Lord of the Mysteries: Yao Guang

Barnabas struggles with the negative effects of the potion. The mermaid's song echoes the harmonica, forming a tug of war with the potion's influence on him.

Barnabas felt a little regretful. He should have waited until he had fully digested the "Faceless Man" instead of risking promotion like this now.

Fortunately, Esther's harmonica voice still helps...

Suddenly, another heavy and frantic consciousness flooded Banabei's mind, pouring into his body almost without any hindrance, constantly coordinating with those wildly twisting flesh buds, making Banabei's body become more and more rigid. , he almost couldn't feel his own existence.

But just when he felt that his consciousness was on the verge of collapse, the terrifying sense of oppression suddenly lightened up.

He immediately seized this opportunity, quickly stabilized his mind and spirit body, and his body quickly stabilized and returned to normal.

His joints and limbs gradually became softer, out of a state where they were so stiff that they were almost no longer his own.

Barnabas opened his eyes and realized that the mermaids had stopped singing and the sound of the harmonica had disappeared.

The surroundings were too quiet, and all the mermaids had disappeared, quietly hiding deeper into the mist.

The bright red harmonica fell next to the Holy Emblem of the Night. It seemed to be painted with something like paint to outline a golden heart, but due to scratches, the edges had fallen off a little.

Esther's right hand was gray and black, with black granules surging under the skin. Her left hand was tightly holding her right wrist to prevent the black right hand from reaching towards her right eye.

"Help..." Esther endured the pain of the center of her right eyebrow being nearly drilled out, and she choked out such a word.

Banabei subconsciously stretched out his left hand and suddenly picked up the Holy Emblem of the Night. He tapped his right hand on his knee and instantly activated his spiritual vision.

He saw dense silver threads extending from Esther's head and connecting in the void. Only on her right arm was a group of black threads crawling.

Are her spiritual threads silver?

While Banabei was puzzled, he was also pouring spiritual madness into the badge. The rich dark power escaped, and even completely out of Banabei's control, it gathered on Esther's body.

Barnabas focused on two things and grabbed the black spiritual thread entangled in Esther's right hand.

The moment he grasped the end of the thread, his spiritual intuition sent out a crazy scream of warning, which made Barnabas shudder suddenly and break the contact with the spiritual thread.

However, the momentary stiffness of that arm made Esther's headache disappear for most of it, and she got a chance to breathe.

The power of "Sleep" surrounded her indiscriminately, but the only ones affected were those granules trying to get out of her skin.

The light spots exploded from Esther's hair and rushed towards her right arm. As the light spots rolled, the black worms originally flowing in her blood gradually gathered and were driven towards her hand.

Esther's left hand pulled out the "Logan's Claw" from her satchel, and swiped it on the stiff palm of her right hand. A black worm, half virtual and half solid, was torn out by the gathered light spots and landed on the bottom of the boat. .

The abnormality in her right hand disappeared instantly.

Esther ignored the injury on her hands. She closed and opened her hands, and the "pale bone nail" fell, piercing the worm that was constantly rolling and trying to get close to her body, leaving a very shallow small hole on the bottom of the boat. pit.

As the black worm turned into a shadow and disappeared into the air, the tip of the bone sword returned to white.

After Esther's right arm returned to normal, Barnabas immediately stopped pouring spirituality into the Holy Emblem of Night, lest his newly stabilized spirituality would be close to losing control again:
"That bug, what is that?"

Banabei had seen the transparent "Spirit Worm" before and knew that it was the basis of the high-sequence ability of the "Soothsayer". It was used to transform marionettes and create clones. It was an extension of the mythical form of the "Soothsayer".

But such a pure black form seemed to have been severely polluted, making it difficult for him to identify what it was.

"I don't know, maybe it's some kind of collection with strong malice," Esther put away the bone swords and let them turn into patterns on her hands again, "It's really disgusting..."

As if some terrible instinct of disgust had been aroused, but no clear memories emerged, Esther could only attribute the source of this feeling to Zoya.

Barnabas watched Esther put all the lights back on her head and put the weird-shaped knife back into her bag. Barnabas' mind was running rapidly:
"Did you steal that from me?"

"Because you seemed to be influenced by my playing, I used stealing, and ended up stealing something very bad."

Barnabas shook his head: "I owe you a favor."

"Goodbye, I can't afford your favor." Esther rubbed her palm with her thumb. The wound she just made has healed quickly, and not much blood has leaked out.

She looked at her right arm that was too pale, and suspected that part of the blood was absorbed by the black worm. It was only half of it originally, but after being driven out by Esther, it had become complete.

Not so good.

But Barnabas looked very determined, his face was serious as Esther had never seen before, and he no longer had that exaggerated and proud look:

"This is something I owe you, and it's something outside of our deal. I was too impatient and rushed to promotion without fully digesting the potion.

"When I felt out of control, your performance stabilized my spirit, but something else seemed to pop up suddenly... It should be the bug you stole." Esther always felt that This matter has something to do with her, but it is difficult to understand the reason. If Zoya has a close enough connection with her, maybe he can answer her doubts.

Esther picked up the harmonica on the ground, carefully picked up the corner of her clothes and wiped it clean, then took the Holy Emblem of the Night from Barnabe's hand, put everything back into her bag, and then she sat back on the bow of the boat.

The pain between her eyebrows finally stopped: "That's it, I owe you for now. To be honest, you are probably influenced by me."

After packing up the box where the potion ingredients were stored, Banabei flipped up his bangs coolly, and his appearance quickly changed back to Bani: "Don't look at me like this, I'm not someone who shirks responsibility. I have I will admit the omissions, and I can’t blame you.”

"Then be more generous and change back to your original self in front of Ksenia... You were originally Banabe, right?"

Barney's expression finally relaxed, and she rolled her eyes dissatisfiedly at Esther: "...Yes, I am originally a male, and I have no interest in women's clothing."

"Really not? I see you clearly -"

"No." Barney blocked Esther's words decisively.

Seeing that Barney was no longer so serious, Esther smiled and picked up the oar: "You should rest first. Your spiritual energy has been consumed a lot. I will row the way back."

Barney was not polite to Esther, she closed her eyes and lowered her head, immersing herself in a meditative state. While sorting out her physical state, she was also thinking about what had just happened.

Ten minutes later, Bani raised her head, looked around, and looked at Esther helplessly: "Are you not very good at knowing the way? It seems that there are things that 'demigods' can't do."

Then the oar in Esther's hand spun, and the boat slid out in an arc under his eyes.

Esther laughed dryly: "I'm not very good at rowing."

If it weren't for the special fog around her, she would have wanted to steal the distance directly, which would be much easier than paddling all the way back.

Barney took out a coin from his arms. After divining the general direction of the "Whalebone", he took the oar from Esther and sighed: "I'll do it."

The boat swung away the mist on the water, and the surroundings were so quiet that there was only the sound of swaying waves. Barney glanced at Esther, who was staring at the water with an indifferent expression, not knowing what she was looking at.

"Hamel? Is this a pseudonym you used?"

"Well, I told you the name Esther at that time just to meet Vika and Mateo."

"That's it."

Esther leaned sideways and pressed her elbows on the edge of the wooden boat: "If you can't remember it, then the name is just a code name. It doesn't matter what you call it. If you like, you can call me Hamel."

Barney's eyes moved, but she did not cling to the doubts in Esther's words. Instead, she took the initiative to change the topic: "Didn't you say before that you wanted to know some history of the past era? As a reward."

Esther gave a perfunctory "hmm" twice without giving a specific response.

"If you have something that you are particularly concerned about, just bring it up so that I can tell you in a targeted manner. You can't let me dictate a few history books like this, right?"

Esther asked with a smile: "If I asked you about the history of the Secret Order, would you just capsize the boat?"

"Yes, that's ridiculous." Barney rowed the boat hard, and the waving oar splashed a little water on Esther's sleeves. "From my perspective, what you need to know are those... The Thieves' family history?"

Esther thought for a moment before nodding: "And the Abraham family."

Bani was stunned for a moment, then showed a strange smile: "Did you know that the 'apprentice', 'thief' and 'divineer' of the Abraham family are all adjacent paths?"

"This has nothing to do with what I want to know. In addition, there is Russell Gustav, and any Third Age history you know." Esther's eyes were too calm and indifferent, which made Bani It's hard to guess her true thoughts.

"You've made quite a lot of requests..." Bani thought for a moment, feeling that there was really no way to complete this matter in the short term. "The information I remember is not complete. Most of them need to be verified for accuracy. Rumors are the basis. host."

"It doesn't matter, you can write it down first. When we part, we will have as much information as possible on these matters. Prioritize writing down the history of the Third Age or even the Second Age."

Barney nodded, knowing that Esther had heard the tone of his words, but was unwilling to leave him the spell to summon the messenger.

-

Nearly 10 minutes later, the two returned to the "Whalebone".

Kseniya warmly welcomed the two of them back safely, and "congratulated" Bani on her successful promotion with a bear hug that she shook several times.

When Barney was put down, her whole face was twisted together in embarrassment, leaving Esther and Mateo laughing beside her for a long time.

The "Whalebone" moved again, heading away from the gray fog.