Chapter 144: The Mystery of the God Fox

Once again, Miss Priestess thought of the semi-artifact known as the Mask of the God Fox.

She had vaguely felt that the Mask of the God Fox was definitely more than just a disguise for her original identity and aura, or merely granting her a new set of skills.

The most incredible aspect was the power to interfere with perception; even true gods could not see through the truth, at most realizing that her true form was not that of a fox, but this held no significance whatsoever.

One could even say that with the Mask of the God Fox, Vilyric had, in every sense, become a completely different person.

If even the most exquisite disguise couldn’t fool the gods and the celestial mechanisms, what if it were genuine?

Previously, Vilyric had struggled to understand the principles behind this semi-artifact, but as she began to encounter recent events and concepts related to “Existence,” she suddenly formed an absurd yet seemingly reasonable hypothesis.

Since “Existence” could be stripped away, and wearing the Mask of the God Fox would unconditionally make anyone perceive her as that Spiritual Fox Priestess, was it possible that this very mask stored a portion of that priestess’s “Existence”?

Just like that fake Cheng Doujiang outside—although he was not the original person, upon acquiring the stolen “Existence,” he could seamlessly become him without arousing suspicion.

In other words, had the “Existence” of the Spiritual Fox Priestess Ming Xi also been taken away?

No… that was clearly impossible and unreasonable.

The legend of the Spiritual Fox Priestess still circulated within the Ancient Spirit Realm and even beyond, having not been forgotten by anyone. Given her legendary powers, who could commit such an outrageous act?

Moreover, for Vilyric to temporarily don the Mask of the God Fox, it was said to be an item that the priestess never left behind, differing significantly from that Cheng Doujiang’s situation.

Unless there was a single possibility—that this was something she herself had done, and it was far from being as simple as it appeared.

Thus, the questions naturally flowed to the next point.

Why… would the Mask of the God Fox, a semi-artifact from “Fantasy World,” a game, become an item always carried by this world’s Spiritual Fox Priestess? And why could it temporarily grant Vilyric the identity of “Ming Xi”?

This had puzzled her for a long time, and now she found herself once more blocked by the same barrier.

Thinking of this, Vilyric couldn’t help but recall the “Wordless” stone monument in the ritual hall outside.

From the content left by Ming Xi, it seemed that she had not intentionally hid that segment of text; at least one part of it indicated that the inscription on the monument had suddenly disappeared for some unforeseen reason, becoming visible only to specific individuals.

Meanwhile, the words on the note hidden in the wooden box behind the monument, placed together with the Spiritual Fox Pendant, did indeed exist, which further perplexed Vilyric.

What was the reason for the difference between these two? Was it because they used different types of writing? The ancient divine language was certainly the most mysterious writing in the world, said to represent a kind of rule and power, but what did that imply?

And, the most crucial question.

Why could only she see the words that were supposed to have disappeared from the stone monument, and discern the truth that those Black Scale Army members had their existence taken away? Was it because of the power of the Divine Spark? Or some other reason?

Ultimately, she still lacked some key clues.

Besides that, Vilyric had one more thing she wanted to verify.

She raised the “Eternal Scepter · Heart of the World” in her hand, resting its tip on the only female officer of the Black Scale Army and activated “Information Detection.”

No feedback.

An unexpected yet reasonable outcome.

Typically, even if the target of “Information Detection” were just a rock, this unreliable skill would pretend to give a brief result like “This is xx stone,” but this situation of hitting rock bottom without a single descriptive word had never happened before.

This result indirectly confirmed Miss Priestess’s suspicion—the person whose existence was stolen was no longer viewed by the laws as something that ought to exist.

Perhaps Xiao Kong and others could perceive their existence and regarded them as sculptures, which was a result of their keen perception. If it were a less discerning ordinary person, they might even instinctively exclude these “utterly presence-less” things from their line of sight.

It was akin to a degraded version of the “Void” effect.

Confirming this, the black-haired girl summoned her magic, causing the tip of the holy scepter to shine with dazzling light, forming six rings of varying sizes that flew forth, starting to rotate rhythmically around the stationary figure of the other party.

Seventh-tier Holy Light magic “Prayer of Resurrection.”

This was a relatively common and widely-used low-level resurrection spell suitable for ordinary people without too much foundation. If it was a natural death, under the conditions of having such a degree of bodily integrity, it was sufficient to bring them back to life.

However, minutes later, the six golden rings gradually faded, and Miss Priestess frowned discreetly.

The resurrection magic had failed.

It was not that she couldn’t bring the other party back, but just as Vilyric had actually observed, these individuals hadn’t truly died from a simple life perspective; even the souls that represented them were still within, just taken in a much harder-to-describe form of existence, which accounted for their current state.

Even the most powerful priestess could not resurrect someone who was already alive; in other words, this form of “death” was something even Vilyric found challenging to handle.

If it were to be said, the only solution she could think of currently was to find the one who stole their existence and blow them up to retrieve the “Existence,” but whether it could succeed had to be tested in practice.

Hmm… it might be necessary to give it a try; after all, it was a completely unknown situation, and at the very least, she had to prepare a method to cope with it for her own sake.

“Let’s go, there’s no longer any useful clues to uncover here.”

“And what about these… Black Scale Army members, Miss Vilyric?”

The black-haired girl glanced at Murong Yun, who seemed to be straining to suppress his perception with reason, shook her head, and turned to leave.

“All we can do is leave their fate to chance.”

After leaving the room that harbored the strange “sculptures,” the four and one beast continued to explore deeper into the tomb.

Now Vilyric had begun to understand why the Spiritual Fox Priestess Ming Xi had specifically suppressed various foreign powers when constructing this place.

It seemed she wasn’t just doing it for fun.

According to what she had overheard during the interaction between the stone tablet and that fake Cheng Doujiang, the power of this “Nameless” Demon Lord might have been scattered and sealed across multiple different locations. To prevent them from communicating and converging, it was indeed necessary to block all means of detection within the tomb to maintain the stability of the seal.

If the entrance to the tomb hadn’t been damaged for some unknown reason, allowing certain outsiders to enter, such a sealing arrangement would have indeed been foolproof, and the Nameless Demon Lord would have had no chance of escape.

Unfortunately, that was hard to say now.

Vilyric didn’t recall Ya Zi back into the pet space; after all, in the current environment where both spiritual points and spatial magic were suppressed, its existence had become the most important guiding presence among the group.

Although Ya Zi also seemed unable to completely overcome the cognitive barriers of missing existence, perhaps due to a portion of the divine position inherited from the “Ancestor Dragon,” it could still catch some faint hints.

Just like before, while those Black Scale Army members were merely regarded as sculptures, Ya Zi had still caught a scent of life emanating from them.

   

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