A Tale of Forgotten Gods

Chapter 127: Lenormand Club

Pressing the revolver against his temple, Mo Fei’s finger curled around the trigger and pulled it.

BAM!

The bullet pierced through his temple, coming out of the next side and spraying blood on the ground as it dripped down on the ground.

Losing consciousness almost instantly, Mo Fei’s body fell on the floor, going limp as the blood pooled around him while the house burned in blue flames that reached toward the ceiling.

...

GASP!!

In a few minutes, he opened his eyes and expected to see the next world, but he didn’t Ascend. His gaze darted around but only found the endless grey fog, which curled around the whole room.

He finally could look at that realm clearly now.

In the center, there were twenty-two seats instead of thirteen as the thick fog moved through the gaps.

Mo Fei looked before him where the ancient throne remained untouched. That world seemed identical to the spirit world, but the sky and fog were entirely different from the Lightless realm; more importantly, there were thirteen seats, not twenty-two.

Did the ritual work? But I didn’t return home...

Pondering for a moment, Mo Fei took a few steps forward. Just then the grey fog curled around him and began to suffocate him.

Gasp! Huff, huff!

He tried to breathe but couldn’t. Falling on the floor on his knees, he pressed his palm against it hard and closed his eyes.

Nearly two minutes later, before he passed out, the air turned normal again.

He hiccuped long breaths and opened his eyes to see that he had returned to the spirit world near the throne. Mo Fei clenched the armrest and pushed himself up.

Am I in my Astral body or physical body?

Lifting his hand up, he traced his temple with two fingers but felt no sticky blood.

Astral...

He thought and leaned against his throne, trying to breathe better. He killed himself; his hand moved without his consent.

Primordial Perfects of Eternal Night... was it because of them? First the Spectators now they...

He stared at the thirteen seats ahead of him. Why were there twenty-two if the authorities are only thirteen? He pondered and looked down at the seats, then intertwined his fingers.

Anchors... those seats are for my followers, huh? If I call out now, then?

Thinking for a moment, Mo Fei pushed himself up from the throne and tentatively touched his temple again. His astral form was entirely intact, yet the sound of a bullet tearing through his skull left his thoughts fractured and dizzy.

His suicide in the physical world, forced by the terrifying, corruptive backlash of chanting a deity’s true name, had violently blasted his soul completely out of the grey sky illusion. The ritual had caused his death loop to shatter for that moment, dragging him directly into the hidden core of the true Grey Fog of Mysteries.

Sitting upon his primary throne, he rested his hands on the cold stone armrests.

The moment his fingers touched the seat, a spiritual explosion occurred again, which shook the realm as three beams of light shot out at the seat in front of him.

Without his command, his Apprentice’s Eyes flared open as the endless crimson tethers and shimmering Spirit Threads of the universe suddenly materialized in the air before him. The raw spiritual feedback from the ritual was still running wild through his soul, completely out of control.

’Wait... the threads are expanding!’ Mo Fei’s eyes widened in sudden panic.

He tried to push himself out of the seat, but the ancient throne pulled him back. The unstable ritual, combined with his sudden death, had created a powerful spiritual vortex.

His exponentially high spiritual presence reached out across the world, blindly grabbing three random, highly compatible Spirit Threads from entirely different corners of the universe.

Mo Fei hissed, but it was too late.

Flash! Flash! Flash!

Three pillars of light dropped on the ground, crashing down directly into three of the empty thirteen seats.

***

A man in his ship. His name was Silas Curtson, who wore a dark purple jacket over a white shirt. He had dark hair and dark brown eyes with long black boots.

He was merely an adventurer soul who stood inside the ship. His mind was still trapped in the damp, claustrophobic tunnels of the lower districts, where the heavy thud of steam pistons usually rattled his teeth.

Just seconds ago. He looked at the artifacts, performing his Descent ritual while hiding a stolen notebook of artifact awakening secret formulas inside his grease-stained coat. The sound of a heavy rainfall in the sea almost drowned the ship.

He heard a few footsteps coming from behind. Knowing well who they might have been, he clenched a table, moved his one hand to his face, and closed his eyes, expecting an iron shackle or a bullet to the spine.

The sound vanished before he could process.

He slowly peeked through his calloused fingers. The table, which was in front of him a while ago, disappeared. In their place stood a ruined hall constructed from blocks of ancient stone that looked older than human history itself.

A layer of white mist rolled across the floorboards as he stared at the empty seats. The spiritual presence radiating from the throne before him made his low-Ordinal Ascended abilities scream in absolute panic.

His gaze drifted past the stone pillars, following the swirling mist until it locked onto the far end of the hall. There, resting atop a flight of ancient steps, was a primary throne that was completely buried beneath a dense cloud of protective smoke.

He couldn’t see who—or what—sat upon that seat, but he could feel an unblinking, primordial gaze pinning his soul to the realm.

***

In the kingdom of Sunken Oasis, a young woman named Avrill Pearl stood near a table while clasping both her hands together. She closed her eyes, trying to perform a ritual from a book, which her family had bought for her, to become an Ascended after her request. Although she waited, but it didn’t work out to surge power.

Avrill looked at the page and scratched her head, which had golden hair cascading over her shoulder, while meticulously translating an ancient script detailing the lost epochs of time and the Descent requirement. She wore a heavy yellow dress, embedded with a few rubies and golden silk running through the edges.

The oil lamp on her desk suddenly flickered and turned pale grey. Before she could call for her guards, a violent spatial distortion had seized her consciousness, ripping her clean out of her physical form.

***

Zhuo sat in his room alone after the dinner in the hall. Watching the wardrobe, he pushed himself up and leaned against the wall. He yawned slowly, feeling dizzy.

Before he could address what happened, multiple Spirit Threads curled around him and pulled him inside the floor.

***

Avrill tightly gripped her chair, keeping her posture rigid as she forced her analytical mind to override the instinctual terror thumping in her chest. ’This isn’t a standard teleportation spell.’

Her gaze tracked past to note the young boy in the elegant, silver-embroidered blue silks of a foreign royalty. Finally, she turned her eyes back toward the primary throne hidden behind the shroud of thick mist.

As a scholar of the occult, she knew the laws of the universe all too well. To pull three distinct souls from entirely different places simultaneously without a single drop of ritual blood or a physical catalyst required a level of godhood that shouldn’t exist in the mortal realm. ’Who is sitting on that throne? An ancient deity...? A primordial being who woke up from a slumber...?’

A few seats down from Avrill, the sixteen-year-old Zhuo stood confused.

Zhuo blinked rapidly, his mouth slightly agape as his eyes darted from the crumbling, majestic pillars to the boundless expanse of white mist. He looked down at his clothes—his deep blue and silver formal silk robes.

He turned around, his young face tightening with immediate alertness as he spotted other people, a woman veil clad by the mist observing him from across the circle and the another man equally confused.

***

Mo Fei watched them suddenly appear in the realm. He sat perfectly still behind the thick veil of protective fog, his heart hammering against his ribs as he realized he wasn’t prepared for that moment.

I messed up. He realized, a cold sweat breaking out across his neck. The ritual went entirely out of bounds. I’ve accidentally summoned two completely random Ascenders into my private domain, including Zhuo. If I show any panic, or if they realize I’m just an Apprentice who is just Ordinal Ten... if they get to know it happened because I accidentally shot myself, they’ll tear this place apart. He gulped slightly and adjusted his posture before intertwining his fingers, trying to calm himself down.

Before they could get into a defensive stance, a suffocating pressure suddenly descended upon the entire hall from above.

The white mist swirled, cascading down the steps of the primary throne to completely bury the seat in a wall of protective smoke.

From deep within that impenetrable shroud, a voice finally spoke.

A deep voice, dripping with the chilling, detached majesty of a supreme ruler who watched the rise and fall of universes from beyond the stars. ”Welcome to the council... The Lenormand Club.”