Chapter 185: Prayer

Chapter 185: Prayer

Gone?

Complete darkness?

Faced with the sudden change, Derrick’s first reaction was not panic. Instead, he clasped his hands together and pressed them before his mouth.

One clear, bright wave of light after another rippled out from his body, driving away the deep darkness around him and illuminating every corner of the basement.

In the environment Derrick lived in, night was the most terrifying existence. Once they left the City of Silver, they had to keep themselves constantly under light. Even if it disappeared briefly, the interval could not exceed five seconds.

Back when Derrick had first joined an exploration team and lacked experience, he had nearly made a mistake because of that and lost his life. Fortunately, the Chief had been standing not far away.

The light slowly and continuously rippled outward. Derrick lifted his right hand, tightly gripping the Axe of Hurricane, and carefully examined his surroundings.

He discovered that not only had Heinm and Joshua—his two teammates who should already have followed him into the basement—vanished, but the large patches of blackened marks on the flagstones and walls had, at some unknown time, turned blood-red. They were wet and glistening, as though fresh blood had just been splashed over them.

Derrick, having studied the exploration textbooks thoroughly and having calmed down, could not help thinking of one possibility: the ones with a problem might not be Joshua and Heinm, but himself!

“I only approached that altar and silently read out those three names… Normally, even an angel must have a complete, accurate honorific name in the proper format before They can receive ‘prayers’ produced by recitation or copying. And it’s said there are range restrictions as well… I don’t know whether Kings of Angels are also bound by that…

“Uh, perhaps one of those three names is the key to activating the altar’s hidden power, and because I silently read it in Jotun, which can stir nature, the problem was triggered? No, that isn’t right. It would have to be spoken aloud to take effect. Even if these are the true names of Kings of Angels, nothing went wrong before…” Confused and somewhat uneasy, Derrick turned around and returned to the altar, back to the stone table.

He was astonished to see that the words and symbols on the stone table had become much clearer and more complete than before, as though the host of the ritual had only just finished carving them.

These words were divided into three kinds. One was Jotun, one was Dragonish, and the last was a language Derrick did not recognize. However, he suspected it was the ancient Hermes that Mr. Hanged Man and Miss Justice had spoken of, because during Tarot Club exchanges in this period, he had gained a preliminary command of a few words, and those were quite close to the language on the stone table.

The contents expressed in Jotun and Dragonish were entirely consistent. They were repeatedly stating the three names and their corresponding titles:

“Angel of Fate,” Ouroboros;

“Red Angel,” Medici;

“Dark Angel,” Sasrir.

Following the titles and names was a phrase Derrick knew very well:

“Rose Redemption”!

So Sasrir really is a King of Angels, called the “Dark Angel.” He, together with the Angel of Fate and the Red Angel, founded Rose Redemption? I wonder what Mr. Fool knows about Him… Mr. Fool definitely knows a great deal… The ancient Hermes should mean the same thing… In Afternoon Town, which had already converted to the Lord who created everything, there were residents secretly worshiping the three Kings of Angels beside the Lord… Thinking to this point, Derrick suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He felt as though he had brushed against the edge of the truth behind the Creator’s abandonment of this land.

He raised his head again and saw that the walls and floor were still blood-red. Heinm and Joshua were still nowhere to be seen.

Silently reading the names again has no effect. Perhaps it never…