Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 543 - 497: The Revived Angel

Although Lyle yearned to turn Joshua into a large, indescribable mass of tentacles, the thought was exceptionally challenging.

As a fellow inheritor of the Divine Blood, Joshua differed considerably from his kin who had transformed into Sea Monsters; the difference being that the Ominous could not sense the presence of his blood.

The signal was lost, and even though Beatrice had inflicted several bleeding wounds on him, Lyle still could not awaken the obedience within that blood, for it no longer belonged to Serio or to himself.

Joshua’s figure vanished instantaneously, leaving behind a trail of blood from the wound on the attacking tentacle, which turned into small, spiky balls in mid-air, but Joshua had already escaped the attack range.

"My lady, did you really hurt him? He’s even faster than the wildly spinning wheels driven by the Demon Race."

Beatrice’s smooth forehead bulged with veins as she continued to charge at the materialized vampire.

"He has the ability to Teleport, with the shortest interval being within ten seconds, damn it, he never used it before, although he doesn’t move more than two meters."

With such frequency, no wonder Beatrice was at her wit’s end against him.

Lyle paused for a moment; with such an ability, he shouldn’t be constrained—what was he waiting for here?

Lyle scanned his surroundings and shifted his gaze to the toppled Bloodstone Chalice and the statue of the ritual, which was still entwined in unclean red light—the ritual continued.

"Lyle!!!"

Before Beatrice’s scream could subside, the dark figure had already appeared before Lyle, Joshua’s swiping claws were too fast, piercing Lyle’s head with icy sharp nails before Nia’s tentacles could form a defense.

It was like popping a balloon; Lyle’s body turned into black sludge, with his dissolving eyes glaring at Joshua’s blood-red ones.

"Fear."

Joshua’s figure disappeared, but his uncontrollable body crashed into the collapsing stone wall ruins.

Beatrice didn’t pursue but instead flew into the center of the tentacles where Lyle vanished, missing a good opportunity to harm Joshua.

"Lyle?"

The perfectly intact Plague Doctor emerged from the tentacles, as the black mud crawled back onto his coat and coalesced into the shadow of the Ominous behind him.

Lyle spread his hands.

"I’m but a feeble wizard who couldn’t harm a chicken, it’s normal to be timid in the face of an assassin. As the weakest human here, it’s not too much to prepare a stand-in."

"A bit of a loss," Lyle watched Joshua climb out of the rubble, wounds healing, his eyes firmly fixed on him, "it probably won’t work next time, absurd speed; only psychic attacks can hit him."

Lyle switched his gaze to Beatrice, saying, "I’m terrible with soul studies."

Beatrice rolled her eyes.

"I’m just a barmaid."

Lyle’s eyes widened.

"Isn’t Naslan part of the Specter Race, with Helena as the leader, and Alianna as the Soul Shepherd..."

The implication being, your family is so outstanding, how come you haven’t lived up to that.

Beatrice wiped the blood from her face, uncertain whether it was her own or Joshua’s.

"Raymond is the Scourge of Holy Light, the scholar teacher is the King of Magic, and the dragon gentleman is the Black Abyssal Mech Fight King, why haven’t you swept through it all?"

Is this some spoiled brat communication meeting?

The two shared a sense of mutual helplessness which eventually evolved into a feeling of commiseration.

Setting aside differences, they united against a common enemy.

"I will continue to restrain Joshua, trying to keep him away from you," Beatrice resumed her assault, battling with Joshua once more.

"And I need to find a way to disrupt the ritual, and preferably capture Joshua, or even kill him."

He controlled the flesh to connect the chaotic muscle tissue around the blood-red statue, just like the first lesson Mr. Crimson had taught him, weaving a lab of flesh.

The conversion of flesh into bone hardened the muscle into solid bone, planting between them a few trigger-style curse traps and bone spurs for ejection.

Lyle’s extracurricular experiment had officially begun.

How to dismantle the vampire inheritance ritual altar.

Lyle had never thought that one day destruction would become a technical task.

The likelihood of brute force destruction was next to nothing. Recalling the ritual steps previously stated by the Grand Duke of Vampires, it was not difficult to surmise that the ritual included a sacrifice process.

This meant that with one misstep, Lyle could unintentionally become a sacrifice to this man-eating ritual.

The process was a bit like bomb disposal, only Lyle was no expert in that field.

"Runes, language, the flow of magic, array nodes..." Lyle was somewhat enchanted as he observed. Mr. Dragon had said that all magic stemmed from a single source, so Spirit Summoning Skill and Blood Magic must share common ground.

It was just that there were a dozen symbols he completely couldn’t understand.

"What is this symbol that looks like a triangle? It resembles the Exhaustion symbol, and that one with a hooked shape looks like the Execution Symbol..."

Lyle thought he had found the trick, although when he connected them together, the meaning didn’t make sense.

"The triangular symbol signifies impalement, the hook-shaped symbol signifies desecration. The full meaning of the Array is, pierce the impure body, desecrate the pure blood, to return the departed soul, to make the fallen ascend."

The voice resonated in his mind, Ominous was truly an incarnation of the Evil God, the origin of all that is mysterious.

"Alright, after I return, I’ll choose to study runeology," Lyle found the corresponding symbol’s location, "I just need to destroy this keyword, right?"

The voice of Ominous echoed again.

"Erase the desecration, cover it with anything at all, be mindful of the circle of Thorns Runes around it, they could cause those who step on them to split their skin, bleed, and become a sacrifice."

Lyle, with lingering fear, retracted the foot he had stretched out and stealthily tiptoed forward.

Outside the cage made of flesh, Beatrice’s roar continued, if Lyle hadn’t been sure that she was not like his sister who could turn her voice into a weapon, he almost would have thought Beatrice was winning.

There was no sign of Joshua making an attack, and Lyle was two steps away from the desecration symbol.

Lyle stepped onto it.

As his sole touched the ground, the entire ritual Array burst forth with blinding red light, and Lyle could even smell the pungent odor of blood.

"What’s going on, Ominous?!" You never said it would be like this!

Ominous was no longer in that overconfident state, he roared in Lyle’s voice.

"Get out of there! You’ve accelerated the ritual!"

Lyle had yet to move when suddenly, the Thorns Runes glowed brightly, slicing his fingers and causing blood to fall into the Array.

"You damn Purifier! Wasn’t that a misunderstanding by Mr. Raymond?!!!"

Purifier, a synonym for a genius of the Holy Light, a child of the angels, the purest soul in the world.

Lyle had thought the misunderstanding stemmed from his status as a transmigrator. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Turns out, he really was a Purifier? A genius of the Holy Light, an heir to the Crusader leader?

The cursing of Ominous continued, he was Lyle’s other half, hence his understanding of Lyle and his viewpoints were the same as Lyle’s, both had not realized the truth behind Lyle being a Purifier.

And this led to the current scene.

"Our mistake, ’Desecrate the pure blood,’ you’re a hybrid of a Purifier and an incarnation of the Evil God, my goodness, both purity and corruption are present, you’ve skipped right over the desecration ritual, and the inheritance ritual has directly entered the next phase."

Lyle endured the sting and ran out of the Array.

"Then we’re only missing ’Impale the impure body’..."

A gust of wind surged in, the traps were triggered one by one, and the bone spurs that shot out dismembered Joshua into pieces; his head rolled to Lyle’s feet, his face wearing an excited smile.

The ritual was complete.

The statue shattered, blood gushed from within and drowned Joshua’s limbs.

The churning tide of blood smashed Lyle’s arrangements, flinging him away.

When he opened his eyes once again, what he saw was an unharmed Joshua.

No, just a similar shape, the grandeur displayed, and those charmingly evil eyes told both of them that this was a far more dangerous existence.

To return the departed soul, for the fallen to ascend.

Blood wings spread out behind "Joshua" as he kissed his own finger, his fangs sucking his own blood.

His eyes widened for a moment, an intangible pressure forced Lyle down to his knees.

"Another Butler’s blood..."

The antichrist’s face revealed a sunny smile, looking at Lyle with affection.

"Lyle, right?"

"My name is Gallaron Loshutar."

"I have a score to settle with your uncle, but I don’t mind collecting some interest from you first."