Magic Guan Yu

Early morning.

Horace Loux sat up in bed and felt a strange, faint trembling.

Some kind of pleasurable resonance was singing softly.

He walked over to the bronze mirror in the corner of the room.

The face in the mirror was still sharply defined, with deep-set eyes, its contours shaped by both his barbarian heritage and several years as a lord.

But certain details had changed.

His pupils were now blood-red.

More striking still was the hair at his temples.

Starting at his temples, streaks of dark red had quietly spread through his black hair, mingling with its original color to form a strange, slightly eerie gradient.

Horace silently studied himself in the mirror.

"Am I turning into a red-haired freak too?" he murmured, his tone free of panic, holding only a trace of resignation and self-mockery.

Sure enough, he had been too lax.

No, perhaps it was not laxity, but arrogance.

He had thought that channeling all the "Cursed-Blood" endlessly bestowed by the Formless Mother into the Gate of Myriad Laws, that "energy conversion furnace," would let him rest easy, completely immune to the erosion of an Outer God's power.

Yet he had forgotten that a deity's power was itself a slow and profound form of permeation.

Just as someone who spent years beside a dye vat would inevitably get some color on them.

He frequently presided over rituals, actively established connections, and even tried to "guide" that deity. With every contact, every exchange of power, some minute portion had probably acted directly upon his body and soul. It was simply that the amount accumulated before had not been enough to cause any obvious changes.

Until today.

Red eyes, red hair.

These were manifestations on the physical level.

Then what about the soul?

Those pleasurable tremors, that almost instinctive craving for wounds and blood... were they also quietly taking root?

He closed his eyes and sensed the Gate of Myriad Laws standing silently in the depths of his soul.

The gate remained unchanged, but the "space" around it seemed tinged with an exceedingly faint, blood-colored mist.

Fortunately, for now, this influence appeared to be more "outward signs" than "substance."

His reason remained clear, his will unshaken.

That Outer God probably really did not care much what color his body became. As long as he could keep providing "wounds" and "blood," she could become anything at all.

But he could not let this continue unchecked.

With a slight shift of thought, Horace imposed a new Great Rune upon himself:

A vow to [never use Golden Order incantations], in exchange for [resisting the erosion of his will and flesh by external divine power].

This vow was cleverly chosen. "Golden Order incantations" currently had absolutely nothing to do with him. He did not know any, and he was almost certain never to learn them in the future.

Thus, this vow came at virtually no actual cost to him.

He could feel that pleasurable trembling rapidly subside. The blood-colored mist at the edges of his soul-space thinned as well, and that instinctive urge toward wounds and fresh blood was forced back into the cage of reason.

He looked into the mirror again.

The blood-red color in his pupils was fading visibly, returning to their original, tranquil brown.

But the dark red at his temples... stubbornly remained, showing no sign of fading.

Horace reached up and pinched a discolored strand of hair between his fingers.

Great Runes could filter and resist ongoing erosion, but their effect on physical changes that had already occurred seemed limited.

Perhaps his body had already "accepted" this portion of the changes as its "normal state," so the Great Rune no longer judged it to be "erosion" that needed removing.

Red hair... forget it. Better than red eyes.

But this incident had sounded an alarm for him. He knew too little about the Formless Mother.

The scattered scraps of description in the game could not possibly encompass this Outer God's true nature.

Continuing to borrow her power in such ignorance was far too risky.

He needed information: detailed, systematic information about this "Formless Mother," along with whatever other knowledge might exist.

The academy's grand library, the Carian Royal Family's ancient collections... he would have to search through them.

After temporarily entrusting Uriel with Lakeside Town's day-to-day administration and the considerable paperwork involved in the initial implementation of the new laws, Horace briefly explained where he was going and set off.

"My lord, this... I really can't do this!" Uriel stared at the mountain of parchment and its densely packed writing, sweating profusely.

That rugged face, so accustomed to commanding battlefields, crumpled miserably.

"I'm a fighting man! These words... they know me, but I don't know them!"

"Learn." Horace patted his shoulder without a shred of sympathy.

"You're now Lakeside Town's sheriff and chief administrator. How can you be illiterate? I've already had the scribe summarize and annotate the most important parts. Start with those. Ask the scribe about anything you don't understand, or wait until I have time to write back with answers. That's an order."

Faced with Horace's unquestionable gaze, Uriel knew struggling was pointless. With a mournful expression, he could only carry that enormous pile of "incomprehensible writings" toward the study, his retreating figure desolate, as though he were heading not to handle government affairs, but to the execution ground.

The old warrior had never imagined that, after surviving the brutal wilderness and enduring bloody battles, he would now find himself plunged into the boundless sea of learning.

Horace, meanwhile, traveled light, taking only two Inquisitor Knights as attendants, and headed first to Caria Manor.

He chose this place first out of wariness toward the "curiosity" of sorcerers.

The academy's glintstone sorcerers, particularly those devoted to research, possessed an almost obsessive desire to investigate any unknown power.

Although his red hair was not particularly conspicuous, frequently visiting the grand library to consult sensitive materials concerning "Outer Gods," the "Formless Mother," and "blood powers" would inevitably attract the attention of certain watchful people and lead them to draw connections.

By comparison, although the Carian Royal Family's collection might not match the grand library in scale, it was more secluded, and its management was not so "academic."

In the manor's magnificent stone corridors, Horace did not encounter Rellana, whom he had thought might appear.

This let him breathe a little easier-that lady knight had been rather too prominent a presence lately, and he needed to concentrate right now.

But he encountered another knight.

An exceptionally tall, slender female knight was emerging from the shadows of the columns.

She wore the ornate yet practical silver-blue armor distinctive to Caria Knight Loretta, its flowing lines adorned with patterns of moons and stars.

Even without a horse, simply standing there, she naturally exuded an aura as keen as a blade.

Royal Knight Loretta.

The name immediately surfaced in Horace's mind, along with the affectionate nickname the Tarnished used for her—"Magic Guan Yu."

For reference, look at the little horns on the heads of the bloodfiends and the bank's Albinaurics. The Formless Mother had some ability to reshape flesh.

As for why the bank manager was not affected much, perhaps the Omen phenomenon was so strong that it suppressed it, or perhaps the bank manager's strongest-among-demigods physique was just that amazing? It was also possible that, as the Lord of Blood, he was unaffected.