249 An Ancient Rite (2/2)
”Ask him what happened in the castle later.” Lucien tried to follow Susan to approach Bill.
However, as soon as Bill saw Lucien moving, he lost his mind again. His whole body was trembling, and his eyes opened really wide, ”Stay away from me!! Stay away!!”
Lucien nodded and slowly stepped backwards with Charlie. Sandra grabbed Susan's hand to show that she was a friend of Susan.
Although Bill's body was still trembling, he was a little less frightened now.
”Bill, tell me. What did you see in the castle?” Susan squatted down in front of him.
Sandra squatted down as well, and, at the same time, she secretly cast a second-circle spell, Distinguish Lie, around Bill. Because the spell did not work directly on Bill's body or mind, the spell was safe to him.
All of a sudden, Bill reached out his hands and grabbed Susan's arm. Susan got scared as well and she felt on the ground.
Bill said to her, panic-stricken, ”All died! All died! Andy, Debra, Stevens… they all died! At first… they almost had killed all the demons, almost! But… but there was one… They couldn't kill it. By no means they could kill it… And they all died… I ran… and I hid here… Susan, get me out of here! I'm so terrified!”
Andy, Debra and Stevens were all first-circle sorcerers in the castle.
The dim light around them from the spell Distinguish Lie did not change, which meant that Bill was not lying.
Susan tried her best to withhold her fear, and started to ask Bill about the details.
Looking at what was going on in the chamber, Lucien and Charlie were on the other side. At this time, Lucien noticed a piece of half-burned parchment written in ancient magic empire characters.
”V(erased)'s special summoning rite:
”You need a rune written in your own blood, a brazier, and Pain Fable…”
The rest of the parchment was burned.
Lucien felt the rite was quite funny, as he had never seen any rites requiring a fable book. He collected the following several pages of the parchment from the floor and started to read the few lines that were left there:
”When everything's prepared, read the seventh story, chapter ten, in Pain Fable. Read it over and over again, and transcribe the fable onto the parchment written with the blood rune.”
...
”Open the Encyclopedia of Demons, rip off the pages containing the information of the demons that you want summon, then throw the pages into the brazier.”
...
”Chant the spell. Keep chanting. When the flame is as tall as you, you'll see your gift.”
Charlie also read it, and he commented, frowning, ”It looks like a stupid trick. Many of the steps are just nonsense… I mean, what kind of rite would require a fable book? That's ridiculous… The fact that it is found in the apprentice hall shows that it was just a joke. Only idiots would probably try.”
”Have you ever read Pain Fable?” Lucien was a bit hesitant, ”Ridiculous as it is, the fact that Bertren died when he tried to summon demons here makes me feel nervous about any weird rites that are related to demon summoning.”
Charlie paused for a second and then answered, ”No, I have never, but someone told me about it before. Those fables were folktales originating from the border between Holm and Brianne in ancient magic empire, and those fables are not cheerful at all. The book is called Pain Fable because those fables teach people lessons by making people feel sad, depressed, resentful and angry. I don't read stuff that makes me feel bad. By the way, Mr. Evans, don't you think the style of the parchment is of the ancient magic empire style? Something before the War of Dawn…”
”It is.” Lucien took a glance at the bookshelves around, ”I wonder if we can find Pain Fable here…”
At this time, Susan finished asking questions. As soon as Sandra got the basic information, she cast Charm Person on Bill for further verification.
”So, according to Bill, the summoning room lost control first, and low-rank demons invaded the castle and killed most people here. At this time, Susan and Scott managed to escape. Then later, when the several level one sorcerers that assisted Mr. Bertren got the control of the castle core back and managed to kill most of the low-rank demons there. However, things went wrong when they arrived at the summoning room. They met the demon there and were killed.” Based on all the clues, Sandra made this conclusion. She walked to Lucien and Charlie and said, ”So, it is almost certain that the demon resurrects every time at the summoning circle when it is killed. We need to destroy the summoning circle to really kill the demon!”
As soon as Sandra finished her words, the floor and walls started to ripple as if they were liquid. Many half-transparent, pale arms fiercely reached out.