From Blood Mage to Styx Ancestor

Chapter 17 Frost, Blood, and Scales

"You plan to enter the mist and kill the Black Heavenly Mother?"

After hearing their explanations, Ling Tianfeng was in a real bind.

If Long Yutian had proposed this, he would have rejected it without hesitation and sought other, safer alternatives.

But since it was Mordi who proposed this, he had to seriously consider its feasibility.

"Seniors, apart from Li Lejia, that fanatic, no one has ever successfully escaped the fog. Why don't you reconsider?" he cautiously suggested.

"There's not much time left. The Black Heavenly Buddha Mother is about to break free of her seal. Before the mist even envelops Green City, the soaring curse alone will be enough to send us all to our doom."

The reasons were so compelling that Ling Tianfeng truly didn't know how to refute them.

He opened his mouth, processed the words in his mind, but ultimately swallowed his rebuttal and said helplessly, "Then, seniors, what do you plan to do?"

"Give me the henchmen squad," Modi said, ordering the elite force to be deployed. "I need to give them some emergency training to help me with some preparations inside."

"Sure, but don't we need to send more people in?"

"No need. The curse inside is too strong. If we go in without preparing a substitution ritual first, no matter how many people go, they'll just be food for the enemy. And I can't perform rituals for too many people, so this is the only way."

"I understand. Is there anything else you need? Like artillery support?" Ling Tianfeng asked again.

"These can be prepared, but I don't think they'll be of much use." Mordy had no expectations for them.

"Shells disappear when they fall into the fog, and sophisticated electronic instruments will malfunction for unknown reasons once they enter the fog."

Because of the fog, the Ling Group couldn't act freely, otherwise they would have launched a missile barrage.

Why would we need to send someone in?

After explaining what was needed, he hurriedly led Long Yutian to the training ground.

Once all eight members of the henchman squad had arrived, he immediately began to teach "ritual studies" on the spot.

Of course, he only taught the most basic ritual setup; he didn't have time to teach the more advanced content.

"This is death grass, an essential material for performing the [Summoning Death Ritual]."

Modi showed everyone a purplish-black grass seedling and made them smell it one by one; all of them turned pale.

Thanks to their previous training, they were able to maintain a proper posture, each one standing upright, except that their eyes protruded slightly, as if they were enduring something.

"It stinks, like a corpse that's been rotting for days, right?"

He put the death grass into a jar, then silently added, "Don't worry, you'll have to keep it with you from now on."

The [Ritual of Resurrection] requires a number of materials, among which Death Grass is indispensable.

This plant, which grows abundantly in underground tombs and symbolizes "death" in rituals, is a specialty of Modi's lair.

"Besides the death grass, I have many more materials you need to familiarize yourself with. This is corpse maggots, this is grave soil, this is..."

After examining the materials needed for the ceremony, the nine people, including Long Yutian, felt as if they had been lying in a pile of dead bodies all night.

The nasal cavity was filled with the smell of rotting corpses.

Having identified the various materials, they learned from Modi how to arrange the ceremony. Fortunately, they were all elites and learned quickly, finishing the lesson in less than two hours.

Just as they were dismissed, Mo Di was about to go to his daily training when Ling Tianfeng rushed into the training ground, bringing him bad news.

"Redwood City is gone."

"Oh, that's it... Redwood City, which is only one city away from us?" Mordy paused for a moment, then quickly asked, "What happened?"

"It was destroyed by a giant beast," Ling Tianfeng said bitterly. "The entire city has been turned into a frozen wasteland; there should be no survivors."

"A behemoth? How big is it?"

"You'll understand once you see the last information released from Redwood City."

On the screen, a giant spider, its body crystalline and resembling an iceberg, roams the city.

Its icicle-thick legs sank into the ground, and the tentacles in its mouth waved unconsciously, occasionally lifting up people frozen into ice sculptures by the cold and putting them into its mouth.

Such a terrifying beast stirred up deep memories for Modi.

"Frostbite Giant Spider?"

He had encountered this thing before, but only in the [Eternal Realm], not in reality.

The Frostbite Giant Spider is a legendary creature that possesses power comparable to an immortal upon reaching adulthood, making it a veritable mobile calamity.

They generally congregate in extremely cold worlds that are completely covered in ice and snow, and rarely leave.

Once they leave, it is a migration of the entire species. They bring desolation and extreme cold to the new world and transform it into a new nest for the species.

The Frostbite Giant Spider currently occupying Redwood City is very abnormal, because it has no of its kind around it and is just wandering aimlessly over the city ruins.

"Where did it come from?" Mordy stared at the giant spider on the screen, his expression grave.

He just hoped that this giant spider hadn't migrated with its kind, otherwise he'd have to consider digging a hole to spend the rest of his time.

Fortunately, Ling Tianfeng's next words dispelled his idea.

"It came from the mist outside Redwood City, and after it left the mist, the mist surrounding Redwood City disappeared."

Lowering his head, Modi pondered, and a conjecture emerged.

"The mist may connect multiple other worlds."

He had this idea when he was observing that village earlier.

That cursed village didn't seem to be a product of this place; rather, it seemed to come from some feudal dynasty era, or perhaps even another world.

Perhaps this Frostbite Giant Spider also strayed into its own mist and unexpectedly arrived in this world connected by the mist.

If that's all there is to it, then there's no need to worry about the world entering the "Frostpunk".

"What did you say?" Ling Tianfeng looked at him with disbelief. "So, this giant spider actually comes from another world?"

"It's just a guess. If the guess is correct, then we'll have to reconsider the danger and value of the fog."

Modi took all of this in stride, after all, he had less than seven months left to stay in this realm.

The only person he couldn't let go of was his half-apprentice, Long Yutian.

Silence filled the room as the two of them pondered their own thoughts.

"Senior Mo, if that giant spider comes here, are we able to handle it with our firepower?"

Mody expressed pessimism, saying, "I think it's unlikely."

That Titan-like Frostbite Spider was clearly an adult, with terrifying strength; even ten Black Heavenly Mothers wouldn't be enough to defeat it.

"Senior Namo, will the ritual you've mastered be useful for it?" Ling Tianfeng set his sights on the ritual.

"Rituals aren't a panacea," he said, spreading his hands. "Even if there are rituals that can be performed, it depends on whether the recipients of those rituals are willing to help."

Those beings are far more dangerous than giant spiders.

Such rituals often target demons, and as beings that transcend the world, the intentions of some demons are difficult to fathom, while others have obvious preferences.

Just like the "Summoning Death Ritual" he intended to use against the Black Heavenly Mother, the demon god, the Death Bird, was a being who loved death.

If a large number of lives die during the [Summoning Death Ritual], it will likely attract the attention of the Deathbird.

Depending on the number of deaths, the Death Bird will temporarily grant the ritual officiant varying degrees of power.

The highest level is close to that of an immortal; to go further, one must first become a death-calling priest who serves the death-calling bird.

These are all experiences that Modi summarized in the [Eternal Realm]. Including the rituals, they all belong to the forbidden knowledge that has been lost on the continent of Itniti for a long time.

As a prisoner, he had plenty of ideas like this in his head.

Ling Tianfeng was slightly disappointed when he received a negative answer, but he quickly cheered up.

The giant spider was still far away; he had to prioritize his nearest enemy, the Black Heavenly Mother.

"At least Green City was the first to study the mist, and the threat it faces is far less than that giant spider. We can still give it a shot," he comforted himself.

Seven days passed in the blink of an eye. During these seven days, Long Yutian and his henchmen team became completely familiar with the arrangement of the ceremony.

During this time, Modi also studied the composition of the mist and was surprised to discover—

The fog contains ether, and at a considerable concentration, enough to support his condensation of the extraordinary seed.

Unlike the ether in the outside world, the ether in the fog exists entirely dependent on the fog. Therefore, he collected a large amount of fog and continuously concentrated it to obtain jars of concentrated ether.

Just one breath is enough to boost his magic power.

With an ample supply of ether, he condensed the extraordinary seed in just three days.

Unlike Devia, he deliberately guided the extraordinary seed and the qi seed to combine, forming a special organ that could convert cold blood true qi and magic power into each other.

"Frost and blood, my nature indeed contains both, but what about these scales?"

The appearance of an additional "scale" aspect, instead of the "time" and "space" he had envisioned, was indeed beyond his expectations.

After thinking for a moment, he came up with a fairly reasonable conjecture.

"My ancient blood was activated by dragon scales, and dragon scales have the [scale] attribute, which caused me to also have this attribute."

As soon as a thought crossed his mind, a layer of fine, blood-red scales appeared on his body.

I tried to make a sharp cut with the knife, but the sharp blade couldn't cut through the scales. It only left a shallow white mark, which disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"My defense is not bad, but why am I even tankier now? Is this in line with the way of a mage?"

After a moment's hesitation, he put it out of his mind.

At worst, once he becomes a legendary blood mage, he can stipulate that all blood mages of the Greta School must stack meat.

In this way, he would no longer be considered a heretic among monks.

After officially joining the ranks of the extraordinary, in order to carry more condensed ether, he specially created a set of equipment, namely a storage tank and a matching breathing mask.

Wearing this set of equipment, along with his usual clothes and accessories, a ferocious weapon of war appeared before everyone.

He wore a Wendigo skull on his head that enhanced his spellcasting abilities, and a gas mask on his face, which was connected to a large storage tank behind him via pipes.

He wore a Wendigo fur shawl over his shoulders, beneath which was a black robe that covered most of his body.

His face was obscured, but his imposing stature and the oppressive chill emanating from him were enough to tell that he was a boss-like figure.

Two faint red lights shone from behind the gas mask. Long Yutian, caught off guard, was startled, his mind going blank. He only heard a hoarse voice coming from behind the mask:

"All ready? Let's set off and hunt down those who have fallen into darkness."