?
Elias was stunned.
He looked at the horse in front of him, for a moment not knowing how to react.
What kind of answer was that?
Had his buddy's connection to the spirit world been cut off?
Elias hesitated.
Did he really have to shout that unspeakable, broken name out loud again during this ritual?
On second thought, better not.
Shouting it here might actually attract something foul. He didn't know if the old horse could handle it, but he'd certainly be done for.
In his current tattered state, it would be almost certain death.
“Moon Bay!”
Elias gave up on calling it by name and tried to describe the problem in more down-to-earth terms.
“There's an evil god there. You don't know about it?”
At those words, the horse's expression immediately became strange.
A hint of bewilderment flashed in its eyes.
“Are you sure it's an ‘evil god’?”
Its voice sounded like it was questioning a fundamental error in common knowledge.
“Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about what an evil god is?”
Elias froze.
Misunderstanding?
The moment you say its name, it sends you local ‘gifts’ and throws in some free bloodletting therapy.
Its believers are either lunatics or simply not human.
If that's not an evil god, what is?
Did he have to give it a ‘Top Ten Enthusiastic Citizens of Moon Bay’ award or something?
The horse began to speak solemnly.
“If an evil god truly existed in the Moon Bay region...”
“Then even without its projection descending...”
“The mere spawn it produces would be enough to instantly turn the entirety of Moon Bay into a living hell.”
Elias frowned as he listened.
“Is it not like that now?” he couldn't help but retort.
Elias recalled his experiences at the lighthouse.
The carapace husks, the mutated sirens.
Not to mention the pervasive dream demon curse.
He didn't dare imagine how many more anti-human things were hidden in the bottomless waters of Moon Bay.
Once those creatures broke through the fragile line of defense formed by the lighthouses and alchemy buoys...
The coastal port cities would instantly become their all-you-can-eat buffet.
That would absolutely turn the entire Moon Bay region into a living hell.
It was exactly as the old horse described!
“No, no, no.”
The horse shook its massive head.
“You're oversimplifying things.”
“The living hell I'm talking about is a problem that even gods would find difficult to resolve.”
“It is the collapse of laws, the complete annihilation of rationality.”
“So far, the things you've encountered in Moon Bay are, at best, just mutated supernatural creatures.”
“If the Dawn Lady were willing to act, it wouldn't be an issue at all.”
“In fact, the Dawn Lady wouldn't even need to step in personally.”
“The current Chosen of the Goddess of Magic alone could resolve the problem just by sparing it a glance.”
Elias listened, dumbfounded.
So the monsters he'd fought tooth and nail against, nearly dying several times...
In their eyes, they were just bugs that could be squashed at will?
But Elias's mind was racing.
He wasn't dazed by the old horse's grand explanation of power levels.
On the contrary, he keenly grasped a blind spot in the horse's words.
“But what if... it's a sealed evil god?” Elias blurted out.
He suddenly thought of the cultist he'd headshotted.
He thought of the crazy, obsessive doctrines in the letters carried by the Mist Veil Society members.
The so-called “restoring the Lord's glory.”
If one pondered those words, the amount of information they carried was staggering.
If their Lord was currently at the height of its power, why would a bunch of rats lurking in the shadows need to “restore” anything?
Doesn't that imply that their Lord has already lost its former glory?
An evil god that had lost its glory, whose power couldn't even fully permeate the material world.
A sealed evil god!
This deduction perfectly fit the current state of Moon Bay—bizarre, yet not completely out of control.
The Peak Horse was clearly stumped by Elias's sudden brainstorm.
“Err...”
A hint of embarrassment appeared on the horse's face.
“I cannot rule out the situation you described,” the old horse admitted somewhat unnaturally after a long silence.
“But as far as I know, there are no spells in the human supernatural system that can seal an evil god.”
“The dimensions of law for such beings are completely different.”
“If a god did it, then it wouldn't be surprising.”
The old horse shook its head again.
“Even if you ask me, there's nothing I can do.”
“You have to understand one thing, boy.”
“The Dream Prayer Ritual you're performing is essentially obtaining information from the spirit world within this specific spirit world node.”
“I am merely the medium for transmitting that information.”
“And when it involves gods...”
“I have no way to look it up.”
That was quite a candid admission.
“Fine.”
Elias sighed with disappointment.
He'd gone through all this trouble, entering while risking his head splitting open, only to get an “insufficient permissions” prompt.
The cost-effectiveness of this ritual was simply too low.
As soon as he finished speaking, a wave of dizziness hit him.
The entire dream began to twist before his eyes.
“Your time is running out,” the Peak Horse said flatly, observing Elias's state.
Elias knew exactly what was happening.
He remembered during the last Dream Prayer Ritual, he'd chatted with the horse for ages without being forcibly dragged into the depths of the spirit world like this after only two questions.
This also served as side-proof for the warning the horse had given him before.
The more frequently the Dream Prayer Ritual was performed, the less effective it became.
Moreover, frequent exposure to the underlying rules of the spirit world would cause the practitioner's spirituality to be gradually assimilated by it.
If he forced himself to stay, there would be only one outcome.
His consciousness would fall completely into the spirit world, and he would become a vegetable who could never wake up.
“Alright.”
Elias took a sharp breath, his voice trembling.
But he knew he couldn't leave yet.
Since he was already here, he couldn't leave empty-handed.
Enduring the stinging pain in his soul and the mounting waves of dizziness, he asked once more:
“The Scale Three spirit vision potion recipe in my hands...”
“Is it real?!”
Yes, this was what had been weighing on his mind.
This was the recipe he'd gone through so much trouble to get from Mester's Treatment Room.
To be honest, he'd almost forgotten about it.
It was only just now, while sorting through clues and thinking about how he needed to keep increasing his strength to deal with the upcoming crisis, that he'd suddenly remembered.
The last time he'd opened the Dream Prayer Ritual...
The old horse's “Year of the Horse” comment had completely thrown him off.
So much so that he'd forgotten all about verifying the recipe's authenticity.
Later, when negotiating terms with Ms. Cecil of the Seventh Agency...
He'd even had the audacity to demand another Scale Three potion to deal with the promotion issue.
Now, he had to get this sorted out.
The horse's massive eyes lit up once more.
A few seconds later.
“A new formula,” the old horse gave its appraisal.
“There is a possibility of issues arising.”
Elias's heart sank at the answer.
As expected, free lunches usually come with the risk of an upset stomach.
Something that Mester himself had sealed away couldn't possibly be a stable version refined through a thousand trials.
“You'd better be careful,” the horse said, its tone carrying a rare note of warning as it looked at Elias.
“Don't go losing your life.”
As soon as those words were spoken...
Elias's vision became completely blurred.
With the end of the horse's answer, he quickly felt that irresistible sense of weightlessness.
“It's time for you to go, boy,” the horse said timely, its voice starting to become ethereal.
It quietly gazed at Elias's battered soul.
“Fine, I won't kick you this time.”
The old horse snorted, seemingly unable to bear it.
Hearing this, Elias actually felt a strange surge of gratitude.
Forcing back the dizziness, he was about to open his mouth to say “thank you” to the uncharacteristically kind Peak Horse.
However.
A rapidly magnifying horse head directly occupied his entire field of vision!
Thump!
A dull sound that made one's soul tremble rang out.
“A headbutt?!”
As his consciousness was rapidly pulled away, Elias only managed to leave this high-pitched complaint behind in the dream bubble.
He felt like the half-life he had left was about to be directly snuffed out by that blow.
“Hiss...”
When Elias took a sharp breath and forced his heavy eyelids open...
The familiar ceiling of the hotel room came into view.
In his mind, Old Ed's annoying nagging had been going on for who knows how long.
“Once you're in, just ask about the useful stuff and get out quickly.”
“Don't spend so much time chatting about useless things...”
Elias lay on the floor, listening to the endless stream of nonsense.
If getting old meant becoming like this, he'd rather find release early.
“When did you develop this habit, you old fossil?”
“Why is it that as soon as I lose consciousness, you start gossiping behind my back?” he complained weakly.
After successfully escaping the pressure of having to face Arthur and Charlotte...
His emotions were slowly beginning to relax.
“Are you some kind of Gossip-Man?”
Rate on N.U.
