Chapter 188: Silence and Burnt Offering

The guiding symbols at the start of the third segment were the most complete, their gaps almost closed.

He drew out his ether and pushed it in.

This time, after the room was peeled away, two images appeared beneath.

The left image was water. It was bottomless; looking down from above, the surface was so perfectly flat it lacked a single ripple.

The right image was fire. It burned fiercely, tongues of flame leaping upward and illuminating the sky above.

A vertical slit separated the two images.

This time, Richard couldn't discern the voice's age or gender.

"Those who walk through the door fall into two types."

"Those who sip, and those who gulp."

As the voice finished, the water in the left image stirred.

Someone was in the water.

His mouth was shut tight. The surrounding water seeped into his body little by little, yet even as it soaked in, he remained completely still.

He was sinking very slowly. Richard had to stare for a long time to confirm he was actually going down.

"Those who sip slowly are the Silent Faction."

"The very first rule of their lineage is to keep their mouths shut.

The thing behind the door has a name. Once that name is chanted, once it is spoken aloud, the thing knows someone is calling it.

Therefore, people of the Silent Faction never utter its true name in their entire lives. They don't speak at all, not even to say which layer they have descended to.

They rely on suppressing their breathing, sinking bit by bit.

The slower they sink, the harder it is for the thing behind the door to notice them."

"Some stay in the water for a lifetime, lasting until they die of old age, and the thing behind the door never even spares them a glance."

The voice paused. The left image did not fade.

"But look at him."

Richard looked at the person sinking in the water.

He was still going down.

"He didn't lose to the thing behind the door; he lost to the water itself.

He descended for so long that eventually, he couldn't remember why he entered the water in the first place.

He just keeps his mouth shut and continues to go down. Sinking is addictive."

The left image didn't fade, but the right image of fire began to move.

There was someone in the fire, too.

Richard couldn't see clearly at first; the fire was too bright.

"Those who gulp are the Burnt Offering Sect."

"The rule of their lineage is the exact opposite.

They believe the price is unavoidable. What the thing behind the door wants to take, it will eventually take. Hiding is useless; no matter how slowly you sink, you still have to go down.

Since it cannot be avoided, they pay it all. They pay in full, all at once.

Burn. Burn as brightly as possible."

In the image, the person in the fire chanted louder and louder.

The flames on his body leaped incredibly high, burning the sky above white.

"They chant loudly. They chant toward the door.

When the thing behind the door is called over, they trade with it."

The two images, one left and one right, hung before Richard.

One slowly sank in the water, sinking without anyone knowing.

One burned fiercely in the fire, burning so brightly that everyone could see.

The scene before his eyes returned to normal. Richard began recording the two great factions of the Abyss Tradition: the Silent Faction and the Burnt Offering Sect.

He finally understood what his aunt meant.

The sweetness of the Abyss Tradition, its formidable power, and its deadliness—they were all in the story.

...

Richard went downstairs for dinner.

"Brother!" Evelyn poked half her head out of the kitchen. "We're having chicken today!"

"Chicken?"

"Roast chicken." The little girl held up a finger.

"Dad passed by Fielding's shop on his way home from work and went in to ask if they had any left.

The boss said there was only one left, and gave Dad a twenty percent discount."

Richard changed his slippers and walked into the kitchen.

Margaret was taking the roast chicken out of the oven.

The chicken skin was roasted to a caramel color. The fat beneath the skin had rendered out, pooling into a small amber puddle at the bottom of the enamel pan.

"Sit," his mother said, retightening the apron around her waist. "Dinner is almost ready."

The roast chicken wasn't the only thing on the table.

Next to it sat a small white porcelain bowl filled with his favorite cream stew, hues of caramel and milky white swirling on the surface without dissipating.

There was also a portion of baked mac and cheese, its bottom lined with a coarse-salt crust. Just looking at that layer, he knew how much patience his mother had poured into baking it today.

Every dish on the table was something he loved.

Richard sat down.

His father also emerged from the study, washed his hands, and sat diagonally across from him.

"We're eating well today." Rogers spread a napkin across his lap. "It's rare that I don't have to work overtime."

"Yeah."

Evelyn set out the knives and forks, taking a seat next to their mother.

She sneaked a glance at her older brother.

Richard picked up his knife and fork.

The aroma of the cream stew drilled straight into his nose. He could almost taste the silky texture of the potatoes after they had soaked up all that cream.

He pierced a diced potato in his bowl and brought it to his mouth, but he had no appetite.

"Brother?"

Evelyn was the first to notice something wrong.

The small knife in her hand paused in midair.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Richard picked his knife and fork back up.

"You don't look well."

"I'm a bit tired today."

His mother didn't look up, busy spooning more stew onto Evelyn's plate.

"I'm full." Richard set his knife and fork back down on either side of his plate.

"You only took two bites." Evelyn frowned. "Brother, everything on this table is your favorite."

"I had some snacks this afternoon," Richard said, inventing an excuse.

"What snacks?"

"Chocolate."

"Who gave it to you?"

"Grey." His sister wasn't likely to verify such a trivial matter with Grey.

"She gave you some again?"

"Yeah."

"She treats you way too well..." Evelyn's frown deepened, but their mother cut her off.

"If you're full, go upstairs and rest," Margaret said. "I'll make you porridge tomorrow."

"Okay."

Richard stood up and gently pushed his chair in.

When he reached the stairs, he glanced back at the table.

His father had already sliced off a piece of chicken leg, reaching over to fork it onto his own plate.

"If the son won't eat, his old man will. Saves it from going to waste."

Evelyn indignantly forked away a piece for herself. "Dad, don't eat it all by yourself!"

"Alright, alright," his father mumbled around the chicken. "I'll leave some for you."

His mother didn't join the squabble over the food.

Her gaze lingered on her son's back for a few seconds before returning to her spoon.

Richard sat down at his desk, quickly regaining his rational focus:

"[Shadow Inversion]'s rule is to invert the directional flow of a Spell Formula.

Inside out becomes outside in; targeting oneself becomes targeting another."

"If the directional flow can be reversed, can the price of the Spell Formula be reversed too?"

Beneath this line, he had originally drawn a small question mark.

Richard crossed out the question mark with his fountain pen.

He wrote a few more lines below it in neater handwriting.

"Premise One: Shadow Inversion currently only applies to formal Spell Formulas.

The Fog Wall Spell doesn't work because its core is the ether carried by the Ashcore Grass itself; the caster's ether is not truly involved."

"Premise Two: Stone Armor can be reversed because its core is ether flow; its directional flow can be flipped."

"Hypothesis: A certain type of Spell Formula from the Abyss Tradition.

If mastered enough to meet the conditions for reversal, can its directional flow be flipped?"

"If it can..."

He paused, his pen hovering over the desk for a few seconds.

"If it can, does the price for this type of Spell Formula reverse with it?"

Then he wrote below that:

"Possibility One: In a reversed Spell Formula, the price transfers to the designated target.

But how is the 'designated target' selected?

Shadow Armor can only target living creatures with shadows. The Abyss Tradition's price is likely not something a simple shadow can bear."

"Possibility Two: In a reversed Spell Formula, the price flows backward into the veil itself.

But this is unlikely, because the veil is the source to begin with, and the price cannot flow back to the source."

"Possibility Three: The reversal fails; the price flows backward onto the practitioner themselves, doubling."

Finally, he wrote a single line beneath the three possibilities.

"Possibility Four: The reversal succeeds, but the reversed Spell Formula falls outside any existing tradition, attracting higher-Rank attention."

Richard set down his pen.

Out of the four possibilities, Possibilities Three and Four meant utter disaster for him.

Possibility Two didn't work in theory, leaving only Possibility One.

He shifted his gaze back to the line about the 'designated target'.

How was a 'designated target' selected?

He remembered the diagram on his aunt's blank paper.

A signature artifact itself was a part of the practitioner's soul.

In other words, if an object could bear a portion of a practitioner's soul...

Then, theoretically, the price of the Abyss Tradition could be transferred onto that object.

Richard's pen hovered over the word 'substitute'.

The Abyss Tradition really was sweet.

Annihilating enemies with a wave of the hand—who wouldn't want that?

But the price was just as real.

Richard closed his notebook.

The enhanced senses granted by [Perception] let him hear Evelyn still arguing with their father.

"...leave a piece for me!"

"I left one, I left one. I'm keeping it right here in my mouth."