A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 121: Luck Enhancement

Lionel walked toward the door, but just as his hand touched the brass handle, he paused and tilted his head back, looking directly over his shoulder. ”Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Sherlock.” Lionel said softly, his voice dropping its playful edge for a brief second. ”Make sure to wash that towel soon. The smell of copper here is getting quite iron-rich. A man with such a delicate lung condition shouldn’t be living in such a... bloody atmosphere.”

Mo Fei’s eye twitched from that; he knew that Lionel was making fun of his excuses.

’How I wish I could just curse you right now.’

Before he could respond, Lionel opened the door. The older inspector had already stepped out, his heavy boots echoing down the wooden stairs. Lionel lingered in the doorway for a moment, offering Mo Fei one last, arrogant grin that promised he would be watching. Then, he stepped out, and the door clicked shut.

Click!

Mo Fei collapsed against the wooden door, sliding down until his knees hit the carpet. He gasped for air, his forehead slick with cold sweat. His heart pounded; an Ascended of that caliber wouldn’t miss the faint scent of blood or the lingering spiritual pressure of the room. They were testing him, waiting for him to make a mistake, but he was still caught.

Mo Fei snapped his head up. Beneath the dirty towel draped over the desk, the Mirror of Truth began to shake slightly. A muffled, raspy chuckle leaked through the heavy fabric. Vennisa was laughing at him. ”Ha-Ha-ha-ha, that was such a bad act.”

”Quiet.” Mo Fei hissed through his teeth, his voice trembling with a mix of exhaustion and lingering terror. He staggered to his feet and walked over to the window, peering carefully through the grime-stained glass. Down below on the misty street, he saw the middle-aged inspector walking briskly away. A few paces behind him, Lionel Rofocale was strolling casually, throwing a copper penny into the air and catching it, completely unbothered by the heavy smog.

Vennisa purred as her voice came out annoyed. ”Can you remove that dirty cloth and put it on your own face? You’ll know how bad it stinks.”

”I’ll throw you out of the window; shut the f**k up.” Mo Fei leaned his forehead against the wall. The warning of the Divine Serpent echoed back into his mind.

Thirteen to fourteen days left until the next full moon.

He had no anchors. His spirit threads were fractured. The police—and a high-ranking Ascended—were already circling his building like vultures. If he didn’t find the mystical artifact hidden in the Bloodborne Sea and complete his dangerous advancement ritual before the full moon arrived, he would completely lose control and collapse into pure madness.

But he could join the Midnight Wings. Maybe there he could find some useful information regarding Descent and Authorities.

’I do remember that I did the luck enchantment ritual my grandpa taught me before ascending here. That sh!t doesn’t work whatsoever, but now I wish it had.’

His mind shifted back to the place with grey fog. That was in the spirit world... wait...

Mo Fei’s pupils dilated as he remembered something different about that place. There were actually not one but many different things about it, not just the grey fog; it didn’t have much light, and the sky was also covered with that same thick fog.

’Is there a way I can see that place again?’

He moved toward the bathroom and pulled out a scissor, then stopped near a bathroom mirror and looked at himself. His hair had grown more than before, the ponytail reaching further down his shoulder.

’I should trim them, it might work to hide my most known feature.’

Snip-snip

The sound of the scissors echoed in the small, damp bathroom. Strands of black hair fell into the porcelain sink slowly. Mo Fei watched his reflection closely. He cut away the long ponytail that had swept past his shoulders, trimming his hair into a short, messy, layered style that framed his face differently. He left a few uneven bangs hanging over his eyes, effectively altering his silhouette.

In the fog-drenched streets of Ciradyl, a simple haircut could mean the difference between someone recognizing you or walking right past you.

He dusted the stray hair off his collar and walked back into the main room.

Approaching the desk, he snatched the dirty towel off the Mirror of Truth. The glass immediately shimmered, and Vennisa’s voice came out disgusted. ”Finally.” Vennisa hissed. ”I almost suffocated in the stench of your mortal failure. Nice haircut, by the way. Are we trying to look like a handsome corpse for the constabulary?”

”Keep talking and I’ll paint this glass black.” Mo Fei threatened coldly, sitting down on a wooden stool. He leaned forward, his eyes locking onto the mirror. ”Vennisa. You are the Mirror of Truth, right? You’ve existed long enough to know the secrets of the higher ordinals. Tell me about the Midnight Wings.”

”Ah, the underground crows. A secret organization of rogue Ascended, outcasts, and heretics who hide in the shadow of the orthodox churches. You want to join them?”

”That’d help a lot. My anchors are virtually non-existent. My soul is also tearing itself apart after that True God’s Descent. The Midnight Wings deal in forbidden knowledge. They might have documents on Authorities, cosmic anchors, and... the Bloodborne Sea.”

Vennisa paused for a moment before speaking. ”They might. But they also execute spies without a second thought. If Lionel Rofocale tracks you to their gathering, then you’ll be caught in between police and madness.”

Mo Fei ignored her warning. His mind was spinning, drifting back to the revelation he had right before cutting his hair. The contradiction in his vision of the spirit world.

”Vennisa.” He interrupted, his expression turning serious as he reached out for the Mask of Abyss. ”When I divined the Spirit World after the gaze... the vision showed a realm buried under an endless, suffocating grey fog. The sky was completely choked by it. There was no light.”

He paused, his voice shaking as he continued. ”It was after the True God’s Embodiment glanced at me today... Even though the true spirit world had a light blue sky. Why was it? Why would the Spirit World change colour?”

Vennisa’s voice lowered into a chilling unease crossed in her words. She drew back into the depths of the glass. ”The Spirit World cannot change the colour... as much as I know about it, not until today.”

She mumbled again, her voice losing its annoying purr. ”If the fog you saw today was grey... then you weren’t in the actual Spirit World...”

Upon hearing that, Mo Fei’s pupils dilated, and a cold sweat broke out across his neck. The grand ”luck enchantment ritual” his grandfather had taught him in his past, which he believed to be useless, flashed into his mind. ’Had that ritual actually done something? Maybe that was the reason why I have become a chosen one. Had it misaligned my destination, dropping me into a trap? Since that couldn’t be mere coincidence because that was the day when I finally did that ritual as a joke. Today the spirit world also seemed different, almost as if I had gone in a wrong direction.’

He stood up abruptly and walked around the creaking floorboards. He had thirteen days. He needed to contact the Midnight Wings, find a way to navigate the grey-fog illusion, and secure a passage to the Bloodborne Sea. But because he didn’t have enough money yet, he should join them.

’Oh wait... that ring!’

He reached his hand in his pocket, but there was nothing; his hand moved out the other way around.

’The pocket has a hole... could it be that I lost it?’

His eyes widened as he remembered when the Divine Dragon of Darkness pulled him into the distorted spirit world, his coat had been pierced by its armor... maybe he lost it there.

Stopping by his desk, he picked up the card left by the middle-aged man and exhaled a long sigh. If he wanted to find the Midnight Wings, he had to leave a coded signal in the local underground market tonight.

As for the luck enhancement ritual, maybe he could find something related to that?

It couldn’t have been that ritual, but he couldn’t ignore the coincidence entirely, although many people might have done that ritual, so why didn’t they Ascend? Or was it because the transmigration gate to this world was in Qinghua? Since time worked entirely differently with different Ascenders.

’Urgh, it is frying my brain. What’s going on in these worlds...?’ He pondered for a few seconds and looked at the card near the mask. Before that, he needed information on how to enter there and where it was.

’Midnight Wings, I should join it to get information before going to the Bloodborne Sea, since I don’t know the danger of it and it’d be reckless.’