I Loaded the Occult Panel

Heracles had already shared plenty of information on new types of evil creatures during the item exchange, so he announced he would skip this round of intelligence sharing.

Dionysus took his turn.

”When several old taverns in the Imperial Capital’s East District balance their books after closing, there are always a few drinks consumed that no one ordered.”

”The cost of the extra alcohol never balances in the ledgers. The owners assumed the waiters were stealing drinks and even fined two of them.”

”A waiter told me that while clearing the tables after closing, he would sometimes see a man sitting at a corner table.”

Dionysus traced his finger around the rim of his glass.

”He wore a military uniform and was completely drenched. Even the seat of the chair was covered in water stains.

”By the time the waiter went over to collect the glass, the man was already gone.

”The glass was empty, but half a lip print remained on the rim.”

”I looked into it, and those establishments were all taverns where a certain regiment had their ’last drink’ before deploying.”That regiment was at Ypres... they were almost completely wiped out.”

He lifted his finger from the glass.

Heracles’s chair creaked.

”How did you handle it?”

”I asked a few owners I know to pour a glass in the corner every night before closing.”

Dionysus’s voice recovered some of its usual relaxed drawl.

”Leave it for them. They drink and leave; they won’t cause trouble.”

Demeter spoke up.

”My agricultural network reported something.”

She never interrupted, always waiting for others to finish before speaking.

”When we sowed seeds this year, the crops in the direction of the channel and the frontline all started leaning that way.”

”It’s as if something in that direction is pulling them hard.”

”Things are happening across the channel, too. They’ve started mixing potato flour into their bread. The newspapers call it ’war bread.’”

”With so many things mixed in, the bread can barely recognize itself as bread anymore.”

It was Richard’s turn.

”I have some news regarding the Spirit Realm.”

He recounted the matter concerning Tipperary.

Hecate spoke up.

”A song sung ten thousand times draws away ten thousand breaths.”

”Gathered together, that makes ten thousand ’inhales.’ Once it inhales its fill...”

”...it must eventually exhale.”

No one at the table could respond to that.

Something was using the singing of hundreds of thousands of people to breathe, inhaling for four months straight, from August to December.

When it finally exhaled... what would come out?

Prometheus suddenly spoke.

His hands were clasped tightly together.

”Prometheus, you’ve had a ’premonition’ so soon?”

Hecate’s Golden Mask turned toward him.

”I saw snow.”

Prometheus’s voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.

”Snow fell on the barbed wire, and the gunfire stopped.”

”Among the piles of the dead, the living climbed out of the trenches on both sides.”

”Shaking hands, singing, trading buttons and cigarettes.”

Heracles’s voice was full of disbelief.

”What do you mean? The opposing sides are shaking hands in no man’s land?”

”I just got back from there. Both sides hate each other to the bone.

You poke half your head over the trench and you take a bullet, and you’re telling me they’re shaking hands and singing?”

Prometheus did not answer Heracles.

He pressed a hand against his right ribs.

”And then...”

”Then... I didn’t dare look any further.”

The entire table stared at him.

The fire of foresight flickered twice above his head before dimming again. He was finished speaking.

Heracles scoffed.

”Keep dreaming.”

Dionysus also shook his head.

Hecate withdrew her gaze from Prometheus’s face, and her torch silhouette returned to normal.

She made no comment on the contents of his premonition.

”Meeting adjourned.”

”The next gathering... date to be announced.”

”Take care, everyone.”

Richard closed his eyes, and the sea of stars scattered.

...

The seat of Skadi’s chair had not even warmed up yet.

Lillian sat in it as the False Flame danced, illuminating a hall full of fake fires and empty cups.

Newcomers had already filled the area where the candidates stood.

She hadn’t won the displacement battle that just ended easily.

Since Baldr, she had faced a total of two displacement battles.

The first to come looking for trouble was a man in a fox mask. He came quickly, and he left just as fast.

The divine name he held was one of Loki’s mythical offspring. He chose Lillian purely because he thought she was the weakest; the ether fluctuations of a Practitioner couldn’t deceive anyone.

But he had only done half his homework.

Whoever sat in that chair would pick up at least a little of the ”oath of all things to not harm” that Baldr had accumulated.

Though it wasn’t much, it was enough.

The fox mask tried two attacks that failed to penetrate. While his third attack was still brewing, the blizzard had already rolled out.

At the time, Lillian had only held the blessing of Skadi’s divine name for a few days, and her control over the blizzard was incredibly crude.

Once the blizzard unfurled, neither the seated members nor the standing candidates in the hall could see what was happening inside it.

Freyja’s finger paused for half a second as she licked her dish, then continued.

A muffled thud echoed from within the blizzard. The snowy curtain shuddered, then fell silent again.

When the snowy curtain parted, the owner of the fox mask was frozen in place, kneeling on both knees.

As his head rose to hang in the darkness above, Lillian withdrew her needle.

Ms. Holloway had taught her quite a few practical tricks since she obtained the seat.

Spell Formula: Corrosive Curtain—which corroded all shields, whether physical or etheric in nature;

Spell Formula: Delay—which slowed the opponent’s thoughts.

These two abyssal Spell Formulas shared a common weakness: they lost their effectiveness if they were seen.

Corrosive Curtain had to be cast in close quarters; if the opponent noticed it, they would shake it off immediately.

The ether traces of Delay were extremely faint under Spirit Vision, but an experienced Practitioner could still avoid them with a glance.

Therefore, Lillian needed cover. Skadi’s divine name abilities provided her with the best possible curtain.

The flurry of ice shards and snow mist shredded visibility, while the freezing winds disrupted the normal function of Spirit Vision.

Behind this curtain, no one on the outside could clearly see what she was doing.

When preparing to challenge her, all the candidates did their homework on the blizzard.

But it was never the ice and wind that killed them.

Her opponent from the battle just now was a prime example.

The challenger was a woman wielding a Whip. She was nearly half a head taller than Lillian, and she made her move before Lillian even had a chance to clearly see her mask.

This woman had clearly done her homework.

Her hands were wrapped in a cold-insulating ether membrane, and the silver wire at the tip of her Whip had been pre-treated.

The first Whip strike landed, and the second followed closely, arcing over from a different direction.

Lillian didn’t take it head-on.

She took a half-step back, and the blizzard surged up from behind her in sync with her retreat.

Once the snowy curtain rose, her situation was basically secure.

The Whip woman charged into the snowy curtain full of confidence.

She could see Lillian’s silhouette stepping back through the snow mist, moving neither fast nor slow, staying at the exact distance where a flick of the Whip could reach her.

The third Whip strike lashed out.

Its arc was kept very low, snapping just above the ground. The target was Lillian’s ankles.

The tip of the Whip swept against something, letting out a loud bang.

The tactile feedback of the Whip rebounding sent a sudden, sharp ache through her wrist.

Before she could even process that the sound was wrong, her thoughts plunged into a brief pause.

In the snow mist ahead, Lillian’s footsteps stopped, and Corrosive Curtain latched on.

Ether began to leak from the thinned spots gnawed away by the spell.

By the time it leaked to the point where she could no longer stand, the blizzard crushed down on her from all directions.

The woman was frozen inside a block of ice half the height of a person.

When her head floated up to the ceiling, her expression was still blank. Even in death, she hadn’t figured out what exactly she had lost to.

The snowy curtain parted, and the hall returned to its original dimness illuminated by the False Flame.

What everyone seated saw was, once again, a challenger freezing to death from a mere blizzard by Skadi.

Exactly the same as last time.

As Lillian returned to her chair and sat down, she swallowed the portion of power belonging to the Whip woman from the surging backflow.

Hiding Spell Formulas within the blizzard—she had used this tactic from her very first fight all the way to now. After two battles, her technique had grown increasingly proficient.

Her timing for rolling out the blizzard, her control over its density, and its coordination with her Spell Formulas were all meshing together better and better.

The only problem was that this trick would eventually be seen through one day.

Once abyssal Spell Formulas were seen through, their effectiveness dropped drastically, and her needle wasn’t omnipotent either.

If the Whip woman’s strike just now had been slightly more off-center and hit the back of her neck, Lillian might not have even had the time to unfurl the blizzard.

She won every match by a hair’s breadth. Losing meant becoming a new head hanging from the dome, without even a speck of bone remaining.

Just as Lillian sat down quietly, applause rang out from the head seat.

”Three battles, three victories!” The man’s laughter echoed through the hall.

”Incredible, Skadi.”

Lillian didn’t respond.

”Do you know what my favorite part is every time I watch people fight in here?”

Loki placed one hand on his armrest.

No one in the hall answered, and Lillian said nothing.

Her back was pressed against the stone backrest of her chair, and her left hand had already shifted from her knee to the hidden pocket at her cuff.

Loki looked at her movement and chuckled.

”My favorite part is... seeing the expression on the winner’s face when they sit down in their chair.”

”Some people sit down looking smug, feeling invincible. They lean back with their legs spread wide.”

He mimicked the posture and rocked back.

”That kind of person usually doesn’t sit there for more than a few days. They’re the first target when the next batch of candidates comes in.”

”Some people sit down looking terrified. Their faces are paler than the candidates standing over there.”

”The terrified ones last a bit longer than the smug ones, because fear keeps you alert.”

”But constantly being afraid doesn’t work either. Fear turns your limbs to jelly, and your next move ends up half a beat too slow.”

He placed his other hand on the armrest and leaned forward slightly.

”You are different.”

Lillian finally looked up.

”When you sit down, you have no expression at all.”

Loki formed a frame with his thumb and index finger, framing her through it.

”Blank.”

”Blank people are the most interesting.”

He leaned back again, his whole body relaxed and slouching.

”Because you can’t figure out where she is going to step next.”

”You can’t figure it out, and neither can your opponents.”

”At this table, there are far too many idiots who just charge forward with brute strength.

Fenrir comes up and bites. Tyr comes up and hacks. They sure have a lot of strength, but what use is that?”

A low growl rumbled from Fenrir’s muzzle, but Loki pushed it down with the back of his hand.

”But you... the very first day you sat in this chair, you knew your greatest advantage lay in the dark.”

Loki tapped his own mask.

”My name in mythology is the ’Father of Lies.’”

”A lie is hanging a curtain to make you believe the real things are all in front of it.”

”Then, when you reach out to lift the curtain, the weapon that kills you strikes from behind it.”

He lowered his hand.

”I like you very much, Skadi. You have more potential than several people seated here.”

”I’m in a pretty good mood today.” He raised the hand he had used to frame her into the air.

”From Baldr to now, several new heads have been added to the ceiling.”

”Every single one gives Miss Hela and me another portion of power.”

After she was singled out, the chill seeping from the gates of the Underworld behind Hela’s half-alive, half-dead mask seemed to grow a fraction thicker.

”So I was thinking, perhaps it’s time our table stepped out as well.”

As soon as these words came out, the breathing echoing from inside Fenrir’s wolf mask grew heavier.

Tyr’s iron-gray mask turned directly toward Loki.

Freyja pushed her dish to the side.

Loki glanced at them, the corners of his mouth curling upward.

”There are other tables out there.”

His voice carried a trace of excitement.

”I told you last time, our salon isn’t the only one in the world.”

”Some tables revolve around the Olympian pantheon. Some take divine names from the Black Soil River region. And there are some second-rate little tables that use obscure names from the islands of the South Sea or the depths of the steppes.”

He brought his feet down from the armrest and planted them on the floor. All the False Flames throughout the entire hall leapt at once.

”I’ve also told you about the games between tables.”

”One table eats another.”

”Swallowing them completely in one bite—people, divine names, masks, and all.”

”Once they’re swallowed, all the power accumulated by the devoured table goes to the winner.”

He rubbed his palms together.

”I have my eyes on a table.” Loki stood up.

”The people at that table use the Celtic mythology system—Cu Chulainn, The Morrigan, Lugh, that sort.”

”There are five people sitting at the table. Aside from the strongest one, who has touched the threshold of a Major Adept...”

”...the rest are all Minor Adepts.”

He looked back, sweeping his gaze across the ones at their table.

”As for our table... I alone am enough to eat the strongest one at theirs.”

Fenrir’s chains let out a loud rattle.

Tyr placed his only hand on the table.

Freyja pulled her dish back in front of her, though she did not resume licking it.

Hela remained completely expressionless.

”Of course, for me to swallow a whole table by myself would be too much of a waste.”

Loki continued in his casual, conversational tone.

”Team fights are where the fun is.”

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