In the dimly lit gallery, Annan raised his head slightly.
Under the candlelight, the silver-white hair exposed from the white hood exuded a warm milky white reflection.
Annan’s face seemed to be glowing.
His aquamarine left eye shone with a warmth luster, which the flickering candlelight was reflected.
The candlelight came from the brass lamp posts dotted around the room. Near the top of the lamp posts was a wide open palm holding the base of the candle. Its appearance reminded Annan of the experience points farming mob in Fate Grand Order.
Those candles were all thick. Each was thicker than Annan’s arm, with no carvings or patterns on the surface, just pure and quietly burning white candles.
The scene before him reminded the Pale Princess’s nightmare where many candles were placed in a room.
“Please have a seat over here.” Catwoman Vasika put her hand on Annan’s shoulder. Her tone was soft and elegant, “Here’s your tea.”
She pushed Annan lightly and led him up the spiral staircase to the platform at the side of the room.
The design was ingenious. Sitting here allowed Annan to observe the display cabinets surrounding the U-shaped hall. Yet, from any other position, it was almost instinctive to overlook this spot. Even before Annan ascended the stairs, he had not noticed the table and seating here.
I wonder who designed it. The design is clever.
“It’s a [Deflected Vision] ritual. It deflects attention in a 180-degree range.”
Catwoman Vasika noticed Annan’s gaze. She smiled slightly and softly explained, “It’s the ritual you have personally arranged for us.”
Oh, it’s me.
Forget about it.
Sitting in the seat, Vasika poured Annan a cup of tea.
It was Annan’s favorite bubble fruit tea.
Am I used to know her well?
“You don’t use Green Fire here?” Annan didn’t rush to move on to the main subject but threw a casual question.
The lighting here was not bright.
It was similar to the brightness of a candlelit dinner.
It gave off a romantic air, but the curtains were so heavy that it reminded people of a shady Internet cafe. Annan’s perception attribute was solid. Ordinary people couldn’t see what was in it.
It would be much brighter than that if Vasika utilized Green Fire to light these glass cabinets.
“Although the possibility is low, Green Fire has the risk of explosion after all. There are no barriers that can resist the explosion from inside. It is also impossible for me to install another ritual on every exhibit cabinet. After all, some exhibited items are meant to be auctioned.”
Vasika replied in a light tone, “As long as there is a risk, it cannot be used. For Prophet Wizard, as long as there is a 1% possibility, the possibility can be increased to 100%. That is the ability to manipulate the possibility. However, candles are different.”
“However, I heard that there seems to be an optimized version of Green Fire technology in Swamp’s Black Tower a few years ago, which is still in the experimental stage. However, it may take six years before it is popularized. Let’s talk about it at that time.”
“Moreover…”
“What?” Annan asked.
Vasika smiled. “Also, light and secrecy are interrelated.”
“When seeking the power of secrecy as the core of the ritual, it is essential to ensure that the [light] and [fire] within the space are sufficiently dim and steady. If they become too active, it would turn into a [revelation] and [display]; if they are too inert, it would become [fear] and [darkness].”
“The former will allowed some exhibited items to bypass my security ritual, affecting the minds of distinguished guests, making them pious, fanatical, and passionate for no reason. While the latter will make some indescribable dark items breed wantonly and even infiltrate other people’s dreams.”
Maintaining the balance of elements among multiple ritual areas was a cumbersome and challenging task.
The catwoman gave her remarks.
Having said that…
Annan glanced at Vasika again.
Vasika’s unique character trait was unbalanced.
Her eye shadows and nails were in different colors. Her hairstyles didn’t fit her image well. She was barefooted on one foot while wearing a boot on the other.
Upon closer observation, Annan realized her jacket’s left and right sides were made of different materials. The left side had fur as the base and cloth as the decoration, while the right side was the opposite. The patterns on both sides were also different.
Her right hand was as bare as her left foot; her left hand was covered with a long leather glove that extended to the elbow. She only had an earring on one ear, and the brooch was only on one side.
There was a strong emphasis on [asymmetry].
Sure enough, Vasika would capture attention and a sense of disgust.
Annan had the unique character to break free from the preconceived norm and shallow disgust of judging people by their appearance. After all, Vasika was not the “normal situation” that the average person would encounter.
“I suppose…” The catwoman elongated her tone and said leisurely, “Your Majesty, are you inquiring about the sense of asymmetry I have on me?”
“Is that what I have asked during our first encounter?” Annan asked back.
The catwoman patriarch smiled and nodded.
Her hands, with fingers interlocked, had sharp nails that evoked the image of an open-mouthed Venus flytrap.
She rested her chin lightly on the center of her fingers.
The catwoman’s vertical pupils narrowed slightly, which gave people a strong sense of danger. She said with great interest, “For some reason, you haven’t triggered the ritual twice in a row.”
“Ritual?”
What ritual?
Annan was about to ask that question.
The next moment, his keen perception felt the sense of danger one step ahead.
It was a sense of danger, like being pointed at with a knife or aimed at with a gun.
Am I ambushed?
No, not really…
This sense of danger comes from outside the door—
“There is no need to be nervous, Your Majesty.” Catwoman said leisurely, “They are merely some pests.”
As her calm voice fell, three masked men broke in suddenly, looking around for something. However, they didn’t see the two people sitting on the high platform.
One of them gave Annan the strongest sense of danger… Annan last felt this kind of experience when he saw Kim in the White Tower Nightmare.
He should be a Destruction Wizard—
Then, Catwoman slowly dropped her right hand’s index finger and middle finger.
Before the infiltrators could make a move, their bodies trembled as they knelt on the ground.
They groaned and then began to vomit.
Catwoman frowned slightly and released her crossed fingers.
The three of them fainted immediately.
This bizarre scene made Annan a little puzzled.
Catwoman was indeed a Gold Rank trascender.
Annan didn’t see her curse vessel activated just now. Power at the Bronze Rank wouldn’t be enough to stunt the Silver Rank Destruction Wizard.
“This is the power of a ritualist,” Catwoman explained.
She chuckled lightly, “The people behind them are quite daring to have them break into the ritualist’s arena.”
“The poor wizard is probably being used. I know the mastermind’s plan. After confirming you are here, he may trigger some mechanism or ask someone next to him to kill the Destruction Wizard to blow you up.”
Silver Rank’s Destruction Wizard was a terrifying explosive.
When Kim died, the sacrificial explosion effect destroyed a quarter of the wizard tower. Annan and the others could feel the violent vibration of the ground across the wizard tower.
If it exploded in such a narrow space, bad things might have happened to Annan.
In front of this catwoman, this assassination that was likely to succeed was strangely stopped by her.
“Is it the power of imbalance?” Annan vaguely sensed something.
The three people seemed to have severe motion sickness.
Catwoman nodded and smiled happily, “As expected of you. Even if you lose your memory, you are still so sharp.”
“This is my [Beauty of Imbalance] ritual.”
Catwoman Vasika smiled slightly, “Under ‘certain’ conditions, anyone who hates or admires me will have their ‘balance’ controlled by me. As the depth of this hostility or love increases, so will my control.”
“The three of them have pure killing intent towards me, which is a kind of imbalance. So I controlled the sense of balance in their bodies and made them rotate more than 500 times in horizontal and vertical directions simultaneously. Then I cut off their soul-to-body connection, making it [completely out of balance].”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Do you have to ask?”
Catwoman smiled happily, “You have installed my ritual for me.”
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