Miss Witch's Forbidden Book Secret

"A special invitation!"

"Hospitality!"

With each word, Abdullah felt the pressure of the deep sea sweeping over his mind, causing him immense pain. His entire soul was enveloped in moonlight, seeping out fragmented pieces, while the shrill murmurs of two elven banshees echoed in his ears.

The two elves suddenly stopped in their tracks.

We want to know:

Please tell us:

"The potion of resurrection."

"And there are also Eastern rituals."

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The next day at dawn, New York, London and Hong Kong.

Tia slept for quite a long time. Although controlling the puppet through soul projection no longer affected her self-awareness, it was still a considerable burden on her mind. Tia slept until noon before rubbing her eyes and waking up.

As soon as she woke up and left the bedroom to wash up, she saw two elves standing outside the door.

Both elves covered their eyes.

"Ah! The Holy Body of my Lord!"

Tia was naked and expressionless.

Snapped!

The door was slammed shut.

After a while, Tia came out dressed and said with dissatisfaction, "Why are you two in my house?"

Neither of these elves knocked! How awful!

Freya said, "Because something urgent happened!"

"One good news, one bad news," said Brenna.

After Tia finished washing up, she toasted a few slices of bread in the kitchen, spread some condensed milk on them, and mumbled, "Let me tell you the bad news first."

Tia likes to save the best for last.

Branna said, "We have captured the accomplice of Consul Durant in his plot to murder Daisy, a prophet from the Temple of Wisdom named Abdullah."

"Isn't this good news?"

“No, my lord. When we tried to end his vile and sinful soul, someone intercepted it. His Holiness the Shrike severed his head with the sword of victory, but found no spirit within it.”

"What Victory Sword?"

Tia had no idea what had happened last night.

Branna said, "An extraordinary weapon, we can talk about that later. This is good news."

Tia nodded, taking a bite of her bread, and said, "Now, tell me the good news."

"Well, putting everything else aside, did you manage to get the information about potions and rituals out of Abdullah?"

“We’ve got half the news! That’s half good news.” Branna bowed. “The potion issue isn’t resolved yet. But we now know the target of the ritual: Rud, the founder of the Iris Kingdom, its first king, and the King of Knights. And the ritual itself came from one of the three giants of the Hand of Transformation, Rexar in black robes. Before this, Guild Master Rexar was researching some plant-related projects, supposedly related to the Bloodthorn summoned by King Rud. Besides that, there’s another piece of good news.”

"Eh..."

Tia was stunned; she hadn't expected the ritual to point to such a person.

King Rudd is a household name in Irisland. His legacy is the royal sacrifice system, in which he sacrificed his entire family, including himself, to purify the plague that now plagues the entire Irisland region. The object of the sacrifice, and the deep-sea deity who helped purify the plague, is Bloodthorn.

The Bloodthorn Sanctuary is the Thorn Church, which originates from the primitive bloody sacrificial traditions predating the establishment of the Papacy in the Grail Age.

The Holy Grail represents mercy, protection, faith, and the holy way. After the establishment of the Papacy, it suppressed primitive priesthood, causing the Bloodthorn to sink to a depth of 100000 meters or more in the deep sea, having almost no impact on reality.

The reason why Rudd's Knights later left Irisflower for Saint Engard was largely due to Bloodthorn.

The knights believed that Rudd's sacrifice to Bloodthorn to purify the plague was a merciful act of protection in the spirit of the Holy Grail. However, the Iris people after Rudd completely used the king as a expendable object, no different from the bloody primitive sacrifices, which completely contradicted Rudd's spirit and the faith of the Holy Grail.

The ritual was in the style of an Eastern cult, yet it pointed to King Rudd. Could the potion also be the target?

Tia carefully considered her words and said, "You should use Scarlett to pass on the news to the Anti-Suppression Bureau."

This is a good opportunity to promote the policewoman.

She couldn't do this. Her physical body had been staying in Ansu. Suddenly, she received evidence that the same potion and ritual had been found in the iris, and she opened her own box.

After the matter was settled, Tia asked, "So, what's the rest of the good news?"

Branna drew a longsword from its sheath and said, "This is it!"

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I'll be posting only one update a couple of days to adjust my schedule.

For various reasons, I've been working almost day and night lately, basically being active at night and sleeping during the day... I actually woke up at 4 pm yesterday... So today I'm resisting the urge to sleep during the day and will sleep at night to get my sleep schedule back on track.

Chapter 183 So what is the price?

Tia also baked two slices of bread for Brenna and Freya, spreading raspberry jam on them.

The two elves were flattered and carefully accompanied Tia as she ate.

Although these two elves are virtually indistinguishable from spirit beings, they are neither human nor spirit, yet they are both, constantly shifting between the two.

This is the transformation of spirits, and Tia doesn't understand how humans developed this thing.

Tia then folded gold leaf on her bread. After eating a few slices, the properties of light in her blood took effect, slowly repairing the aftereffects of long-term hunger.

Once she had recovered sufficiently, Tia picked up her sword and went to her bedroom. The two elves followed closely behind.

Tia drew her Victory Sword and examined it closely. Upon seeing the patterns, she exclaimed in surprise, "This is an artifact from the time of Solomon? How did it end up in the hands of the Celestials?"

“Yes, sir. According to His Majesty the Shrike, this sword was the personal sword of the ancient emperor Solomon in his later years. King Solomon personally led his troops in seven great battles.”

Branna wasn't very familiar with this history, but Shrike was, and she relayed it: "Because King Solomon was deified in his later years and sank into the deep sea, this sword also acquired extraordinary properties far beyond what is ordinary."

"When the Victory Sword is wielded and the wielder is entangled in a ritual performed by another, the attack of this extraordinary longsword will ignore all obstacles, and the blade will pierce directly through the throat of the ritual's officiant."

After hearing this, Tia felt that the sword was quite interesting; it was a powerful weapon for breaking free from control and launching counterattacks.

This attack completely ignores obstacles, not just physical ones, but even abstract "obstacles" like the boundary between nightmares and reality. Furthermore, the sword could likely be coated with poison, making the counterattack even more efficient; if the enemy is unprepared, it's not impossible for them to be stabbed to death.

Unless her enemy has deliberately acquired extraordinary traits like "Iron Neck"—but that probability is far too small.

For example, when Bishop Lexus of the Twin Serpents used Nightmare Binding to pull her into a nightmare, if she had the Sword of Victory at the time, she probably could have forced Lexus to break the ritual before she fell into the nightmare.

But what if the enemy doesn't have a physical body or doesn't exist?

For example, promotion ceremonies...

To directly stab the spirit apostle who was presiding over the promotion? Tia felt that would probably result in a lifetime ban.

When Tia brought up the topic of poison, Brenna paused in surprise.

poison!

She said, “My lord, if you need poison, I think we found something similar on the ship. Abdullah brought two kinds of poison on board, but he didn’t put the poison on the swords but put it in the wine.”

Tia nodded and said, "That's normal. His main goal should be to kill Daisy to silence her. And Daisy, as an ordinary person, couldn't possibly have been subjected to a ritual."

"But is the wine still there? If it's poisoned, I might be able to analyze the ingredients."

Tia doesn't actually have that ability.

However, the Anti-Corruption Bureau has Druids, so she can find some laborers and find out the raw materials.

Freya raised her hand and reported, "My Lord! The Shrike drank all the wine!"

That's a real shame.

Tia gathered her scattered thoughts, put down the Victory Sword, and asked, "Alright, Branna. Now that you've explained the advantages of this sword, what's the price?"

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“Abdullah, the price is that when you swing the seventh sword, the blade of this cursed sword will inevitably be pointed at your throat. Of course, you don’t have to worry about the price now.”

Ibn Musa raised the newly sculpted plaster head high in his hand and slowly placed it on Abdullah's headless corpse.

Not too big, not too small, just right, lifelike, and exquisitely realistic.

Finally, with a flick of the carving knife at the corner of the eye, and as Ibn Musa pressed his index finger and thumb against Abdullah's eye, the stone sculpture's eyelids were slowly pried open by Ibn Musa.

Ibn picked up a glass bottle containing a blue, viscous liquid from the table and uncorked it.

The empty, pale eyeballs in their sockets shone with a new light; the liquid in the bottle evaporated completely, and the eyeballs became even more lively. This was a spiritual return, exactly like Tia projecting her soul from the puppet back into herself, or the transcendent beings who dived deep rising their souls from the deep sea.

After all this was over, Abdullah was completely "resurrected," and his face quickly regained its rosy glow.

Abdullah suddenly woke up, breathing heavily.

He calmed down, still shaken, and said, "Teacher! Have I returned to the embrace of the deep sea?"

"Return to the deep sea? Are you cursing me and you, you idiot, to die together? Use your brain and think about it. If you die, your soul should be recycled by the Palace of Wisdom, not returned to the deep sea."

Ibn Musa scoffed, “But my student, you see, now you shouldn’t have to worry about your neck being pierced.”

Abdullah touched his neck and felt a distinct parting line. His eyes widened immediately. "Teacher, was it you who slashed with that sword?"

“You’ve been caught by that bird of the church. If I don’t kill you right away, am I supposed to just watch you get caught, thrown into the laurel forest to be tortured, and then thrown out to blackmail me into paying a huge ransom to the church?”

"You've almost got Abdullah. I told you long ago, there are risks with every benefit. Alchemy dictates equivalent exchange; the more you want, the greater the cost. What capital do you have to pay those exorbitant prices?"

"That's why I said you have no chance of succeeding. What you should do now is to obediently return to Tianfang. Even if the Wisdom Palace wants to burn prophets to prolong that broken star chart, they don't need a piece of trash like you."

"Big trees are cut down to build palaces, small trees are cut down to burn for firewood, but no one cares about weeds. If no one cares, you can live a little longer. In a chaotic world, this is the best gift from the Father of All Things. It's not shameful to be a Sequence 7 for life. Even a saint can only live a few years longer than you."

Abdullah remained silent in the face of Ibn's taunts.

After a long silence, Abdullah, enduring Ibn's glare, took a deep breath and said, "Teacher. So, you never intended for me to do this from the beginning, but why did you give it to me then...?"

"Give it to you? What are you thinking, my stupid student?"

"That sword wasn't for you, nor were those two vials of poison. But I didn't expect you to be so capable; you managed to use those two vials right under that crow's nose. For that reason, I've left you a potion workshop in Gribland City."

Iben said impatiently, "Alright, tonight you're going back to where you came from. I've already sent the Victory Sword to someone randomly, according to Ulrich's last wish and that little guild master's idea. Don't interfere with what happens next, or I won't come to save you a second time."

"Do you understand, Abdullah?"

Chapter 184 Vera: Why do I seem like that third person?

The principle of equivalent exchange, as stipulated by alchemy, is the underlying rule of extraordinary power, and the Sword of Victory is no exception.

The shrike was quite aware of the cost of using this sword. After all, it was a well-known extraordinary weapon, and having lived in the deep sea for thousands of years, it had heard of it to some extent.

The greatest cost of the Victory Sword is the backlash of the seventh sword, corresponding to the Pale Emperor Solomon's defeat in the seventh battle. However, compared to some strange rituals and extraordinary items, this cost doesn't seem so bad.

For example, if Tia had an iron neck, she could probably withstand the seventh sword strike head-on...

Therefore, Tia thought the Victory Sword was quite valuable and useful. As far as she knew, even Ms. Bernice did not have such an inexpensive extraordinary item.

Bernice possesses a Trojan horse that can take her place in death, but the moment this Trojan horse collapses, it will paralyze the entire Anzu transportation system for three months.

The destructive power of this paralysis was estimated to be greater than that of Bernice's death, so the Trojan Horse was later given to the current emperor of the Empire, Pinnock XI, as a birthday gift. Coincidentally, the chief mage of Sequence 2 was about to die from illness at that time, and Pinnock, unaware of this, gave the Trojan Horse to the chief mage to prolong his life.

As a result, Ansu successfully dealt a heavy blow to the Empire's industry in the trade war, and the Empire's manufacturing industry never recovered.

In addition, Pope Peter also possessed numerous supernatural artifacts. A major task of the Church and the Anti-Corruption Bureau is to manage and recover these inexplicable supernatural artifacts. Scarlett had previously recovered the "Marionette Theatre" from Lawrence Security—a supernatural object that transforms a building into a manipulable theater at the cost of personal freedom.

The origins of these extraordinary items are relatively clear; they generally stem from worship, or simply put, "I thought it would work" or "I felt this approach would be effective." There are also some special examples that are man-made, such as amulets and dolls made by Tia, but these all have an expiration date and generally don't last more than a few hundred years.

However, Tia didn't know much about these things. She put the Victory Sword away and went to a craftsman at noon to have a new scabbard made.

The original scabbard was in the same ancient imperial style as the Victory Sword, with inlaid cloisonné enamel decorations and dark red leather, which was a bit too serious.

She re-customized a trendy style: galvanized leather with a buckle and dyed finish, adorned with a girly pink bouncy bunny and a kitten licking its paw. Yes, a trendy style.

After the job was done, Tia went to the Bay Area Police Department to ask Vanessa to take over the work for her.

The Chief's office on the second floor of the Greater Harbour District Police Station.

Vanessa had just entered when she saw the longsword on the table and was drinking strong liquor. Her eyelids twitched as she entered.