Was this the voice of the Evernight Goddess?
Julian had originally thought Amanises would not respond directly. At most, after hearing his account, she would have Arianna or another member of the Nighthawks pass along a message, so this came as something of a surprise.
He did not reply, but continued waiting for the oracle of this god who had survived from a bygone era.
"Follow your plan, but avoid listening directly to the True Creator's voice.
"The Mythical Creature dwelling within you seems to have affected him in some way, giving him a particular interest in you."
After a pause, the Evernight Goddess continued:
"Provided you can ensure your safety, you may pray to the one who is with you and attempt to obtain the potion formula for the next Sequence."
After those three statements, the Evernight Goddess's voice vanished, and the gently flickering candle returned to normal.
"Praise the Goddess. Thank you for your guidance."
Julian breathed a sigh of relief. He dispelled the Wall of Spirituality, then cleaned up the altar.
Did the Goddess suggest praying to the Colour Out of Space for the potion formula because I've digested so much of my potion?
To be honest, he desperately wanted to know the name of the next potion. He could hardly wait to pray right then and there.
However, his recent struggle with those two walking calamities, the Colour Out of Space and the True Creator, had already left him mentally exhausted. On top of that, the Ritual Magic he had just performed to pray to the Goddess had further depleted his spirituality. Julian felt as though he would fall asleep the instant he closed his eyes.
He was certainly in no condition to perform another round of Ritual Magic. It was obviously a suicidal act, one that could very well cause him to lose control.
Having recognized this, Julian stopped agonizing over it. After resting briefly, he collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep.
At around seven the following morning, Julian woke as dawn was just breaking.
After breakfast, Julian went out and took a carriage to see Lanevus. He drew some blood from him, then returned home and finished setting up the altar for the Ritual Magic.
Unlike the previous ritual, which had contained only elements pointing exclusively to the Evernight Goddess, this time Julian added three new substances to an inner magic circle.
They were rainbow rosemary essential oil, blood from Lanevus the Swindler, and a small quantity of meteorite residue.
This meteorite residue was the surplus from the "meteorite powder that never cooled" he had obtained earlier. It was just right for use as a ritual material to contact the Colour Out of Space.
The meteorite powder was still slightly hot. Even in the dark, Julian could see the faint light it emitted.
There was no doubt that the stuff gave off some kind of radiation, but Julian seemed completely immune to it thanks to his unusual constitution.
Rainbow rosemary was a plant mystically associated with the Colour Out of Space, while Lanevus's blood was something the Colour Out of Space detested.
Although the Swindler had already been corrupted by the Colour Out of Space, the power of the Marauder Pathway Beyonder Characteristic within him remained genuine.
Moreover, the Colour Out of Space had failed to kill him earlier, making his blood a suitable symbolic offering to please it.
At the very center of these three substances, Julian placed a flawless white candle, representing his own spirituality. Its pure white color symbolized his readiness to be "dyed"-in other words, to receive new knowledge.
Once everything was arranged, Julian first created a Wall of Spirituality, then prayed using the substances and elements on the altar's outer layer that pointed to the Evernight Goddess, obtaining a measure of protection.
Immediately afterward, he began reciting another honorific name:
"Phantasmagoric hue of the illusory firmament, formless passing shadow of the silent stellar tide, primordial sovereign who withers life and distorts reality!
"With prismatic light as witness and your presence as the conduit, please bestow your revelation and guide my path..."
Compared with his previous prayer to the Colour Out of Space, Julian not only adopted a more respectful attitude this time, but also used a more complete three-part honorific name.
This was one of the honorific names that could point to the Colour Out of Space. Julian knew several others like it.
However, those other names all contained sensitive terms such as "indescribable," "Great Old One," and "forbidden." After weighing his options, Julian had chosen one that seemed relatively safe.
Buzzz...
As the white candle burned rapidly and grew shorter, Lanevus's blood became increasingly vivid, soon shifting from bright red to an even more intense, brilliant purplish red.
Julian once again saw those dazzling colors and heard that familiar buzzing.
Perhaps because he had nearly finished digesting the Four-Color Seer potion, the sensation of his mind being torn apart was considerably weaker than before, allowing him to hear and see more.
He quickly committed the information to memory, then ended the magical ritual before the Colour Out of Space could further corrupt his mind.
By then, the white candle representing Julian himself had almost burned out, while the once-vivid rainbow rosemary essential oil and Lanevus's blood had turned into grayish-white powder, seemingly drained of all vitality.
"Phew..."
Julian breathed a small sigh of relief and quickly recorded the knowledge he had just acquired in his notebook:
"Sequence 8: Annotator
"Main ingredients: one strangely colored iris from a Mimic Disaster Beast, one Polar Light Stone formed over more than 2,000 years.
"Supplementary ingredients: 30 grams of Mimic Disaster Beast mimetic bone powder, 10 milliliters of stagnant lake water, 20 milliliters of liquor with an alcohol content above 50 percent."
Never mind how weird "Annotator" sounds as a potion name... why the hell does this formula need something like a Mimic Disaster Beast?
Julian immediately felt a headache coming on.
Back when he had still been a Reader, he had come across accounts of Mimic Disaster Beasts in certain ancient books.
They were supernatural creatures with no fixed form, capable of either laying eggs or giving birth to live young, and were found mainly in frigid regions.
Within the first hundred hours after birth, they would disguise themselves as whichever animal they first heard calling. In an extremely short time, they would learn the patterns of its calls and its language, then attempt to integrate into its group and society before drawing on the host
population's life force for nourishment, incubating new Mimic Disaster Beasts inside the hosts' bodies.
Most frightening of all, the creatures Mimic Disaster Beasts could imitate included humans. Without investigative supernatural abilities, it was difficult to discover their true nature.
Aside from such investigative supernatural abilities, the only way to barely distinguish Mimic Disaster Beasts was by their purplish-red irises. However, relying on this method alone was far too unreliable.
But that was not what truly troubled Julian.
What worried him more was that, starting around 150 years ago, Mimic Disaster Beasts had become almost completely extinct!