I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 466 The Whip of Nemesis (Bonus Chapter 15 for Monthly Tickets)

At the same moment, ether seeped out from the cracks in the stone pillars on the mountaintop.

The red-haired girl moved over and switched the carving knife to her left hand.

For the first time, she wished she could have more hands, like the indigenous gods of the Spice Islands.

She couldn't handle three roots by herself.

McFaye sat in the center, still saying nothing and offering no help.

Catherine knew very well that the professor was sitting there tonight only to support the core incantation for the two of them; everything else depended on themselves.

She wiped the blood off the hilt of the knife and crawled toward the third one.

Then her hand stopped, the scales above her head tilted, and Nemesis's mask burned.

That night, she would glance over there every now and then, and as darkness fell, people piled up from the water's edge all the way to the island.

Now there's only a small section left, and Richard is almost finished reading the list he copied back from Queenstown.

We've almost finished delivering all 1,200 of them; this end is all cleared out.

But the scales on the other side plummeted, and Catherine could no longer hold the carving knife.

She knelt in front of the third stone, her hands trembling.

Hecate's words echoed in her ears.

"The name behind the mask asks you a question, and you must answer it."

It will ask you: Is this retribution something that you absolutely have to bear?

Catherine pressed her forehead against the stone; she couldn't answer.

She always felt that this kind of thing should be done by someone who was more qualified to do it.

It should be done by the Ministry of the Interior, the Navy... by those who can speak in the newspapers.

And what are those people who have fleets, courts, and seals doing at this hour?

Even during the refugee crisis, including the one involving Foxton, she was essentially hypnotizing herself.

The girl raised her forehead, gripped the knife again, but couldn't carve any further.

Across the sea, a patch of darkness swooped down from the sky and snatched up another person.

The Nemesis mask forced Catherine to see clearly that the one being picked up was the one that had just been pointed at.

There's nothing we can do; there aren't many left on the road.

The group of dead who had been extradited by Richard were completely out of reach, but those still standing on the road could be stolen.

Catherine suddenly put down the knife and instinctively pulled out the notebook.

All my words over the past six months have come from this: deciphering conclusions, transaction terms, thanking people, and apologizing to them.

But she closed the notebook again, the wind lifted her red hair, and she spoke again after half a year.

Those who overstep the bounds must be punished!

After those words came out of her throat, the ether on the slope seemed to gravitate towards her.

The gods created the weapons and armor, which landed on the ground.

The scales above Catherine's head have finally tipped.

After a while, the left pan of the scale fell to the bottom with a "thud".

A whip lashed down from the balance scale.

The whip is tightly woven in sections, and the tip is very long with sharp spikes.

Nemesis - Flagellum

The moment Catherine grasped it, she understood that anyone who stole, owed, or took what did not belong to them would have their soul torn apart on the spot with a single lash.

"Professor, may I borrow your green-haired demon dog?"

The white-haired giant didn't ask her what she wanted to do; he simply waved his hand, and the green-haired demon dog ran back from the sea.

As soon as Catherine stepped onto the mountain, the demon dog leaped down from the top of the mountain.

On the sea, Catherine raised her head.

The dead are pulling the person who stole the body upwards, and that person is about to scatter.

Catherine lashed out with her whip.

The whip tip extended through the air, just enough to strike the group of the dead.

"Smack!!!"

With that lash, Richard, even from a great distance, could only hear the crisp sound of the whip.

Nemesis unleashed all the pent-up anger he had been holding back, and the horde of the dead was instantly torn apart by the blows.

Things started falling off its body, piece by piece, all human-shaped.

Catherine saw it clearly: they were being returned to them with a single lash of the disciplinary whip.

The entire sky, once black, seemed to recede for the first time.

They retreated so quickly that the large swath of inaudible words was distorted into a distorted ending.

Catherine pulled the whip back and wrapped it around her forearm.

She opened her mouth and only let out a very soft breath, looking down at the rope-like thing in her palm.

I haven't been able to answer that question for the past six months, and I still can't.

The green-haired demon dog turned around and ran back to the island.

Richard was still squatting on the north slope.

He looked up and saw a red-haired girl riding a green dog the size of a calf coming from the sea.

Catherine stumbled as she jumped down, and Richard reached out to help her.

She took out her notebook, opened it, and poked a hole in the paper with her pencil before writing the word.

"I saw that thing stealing in the sky!"

"The stolen goods have all been recovered!"

Richard looked up at the north slope.

On the grass, the hundreds of human-shaped figures that had just fallen were standing up one by one.

Richard spread out the still water and looked at his reflection; his palms began to sweat.

How can we extradite these hundreds of people who have nothing on them?

Catherine also wrote a line in her notebook and held it up.

"What should we do?"

Richard turned around and looked towards the shore, where the new fire was still burning.

He suddenly remembered the three sentences carved from bottom to top on the stone ridge of the door frame.

"If you keep it, it's a guest; if you don't, it becomes something else entirely."

"Catherine, do me a favor."

The red-haired girl looked at him.

"Go up the hill and tell the villagers that Yanhuo Village is going to adopt a group of children tonight."

Ask them if they admit it.

Without hesitation, Catherine flicked the whip, put away the notebook, and climbed onto the back of the green-haired demon dog.

Richard didn't know what the other person was saying, but he knew that the tone in his ears quickly changed.

The following melody is slow and long.

In the past, every village had one or two women who could cry. When someone died, they would invite her to cry.

She had to cry until the whole village cried with her before that person was considered gone.

The church has been banned for two hundred years, yet those who cry still exist today.

The lead singer was the oldest woman, a 91-year-old lady, who was invited out of the house.

Richard pushed out the naming, this time analyzing this particular fire.

He wrote: "The children of Yanhuo Village."

Fire leaped up from the tin pot.

Tune, lyrics, and seal—all three are on this slope tonight.

The hundreds of human figures on the grass turned around and faced the fire.

McFee stood up on the hilltop and began to sing.

He chanted the incantation all night, until his throat tasted like rust.

This is a Gaelic elegy, not found in any book.

"A leanbh, tá do chuid ag an doras."

(Child, there's a share for you outside the door.)

He sang a line, and eight women on the hillside responded with a line.

"Bhi si ann aréir, beidh si ann amárach."

(It happened last night, and it will happen again tomorrow night.)

"ach anocht, tar isteach."

(But come in tonight.)

For a thousand years, this village has left a portion of food for people outside their doors every night; those who left it were considered guests.

The guest is supposed to stand outside the door; tonight, for the first time, someone opened the door.

"ni aoi thu a thuilleadh."

(You are no longer a guest.)

"codail anois."

(Go to sleep now.)

On the hillside, the old woman sang the last line, which was the name of the village.

On the slope, the eight women also cried until the very last sentence.

After he finished crying, he did not strike the longboard a second time.

The small fires that had risen on the north slope sank one by one into the soil and rocks, into the layer of the island beneath that layer of soil that had remained undisturbed for thousands of years.

The hundreds of human figures on the grass walked into the fire one after another.

This time, no one queued because these people had never been allowed to queue before in their lives.

Twelve standing stones, one after another, shine to the top.

The green-haired demon dog shook the water off itself on the island, turned around, and barked for the third time.

The green dog barks for the third time and then it's going to eat someone. Now the third bark is right next to his ear, and Richard is completely frozen.

When he was least prepared, that sound sent a chill down his spine from the soles of his feet to the back of his neck.

The barking of dogs fell on the empty sea; there was nothing there.

The giant dog turned around and flicked its thick, braided tail twice, its entire rear end wiggling in the process.

Richard stared at it: "...You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

The giant dog lay down, resting its chin on its paws, looking as if it didn't understand.

………………

Dawn comes very slowly.

The black on the sea surface gradually faded into blue, then into gray, and finally into a dirty white.

Richard returned from the island when the tide had risen to his waist.

He returned to the material world and continued to float using his flying shoes. As he approached the shore, his two small wings began to weaken, and the ether reached its bottom.

He simply fell into the water and made his way to the shore. Cold water poured up his boots, and by the time he got out, he had no feeling in his legs.

McFee was waiting at the tide line when he reached out and patted Richard hard on the shoulder, almost causing Richard to fall into the water again.

Catherine's right hand was wrapped in cloth, which she had torn off from the hem of her skirt to wrap it herself.

She walked up to Richard, took out her notebook, and opened it.

"He can't speak again."

Eight women on the slope were rolling up the woolen cloth.

After pounding all night, the woolen fabric shrank to a thick and solid size, so heavy that it took two people to lift it.

The girl driving the mail cart put the mallet into her basket, yawning as she did so.

"This year's roll was hammered better than in previous years."

"You were the one who agreed in previous years too."

"I was lying to you in previous years, but this year is really good."

They laughed.

The twenty-odd sheep on the hillside got up one by one, shook off the dew, and then lowered their heads to graze as if nothing had happened.

An old man from the village came down the slope carrying a bucket and saw this area.

"You lot!"

He shouted at his three dogs.

"You slept outside all night?"

The sheep ignored him and continued eating grass.

"I left the gate open last night, but you didn't go in."

He muttered as he walked through them.

"After raising him to this age, he still has no memory at all."

At six o'clock in the morning, the first wisp of smoke rose in the village.

Starting with that 91-year-old lady, she was the first to get up; she got up at this time every day of her life.

She brushed aside the ashes, bent down and blew on them twice, and the little red dot under the ashes immediately came to life.

Then came the second plume of smoke, the third... Richard stood on the slope, watching more than a dozen plumes of smoke rise one by one from the rooftop.

Someone is cursing their own dog.

"Get out! You bastard! You'll be on the table the moment I turn my back!"

Someone was adding water to the bottom of the pot, but they were adding it too quickly, and the water splashed onto the fire with a sizzling sound.

The girl who drives the mail cart is lassoing a horse in the yard.

She led the old horse out, nudged its belly with her knee to let it exhale, and then tightened the girth.

She had another mail truck to run today, and as she harnessed the horse, she talked to it about how the old man who collected mail in town had misspelled her name again the day before yesterday.

Richard stood there, watching it all unfold.

The eight women on the slope beat cloth all night long, and their hands ached when they finished.

The one who cursed the dog only knew that his own sheep had slept outside all night;

The oldest woman saw that the village had put out a fire last night, and this morning she blew the fire back up.

The villagers started making breakfast.

"Hey!" McFaye walked up from behind.

"Wash your face and come eat breakfast."

Richard turned around and noticed that the white-haired giant's expression was somewhat unnatural.

"She probably felt that the two of us didn't eat enough that night."

"They also said that people from the south eat less and have weak stomachs, so I need to make sure they eat something good this morning."

McFaye coughed. "She killed two chickens."

The two walked towards the village.

Breakfast was laid out on the long table: two chickens, a bowl of roasted potatoes, and a pot of mutton soup.

The old woman stuck the soup spoon into the soup and stirred it.

The first bowl was given to Catherine, the second to Richard, and the third to McFee.

"The youngest eat first."

Richard picked up the bowl, the steam hitting his face and making his eyes sting.