abcnovels
Chapter 54: 52: Receiving the Lord’s Gift! (Please follow!)
Chapter 54: 52: Receiving the Lord’s Gift! (Please follow!)
Chapter 54: Chapter 52: Receiving the Lord’s Gift! (Please follow!)
“`
Grandma Narda was now very old.
She had long felt that her days were numbered, no longer daring to hope for anything from the future, only wishing that her sons could have good lives.
Of Grandma Narda’s three sons, only the eldest, Moore, was clever and brave; the other two were hopeless cases, and deep in her heart, she knew this to be true.
She had been contemplating whether to let her children join Dawn.
The Fischer family worshipped the Lord of the Lost, undoubtedly a great deity, but, after all, faith in an otherworldly god was a capital offense, which the Six Great True Gods Churches abhorred.
It was laughable; the Reforging Church was once considered heretical too, but now the God of Reforging is also deemed one of the so-called True Gods; from that moment on, she realized there was no essential difference between True Gods and Evil Gods.
A god is a god, and the so-called good and evil are nothing but concepts forcibly imposed by the mundane.
It was a time when the rainy season was more frequent, and the rain outside kept pouring down. The aged Grandma Narda, led by a servant of the Fischer family, came to the Fischer house calmly amidst the night.
Upon entering the hall, she saw Madam Irene with her back to her, and the servant bowed and left.
Grandma Narda’s back could no longer straighten completely, and she asked devoutly,
“Respected Madam Irene, I am Narda. Did you send for me?”
Grandma Narda had originally hoped to refer to Irene as “Great Priest,” but Irene had indicated that it would be better to avoid such direct addresses in person, especially as the situation with heretic hunts had grown stricter in recent years across the land, particularly in the Eastern Four Kingdoms.
The members of the Salvation Church, significant followers in particular, often seemed as if they were searching for something, gathering more and more in the Eastern Four Kingdoms.
Irene did not look at Grandma Narda but instead, a clear, calm, and exceedingly enticing voice came forth.
“He said, ‘Let there be happiness and calamity in the world,’ and thus He created the joys and angers of mortals into existence.”
“People always flounder, struggling in pain like beasts within the chaos, enduring the vicissitudes of joy and sorrow, and the despair of life and death.”
She paused for a moment, then continued to speak gravely, gazing straight ahead.
“Only those blessed by His grace will have the chance to transcend their suffering.”
Grandma Narda’s eyes gradually widened, feeling that something momentous was about to happen tonight.
Irene slowly turned around, her delicate face shadowy and indistinct in the dark, invoking awe with its elusive mystique.
She continued, speaking softly, yet her words bore a weight that suffocated.
“Narda, are you willing to accept His gift and become one who has the chance to transcend suffering?”
Grandma Narda understood what was being hinted at; Irene had once suggested that continuously contributing to the great Lord of the Lost would grant one the opportunity to receive extraordinary power.
The desire she had repressed deep inside, which she once harbored and then gradually forgot, to the point that she no longer dared fantasize about in her old age, now surged forth.
She felt as if she had suddenly become decades younger, her wrinkled, aged face breaking into an exceedingly jubilant smile, her frail body shaking slightly.
“I am willing! Great Priest, I am willing to contribute further to the greatness of Him!”
After listening, Irene fell silent for a moment. Grandma Narda immediately grasped what that meant and quickly promised, “If I can receive His gift, I am willing to offer more worldly possessions, Great Priest.”
Upon hearing this, she finally showed a smile.
Not long ago, Byrne took most of the family’s money to buy various things. Irene kept quiet on the surface, but deep down, she bled profusely.
Since they were now about to grant Grandma Narda the extraordinary power of Consecution, they naturally couldn’t let her receive it for nothing, without offering something in return. The more funds the Fischer family had, the better.
Irene really liked money; there was no helping it, as she had truly lacked money in her childhood.
The Time of Ashes was approaching.
That was the moment at midnight every day.
“`
In the underground chamber filled with lit candles, Byrne had made all the preparations for journeying to the Spirit Realm.
On the ground, a circle representing the dream world had been painted with white chalk, and beyond it lay scattered white fish-scale powder, symbolizing the stability of the path. The outermost ring was drawn with black powder, depicting seven mysterious symbols representing the coordinates in the Spirit Realm, ensuring they would not directly enter any excessively dangerous areas.
On a nearby table, three bottles of a dark blue potion for inducing deep sleep had been mixed and were ready to use.
When he saw Irene descending into the basement, he asked:
“I have never heard of so-called ‘Time of Ashes’ or the ‘Lord of Ashes’; the time is set at midnight, correct?”
“Rest assured, Byrne, the mystical knowledge in my mind is never wrong—it comes from the great Lord of the Lost.”
Irene nodded, never having detailed the knowledge about the otherworldly gods to anyone else. It was definitely not a good thing for mortals to know too much about Them.
They were beings that existed beyond the Claud World, and even the True Gods were exceedingly wary of them. There were a total of twenty-seven such beings, each possessing power beyond any mortal’s imagination or comprehension.
The Lord of Ashes.
He was also one of the otherworldly gods.
The source of infinite disasters, the abhorrence of white fog, the Lord of Ashes who extinguished constellations, embodied the most primitive chaos and distortion in the endless universe.
Whenever the great Lord of the Lost required the Fischer family to sacrifice their lifespans, and when someone was needed to bear those hazardous knowledge, Irene felt deep within that she should be the only one to make the sacrifice.
They only needed to step over her lifeless body to proceed.
“Since everything is ready, I will go call Grandma Narda down, and then we can begin.”
Irene nodded, returning to the hall to call Grandma Narda down.
She trembled slightly, her first time in the most secret basement of the Fischer family, her face filled with curiosity and astonishment.
Kneeling calmly before the sacred object, Irene said, “Kneel and remember not to look directly at His greatness.”
The three of them knelt before the clear bottles, Grandma Narda forcefully controlling herself not to gaze directly at the sacred object, only feeling the surroundings suddenly turn into black and white, as if everything in the world was on the brink of destruction and demise.
Him!
Could He be here!
Before Grandma Narda, whose color had drained from her face and body was trembling with fear could react, she heard Irene calmly pick up the dark blue dream-inducing potion and say:
“Drink it, we will take you to the Spirit Realm to perform the ritual through the Gate of Shadow.”
“Narda, only after the ritual is complete will you be worthy of receiving the blessing from the great Lord of Dawn, who is also the Lord of the Lost.”
Her words were full of seductive power, mysterious and utterly mesmerizing, leading Narda to take the dark blue potion without hesitation and drink it all at once.
“I… I feel so sleepy…”
Irene and Byrne exchanged glances, both fully aware of how important this journey was, the Spirit Realm filled with unpredictable dangers and opportunities.
If the Fischer family wanted to advance further, they must delve into the Spirit Realm at any cost; for example, to activate the latent bloodline in Darren, a ritual had to be held in the Spirit Realm.
Irene and Byrne laid Narda’s unconscious body within the array, and both consumed the dream-inducing potion in turn and sat down as well.
Next to Byrne were three sobering potions, one of which was a special potion cooled to freezing point, made by combining Non-living Flower, Single Membrane Tree bark, and blood from the Fischer family.
The potion was dark red in appearance, containing a fatal yet dangerous power that was incredibly tempting.
Midnight had arrived.
The numerous candles went out one after the other, and the three sitting in the circle fell into a deep slumber, entering another world that belonged to dreams, enveloped by darkness.