Chapter 193: The alchemist queen's chamber of resurrection

Once the oath activates, the paper burns to crisp, leaving the burning enchanted runes floating in the air. 

Then, the runes wrap into a sphere and penetrate all five raven demons' chests like extended spears. There is no pain, but the ravens can feel an intense source of foreign mana chaining down their hearts. 

Once they experience the blood oath, the demons realize the burden of their every action. There is an invisible balance behind their back, and they can hear the clicks of that balance readjusting its weight. 

Some shiver from the thrill of the unknown future, and others sense their necks getting chained by thorns. 

Once the oath is placed in their hearts, the runes turn blue and shatter into orbs of light.

The raven demons let go of their held-up breath. 

Trigon looks where Kyrie stood, but the spot is empty.

"Noble one?"

"H-Here….."

Trigon tilts his head down to see Kyrie crouching down.

"D-do you need a potion?"

"No… It's not the lack of mana…."

"Then…. Do you require the assistance of a witch?"

[A witch to assist me?!?]

Kyrie shivers as Ian's glare pierces deeper into his skull.

"No! I am a loyal man! My preference is not in any other species! I just need to sing the anthem…."

"Loyal? Species? Anthem?"

The other raven demon asks Trigon, "Do they use human healers?"

Trigon glares at that demon, "Shush it! How can a noble demon use a human healer?"

"But he meant that no?"

A light bulb abruptly lights up. Trigon's eyes suddenly water, and the ravens look at each other about Trigon's sudden enlightenment!

"Our noble sir is too noble! How can he be a demon?!?"

The other ravens look at Trigon, confused.

"Our good, noble one is only devoted to using his own men."

A wave of emotions suddenly floods to those love-starved demons. They are beyond touched by the crouching noble sir! How can there be such a noble demon lowering himself like that to other lowly demons? 

The noble one should be sculpted into an eternal precious stone! The crouching pose has shown them a humility that they don't have. 

What is this heavy feeling they have on their chest?

A fierce flame burst inside their hearts! Is this devotion what they are feeling? Can demons actually handle such pure emotion?

They should be now, flat in the ground to stay below level! They want to show their loyalty back!

Ian picks Kyrie from the demons circling him to place their bodies flat to the ground facedown!

The raven demons lift their heads with many questions to Ian, but they quickly want to shrink into balls from Ian's fierce glare.

"Scram!"

"Yes!" The ravens stand up and leave the room.

Kyrie has his face buried on his knees from the embarrassment while whispering the good old anthems. He looks like a touched caterpillar on the tabletop.

Ian chuckles at Kyrie's funny posture, "They are gone…. But what happened to them?"

Kyrie peeks by lifting his face slightly but seeing Ian's face, so up close in his situation, almost gave him several degrees of blindness.

"They must have had some side effects from the modified blood oath."

"Side effects?"

"Intense disillusions of the contractor's greatness…."

"...."

Meanwhile, the raven demons gather to discuss the making of their organization's new symbol: the crouching demon with his subjects flat on the ground, faced down. The symbol would look pretty from high up like a flower….

The other raven demon suddenly asks Trigon, "By the way, what is an anthem, boss?"

"How can a lowly demon like you know?"

'I have no idea as well…. Maybe it's a regeneration spell or some high-up secret that our organization hasn't got information from. We even have information from the greatest demons. Our great sir is just too great! Should we make the sculpture with diamonds?'

(There are no national anthems in this world.)

----

"We look forward to working with you," The raven demons bow as Kyrie and Ian step out of their hiding place.

"We will send the tea leaves to your inn and prepare for tomorrow's moon."

Kyrie nods, confirming his information purchase regarding the sugar cane forest and manpower to explore that rumored place.

When Kyrie has heard about the forest for the first time, memories of the novel keep flashing in his mind.

In the novel, there is a small section where the innermost chamber of the tomb is described. Yue has written about the chamber regardless of the fact that the main protagonist has not even come close to entering that place. I always felt strange about the part that took two chapters to explain, so I read them a few times to see if there was some foreshadowing.

The original location is a deposit of massive amounts of jade. The coincidence that the stone mine is jade seems almost godsent.

After all, the stone has another name, the elixir of immortality. It fits well with the alchemist queen's lifelong yearning of eternity.

The chamber represents her obsession for immortality; every object is sculpted using the jade deposit. However, it is not a place where someone can live. Most of this chamber is covered in water and planted with modified lotus flowers closer to being homunculi than a plant species.

Those lotus flowers are another of the symbolic things she did for her place of resurrection - rebirth. 

For a long time, the queen has already successfully tempered near-perfected pills of immortality. However, through her continuous experimentation, she cannot eliminate the risk that she needs to first die to be reborn into an immortal. 

She knows that she has only one try, but the thought of death has taken a painful grip on her very soul.

She has let those pills sit for decades. Through those decades, she has started the construction of her place of resurrection. The time that she passed with all those turbulent emotions has made her spiritual. 

She starts to believe things that are not scientific. The traditional belief is that after death, the burial place would look like where the dead will live in their afterlife. However, her resurrection chamber looked nothing like other kings and emperors' tombs. 

However, she doesn't want to die. She yearns for life, so her entire chamber is about her rebirth. And the homunculi lotus flowers are her guards of choice. They are white with beautiful tips of tender pink, but they are deadly. They are just illusions, a facade for those naive creatures to dare to enter her resurrection place to suffer the deadliest pain from poison and later be fertilizer to those things.

According to Phanes, however, the alchemist queen died by her hands. But in the novel, that queen's body is laid carefully in the innermost chamber. 

What really happened in the past is all in question. There are too many contradictions between what was relayed by the late Fae Queen and the novel's contents.

But one thing is for sure, the sugar cane forest could be due to the water inside the alchemist queen's resurrection chamber. The only reason for the sugar cane forest to exist is that there must be a spring underneath that place.

[We might find another entrance if that is true.]

Kyrie and Ian turn to the main street, but the kid at the corner is no longer there.

Kyrie's thoughts get interrupted by the noise of the market and Ian's shoulder brushing against his.

All of a sudden, Kyrie feels his shoulders press down. He looks back to see Musa leaning against his shoulder.

[What the hell is this ugly creature?]

Ian grabs Musa's head and throws him off Kyrie, but Musa lands like a cat defying gravity.

The corner of Musa's lips twitches, and Kyrie checks his body to see if that demon placed something. However, there is nothing that Kyrie finds odd.

"What did you do?" Kyrie looks at Musa coldly.

"You look stunning even when you are angry, little noble."

However, inside Musa's mind, Kyrie's thoughts resonate.

[What is this demon scheming?]

Ian takes Musa into the corner of the street by the collar and smashes him against the wall.

Musa gets flustered when Ian takes off his jacket.

"I don't bottom, my dear friend."

"Quiet!"

Then Ian lifts Musa's shirt, and in the center of Musa's chest, a gem bordered with gold is embedded into his flesh. 

Kyrie looks at the gem, "This is a relic…."

Musa widens his smile and nods, "Yes, pretty boy."

[Shit, I have no recollection of what this gem does. One with this odd maroon color.]

Musa looks at Ian glower. 

The relic that he placed in his chest is what he gained inside the gates while working with Ian. The relic can help the possessor read the mind of one individual for fifteen days. 

Ian digs his nails into Musa's skin, making Musa nervous at his intent.

"Okay! Okay! This is a relic with mental attributes."

"What did you do?" 

Blood starts to flow out, making Musa tremble from the pain.

"I foresaw my death, and only you two can help me! Wait! Wait! You too! Ian! You will surely die as well, so you need me!"

Kyrie stops Ian from yanking the relic out from Musa. 

[How can I trust you?]

"You can trust me! You have to! You don't have a choice!"

[So it is mind-reading….]

"Shit…." Musa murmurs since he has responded to Kyrie's thoughts.

[Well, you are not the first one to do that to me…]

"Ah?" Musa blinks dumbfounded." What… what do you mean?"

Kyrie smiles brightly, which makes Musa shutter. He does not know what the hell he has done to himself.

[Some others have read my mind and slightly regret it. Slightly.]

---

In a faraway place, two goddesses sneeze while feeling chills. 

"Are you alright, your majesty?" Uriel asks Vita, who is rubbing her arm from the chills.

"Of course, are you treating me like a mortal now?"

"Oh, no. I dare not!"

---

Musa follows Kyrie and Ian back to the inn-restaurant while thinking about what Kyrie has told him.

[Ian looks so perfect with those thin horns paired with his short black hair.]

Musa jolts as he looks at Kyrie's eyes shining while watching Ian walk with the utmost normalcy.

'What the heck did I just….'

[God bless his ass…. They are so well shaped that it makes it hard for me to not want to squeeze them….] 

[Thank the lord, he is legal!]

'L-legal? Who is the lord?'

A bunch of high-definition images of Ian with a max-level love filter enters Musa's head. Musa freezes at the shockingly beautified version of Ian. 

Then, Kyrie's memory of Ian pops into his head. 

Ian looks away melancholically while wiping blood off his face. Then, a smile blooms on Ian's face, with Kyrie's figure reflected on his pupils.

'Why does he look all twinkly after killing someone?!?! What is with that atmosphere around that brute???'

"Stop! Stop it, pretty boy! I get it! I get it now!!!" Musa places his hand on Kyrie's shoulder.

Kyrie smiles innocently at Musa while Ian is confused why Musa's eyes are watering like two waterfalls. 

"Please stop! I can't deal with this level of… of…. Of what the hell is this?!?!"

[It's love~ It's my intense love for the handsome, most good-hearted man of this entire world!!!!! My Ian!]

Musa wants to scream, but he finds his voice stuck in his throat. His spirit might float away from the 10.0 magnitude goosebumps!

Then, Musa remembers something critical: he is stuck with it for fifteen days.

Musa falls on his knees with his palms landing on the floor. The amount of rotten dog food shoved down his throat makes the man want to lose his mind. 

He will be puking dog blood for fifteen days! Is this how he really dies? Blood loss? What is the point of him coming to them if he is going to die from mental damage?