"This is not a hallucination!"
Elias's voice was tight, like a fully drawn bowstring.
His eyes were fixed on the woman who had suddenly appeared; although 【Malice Perception】 hadn't triggered an alarm, the primal shudder of biological instinct was frantically hammering at his nerves.
This was the corridor of the Ascetic Grounds cathedral. One second he was chatting mentally with Old Ed, and the next, the world had transformed into this.
There was no transition, no warning.
"This is a hallucination."
The black-haired lady smiled charmingly, her tone as gentle as if she were coaxing a disobedient child, but her eyes held an undeniable sense of mockery.
She stood her ground against him, showing no intention of backing down.
Elias didn't waste words; his body moved faster than his brain.
The moment he confirmed her ill intent, his right hand snapped toward the small of his back, reaching for the newly acquired elemental revolver.
That was his source of confidence, his capital for reasoning with any unknown creature.
However.
He grasped nothing but air.
His fingertips met only empty clothing fabric; the gun had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.
Elias's heart sank abruptly, skipping a beat.
"Alright, it's a hallucination."
Elias immediately changed his tune, his expression switching in an instant from a tense standoff to rational compromise.
With his firepower gone, he admitted he was a little panicked.
In this damn supernatural world, being without a gun was like standing in the middle of a street without pants—it left him feeling extremely insecure.
But no matter how panicked a man was, he had to save face.
He took a deep breath, forcing down the urge to turn and run.
After all, where could he even run to?
He struggled to maintain a composed posture that said, 'Even if I'm unarmed, don't think you can push me around easily.'
"However, you must be real as well,"
he said with forced calmness, his gaze scanning her figure to find a weakness.
Though the gun was gone, his spirituality remained, and his Rational Circuit was still functioning.
If she dared to get violent, he would bite a chunk of her flesh off if he had to.
"That's a fair assessment."
The black-haired lady nodded noncommittally, seemingly satisfied with Elias's rapid adaptability.
She took a light step forward, and the surrounding walls, originally as bright as crystal, began to warp slightly, as if the boundary between reality and illusion was blurring beneath her feet.
"This is a hallucination, but it is also a spiritual hijacking."
She casually tossed out the term.
"What?!"
Elias's pupils constricted.
The spiritual hijacking Edmond had mentioned—an extremely high-level maneuver that theoretically only occurred during a promotion ritual when the soul was in an state of extreme openness—he was encountering it this soon?
And in reality?
"Isn't spiritual hijacking only possible during a promotion?"
Elias's brain worked at high speed, trying to find an explanation from the occult knowledge Old Ed had drilled into him.
"Only during promotion, when a transcendent actively opens their soul barriers to communicate with the Origin Web, are they in a defenseless state."
"You are quite sharp,"
the black-haired lady praised, a flash of admiration in her eyes.
"Theoretically, that is true."
"But there is another situation."
She walked right up to Elias.
"And that is—when my spirituality is significantly higher than yours."
She extended a slender finger and lightly tapped Elias's forehead.
There was no physical sensation, but Elias felt a chill pierce straight to his marrow.
"So high... that your sea of consciousness barrier is nothing more than a thin sheet of paper to me."
"I can enter whenever I wish, and whatever I want you to see, you must see."
Elias couldn't help but shudder.
That was the suppression of existence level.
It was the feeling of powerlessness brought by an absolute gap in strength.
He had thought that with the massive spirituality from his dual-soul fusion, he was already a powerhouse in the starting zone.
But now it seemed that in front of a true transcendent, he was still just a child.
What had he done to be targeted by such a being?
He tried his best to appear calm, not letting his fear leak through his micro-expressions.
"So, who are you? What do you want with me?"
Elias asked point-blank.
Since she could have easily killed him but chose to pull him into a hallucination for a chat instead, it meant there was room for negotiation.
"To check on a new peer, and to pass along a message for someone while I'm at it."
As the black-haired lady spoke, she suddenly reached out without warning.
That hand was as white as jade but moved faster than he could react.
She grabbed Elias's cheek and turned his head left and right, inspecting him like livestock.
"Tsk, you're decent-looking, though your eyes are a bit too shifty."
"Snap."
Elias swatted her hand away and took half a step back, his brow furrowed.
"Don't get handsy."
He hated people touching his face, especially in such a passive situation.
The black-haired lady wasn't annoyed; she just gave a dissatisfied huff and withdrew her hand.
"Peer?"
Elias sharply caught the word.
"You're a Firebearer too?"
"I was, once,"
the lady replied casually, her tone carrying a sense of age.
"It's been a few years."
She looked at Elias, her gaze turning somewhat complex.
"Seeing that nothing major has gone wrong with you, I can go back and report."
Elias frantically processed the information in her words.
Report? That meant she was commissioned by someone else.
"Passing a message for whom?"
Elias asked tentatively.
"I'm just a small fry at Scale One; I shouldn't be involved in the affairs of big shots like you, right?"
He had plenty of self-awareness.
Why would a high-level entity capable of toy with spirituality specifically come for a shrimp like him?
The black-haired lady let out a soft laugh at his words—a crisp sound that nonetheless carried a hint of coldness.
"Big shots?"
"Heh."
She shook her head, as if she had heard a joke.
"I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you who commissioned me."
"It's not that I don't want to; it's that I can't."
Her expression became slightly more serious.
"You are still too weak."
"So weak that... if that name were even to appear in your cognition, or if you were to simply speak it, the inherent power of the rules within it would cause you to explode."
"Even I wouldn't be able to protect you."
Elias felt a chill in his heart.
This was... an infohazard?
Certain nameless entities' names were taboos in themselves—memes that carried corruption.
He accurately grasped the implication.
"I see, so it's some kind of high-level existence."
Elias nodded, no longer pressing for the name.
He wanted to live a few more years and didn't want curiosity to kill the cat.
"Exactly. You can guess as wildly as you like,"
the black-haired lady winked, seemingly hinting at something.
"We will meet again one day."
"But for now, my time is running out."
"The spiritual fluctuations here have already caught the attention of a certain old fossil in this place."
She retracted her smile and said solemnly:
"Remember what I say."
"First, use this as the offering for your next promotion ritual."
With that, she casually tossed an object.
It traced an arc through the air, flying toward Elias.
Elias reflexively caught it with both hands.
It felt as smooth as jade and carried a hint of warmth.
It was a flute, less than the size of a palm, pure white and gleaming with a delicate luster.
Though it looked like jade, as Elias's fingertips traced the texture, the specific feel allowed him to make an instant judgment.
This was bone.
The bone of some creature.
After all, a person of the Kingdom of Velen wouldn't be particularly fond of an Eastern luxury like white jade, nor would they likely have something of such high quality.
"A bone flute?"
Elias toyed with the little object; instead of finding it disgusting, he thought it was well-crafted and a fine piece.
"If you encounter a crisis, you can also try blowing it. It might have an unexpected effect,"
the black-haired lady added, her tone carrying a hint of persuasion.
Elias raised an eyebrow.
An offering for a ritual?
He quickly began to calculate in his mind.
After the last lesson, he was exceptionally sensitive about promotion rituals.
The offering directly determined who you met and from whom you obtained power.
Last time, using a photo, he had met a little girl who was suspected to be an avatar of the Moon Lord.
If he used this bone flute this time... god knows what he would summon?
What if he summoned an evil god that turned him into a writhing mass of flesh?
After all, who could guarantee she had his best interests at heart?
In this world, free lunches were often the most expensive.
'For now, I won't use this thing as an offering.'
Elias silently made up his mind.
The risk was too great, and the reward unclear.
However...
If he encountered a life-threatening situation next time and it came down to a desperate struggle, he could try blowing it.
If blowing the bone flute could take him out, it could surely take the opponent out too.
Since this woman was so strong, the bone flute was likely a powerful magical tool.
If she had wanted to kill him, she could have just flicked a finger when they met; there was no need to go through all this trouble to set him up with a cursed item.
"Can I ask about its origin?"
Elias asked tentatively.
"What creature's bone is it?"
"There won't be any side effects, right?"
"Like growing four extra arms or something?"
"I can't tell you,"
the black-haired lady replied curtly.
"Just take it and use it. Why so many questions?"
"..."
Fine, you're the strong one, you make the rules.
Elias shrugged and tucked the bone flute close to his body.
"And the second thing."
The black-haired lady's figure began to grow ethereal, and the surrounding walls started to crack—clearly, this "spiritual hijacking" was about to end.
She looked at Elias, her eyes suddenly filled with a touch of playfulness.
"This one is a gift, consider it my personal goodwill."
"The old man chatting with you has lied."
"You'd best be careful."
Elias's heart tightened violently.
The old man chatting with me?
There was only one person in this world who fit that description.
No, to be precise, one ghost.
But on the surface, he remained unmoved, even frowning as if he didn't understand:
"Who are you talking about?"
"What old man?"
"I don't usually chat with the elderly."
"Don't play dumb with me."
The black-haired lady let out a cold laugh, her eyes seemingly able to peer through Elias's soul.
Half of her body had already dissipated, but her final words reached Elias's ears clearly.
"You know exactly who I mean."
"Edmond Russell."
"My former colleague."
Rate on N.U.
