I, the leader of the esoteric sect, am doing great things in the infinite world!

Upon closer inspection, it was not light, but rather the reflection of light falling on the surface of his pupils.

Roland straightened up little by little, took out a gold ring from the cabinet, and put it on his little finger.

The gold pinky ring contained a turquoise, which he kept hidden from everyone by clenching his fist.

Roland pushed open the door, ready to face his destiny.

A refreshing breeze blew outside. No one was holding a pistol to his head anymore, and no steel giant, exuding imposing majesty, was smashing him into mincemeat with a spear.

Roland stood in the corridor covered with a beautiful carpet and suddenly burst into laughter, sobbing uncontrollably.

He knew he had won his bet.

But now is not the time to relax; he needs to seize every second to get help from his mentor and the gods!

Roland ran all the way to his basement.

The bronze key was inserted into the lock, turned three and a half times to the left, and then twisted. The heavy door opened with a bang, and Roland cautiously pulled the key back and closed the door again.

He walked down the passageway, the torches on the stone walls on both sides flickering, as if he were gradually heading towards the underworld and death.

He thought of Mansu, which had no left, right, front, or back; only up and down. The closer one got to the radiance, the higher one went; the closer one got to the Void Realm and the Sea of ​​No Light, the lower one went.

Roland quickly banished the ominous thought from his mind.

Finally, he stood on solid ground, gazing at the etched ground before him, the ever-burning torches in all directions, and the gold cups, coins, daggers, and bells placed in the four corners.

Roland walked to the very center of the ceremony, picked up the silver dagger placed on the altar, and made a cut around the altar.

The air distorted for a moment, but quickly returned to normal.

This symbolizes that the surrounding environment has been "purified" in a mystical sense.

Roland closed his eyes and first recited his mentor's "honorable name".

"A free spirit, unfettered, dwelling in the crevices of the woodland;"

"A protector unseen in the darkness without light;"

"In the emptiness of dreams, the forgotten remain unseen;"

"Among the fossils that are neither dead nor alive, the ancient ones that have not been extinct."

"Protector of Algiers' dancers and musicians, a scale insect that flies into the woodlands..."

The candlelight flickered, and Roland felt his vision gradually blurring as the shadows of the woods slowly enveloped him.

Just as a surge of joy welled up in his heart, the woodland illusion before him vanished instantly, and he was back in the circular ceremony, surrounded by the abhorrently familiar scenery.

Roland stood there, stunned. From the brief connection they had just made, he had sensed... fear?

Even mentors have fears?

......

"I saw him."

Theresa stared at the woodland, holding the sunglasses in her hand so that she could only speak with her back to Nian.

Even so, a brilliant light still radiated from her, so intense that even Nian felt its heat.

“Let’s try again,” Theresa said encouragingly. “If I try again, I’ll be able to meet him.”

319 Named Individuals

Roland stood in the candlelit basement, drenched in cold sweat.

That feeling of being watched by a higher gaze, and feeling completely out of place, returned once again.

He could clearly feel that his mentor was about to touch him and pull him into the ignorant shelter of the woodland shadows. But what had happened that made his mentor feel fear and give up on him?

Roland's lips unconsciously curled up, and he increasingly felt that he was caught up in an absurd drama, with someone watching him put on this spectacular show.

“Very well.” He heard his own voice in the candlelight. “Then let us all return to the woods.”

Roland's heart was filled with hatred, not only for Li Lin, for the exiles, but also for the mentor who had abandoned him.

He rearranged the altar, removed the blackened gold cup and the murky water, and with a sinister smile, plunged the tip of the dagger into his own skin.

"It hurts...it hurts so much...but why do I feel happy about it?" Roland laughed hoarsely, slicing off the skin on his arm piece by piece, exposing the bright red tendons to the air, and blood gushing out.

Roland knew of a ritual that even his mentor was unaware of, and the first step of this ritual was that the apprentice had to peel off his own skin.

This was Roland's first time using the ritual, and he should have been a little awkward, but there were no stumbles as expected. He tore at his skin with the dagger as if he were tearing rags.

He did not intend to summon his mentor again.

Roland knew his mentor's nature well. Before Roland ascended into the woods, Roland never went out of his way to cause trouble unless he was absolutely certain of success.

Even now that he has become a shelled species and a long-lived being of the Marked King, the mentor's courage has not increased much; on the contrary, he has become even more cautious.

Roland was certain that his mentor would no longer help him.

Then the only option is to bypass the mentor and directly pray to the deity to whom the mentor belongs—one of only seven named beings under the command of the Marked King.

Its honorific name is [Heterodactylus], and it ranks first among the seven named beings of the Marked King!

To perform a ritual directly to the gods without going through the mentor is undoubtedly dangerous. The chaos and yearning impulses emanating from the moth can easily rob the apprentice of their mind, and the influence of the gods' gaze can cause a wide-ranging reaction.

But Roland didn't care at all. He even had an impulse to directly ask the Marked King if the Winged Wing didn't respond to his prayers.

A significant portion of the Sichen are extremely dangerous to humans, including the Ant Queen, the Twins, the Split Wolf, and naturally, the Marked King who shelters the forest's alien species, Sichen Moth.

"A wanderer adrift in the night, a protector of sleeping souls;"

"A nest woven from heterochromatic hair knots, a fossil existing only in imagination;"

"The oldest and foremost of all shelled species, the forest moth with black and white wings, the eldest son of the Striped King!"

Roland laughed maniacally: "I pray for your arrival, I call upon your name, on the land protected by saltwater, under the gaze of Mother Mountain, within the measure of the time of the Dharma!"

“I tan my skin as clothing, I tear my face as a mask, I offer my body as an idol.”

He tore out his own eyeballs and placed them in the palms of his left and right hands.

“I offered my eyes, like jewels, to the shelled creature, so that he might take them and place them in his nest in the woods.”

He peeled off the skin on his chest and poured mercury inside. With a ripping sound, all the skin on his body was peeled off, and Roland stood on the ground covered in blood.

“My skin, like a pupa shell, was offered to the shell-bearer so that he might place it under the moss on the rock.”

He cut off his own fingers, letting them fall to the ground one by one.

“My fingers, like mouthparts, were offered to the shelled creature, so that he might place them on the branch of the honey tree.”

Roland gushed blood, and on the verge of death, he knelt in the very center of the ceremony, his hands hanging limply, like an angel whose skin had been peeled off.

“I call your name here, and I call you into my body. If you hear me, come to me, and I will sit with you at the table.”

He used all his remaining strength to utter his last words.

"I hereby request the help of the Winged One!"

You will be destroyed along with the descending One who bears your name!

Roland thought this with a sense of smug satisfaction as his breath gradually faded away.

......

“Death, that’s a good idea,” Theresa said gently, “but death always brings us one step closer.”

The named lamp, who had long resided in the Wise Knight's Hut, extended his hand: "Like the woods, there can always be a little brighter."

Heterodactyl ranks first among the named moths, and his nest is actually closest to the waking world, but the woodland is so vast that finding his nest will take some effort.

Just as the radiant Lightbringers of the Wilderness are unwilling to come to the Woodlands, the Scaled Species of the Woodlands will not wander outside.

The former are often hunted by the named individuals in the woodlands for snacks, while the latter are rare consumables in the lodge.

The conflict between woodland and glow has a long history. Silkworms always hold a negative attitude towards glow, while moths have an unusual fervor for it. "Scaled species only exist in imagination, but glow is not."

Theresa had a hunch that after the Night's Watch pilgrimage began, when the sun rose, the moths would eventually be unable to resist throwing themselves into the intense light, just like moths plunging into flames.

The moth is like this, and so are the named ones under His command.

For the Winged Ones, Teresa's light was naturally more attractive than Roland's desperate sacrifice.

In the chaotic, surging darkness, under the pale, paper-like moonlight, a large, frightening moth emerged from a nest woven from black spider silk and white hair; its form was always half decaying and half gestating. When it peeked out, following Teresa's glow, Nian saw its head clearly.

It was a grotesque head that resembled both insects and reptiles, covered with dense, tentacle-like bristles on its top. Its dark pupils, however, resembled two black gems with countless cross-sections, reflecting countless points of light, radiating an indescribable allure.

His body seemed to be composed of both ugliness and beauty, and in contrast to his writhing, fat, and rotting body were two enormous wings that resembled clouds. The left half was a dull, dark black, which did not reflect even Teresa's light, while the right half was a pure, pale white, like the pale moonlight that always shone on the woodland.

This is the first named member of the moth's crew, known as the eldest son of the Striped King, and the oldest of all the shelled species.

Its name is Heterotyping.

The mere awakening caused the shadows of the woodland to expand wildly outwards, instantly approaching the first gate of Mansu, near the pure white gate. For a moment, the pale moonlight and the pure white snow clashed and clashed, while in the lush shadows of the woodland, only a jagged rock still stood.

That is the ancient ruins of a god called the Wheel of Reincarnation, a former sacred site known as the Temple of the Wheel of Reincarnation.

The appearance of the Heterodactyl not only led to a surge in the power of the forest, but its influence was also not to be underestimated... Where the pale moonlight shone, the shadows of the forest grew wildly, and between the shadows and the moonlight, countless braid-like things stretched outwards, determined to drag everything they touched into the forest.

Not to mention the consequences of witnessing the alien wings—about one-fifth of Theresa's herd of Strikers went mad in an instant. Grayish-brown fur grew on their skin, but upon closer inspection, it was not fur, but tough braids. Something had parasitized their bodies through some mysterious connection.

Theresa didn't say anything, but simply turned her gaze back to the Heterodox Wing.