Lys removed the ouroboros ring from her middle finger, using her wand to aim at the runic inscriptions inside the ring, completing the strokes she had deliberately left incomplete.
The rune that sacrificed soul fluctuations in exchange for power was ready to activate the moment Lys completed it—it only waited for her to input magic to function.
Lys put the ring back on her finger and cast several protective spells on herself.
Sensing countless eyes watching her, Lys followed her instincts and hurled a massive orb of light into the air.
The sea before her, as far as the eye could see, was filled with pairs of cloudy white eyes staring at her.
Under the dark night, they rose and fell with the waves, waiting for trespassers to walk into their trap.
Lys dismissed the light orb and walked forward under that death threat as dense as if the Grim Reaper himself had visited.
The lingering effects of that mental attack were growing stronger. Her mind wasn't very clear now, which deeply suppressed her fear.
She'd already walked this far—whether she touched this secret or not, the outcome would be the same. So today, she absolutely had to know what was on this stone platform.
Standing at the edge of the stone platform, Lys looked down, thinking this way.
The stone platform was a shallow pool with a locket box placed beneath the phosphorescent green liquid.
She tried using wooden sticks and iron tongs to fish it out, but both items were dissolved.
Lys used Transfiguration to create a cauldron and began scooping out the liquid, since these liquids were contained within the stone itself.
During this process, Lys hesitated and didn't dare pour the scooped liquid directly on the ground—she feared these liquids might contain something that would stimulate the Inferi in the sea, making them crawl up from the water to attack her.
Inferi had excellent defensive capabilities. To make them completely lose their attack power would require enormous magical energy, and with such numbers, Lys would have absolutely no chance of survival.
She hesitated, then pulled out a bottle of Blood-Replenishing Potion from her lizard-skin pouch, drank it, and used Transfiguration to enlarge the bottle to contain the scooped liquid.
But the effect was poor—the moment the liquid touched the bottle bottom, it disappeared. Lys looked back and saw the water level in the pool, which had originally dropped, was full again...
Lys frowned. Could it only contact one medium at a time?
She wished the Dark Lord had put up a sign here stating exactly what kind of sacrifice and price was needed.
Playing guessing games? Making it so complicated... If this dragged on, dawn would come...
When the sea breeze came, she smelled snake venom and Nundu venom—decay, consumption, and... Lys had a flash of inspiration. So this was a potion? For drinking?
Looking at this open-air environment, then at the locket box soaking inside, Lys's scalp went numb.
She put on dragon-hide gloves and tried to reach her finger inside, but it didn't work well either. The leather dissolving in less than a second scared Lys away. She Transfigured a very long stone stick, but it didn't work either—no matter how long the stick was, it couldn't touch the chain of that locket box so close at hand.
Lys wanted to put all the liquid into the cauldron at once, but found it impossible—she could scoop out half at most each time.
Frustrated, Lys scratched her head like a monkey. She'd already planned that if one move went wrong, she would sacrifice her soul's integrity in exchange for magical replenishment, but she was blocked by a pool of potion...
She stood there holding a large cauldron of liquid for a long time.
She didn't want to drink it—who knew what the purpose of this pool of potion really was?
Listlessly, Lys sat on the ground by the pool's edge, hugging that cauldron, staring blankly at the rows of Inferi outside and the moon.
Unconsciously, the aftereffects of that mental magic began surging up. That guilt and fear flooded her heart together. Lys recalled how difficult things had been for Senna at the beginning, and how willful she herself had been, throwing tantrums in that situation because she'd left familiar surroundings, crying and making noise all day because of pain.
Such a small little thing she'd been then, yet she seemed to have created considerable mental torment for her mother.
"Heh."
Lys suddenly looked up. What was that! Who laughed?
There was only herself and corpses here—she'd never heard of Inferi laughing!
At this moment, Lys was leaning against that pool filled with liquid.
This angle was subtle—the moon, stars, corpses in the water, and that circle of stone walls could all be reflected in her eyes, as if with one reach, the world and death could be grasped in her hands.
Closing her eyes, the mental magic's erosion made Lys somewhat dazed. Lys seemed to see the existence that had just laughed mockingly.
She wore a tattered red camisole—the only color here.
Her small body still stood under that fruit tree, hands behind her back, black waxy substance flowing down her body, her tone mocking and angry.
"How terrible!"
She clenched her fists and waved them angrily at Lys. Lys felt those black things were about to splash onto her face. "Not enough! Not enough! Useless thing just sitting here staring at those corpses! What? Exchanging feelings with future colleagues?!"
This sentence shocked Lys into gasping. "So harsh!"
"Facing yourself isn't harsh—it's just appropriate description! If your brain wasn't filled with cowardice and stupidity, you'd be thinking about how to get out of here, bringing more beauty to yourself and mom! I vow to exist for these things! Don't be left here by that insidious, disgusting mental magic! Do you think this is some good place?!"
"Am I hoping someone will come save me in this place almost cut off from the outside world?! Who? Mom?!"
"Wake up! Damn gorilla!"
As if trying to pierce Lys's eardrums, Lys realized for the first time that her young voice was so shrill and terrifying.
That "Wake up!" rang in Lys's mind and ears with severe buzzing.
Lys suddenly opened her eyes and exhaled, slowly standing up.
"What happened? Fell asleep?"
She shook her head to gather her spirits, returned to that small boat again to try leaving, but the boat remained motionless.
By this time, it was already Lys's third day here.
Lys mocked herself—she no longer knew if Regulus had told the truth...
Returning to the cave, Lys laboriously removed all the rings and bracelets from her now-swollen left hand, smashed the crystal on the ouroboros ring against the pool edge, and licked it.
That was where she'd stored several drops of Felix Felicis—Liquid Luck—when she originally made it, with an effective duration of about ten minutes.
"Well then, let's gamble that the Dark Lord's potion made to toy with prey won't result in certain death..." Lys lifted the cauldron from the ground and poured it into her mouth.
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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