Azure Scepter

Page 156

PS: Futia is about to be upgraded to Legendary.

Chapter 300 Parricide (Part 1)

Trier sat in his chair, gazing absently at the torrential rain outside the window.

Suddenly, heavy footsteps came from outside the door. After about two seconds, the group suddenly sneered.

“Cohen actually came here on his own,” it said with a hint of mockery. “That’s really asking for trouble.”

Trier glanced at the faceless statue, then laughed.

"Indeed, he's courting death."

As he spoke, he placed the faceless statue on the table, then got up and went to open the door.

"Boom——"

A sudden clap of thunder rang out, and a pale flash of lightning illuminated the faceless statue. In the interplay of light and shadow created by the lightning and rain, a mocking smile seemed to appear on the statue's featureless face.

The next moment, the thunder subsided, and the faceless statue disappeared back into the darkness.

"Pat...pat..."

Cohen walked slowly into the house, round water droplets dripping slowly from his cloak, and a cold dampness slowly spread like mist.

“Trier, there’s something I need to tell you right now,” he said in a low voice. “That…”

In the darkness, Trier glanced at the faceless statue and then said, "Don't rush, tell me slowly."

"Snap—" Trier snapped his fingers, and the fire was instantly ignited, the orange flames dispelling the darkness.

Light appeared, illuminating everyone's expressions.

Cohen looked serious, while Trier smiled, and the changes in light and shadow on the faceless statue completely disappeared.

“Someone wants to kill you,” Trier said, glancing at Cohen.

Cohen was stunned, and he instinctively opened his mouth wide.

In an instant, the rain seemed to intensify, and as Trier uttered his words, countless thunderclaps suddenly roared.

—Although the beings are sealed, such a powerful being can affect the climate even with just a change in its emotions.

"Are they those beings that transcend the mundane..." Cohen hesitated for a moment before asking.

Trier nodded slightly, then glanced at the faceless statue.

"Foolish, utterly foolish," the voices of the crowd echoed in his mind. "Trill, you're practically dancing with the devil..."

“Just as I thought.” Cohen sighed and shook his head slightly. “I came to see you today to tell you that I saw Sophie’s afterimage again, and it’s getting closer and closer to me.”

"Did you first see that afterimage before the wedding?" Trier asked.

“No.” Cohen suddenly raised his head and gave a bitter smile. “The first time I saw that afterimage was the moment I smashed his head with a hammer.”

Trier paused for a moment, then asked, word by word, "What do you mean by smashing his head?"

“Trier, you know the past, the present, and the future—that’s what you mean.” Cohen threw off his cloak and downed the last of his drink.

“I really don’t understand,” Trier said in a deep voice. “Why don’t you explain yourself more clearly?”

“I thought you knew everything…” Cohen muttered to himself.

He slowly put down the empty wine bottle. The cold rain reflected the firelight, hitting the bottom of the bottle and creating layers of halos.

In the dazzling halo, Cohen calmly said, "I killed my own father the day he woke up, but then he came back to life."

P.S.: Due to exams, there will only be so many updates. Please forgive me.

Chapter 301 Parricide (Part Two)

“I killed my own father with my own hands on the very day he woke up.”

"Just like today, that day was also a rainy day."

Cohen’s tone was surprisingly calm, like a windless snowfield in the dead of winter, but his eyes seemed somewhat lost and wavering.

“When I learned that he had woken up, I felt a deep sense of disgust—it was only then that I realized that while he was unconscious, I did not feel grief as I had expected; on the contrary, I felt a deep sense of peace.”

Trier listened to Cohen's account in silence, not saying a word, but simply looking at him quietly.

"Perhaps I've been deceiving myself all along. I don't actually like him, nor am I afraid of him. I just hate him."

Cohen muttered to himself, as if he were trying to convince himself rather than narrating.

"That day, he woke up. However, to my surprise, he did not show any weakness, nor did he fly into a rage as usual; he simply displayed an unparalleled fear."

He said that during his coma, his soul went to hell and he suffered torture at the hands of the devils. After going through all the hardships, he finally escaped back by his own scheme.

Trier shook his head slightly.

It is obvious that the Duke did not go to hell while he was in a coma, because the devil does not accept the souls of the living.

Even if we assume he did go to hell while he was alive, he could never have escaped so easily. After all, demons are experts at imprisoning and tormenting souls. Even if he is a legend with a powerful soul, once he goes down there, the probability of him escaping on his own is infinitely close to zero.

Moreover, the escape of a soul is a serious mistake for the devil, and can even be considered a direct challenge to the entire system's order. The devil in charge of this matter will certainly do everything in his power to make up for the mistake and bring the other party back. Otherwise, the devil in charge of this matter will be subject to extremely harsh and cruel accountability.

The crowd even laughed out loud, for no other reason than that this was too outrageous.

Cohen was unaware of the crowd's existence. He continued, "He was terrified of being caught again, and this fear quickly fermented into hysteria under the influence of anger."

"He told me that only by sacrificing a large number of souls could he avoid being taken back, and when I argued with him and turned to call the priest, he simply picked up the duke's scepter and smashed it on my head."

“He certainly couldn’t have succeeded.” Cohen was silent for a moment, his head lowered, his face hidden in shadow by the firelight. “In my shock, I snatched the scepter from him and pushed him to the ground.”

“I looked down at him from above, but he drooped his eyelids, gritted his teeth, and sneered, saying in words that seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth: ‘Do it, you piece of trash.’”

“Then,” Cohen raised his face, revealing a helpless smile, “I took action.”

“I raised the scepter and smashed it down on his face. I remember it clearly—his skull shattered, his face caved in, and thick, foul-smelling blood and what was probably brain matter gushed from his nose and eye sockets.”

"I thought he might not be dead, so I pulled the scepter out of his flesh again and then smashed it. I don't remember it very clearly—I only remember that his wrinkled eyelids were scraped by metal fragments, and half of his eyeball burst out and rolled to my feet."

"Then I felt as if I had fallen asleep. I kept smashing it, and I didn't even know how many times I smashed it. It wasn't until the scepter was smashed to pieces and all that was left on the ground was a mixture of flesh and blood that I woke up as if from a dream."

"It may sound strange, but when I stared at my father's body, I felt neither regret nor pleasure. I didn't even have any emotions. If I had to describe it, I might have felt a kind of calmness, like a martial monk entering a meditative state."

Trier took a deep breath and then asked, "What happened next?"

"When I was about to dispose of the body, I looked up at the window and saw a black silhouette at the edge of my field of vision. I suspected that my crime had been seen by the other party, so I looked around. However, when I saw it clearly, I was shocked to find that the silhouette was actually the image of my wife who had died long ago."

“I felt terrified.” Cohen paused for a moment, “but soon I realized that I had gone insane under the pressure and that it was just a hallucination, so I ignored the silhouette.”

“I summoned my trusted men and quickly took control of the entire Golden Palace. I planned to immediately purge everyone who might seek revenge for him. However, just as we were about to proceed with the plan, I discovered that my father had actually come back to life! He stood before me without saying a word, his eyelids drooping, calm and contemptuous, as if looking at a pile of garbage.”

Cohen picked up the bottle with trembling hands, wanting to drink some more, but it was empty.

“I suspected he might have transformed himself into a lich-like undead creature, and that his so-called coma was just a disguise. So I pierced his heart with my sword, ordered my men to burn his body to ashes with blazing glue, and had the priest use divine magic to slow his resurrection.”

"But that didn't work at all! Soon, he came back to life. He reappeared in front of me, still silent, still calm and contemptuous, still with droopy eyelids."

"I tried at least ten more times, but it was completely useless. And with each kill I made, Sophie's afterimage drew closer and closer to me..."

Trier nodded slightly; he now understood why Uncle Cohen had acted strangely at the Duke's wedding.

Furthermore, the Duke's repeated resurrections and his seemingly deliberate sudden death at the wedding have been explained to some extent.

Now only one mystery remains—what exactly was that dark shadow?

"So, where is that shadowy figure now?" Trier asked in a deep voice.

Cohen, pale-faced, stared intently at Trier and said quietly, "Right behind you."

"..."

Trier's eye twitched slightly, but he quickly regained control.

Chapter 302 Blood of God

Although Uncle Cohen's words were like ghost stories told in a weedy cemetery at midnight, Trier was not afraid; on the contrary, he felt a kind of excitement.

Necromancers certainly aren't afraid of ghost stories! Generally speaking, necromancers are the ones behind all sorts of terrifying and supernatural rumors...

As a master of necromancy, Trier had always been extremely interested in all kinds of ghosts. Therefore, even though he did not sense anything behind him, he still turned around to look back as eagerly as a dragon that had discovered a treasure.

The cold, damp wind lashed against the glass windows, and the muffled sound of rain and the sharp whistling of the wind seemed to carry a chill. Under the light of the fireplace, the shadows of the furniture inside swayed, but there were no shadows here, nor was there Sophie's ghost.

Trier was not willing to give up. He scanned the area carefully twice more, but still found nothing.

“Trill, do you see that?” Uncle Cohen asked quietly. “It’s perched on your shoulder right now.”

Trier casually cast a "Wise Owl" spell on himself, which increased his perception by 4 points, and then shook his head.

“I think ghosts may only exist in your subjective perception,” he said slowly.

Cohen sighed with disappointment: "So you also think it was just my imagination, right?"

“It’s clearly not a hallucination; I saw the shadowy figure on my wedding day too.” Trier shook his head. “I mean, there might be some kind of curse at work, and the target of this spell is you.”

At this point, Trier glanced at the faceless statue on the table out of the corner of his eye.

“I found a giant ritual circle that had been running for a very long time in the basement of the vanished city hall. That circle was a curse circle.”

“That’s an illusionary magic circle,” the crowd suddenly thought to Trier. “Nearly ten centuries ago, the saints of the Radiant Church used this magic circle to help Saint Sel thwart Losevie’s plot to ascend to godhood.”

Trier lowered his gaze, averting his eyes.

The crowd's words were both misleading and a test; it seemed unaware that it had discovered the hidden ritual.

"Is the saint you're talking about Saint Sel?" Trier slightly loosened his protective "mental barrier" and then asked in his mind.

"Saint Seil helps Saint Seil thwart a conspiracy? That doesn't make sense in any language, does it?"

The crowd chuckled, then avoided a direct answer with a rhetorical question.

“Trier, I have completely figured out this whole conspiracy.” The group paused for a moment, then continued, “It is clear that your uncle in this body has been bewitched by some saint of the Radiant Church using illusion magic.”

“But I’ve already stopped that massive ritual from operating,” Trier thought to himself.

"Heh." The crowd sneered again. "Perhaps you are highly skilled in necromancy, but you are absolutely no match for a natural-born dream demigod like me in the field of illusion. A skillful illusion does not need to be maintained; it only needs a small trigger. Think about what you said when you provoked Edith. The principle behind both is the same."

Trier did not respond. At this moment, the words of the crowd, which were mostly true and half false, directly filled in the last piece of the puzzle he had deduced.

The target of the soul attack ritual was Cohen, who was cursed after killing his own father—and the others tried to get him to kill Cohen through lies and manipulation, so the answer is quite clear.

The curse is triggered by patricide, and its type is a soul attack. As for its effects, they are currently unknown.

However, considering that the Duke, as his grandfather, had killed his father, it can be assumed that the Duke was also a victim of this ritual. In that case, the effect of the ritual might be ghostification or physical control.

The time traveler slowly raised his head and looked at Uncle Cohen.

"Was the effect of that curse ritual to make me hallucinate?" Cohen asked somewhat uneasily.

Trier didn't speak. He pondered for a moment, then stood up from his chair, casting a shadow over Cohen.

“It could be an illusion, or it could be your soul,” Trier said slowly. “But with one test, we can find out the truth—I want to see your soul directly.”

He paused for a moment, then looked down at Cohen in the chair: "Uncle, do you agree?"

Cohen nodded without hesitation: "It's always better to fight to the death than to sit and wait to die. Even if I die, I want to die on the way to the front—Trier, I believe in you, but I need to have a drink first."

"Pathetic drunkard, still wanting to drink even as death approaches." The crowd laughed grimly, seemingly emphasizing the words "approaching death."

Trier suppressed a laugh, trying hard to maintain a serious and gloomy demeanor.

Uncle Cohen stood up unsteadily, then picked up another bottle of wine, bit the cork, then jerked his head to pull it out, and downed it in one gulp.

"Tons, tons, tons..."

A moment later, Cohen, his face flushed, exhaled and let out a long, drunken burp like a dwarf.

He abruptly threw the bottle aside, and amidst the cracking sound of it shattering, nodded sharply at Trier.

Trier nodded slightly.

The next moment, he directly activated his divine vision.

In an abstract vision composed of dots and lines, he slowly reached out and touched Cohen's forehead, then gently hooked his hand upwards, grasping the other's soul in one swift motion.

The legendary soul was extremely heavy and extremely resilient; a resistance as strong as an avalanche suddenly exploded from Trier's fingertips.

Trier was prepared. With a slight thought, his pure divine power transformed into holy light, which he then applied to his fingertips in the form of a paladin's "holy healing." In an instant, the exaggerated resistance disappeared.

The warm white light illuminated the entire room and the pitch-black rainy night. In an instant, the entire Golden Palace seemed as bright as day. Warm, dry light spots fell to the ground like petals mixed with rainwater.

However, the resistance, which had almost disappeared, suddenly increased again! The exaggerated resistance abruptly burned away the little divine power that Trier had poured in, and then suddenly exploded at Trier's fingertip, the inexplicable effect sweeping outwards like ripples.