The Righteous Player(s)

The moment the fabricated nightmare world shattered, a prompt that Annan had never seen before emerged before his eyes.

[The world has been purified.]

Isn’t the prompt usually the nightmare has been purified?

Also, I didn’t enter the nightmare, so why did such a prompt appear before me?

These thoughts came to Annan’s mind.

Then, he continued reading the prompts.

[Seeing through the truth of the nightmare. Your evaluation ratings increased.]

[All members survived. Your evaluation ratings increased significantly.]

[Achieved purification upon the first entry into this nightmare. Your evaluation ratings increase significantly.]

[The “remains of the Venerated Skeleton Midas” have been purified. Your evaluation ratings increased significantly.]

[Complete purification as an apostle. Your evaluation ratings will be reduced.]

[Comprehensive Evaluation—S+]

[Obtained Shared Experience 29500 points. Perception+3. Will+1.]

[Obtained the reward for clearing the dungeon instance: The weaker profession is promoted by 3 levels.]

[Receive world purification reward: Element (understanding) awakening depth increased by 25%.]

[You have mastered “Ritual Spell: Trace of Divine Transporter”.]

[Based on the region where the nightmare belongs, the Bone Burying Grandma has blessed you with the curse vessel: Bone Picker’s Forgiveness.]

[Bone Picker’s Forgiveness]

[Type: Weapon / ritual item / mystical item (Gold)]

[Description: A weapon in the form of a double-barreled short hunting gun with pure white wings and golden runes. It’s equipped with only one bullet. It can be transformed into a silver ring.]

[Description: It predates any known ‘gun’. Before the invention of ‘guns’. it seems to have had other uses (“Mysterious Ritual” check failed).]

[Effect: Anyone killed by this gun will be forgotten by the world.]

[Cost: Sufficient resolve is necessary to fire the bullet.]

“Forgiveness, huh? So, you handle forgiving the dead, while I’m in charge of making them dead, is that it?” Annan complained subconsciously.

…What a weird item!

Why would you give me something like this?

Of course, Annan knew that “Bone Picker” was the alias of Bone Burying Grandma.

“The Grandma didn’t even give me holy light engravings this time.”

Do you feel like it’s too much trouble to deal with all these holy light engravings this time, so you’ve simply decided to cash them in directly?

Annan rarely used the divine art in the Bone Burying Realm.

Probably that was why Grandma gave him a potent curse vessel.

Although it could only be used once, this effect was worthy of the title of a curse vessel of upright deity.

Strictly speaking, this gun was not a weapon.

Because it only had one bullet.

In reality, this exceptionally cool-looking gun had no magazine, nor any place to load bullets or gunpowder. Its barrel was merely a shallow indentation, less than a centimeter deep, making it even more simplistic than a toy gun.

At least a toy gun could shoot little pellets.

In this way, it was utterly impossible for Annan to load his own bullets.

Rather than calling that indentation a gun barrel, it was more apt to describe it as the groove that had been carved into a stone wall during animal sacrifices, meant for the flow of blood.

The place for the trigger was actually a pendulum… the kind of thing that swung rhythmically beneath a clock.

The moment Annan took the gun, he accidentally touched the pendulum. But he didn’t hear any mechanical sounds emanating from the body of the gun. It was soft and yielding, conveying no feedback whatsoever.

—It has a mind-reading safety mechanism.

Is it so advanced?

Annan quickly stopped paying attention to this new toy.

After turning it into a ring and wearing it on his hand, he continued to check the dungeon instance rewards.

Although this dungeon instance wasn’t triggered by Annan himself, he unexpectedly received a portion of the rewards… He just didn’t know if it had taken away any share from the players.

What surprised Annan the most was that the Ritual Spell called “Trace of Divine Transporter” actually belonged to Idol School.

—The magic seemed to be the one Euphemia used: the Ritual Spell to borrow Annan’s power.

However, this magic didn’t seem to have much practical use… Or, rather, Annan didn’t know what its specific effect was.

When Annan witnessed this magic previously, he was just standing by, watching the show — seeing Euphemia sweating buckets, totally wiped out from keeping the ritual going. Meanwhile, Celecia was beside her, just screaming her head off, “Ahh!” But she didn’t seem to be fighting it, nor did there appear to be any special effect. In the end, they both just melted away.

What exactly does this magic do?

Annan curiously skimmed through the description for his spell, only to find that they weren’t written very clearly either.

[Level 2 Chant: “Divine Transporter, I am the gatekeeper! I stand as the gatekeeper of three gates: I am the sentinel of sight and creation, the guardian of virtue and permanence, the keeper of worms and cicadas.” With this invocation, the summoner called upon the celestial “Divine Transporter” dwelling above the three gates. Each activation will release one-third of the Divine Transporter’s light. However, surpassing the compatibility limit during activation can result in the user’s own “melting”.]

[Current ritual compatibility: 100%]

—I don’t quite get it.

However, Annan at least knew how to use this ability.

The main reason was that Annan didn’t quite get the three gates. He didn’t know what the effect of “Divine Transporter Light” was either. The Divine Transporter light summoned by Euphemia was definitely not in the correct usage.

This strange usage was simply like knocking someone unconscious with a gold brick and then exclaiming, “Is this the power of money?”

Even a bizarre man would not be able to use it like that.

As for the three gates, it was even more confusing.

Even with Annan’s accumulated knowledge, he had never heard of the “three gates”. He hadn’t even seen this word in any occult records.

However…

Annan understood what the “cicada” meant — because cicadas had the habit of “molting”, and “molting” was actually another way of saying “Dyed Rank”. Therefore, cicada was a reference to “the way of sublimation” in mystical knowledge.

So, if cicadas are the transcenders, what are the worms?

Could it be the Fallen?

But this seems rather unlikely. The Divine Transporter is the culmination of the path to ascendancy — in the ascendancy ritual, the one being elevated ultimately boards the Divine Transporter to reach the Light Realm, thereby achieving divinity. It makes sense that the “cicada” is related to the ascendants; however, it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the Fallen ones.

For instance, the nightmare from another world had already ended, and the scoring segment had already begun.

However, the players’ vision had not yet recovered. Instead, it was still pitch black.

Perhaps this was where Eileen had been within the fragments of the nightmare, undergoing the final ascension ritual.

It was annoying to mention this.

Annan’s Book of Truth was clearly the Book of the Divine Transporter, but when Elle was ascending, he couldn’t see it at all…

If the “Three Gates” was not an unpopular pronoun, then this meant that it came from at least the “Historical” Level… or even other occult knowledge of the Creation Level.

That meant top secret.

I’m afraid I’ll only get answers to these questions when I meet that blabbermouth poet again…

At present, it seems that it probably has the special attack effect guaranteed to critically strike and break through defenses, specifically targeting the “fate” element…

“I just don’t know if this special attack will be equally effective against mages of the Prophet School.” Annan murmured.

But at the next moment, four consecutive prompts suddenly appeared before his eyes:

[“Justice” is taking notice of you…]

[“Mercy” is taking notice of you…]

[“Sacrifice” is taking notice of you…]

[“Hope” is taking notice of you…]

“…Um?” Annan was stunned for a moment.

…What’s going on? Why has the number of sacred bones observing me increased?

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