I Have Seen Through the Lord of Scales and Feathers

The elf called "Physician" has also remained silent... so there's probably no need to look for him anymore.

Three people have already been eliminated. If the stranger is alright, the Physician must be dead.

Without any adaptable beings to search or prophesy, they can only rely on prayer or rituals to find things.

Olive, a veteran ritual master, is proficient in various alternative rituals. He can perform some simplified rituals even without using Ritual Array.

He took out his pocket watch, then a bottle of woodpecker blood from his Ritual Pack and smeared it on his face. He then put on a white mask with no eyes or mouth and put a rope around his neck as a noose.

"Lord of the Gallows, Mother of Puppets! Sixty-seven illusions, I offer the blood of the woodpecker!"

The Olive stirred with magical power, praying aloud and chanting the name of a divine being. "Look upon this place with endless mist and answer my question!"

Iver knew that these were the other two aliases of the Gray Angel.

The Gray Angel is said to have sixty-seven forms, but this claim is also a lie. At least the Gray Angel was pulled into the Material Realm by the Ouroboros Ring Ritual looks like a large gray spider with a beautiful woman lying on its carapace, as if she were kidnapped by the spider or as if she were riding the spider.

Like the spider-tailed viper, the snake's tail is a lifelike spider. When birds see the spider and try to hunt it, they are bitten by the venomous snake.

The first stage of the Gray Angel is a woman, the second stage is a woman riding a spider, and the third stage is a giant spider, seemingly ending the performance. But in reality, neither the woman nor the spider is the true Gray Angel. The Gray Angel's true form is actually the gray mist connecting them.

In the earlier stages of the game, the Gray Angel will periodically spawn small mist orbs. If these orbs are not destroyed, they will explode and significantly slow the player, causing players to switch targets to them. In the final stage, when the Gray Celestial is low on health, it will spawn a large number of orbs, at which point many players will think, "Let's just kill the main body quickly and ignore these orbs; there's no time to clear them all anyway."

However, if you actually kill the spider at this point, it will trigger a team wipe. This is because the previous mechanics have hinted many times that the spider's Health Bar is actually fake. It will lose health at a constant rate throughout the battle, and its real Health Bar is actually the count of the mist orbs that are destroyed.

That's why its early mechanics seem so simple and boring... Only players who are exceptionally sensitive to data and those who accidentally stop playing will notice that the speed at which the Health Bar is dropping is wrong.

At this point, you have to go back and hit those small balls. You have to hit a certain number of them within a time limit to trigger the mechanism and face Gray Angel's true form.

—This is the Gray Angel.

The God of Heaven, neither true nor false, silent and speechless. He controls the realm of lies... things neither black nor white, words neither evil nor good. Whatever question you ask Him, if He is willing to answer, He will tell a lie—which, in another sense, is also the truth.

Olive tied the noose to the end of the pocket watch, then swung the watch like a meteor hammer and threw it away.

The pocket watch pierced through the roof beam and struck the other end. It seemed to become incredibly heavy, suspending the Olive in mid-air.

"Please... give me a lie!"

Olive braced himself against the gallows with both hands to avoid being truly hanged. The old ritual master, his face flushed, stammered, "What Iver is looking for... is nearby—yes or no!"

Upon hearing this, he suddenly winked at Iver.

Iver understood what he meant, flicked a spark with his right hand, and burned the rope.

The Olive and the pocket watch fell to the ground at the same time. The pocket watch rolled once on the ground, landing face down.

It means "no".

"Gray Angel says 'no,' then it means 'yes'! Very good..."

Iver had defined his objective, so he began to set up the prayer ritual. "Get ready, we may have to rush in a bit."

"... Hurry up?" Grape paused, not quite understanding what he meant.

The consultant and Olive's expressions changed, and they had roughly guessed what Iver was going to do.

Based on the surrounding environment, Iver chose to pray to the Flame Angel: "I respectfully beseech the Flame Angel! God of scorching iron and burning steel, God of crucibles and furnaces!"

"Give me the fire of life—like a snake spreading, like a butterfly dancing, like a dog searching!"

A continuous stream of Light Attribute and Fire Attribute magic gathered in Iver's hands.

Flames were seen being drawn from the surrounding house toward Iver, the heat coalescing into a white-gold fireball. It was so bright that the surrounding walls appeared dim in comparison.

With Iver's prayers, it gradually developed a body and expanded rapidly.

It quickly grew to the height of an adult's thigh, like a cheetah.

—That was Magic Creature similar to a "manticore". Its butterfly wings spread out like sparks, and its tail, swaying from side to side, resembled a burning snake.

At Iver's prayer, the elemental creatures of the Flame Angel Realm were summoned by Iver.

This is Third Level prayer spell that summons a lesser elemental creature. The Magic Creature, known as the Flame Tail Beast, typically only inhabits volcanoes in the Material Realm.

The summoned elemental creature is relatively weak even within the Second Level, and it can only exist for ten minutes. Its only advantage is that it is engulfed in flames and possesses high intelligence.

Iver summoned it now because it possessed the ability of "treasure sense." And most importantly, it had a special ability, "Flame Vision"—it reacted to flames as a shark reacted to seawater; when it came into contact with fire, the entire surrounding flames were perceived as an extension of itself.

"Find me a dagger; it should be nearby. Its distinguishing features are..."

Iver bent down and explained to it.

The Flame Tail Beast quickly nodded, indicating that it fully understood.

It leaped in and jumped into the flames in the corner.

Just two or three seconds later, it jumped out and ran away quickly.

Iver followed without hesitation. The other three followed closely behind Iver.

Grape was the slowest of them all, even slower than Sherlock — Mycroft's bulky build made running in this environment exceptionally difficult.

But she had no choice but to run—she was stunned to discover that the knights and servants, who had previously seemed blind, now appeared to have sensed their presence and were gathering from all directions. The entire palace seemed to awaken; the surrounding walls began to burst into flames again... The cracks in the walls pulsed with fire rhythmically, like breathing, and one had to dodge the flames in a fixed pattern to escape without getting burned.

"What... what's going on—"

"The flames in this area belong to someone!"

Sherlock gasped for breath and shouted, "The Balrog senses us!"

Now that he had been exposed, he no longer needed to conserve his magic power. So Sherlock used the spell "Pure Water Curtain" to surround himself, creating a misty, white haze that enveloped him, making it impossible to see the person inside.

Even so, running was still a bit difficult for him—especially since Iver was running so fast. Iver, with his extremely high resistance to fire and high temperatures, was completely unaffected by fire. He followed closely behind the Flame Tail Beast, completely ignoring the flames. But the three of them couldn't completely ignore them; they had to wait.

The consultant ran frantically, panting heavily, but was still stopped by the flames.

He glanced back at the approaching knights and couldn't help but curse inwardly, "You fucking wait for me!"

... But then he thought, there's no point in talking to the natives of the ritual about it anyway. Iver is running so fast; this must be the Lord of Scales and Feathers's test. He has to keep up!

As a result Sherlock ran wildly, only to find himself in a place that was all too familiar, much to his despair.

The underground Ritual Room.

It's the place where I was first rescued.

How come I didn't see there were other things I needed to take here?!

"Great detective, open the door!"

Iver turned around and saw him coming, so he called out from a distance.

"Why are you running so fast if you can't even open the door!" the consultant thought through gritted teeth.

Although he didn't have a staff, he still skillfully began to chant a spell in a low voice.

The magical powers of wind and Earth Attribute converged, creating a strange fluctuation. The moment they gathered, Sherlock forcibly opened the previously tightly closed door with his magic.

Unlock Spell!

He rushed in right after Iver.

In addition to the three ritual altars, the Underground Ritual Room also contains numerous cabinets for storing ritual materials—nearly twenty cabinets, each with many drawers. From the outside, nothing is visible.

The Flame Tail Beast charged straight towards a certain spot and stopped in front of a cabinet.

The consultant then conjured up a fierce, razor-sharp gust of wind and blew it towards the cabinet. This was an "Exposure Projection" specifically designed to destroy packages, with an exceptionally strong effect on containers—it instantly shattered all the cabinets, spilling their contents out.

Iver immediately found the dagger he was looking for, rushed over and grabbed it.

"Got it, retreat!"

"It might be... not easy to get out..."

The last grape to rush in said, panting.

He entered and immediately closed the door. With a flash of earthy yellow light, the "preservation spell" took effect, instantly reinforcing the tightly closed door.

The next moment, tiny sparks flew from the crack in the door. They, standing inside, could hear a distinct tremor coming from the door.

Someone is attacking the door! If Grape hadn't urgently reinforced the door with a protective spell, it would have been breached immediately! "Those people outside are at most at the Fourth Level; they won't easily break through my preservation spell... But how do we get out now?"

Grape looked at the consultant with some nervousness.

The consultant immediately turned around and glared at her.

Why are you looking at me like that! — You're my brother now, my brother!

"Then... leave it to me."

Iver spoke softly, drawing a red card from his fingertip.

"Lia, Guiding Flame Stream!"

The advisor was immediately jolted awake by the terrifying heat and oppressive force emanating from the air.

—I knew it! As long as I followed Iver, I would never die! I have seen through the Lord of Scales and Feathers ' plan completely!