“The Prophet was wrong about his prophecy...?”
Prusius’s wavering tail froze mid-sway.
“Maybe... not... yet,” Ophelia said.
Prusius quickly tried to console Lu Li, whose expression had shifted.
“Yes, Mr. Lu Li, rember what the Prophet said? That it wouldn’t be a bad ending? We have to trust him.”
“Is there water in Hell?”
Lu Li’s gaze fell on the basin of water in Gades’s hands, his thoughts drifting.
“I don’t ask your secrets, and you don’t ask mine,” Gades replied, unwilling to explain.
Now that Prusius was awake, they decided to take him with them. Seeing that Prusius was leaving, Gades showed a rare flicker of reluctance.
“You should have let the little guy rest a bit longer.”
“I want to follow Mr. Lu Li!” Prusius cried out.
“Well... when children grow up, they always push back against the good intentions of their elders.”
Gades seed genuinely downcast, like a disappointed old man. In monts like these, Lu Li could feel the weight of the past twenty-four years more clearly.
Prusius went to comfort him again, but he also had another motive; he hoped Gades would return to the surface as an exorcist to help them.
“Return? Not a chance. And I haven’t been an exorcist for a long ti,” Gades refused, even with Prusius pleading.
Lu Li glanced questioningly at the Trader; the Trader could identify who was an exorcist.
“He is not an exorcist,” the Trader confird.
“See? Even the Trader says so.”
Lu Li then offered to buy so bullets.
Winnelag had assembly plants, but no blueprints for ammunition. It would still take ti to produce silver-plated bullets suitable for a spirit gun.
“Are you still using such old weapons on the surface? Fine, it’s not my business, and don’t you dare tell
what’s happening up there. One hundred shillings a bullet.”
Whenever a deal was ntioned, Gades would flash his gold tooth out of habit, and his fear of death made him actively block out any information from the world above.
“Deal.”
Bullets stored in the dry, hot climate of Hell were likely still usable. Gades wouldn’t let them be used here, of course, and took no responsibility after the sale.
Lu Li still bought two boxes of silver-plated bullets from him using shillings that were worthless to Prusius.
“Mr. Lu Li, have you found a way to fight the curse?” Prusius asked hopefully.
“Wait! You can talk about that after I’m far away!”
Gades yelped, pulling his umbrella far away from Lu Li and his companions.
“No.”
“Then what should we do?”
“I... can’t... tell you... yet.”
Once they left Hell, Prusius’s mind would still be deceived by the heretics; Lu Li and his companions had to keep their plans hidden from them.
“Then... what should I do?” Prusius asked.
“Remain ignorant,” Lu Li told him.
“Oh...”
Prusius seed to understand.
The Trader soon departed from Hell. Lu Li and the others had to remain there a while longer, waiting for his return. The news he brought back would determine their next move.
“Why... does... that... man... live... in Hell?”
Ophelia watched Gades from a distance. He had climbed onto the city wall to observe the lesser demons hauling stones below.
“He believes Hell is safer than the surface.”
Judging by the state of the world, it wasn’t an entirely flawed assessnt.
Gades clearly had his secrets. For instance, his firm conviction that their world was dood, and whatever power he possessed that allowed him to resist the constant erosion of his soul in Hell.
But Gades didn’t want to talk about it, and Lu Li had no desire to pry.
The Trader soon returned with good news.
It was ti for them to leave.
The dark red earth stretched into the distance. The mountains on the edge of the chasm were as majestic as the World’s Spine Mountains, and beyond them, waves of heat rose from a sea of lava, churning into the clouds to form a magnificent spectacle.
He still had unsettled business in Hell.
But not now.
After giving Prusius the dicine the Trader had brought to make him fall into a deep slumber, they passed through the Gates of Hell, leaving the searing heat for the biting cold.
The mbers of the Church of Shadows were no longer on the streets, and the wormhole leading back to Belfast lay just beneath their feet.
...
The snowfall in Belfast was as relentless as the crashing waves of the sea.
The creatures in the fog hadn't vanished either, their tracks marring the fresh snow.
Lu Li and his companions erged from the wormhole, skirted Agate Lake, and entered Belfast.
The Church of Twisted Vines didn’t send any followers to escort them—or rather, they didn’t send anyone according to the plan. But one believer from the Church was waiting for them on the street.
It was the sa tight-lipped believer who had led them out of Belfast a few days ago.
“Have you been waiting here for us this whole ti?”
Lu Li noticed a set of footprints leading from a house behind the uncommunicative believer.
He must have been here for quite so ti.
“The Prophet... knew... we would return, and he knew... the outco... of our... journey, didn’t he?”
“He told
to give this to you.”
The believer didn’t answer, simply handing Lu Li a piece of parchnt.
Under the light of the oil lamp, the parchnt with its shimring edges revealed a dialogue that had already happened, or one that was yet to happen.
Lu Li: Have you been waiting here for us this whole ti?
“Just as you think.”
Ophelia: The Prophet knew we would return, and he knew the outco of our journey, didn’t he?
“I have seen everything in the river of ti.”
Ophelia: Why didn’t you tell us?
“To know the future is to change the future, which will only worsen the outco.”
Ophelia: I don’t think so.
“You, who were ant to step with your left foot, would step with your right instead. The length of each stride would change, the ti of arrival would change, your encounters would beco different, the dialogue would be warped... An avalanche begins with a single, insignificant snowflake.”
Lu Li: What is our plan?
“You suspect that the entity that deceived Prusius and the one that abducted Katerina are one and the sa. Let the Church of Shadows follow you to the Sentry Post to retrieve Prusius. Let the Trader approach the Church of Twisted Vines to cooperate, and together you will lure out the heretics and rescue the abducted Katerina.”
Ophelia: And what is the result?!
“Rember what was written before? I cannot tell you.”
Lu Li: Who abducted Katerina?
“That, too, cannot be said.”
Lu Li’s eyes lifted from the bottom of the parchnt.
The unasked questions were indeed the new questions that had ford in his mind as he read the preceding ones. It was likely the sa for Ophelia.
Lu Li could understand the Prophet’s avalanche analogy—it was like the old story of the missing horseshoe nail—but the feeling of being kept in the dark and manipulated was unsettling.
Though they knew the Prophet was rely an observer, guiding the outco as a favor for Lu Li’s past help, like an author writing a book.
All they could do now was trust the Prophet. He was on their side.
Lu Li had only one question left.
“On the back... there’s more.”
Ophelia suddenly pointed to the faintly visible text on the other side of the parchnt.
Lu Li flipped the parchnt over.
It was the final question.
Lu Li: What can you tell
about Anna?
“I will say again, it is not a bad ending.”
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