Chapter 63: Jeros's Admonition

Silas looked at the complex magic circle that had appeared on the ground, feeling somewhat dazzled.

He couldn't discern the logic or content of this magic circle at all, not even where it began or ended.

At this moment, he could only vaguely see relatively common symbols like dragons, spires, flames, and stars; he knew nothing about the rest.

"This is a formula from the Apocrypha of ???. As for which Apocrypha, it's not entirely clear yet," Jeros said.

"?" Silas, at the doorway, was taken aback. He had felt his spirit momentarily dazed just now and hadn't clearly heard the name Jeros had just spoken.

Jeros didn't notice and continued to observe the magic circle on the ground.

Warren, beside him, noticed Silas's abnormality and explained in a low voice, "Some nouns or terms are from ancient divine languages or even older languages passed down from long before the Kabatos Academy. These languages were translated from the reverberations of deities' voices and possess powerful mystical force. Depending on Their different abilities and status, different levels of Spirit Vision are required to be qualified to hear them."

"The most direct example is the Ghoul King 'Mordiggian.' He is a true deity, but this name is not His true name, but a transliteration of sound, a codename that appeared due to an erroneous inheritance by the Cold Church, merely for people's convenience in remembering His codename. The true names of deities must never be remembered by humans."

Silas understood upon hearing this, his understanding of the mystical deepening.

Warren continued, "Master said, this book requires fifty points of Spirit Vision to hear, and sixty-five points to be qualified to read aloud. It has seven Apocrypha and is the most powerful and terrifying grimoire known to people so far."

"Fifty points just to hear? My heavens, what kind of grimoire is this?" Silas was filled with shock.

While Silas was deep in thought, Jeros beckoned to him. "Try to make contact with that soul."

Silas nodded and carefully walked in, activating his Spirit Vision.

Through his Spirit Vision, Silas saw some faint green and purple particles in the entire room.

"What are these things?"

Jeros said casually, "The green particles are primordial life force. The purple particles are primordial mystical force. They are both contained within blood; don't pay them too much mind."

Silas nodded upon hearing this, then went to make contact with the soul in the corner.

At this moment, this soul was completely devoid of human form, chaotic and muddled, just a hair's breadth away from becoming raw spiritual energy and dissipating directly.

"What on earth is going on? The spirits of professional-level mystical personnel are generally very resilient. How could his soul become like this?"

Thinking this, Silas exuded the aura of a Priest and gradually approached this soul.

As the words of prayer were recited, this soul instinctively began to move closer to Silas.

Silas, his expression benevolent, opened his arms to embrace this soul, to see if he could inquire about anything.

"My child, what happened?" A kind and gentle voice was transmitted through spiritual energy.

This mass of a soul wriggled a bit, and a vague sound emerged: "Sin, fire…"

It only uttered two words, and no other sounds could be heard.

Silas took a deep breath, gradually lowered his head, and murmured, "Don't worry, the Goddess is with you."

Its subjective consciousness was completely blurred. Silas prepared to connect his spiritual energy with its spiritual energy, to try and see if he could read its instinctive thoughts.

But just then, Silas was stopped by Jeros.

"What are you doing?" Jeros asked, looking at Silas.

Silas explained, "His subjective consciousness is already blurred. I want to connect through spiritual energy to see if his instinctive consciousness has any other related information."

Jeros stretched out his hand, covered the soul with spiritual energy, and directly pushed it away. "You want to use an apprentice's spiritual power to probe a professional-level spirit? Do you want to be crushed by its spiritual energy?"

Silas, hearing this, asked tentatively, "You mean…"

Pushing the soul away, Jeros explained, "His subjective consciousness is now lost. Only the most primitive chaos and bestiality remain, and his spiritual energy is filled with frenzy. Now, because he has lost his form, that spiritual energy cannot be released outwards. But if your consciousness actively enters, what you will face is a devastating spiritual blow."

Hiss, hiss, hiss~

Hearing this, Silas instantly shivered, a trace of fear flashing in his eyes.

The danger involved far exceeded his imagination.

"Remember, all connections are relative. Just like the motto of the Wolf Blood Legion of the Shadowed Vale Abyss: when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. Unless your spirit and spiritual energy completely overwhelm the other side, rashly establishing a connection, even if both sides are of equal strength, will lead to infection by the other side's thoughts and madness."

Silas immediately nodded like a chick pecking at rice, his face sheepish, indicating he understood.

After finishing his lecture to Silas, Jeros asked, "Did you find anything?"

Silas replied truthfully, "His consciousness is completely blurred; his sanity is gone. He only vaguely said two words: one was 'sin,' and the other was 'fire.' There seemed to be other words before and after these two, but I couldn't hear them clearly."

While the two were talking, Warren suddenly found a very thin but exquisite metal nameplate in a crevice in the floor in the corner.

"Master, look." Warren handed the nameplate over.

Jeros glanced at the nameplate, and Silas, beside him, clearly felt a chill flash through the Demon Hunter Master's aura.

"How did these madmen appear here?" Jeros said in a low voice.

Silas carefully leaned over to look at the plate.

It was a hexagonal metal nameplate made of copper. On it were countless stars and suns, looking like a vast universe.

On the back of the nameplate were circles of patterns, each with a different number of dots representing different stars.

"Master, is this some powerful mystical item?" Silas asked.

Jeros shook his head. "This is just an ordinary metal nameplate."

"Then…"

Warren continued to explain, "This nameplate represents a very dangerous evil organization called the Apex Aether Research Institute."

"Apex Aether Research Institute? Never heard of it. It's not an organization from the Cthulhu Mythos," Silas thought.

"The Apex Aether Research Institute is a group of research fanatics. Their believers worship ancient evil gods who roamed the astral plane in ancient times and were unable to enter the material world. For many years, they have been dedicated to enabling those evil gods in the astral plane to descend, and they preach the so-called arrival of the 'time when the stars are right' to create panic."

"Are they insane!?" Silas's eyes widened in disbelief.

This wasn't feigned. This world had no concept of the universe; the realm beyond the world was called the astral plane. And ancient evil gods roaming the astral plane, unable to descend – those were the most terrifying Outer Gods!