had joined in.

When the fourth line was sung, the patrolman who had his hands in his pockets took them out and clapped along.

"If you don't answer the first time, you don't answer the second time, so you knock on another door."

"They won't accept it if it's wet, they won't accept it if it's cold, and they won't accept it even if you bring it inside."

The melody drifted from the chapel and across the street where the lights were regulated.

It reached the street corner, where someone took over.

Further ahead, in front of the candy shop that was still open, two children in line were singing along.

Further ahead, in a house with a sign that reads "This House Takes an Oath".

A maid who was clearing the table stopped and hummed half a line.

At the same time, this section of the Briston slag heap eastward also lacked pillars this year.

Evelyn wiped the flour off her hands on her apron and peeked out the back door.

A group of children had already gathered in the alley.

Mrs. Weir's youngest child clung to the steps of the front door and refused to stand up;

The two boys next door are fighting over who gets a willow twig;

Several girls were carrying a half-finished flower wreath with two early-blooming hawthorns stuck in it.

"Sister Evelyn!"

"Here it comes, here it comes."

She took off her apron, draped it over the door frame, and went outside.

"Are you really not going to erect any pillars this year?"

"No," Evelyn said.

"Then what do we do?"

Evelyn took the half-finished wreath and knelt down to rewrap the willow branches around them.

"Sing."

"What should we sing?"

Evelyn lifted the wreath up to look at it, thought it was alright, and put it back on the girl's head.

"Sing the song my brother wrote."

The children erupted in cheers of "Oh!!!"

The smallest one was still clinging to the steps.

"Your brother wrote this?" The boy next door who lost the fight looked incredulous.

"It really was written by my brother."

"Our school teacher said it came from Manchester."

"That was written by my brother too!"

I don't believe it.

Evelyn put her hands on her hips.

"My brother studied at Beijing University and was featured in the Beijing Morning Post. He's the one in the third row on the side."

"The print on the newspaper is so small, who can see it clearly?"

"That one with its shoulders perfectly straight!"

The children burst into laughter.

Evelyn's face flushed slightly from the laughter, but she didn't want to argue with a group of children.

She adjusted the flower wreath on the girl's head.

"To sing or not to sing?"

"Sing!"

That girl started it.

The tune was completely off-key, and someone was already clapping along to the second line.

Evelyn had no choice but to continue the conversation herself.

She's heard the children in the alley sing this song countless times recently, and she remembers the lyrics better than anyone else.

"No response at first call, no response at second call..."

The children caught up, and soon they were all in line.

The melody drifted from east to west through the slag alley. When it reached the middle section, a woman who was closing a window stopped.

Further west, by the coal stove of a house, a man who had just returned from work in the western suburbs hummed a couple of lines.

Margaret stood inside her own doorway and did not go out.

She listened to the tune outside and silently tapped her feet to the beat.

On the same night in the northern suburbs of Manchester, several typesetters who had just finished their night shift squatted against a wall smoking, one of them tapping his foot and humming a couple of lines.

In the port to the south, an old sailor, having just moored his ship back at its berth, sang as he pulled in the mooring lines. It was the version his granddaughter had taught him.

In the courtyard of a manor house in northern Yorkshire, a dozen or so people were gathered around a May Day fire.

The dance that was supposed to be performed around the bonfire couldn't be done this year because none of the young people were there, so they sang this instead.

In Devon, a gamekeeper stands at the back door of his house.

He saw something on the path in Nangu last winter solstice, and after seeing it, he was still alive.

He sang alone tonight, and very softly.

Countless mouths sing the same tune on the same night.

Richard heard it from behind the curtain.

It rises from below, spreading across the strait from the entire island across the sea to this land repeatedly cultivated by war.

His psychic vision allowed him to see a net exactly like the one he saw on the night of the day of mourning.

That night, churches across the country rang out at the same time; every bell, every window with a light on, and every black jade mourning brooch was a pivotal moment.

Tonight, the node has become a song.

He didn't respond to the first call, nor to the second.

It doesn't recognize wet things, and it doesn't recognize cold things;

If the guests have already been welcomed inside;

Don't expose it, don't cry out;

I sat with it until dawn;

I saw the guests off at daybreak.

These six points all boil down to one thing.

How should the door between the living and the dead be opened and closed, and when should they be sent?

Richard suddenly felt a sense of déjà vu.

That day in his dorm room, he held a pen and said to Fisher:

"If this were set to a tune like Tipperelli's and sung everywhere, that would be a real disaster!"

Now something really bad has happened, but it's the kind of thing he needed to happen.

Above the clouds, the young man wielding the axe was the first to shout.

"All separated!"

"Shut up."

"The court has dispersed!"

Even if you're leaving, you still have to queue.

"...When was the last time you said something like that?"

"Three hundred and twenty years ago."

"Three hundred years."

"Three hundred and twenty."

Laughter echoed from one end of the line to the next, continuing even where it could no longer be heard.

The old scholar stood beside the shadow, looking at the now empty road.

"I've spent my whole life studying, and I always thought that judgments were written for the dead."

The old scholar smiled.

"It was originally written for the living to read."

The thin line of gray on the horizon had widened by half a centimeter.

It was at this moment that Li noticed the Hermes mask was being heated on the other side of the curtain.

The guide of souls—this is the oldest and least mentioned of all Hermes' faces.

The two golden snakes on the mask simultaneously loosened their grip.

They didn't twist into a staff anymore; instead, they slid down the shadow's two dark legs, circled around the ankles, and stopped.

It was so hot that for the first time, the shadow's two feet felt both very close to and very far from this cloud.

Richard opened his eyes in the wicker chair.

In the backyard, the gaslights had been completely turned off.

Sunlight streamed up from behind the row of rooftops on the east side, illuminating the tips of the holly leaves.

Gerrard was still standing behind the colonnade, his hands behind his back.

He saw his grandson's fingers slip off the armrest.