bullyxtreme Chapter 263: Fate's Interference
Chapter 263: Fate's Interference
The same situation also occurred in Abes' efforts.
After dealing with the new treatment plan for insect vomiting, Abes also found Ivan and Soran, wanting to ask them about monster knowledge.
Carterburg is just a fortress city, so naturally there are no books.
As a veteran, Alvin can only provide a little information for reference.
Although Soran was a hunter, he always had a heart that pursued power. Therefore, compared with prey, he was more interested in some strange beasts, monsters and magical beasts that might appear in the forest environment.
However, neither of the two "uncle and nephew" seems to be able to pin down the information from various places in Abes to a certain monster.
Even when I'm about to say it, I'll suddenly forget it and the topic will start to drift.
Of course, all these coincidences, accidents, fate and destiny are subconsciously ignored by the parties involved.
The only one who was independent of this subconscious neglect was Matthew.
The answer is simple.
Since he knows little about monsters, his goal would not be to help Abes find Aunt Vanna's true identity.
His thoughts were mainly focused on motivating the others to help Abes find the answer to the problem.
This also allowed Matthew to luckily avoid the influence of certain forces.
With his sharp eyes, he was able to catch the abnormal behavior of Kronos, Hyogi and others.
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Old woman image;
Struggling to maintain a reputation for kindness and seemingly normal social interactions;
Hire, bribe or threaten a group of evil minions;
There are all kinds of imaginable and unexpected strange nest effects and strange, unconventional magical applications of the three elements of spellcasting;
Combining these pieces of information, anyone with a little knowledge of monsters would be able to blurt out her name.
Ghost woman.
One of the most notorious monsters!
In order to understand the current strange situation, we have to mention the transformation of the witch.
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It is generally believed that there are five types of ghosts in this world and beyond.
They grow into the most suitable one based on the genes and inheritance they get from their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and the environment around them.
However, there are some witches who will try to make a change.
Trying to live up to the shifting nature of the strange magic they inherited from the Feywild.
They strive to become every kind of hag, trying to change themselves with every century.
They first need to live long enough and obtain the necessary resources for transformation.
Then they need to find a new, suitable place to build their nest.
They need to settle in places where the barrier between the mortal world and the feywild is thin, making it easy for them to interact and trade with creatures from both or even multiple planes.
Other common choices are a place where the surrounding energy enhances some kind of magic, and the most common dark power, a location associated with death.
For example, the sea hag is to a shipwreck, the demon hag is to a graveyard...
To facilitate bargaining with mortals, the house must be close enough to a populated area to attract the occasional visitor, but not so close that the community would view the hag's presence as a threat and end up finding her, confronting her, or driving her away.
So, just finding a new place to nest can take years, or even decades, of wandering and preparation.
Once everything is ready, she can begin to discard her old physiology and transform into a hag that fits the environment she now inhabits.
And as time goes by, the complete transformation is finally completed.
Therefore, it seems that it only takes 500 years to become five types of ghost women in turn, but considering the preparation required, the luck required, the need to survive and not be exterminated, and even the need for her determination and goals to not deviate or change...
This time will only be longer.
Maybe even [a thousand years].
And when all five different paths are completed, she will be qualified to be promoted to a being that surpasses their mother, their aunt, and may even become their grandmother.
This transcendent power, this new power...
Its name is destiny.
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Whether it was Abes, Hyogi, or Kronos, how could any one of them not remember the knowledge related to the witch?
The reason for these abnormal situations is naturally because the power of fate is at work.
However, interference with memory is nothing.
Even when they wanted to check through book information, which should exist continuously, the power of fate prevented them from directly accessing it.
Misprints, coffee stains, just borrowed, forgotten in the middle of a conversation, or the subject has drifted off track.
Obviously, things can turn around with just a little toughness or persistence.
For example, if Kronos insisted on asking about the whereabouts of the book, wouldn't the administrator of the king's library tell this young girl who was in a high position and held great power?
For example, if I insist on this topic, will the other party really be unable to say it?
At times like this, all that is needed is a bystander to make the entire pool, which has been stirred into a turbid liquid by fate, clear again.
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The call was resumed.
"That's all I have observed and recorded. I think you should know what your normal state is."
It is impossible for the wise men of frost to give up the pursuit of something new;
The daughter of the Myers family will not relax her will where she can help the brave Abeth Grande;
And Abes, who was willing to go alone to the western region of the small kingdom, was definitely not the kind of person who would give up halfway and had no courage.
This time, with Matthew's encouragement, everyone finally realized that something was wrong with them.
However, if they are left without the supervision and encouragement of others and are left to carry out the tasks on their own, they may fail to accomplish their goals due to certain laziness, inertia and obstacles.
"Then I think the conclusion is obvious."
Abess responded seriously, tapping out a rhythm on the table, "It's some kind of monster with supernatural powers. Its power is affecting us, making it impossible for us to track it down."
"However, we still have to continue investigating and fighting."
Because the source of the bug-vomiting plague was the cheap healing potion made by Aunt Vanna;
Because the only clues about the missing person came from the diary and parchment in Soran's hand, and these two things also came from Aunt Vanna's shop;
Because of the hatred of the hundred people rescued by Abes, the information about the hatred of the white-haired man who hoped to become his helper and teammate can also be obtained from Aunt Vanna.
And for a variety of reasons, it was absolutely impossible for Abes to overturn the table on the spot, give up the mission and run away.
In order to achieve great things in the western part of the small kingdom of Łomza and gain a dazzling reputation, Abes would never be allowed to make any retreat.
Based on the situation on paper, can we fight?
Can fight! Not only can he fight, but maybe it’s a 70:30 chance.
Because, with the blessings of three professional paths and multiple other blessings stacked together, Abes can be said to be a numerical monster who can perform amazing operations with the surface situation of level three.
However, what numerical monsters fear most is mechanism monsters.
"It is useless to continue to pursue it. Before that, we must first understand the mechanism of this set of forces that affect us, others, and even the entire external environment."
"Only when we know what the mechanism is can we have the ability and confidence to circumvent, destroy or confront it."
After communicating with each other, some problems quickly surfaced.
Why was it that while they all encountered various problems during their investigation, Matthew was able to persist consistently and bring them back to continue the conversation?
You know, if Matthew wasn't here, if they were allowed to communicate here, they would probably go off topic after just a few words. Kronos didn't even want to start this conversation in the evening.
"It's simple. I have never tracked down monsters from the beginning to the end, Master Abes. I am a doctor and pharmacist. Tracking down monsters based on their characteristics is not an option for me."
After getting Matthew's reminder, Abes quickly came up with a solution.
"Although we will encounter problems if we directly pursue the identity and true body of the monster, it will be fine if we look to the side a little bit."
"It seems that the enemy's power is not omnipotent after all..."
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Shirai Tea House.
Four people...or rather, three corpses and one person, in front of Aunt Vanna.
The first victim's body was covered with deep scratches, which was shocking.
Those hideous wounds looked like they were repeatedly stabbed by a sharp blade, with the skin torn and the flesh blurred.
Each scratch was deep into the bone marrow, and the surrounding skin had turned black and purple, as if some kind of toxin was still remaining.
The deceased's eyes were wide open, his eyeballs almost bulging out of his sockets, and his face was fixed with an expression of fear and pain, as if he had experienced unimaginable torture before death.
His nails were broken and there was some swamp mud embedded in his fingers, as if he had struggled desperately to grab the ground before he died.
The muscles of the whole body are rigid and the limbs are twisted into unnatural angles.
This is death caused by hags whose claws are like rusty blades and who delight in torturing the weak.
The second dead man's entire body was covered in a thin layer of ice, like an ice sculpture.
The skin was abnormally pale, bloodless, and icy cold to the touch.
The blood vessels on the face were clearly visible, and the cheeks and tip of the nose had turned blue and purple from the cold.
The dead man's hair and eyebrows were covered with tiny ice crystals, his eyes were closed, and his eyelashes were covered with frost.
His lips were cracked, and there seemed to be a trace of unmelted ice hanging at the corner of his mouth, as if he had tried to breathe the last breath before death, but in the end only let the water vapor in his last breath solidify.
His clothes were frozen stiff and stuck to his body like a second layer of skin.
His whole body was curled up into a ball, with his hands tightly clasped against his chest, like an ice sculpture of a martyr.
These deaths were caused by winter hags, who were known for their extraordinary abilities in ice magic and who delighted in watching mortals freeze to death.
Winter Hags are also the most numerous hags in the North - of course, excluding the 333 years of falling into the Nine Hells. After all, at that time, magma and demons were everywhere, and the cold winter disappeared without a trace, which was really not suitable for the survival of Winter Hags.
The body of the third victim was soaked in sea water and turned white. His skin was loose and had a strange bluish-gray color.
The body was covered with circular marks left by suction cups, obvious signs of being dragged into the sea by a giant octopus.
The deceased's eyes were closed, but there seemed to be traces of tidal water in the corners of his eyes, hanging on the corners of his eyes and cheeks, like a string of tear marks.
His lips were purple, with traces of sea water in his mouth and nose, and his face contained a look of pain and despair.
All these characteristics indicate that he experienced suffocation before his death.
The fingertips were wrinkled like an old man's skin, obviously having been soaked in water for a long time.
The clothes were in tatters, as if they had been torn to pieces during the struggle on the seabed.
The deceased's right hand was still tightly holding a handful of seaweed, as if he had tried to grab something to save himself at the last moment.
This is death caused by the sea hag. Drowning is also one of the ways the sea hag destroys beauty.
As for the fourth person besides the three bodies, although he was not dead, his condition was not much better.
His eyes were closed tightly and his hands were tightly holding his head. His knuckles turned white from excessive force and his nails were deeply embedded in his palms, leaving several bloody marks.
His brows were furrowed, his lips trembled slightly, and from time to time, some soft pleas came out of his throat.
From the way he blocked and grasped the void from time to time, it could be seen that he was protecting himself from and fearing some non-existent illusions.
The dark blue circles under his eyelids showed that he had gone through countless sleepless nights, but even so, his body had been transformed by strange magic, allowing him to survive without food or water. However, he was tortured by the illusion of eternal existence and was exhausted both physically and mentally.
This is the horror of a green hag. Although all hags enjoy destroying others' hope, green hags are the only ones who use illusions to carry out executions.
After counting these four types, the last type that has not yet found a corresponding victim is...
Victims of the Night Hag.
"It's a troubling thing... The power of destiny has been triggered many times, and now, without the last victim, I, Auntie, have no way to maintain the full power of destiny."
Abes's guess was correct. Aunt Vanna did have a mechanism that was difficult to break. However, due to a slight gap in power, her mechanism was not perfect.
If all five victims are gathered together, with the blessing of the evil ritual, the so-called full power of destiny will be used. Although the goal is still to block and invalidate all thoughts of pursuing her, the effect and execution method will be much more cruel.
They are hit by random objects in their environment and become extremely vulnerable. Even rain can cause great damage to the attacked.
It can even make an iron bird or a griffin suddenly fall from the sky, making a coincidence that seems impossible to happen become a kind of inevitability.
Whether it is the direct means of investigation like Abes and others, or the indirect means of participation like Matthew, they will encounter the crazy revenge of the power of fate.
And this is the real interference of fate.
And making the enemy not so strong and luckily finding some correct paths may be the fate of the hero.