The lackeys were dead. By every reasonable expectation, the mastermind should have made her entrance by now. But she'd already performed necromancy on two corpses, and still no sign of that woman. Surely she hadn't laughed herself to death?
"So you're afraid of me acting on impulse now? Too bad — I am absolutely the type to hold grudges forever. You'll understand that soon enough, you insufferable creature."
Since the woman seemed determined to make things worse for herself, she wasn't about to warn her. She pulled the second Assassin's residual spiritual energy into the mirror and, using a little of his still-damp blood, cast the auxiliary spell for accelerating vengeful spirit formation. Then she checked her pocket watch: just past six.
The thought of this being precisely when the Nighthawks were beginning their most active hours made her smile involuntarily. Pity that this relatively captivating smile would only be visible to the occasional natural spirit peeking at her.
After a moment's thought — since the woman clearly intended to play things out a little longer — she was willing to play along briefly.
She put the magic mirror away. After retrieving the mirror from the bodies that had been tracking her position, she could feel that it had definitely been enchanted with a spell — just one that was well beyond her current understanding.
She didn't think she'd actually divine anything useful from it, but not trying would hardly demonstrate professional dedication, would it?
She condensed another ice mirror and simply sat down on the grass, propping it on her lap. Left hand holding the retrieved mirror, right hand resting on the ice mirror's surface, she murmured:
"The person who cast this spell."
The Mirror Divination she was performing wasn't a formal spell — only an occult technique. No incantation was required, and no magic mirror was strictly necessary.
The nature of divination was this: a person's astral body, or rather the spiritual energy of the astral body, communicated with the spirit realm and returned with insights related to the medium and the question asked.
There was nothing arcane in the process itself — what determined how well it worked was the strength of the diviner's astral body. This was why Beyonder diviners consistently obtained meaningful results. Compared to ordinary people, the astral bodies of Extraordinaries — reshaped and enhanced by their potions — were not only stronger but also more receptive, capable of gathering more extensive and clearer insights.
The astral body was the second layer of a person's spiritual form — the layer most sensitive to the spirit realm and to the stars. All communication with the spirit realm in divination was conducted through it, and it was also closely bound to a person's will and emotions.
As for the spirit realm — the potion's knowledge described it only briefly as completely overlapping with the real world, making it omnipresent. Every person's astral body was continuously exchanging information and insights with the spirit realm at all times; very few people simply ever noticed the spirit realm existed. Unlike the real world, the spirit realm had no up, down, left, or right. Knowledge and information from the past, present, and future could all converge within it — which was why divination sometimes retrieved information about future events. It was also the birthplace and home of natural spiritual entities; when they periodically disappeared from view, they had simply returned to the spirit realm and could no longer be perceived.
She had actually begun to wonder whether all spiritual energy in the real world originated from the spirit realm, and whether the dispersal of spiritual energy was simply a return to it. The reason for the speculation: the Witch's knowledge mentioned that places where the real world and spirit realm were most closely aligned were also the most likely to produce vengeful spirits and the undead after death. And for such things to form, beyond strong resentment from the deceased, abundant spiritual energy was equally necessary.
After the seventh repetition of the divination phrase, she looked at the mirror in her lap — nothing had appeared. She wasn't surprised. The spell she was trying to read was in her hand, and still she'd received nothing — obviously the divination had been interfered with and had failed.
Against someone whose Sequence was certainly higher than hers, she didn't attempt a second try.
Of course, interference only reduced the probability of success and the amount of information obtained — it didn't guarantee failure. A differently worded question might have extracted some useful information.
The problem was that she'd just become a Witch, and her understanding of divination came entirely from the potion's built-in knowledge. She didn't dare rephrase the question carelessly, worried that imprecise wording might lead her to something dangerous.
For instance, "the origin of this spell" might divine the person who cast it — but it was also entirely possible it could lead directly to whoever created the spell, especially given that interference was already confirmed.
If the second scenario played out, the diviner could die on the spot — what if the spell's creator was the evil god that woman worshipped?
"What would I need to do, if I wanted to join this cult?"
Lost in thought, she instinctively reached to scratch her head — then her fingers touched the long, sleek black hair and she stopped, unaccustomed to the sensation. She ended up just tucking the strand that had been tickling her behind her ear.
Must get a hair clip… She made her first quiet concession inwardly. Used to short hair her entire life, she simply couldn't stand these strands brushing against her face at random moments. She'd lost count of how many times she'd already pushed her hair back since becoming a woman.
With an idea forming, she sat down on the grass — and immediately regretted it. The sensation in her chest was deeply unsettling.
The ice she produced, if not deliberately controlled, would spread rapidly on contact with clothing. Managing this across several areas had become an ongoing exercise, so she'd taken a shortcut: she'd created ice only in the space between her upper skin and the inside of her clothing, and used it to press everything firmly against the skin above. Under normal circumstances, the result was stable — she wouldn't be distracted during movement by unfamiliar sensations. Sitting down abruptly was not a normal circumstance.
She shook her head hard and did her best to ignore it, turning her attention instead to examining how her supernatural capabilities had changed since becoming a Witch.
Compared to Assassins and Instigators — Extraordinaries who simply possessed a few unusual abilities — a Witch's methods and associated knowledge were in a completely different category. Beyond what she'd already used: creating illusions with mirrors, entering mirrors, using mirrors for communication and transferring objects, an invisibility technique, and a range of vicious, bloody, and distinctly unsettling dark magic arts and ritual magic…
A single potion had transformed her from someone completely new to the occult into a Witch proficient in multiple spells and better versed in occult knowledge than many unaffiliated Extraordinaries. The Witch potion genuinely deserved the qualitative leap that woman had described.
"It really would have been better if I'd been a woman to start with — or if the potion didn't do this."
She let out a sigh. A power this Beyonder having a price was entirely normal. But becoming female was an extraordinarily steep price.
"At least I don't have anyone I'm very close to right now, or this would be social death in every possible sense.
Fortunate that I told Old Schneider at the bar how to clear the potion's influence before I left that day. Otherwise…"
She covered her face. The embarrassment was painful even to imagine. Though of course, if things had gone that way, she absolutely would not have told him in person.
Sensing a pull on her inspiration, she didn't need to look — the special substance that could substitute for the potion's primary ingredient was already precipitating from the body.
After waiting a few more minutes and carefully collecting a pitch-black eyeball fringed with what looked like spines, a similarly dark finger, and a deep-black tooth still faintly odorous — all placed into iron boxes — she released a Magic Mirror Interference spell and began making her way back toward Moen City.
Before leaving, she performed one more mirror divination, learned that the remaining five ordinary people who had been involved in hunting her had returned to Moen, and said pointedly to the empty air:
"Make sure none of you are still around when I find you. Because I will make you wish you'd never been born."
Author's Note (this chapter): "So you're afraid of me acting on impulse now? Too bad — I am absolutely the type to hold grudges forever. You'll understand that soon enough, you insufferable creature."
雨书春秋 Simple trash talk, taken to an art form.