Seeing Hastur arrive as promised, Count Richard greeted him warmly.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, Hastur curiously asked: "Why is the place for tonight's ceremony different from last night's?"
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"A sacrificial site used once is no longer clean. The Lord likes cleanliness and hates filth. He is the ruler who leads to peaceful rest. Only a clean and refreshing environment is suitable to serve as His divine kingdom on earth." Count Richard introduced devoutly.
Maric nodded, suspecting nothing, while Hastur kept it in mind.
This time, Hastur and Maric arrived earlier, just in time to witness an entire sacrificial ritual.
At the beginning, they all sat cross-legged on one side around the bonfire, closed their eyes, and chanted hymns praising the Lord.
"Oh wandering souls in the world, who have no place to rest."
"We need guidance, we need salvation, we need the grace of the Lord."
"O Lord, ruler of peaceful rest in the realm of the dead,"
"Please cast Your merciful gaze upon us, and grant us Your blessing to lead the way forward…"
They chanted the hymn ten times before Count Richard finished the first stage.
The second stage was the summoning ritual, which Count Richard presided over and performed alone.
Surrounded by the others, he piously drew a mysterious and complex rune on the ground, consisting of several curves, three circles, and four straight lines.
Hastur stepped forward for a look, twitched the corner of his mouth, suppressed the urge to complain, and stepped back.
That was no summoning rune at all, it was clearly just some random pattern Count Richard had seen somewhere and drawn to look impressive.
Next, Count Richard took out three pre-prepared candles: a black candle placed in the upper left, a red candle in the upper right, and an ordinary candle placed in the center.
This surprised Hastur; he had assumed Count Richard's knowledge of mysticism was terrible after seeing that fake rune, but the placement of the three candles did meet the requirements of ritual magic.
When he saw Count Richard carefully arrange plants like Cemetery Blood Rose, Black Lily, Moon Flower, and Slumber Flower, he was inexplicably shocked.
He could now be certain that Count Richard had combined the death god and Evernight Goddess into one, forming what he believed to be the Lord of the Dead.
Cemetery Blood Rose and Black Lily, with their strong scent of death, were beloved by the death god.
Moon Flower and Slumber Flower were favored by Evernight Goddess.
And that wasn't all, Count Richard carefully took out a fist-sized crystal ball from his pocket and placed it at the exact center of the three candles.
With everything prepared, Count Richard began to devoutly chant the incantation.
"I! I summon in my own name!"
"Spirit dwelling in the depths of the void,"
"mysterious being that loves night and peace,"
"messenger wandering between the present world and the world of the dead."
When Count Richard finished chanting in ancient Hermes language, a gust of wind swept through the void, eerie and chilling, and the flickering candle flames turned a deep blue.
That huge frog-like spiritual creature from last night appeared again, curling its body and overlooking Count Richard and the others below.
Count Richard stood and bowed respectfully toward the spiritual creature.
Among the onlookers forming a circle outside, five people took brass whistles and blew them.
Soon, five smaller spiritual creatures appeared.
The temperature around them dropped again, and a gust of wind brought a bone-chilling cold.
"The ritual is complete!"
After all this, Count Richard was delighted, and the other attendees also praised that the gaze of the Lord had descended upon the present world from the world of the dead.
Even though Maric had seen a lot in his life, he was still stunned by this scene. A ritual magic so chaotic and messy actually worked in the end?
He really wanted to know how this Count Richard had managed to coexist harmoniously with that massive spiritual creature for so long.
Without signing any contract, he could summon it successfully each time without disaster? That was just too lucky, wasn't it?
And those five brass whistles could summon five spiritual creatures, could they be some kind of sealed artifacts?
But no, if they were sealed artifacts, the negative effects alone wouldn't be bearable for this group of ordinary people.
Hastur was also awed by Count Richard's methods, what a talented person indeed!
The third stage was a fire dance offering, meant to please the gods.
Maric still did not join in, but Hastur, without waiting for Count Richard's invitation, proactively joined the dancing crowd, which greatly pleased Count Richard.
The ritual dance had three rounds, each with its own symbolic meaning.
The first round was to please the gods, hoping they would hear their small wishes and fulfill them.
The second round was for their already deceased loved ones, hoping through dance their souls might rest in peace.
The third round was for themselves; the dead needed peaceful rest, and the living still had to keep moving forward, they needed courage, blessings, and luck to complete their journey of life.
After three rounds of ritual dance, Hastur and those around him began discussing the deeds of the Lord of the Dead and sharing their own sad stories.
At three o'clock in the morning, the grand and mysterious ritual ended once again, and Count Richard sincerely invited Hastur and Maric to visit his manor.
"If I can witness a miracle tomorrow night, I think I might change my faith."Hastur didn't speak fully, only giving Count Richard a signal of possible conversion.
"The Lord will indeed reveal miracles and grant equal blessings to every believer."
Count Richard happily led his group away. Before leaving, they still extinguished the bonfire and tidied up the site.
"Unimaginable, unbelievable that he's still alive!" With no outsiders around, Maric let out a string of sighs.
Hastur suppressed a smile and asked in confusion, "Is there a problem?"
"Of course there's a problem! And a big one!"
"Could it be that Count Richard is possessed by some evil god or demon?"
Maric waved his hand. "It's not that serious. He… how should I put it… he's just a lucky man. The main issue isn't him, but that huge spirit world creature."
Hastur showed a humble, inquisitive expression. Maric paced back and forth for a moment before saying, "There are indeed friendly creatures in the spirit world, but Count Richard's ritual magic just now didn't mention any words like 'friendly' or 'harmless.'"
"'Spirit dwelling in the depths of the void, mysterious being that loves night and peace, messenger wandering between the present world and the world of the dead.'"
"Creatures in the spirit world that match this description do exist, but they aren't necessarily friendly, more often, they're evil, terrifying beings hiding malicious intent."
"Especially that phrase 'messenger wandering between the present world and the world of the dead.' I've never heard of any creature coming from the world of the dead being friendly."
"Hmm… you can understand Ancient Hermes, right?"
Hastur said modestly, "I can understand part of it."
"Then you still need to study harder. If you want to enter the Beyonder world, Ancient Hermes is a very important language for mysticism. If you have the ability, you should also master languages like Elvish and Jotun."
"It's hard to find a suitable teacher."
Hastur sighed slightly. He did know some Jotun and Elvish, but only a little, not enough to be proficient. Those two languages were really difficult to find proper teachers for.
Maric thought for a moment. "Sharon has studied this type of knowledge very well, much better than I have. If she's willing to be your teacher…"
"With her personality, she wouldn't casually take on a student. You'd better go to Backlund University and look for those old professors who specialize in language studies."
Maric thought it was unreliable to have Sharon teach mystical languages.
Given her temperament, she'd probably just throw some relevant books in front of Hastur and let him learn on his own.
Hastur also felt that with Sharon's personality, she wouldn't become his teacher. A bit of a pity.
"What do you think Count Richard's sequence level is?" Hastur changed the topic.
"Definitely not above Sequence 5. I'd guess he's around Sequence 7."
Sequence 7… a Spirit Medium of the Death pathway?
That did match the abilities Count Richard had demonstrated.
For someone who wasn't very knowledgeable in mysticism to advance successfully to Sequence 7 without losing control, that was indeed some impressive luck.
The two chatted idly all the way back to the lake. When parting, Hastur deliberately led the conversation: "You said Count Richard and his people change locations for every ritual. Could there be a special reason for that?"
Maric pondered for a long time before saying, "Tomorrow, we'll investigate together."
…
The next day, Hastur and Maric searched the surrounding forest and soon found a third and fourth location where rituals had been held.
"Have you noticed these four ritual sites seem to form points on a circle?" Hastur speculated.
"You think the thirteenth ritual will be at the center of the previous twelve sites?" Maric's expression became more serious.
Following this idea, they searched around the circle and indeed found the fifth, sixth… and twelfth ritual sites in sequence.
Connecting these twelve points really did resemble a circle, and the distances between the points were roughly equal.
This proved that Count Richard and his followers hadn't chosen ritual locations randomly, but had decided on thirteen sites from the start.
"Judging by the order in which they hold the rituals, it should be counterclockwise."
Hastur's expression also grew serious.
In mysticism, clockwise and counterclockwise had specific meanings, much like the difference between upright and reversed positions in Tarot cards.
If clockwise represented the passage of time, from past to future, then counterclockwise meant the complete opposite.
It could be understood as tracing time backward, returning from the present to the past.
Count Richard and his followers advocated allowing souls to rest peacefully, for the dead to reincarnate, death leading to rebirth, that should correspond to clockwise, as time flowed normally.
In contrast, counterclockwise symbolized the pursuit of resurrection from death.
That was completely contrary to the philosophy Count Richard claimed to follow and was extremely dangerous.
Hastur now suspected that Count Richard didn't understand these mystical implications at all, and his actions were being guided by an external influence.
For example, that unfathomable, enormous spirit world creature.
According to Count Richard's description, it was a messenger walking between the present world and the world of the dead.
So, seeking to escape from the world of the dead and appear in this world would be a perfectly reasonable goal for it, wouldn't it?
This also explained why Count Richard could summon it precisely each time and remain unharmed, because Count Richard still had enough value to be exploited.