Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 972

Jenkins headed to the basement to retrieve the ritual materials while Audrey went upstairs to get some warm clothes. The temperature in the living room was probably nearing freezing.

Even in the basement, the rhythmic knocking was as loud and irritating as if it were right next to his ear. By the time he had prepared the materials and begun the divination, the second visitor had already been knocking for about two minutes. When the divination concluded, the result displayed within the chalk circle on the coffee table was a stack of three dice.

The topmost die showed a two.

"What does that mean?"

Jenkins had never encountered this method of divination before.

"The probability of it being safe is greater than it being dangerous, but not by a wide margin."

The woman's voice was inexplicably weak, and in the firelight from the hearth, her face looked a little pale.

"So, should we open the door?"

He directed the question to his teacher.

Audrey wasn't certain either.

He glanced down at the cat curled into a ball beside him. It opened one eye to look at Jenkins, then closed it again, burying its head deeper into its fluffy body with a contented "meow~".

"Alright then," Jenkins declared. "Since this is my house, I'll be the one to decide."

Seeing no objections, he strode toward the foyer. He glanced at his Destiny's Stage, then twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open.

"Heeey~ Good evening~"

Outside stood a clown with a red nose, thick greasepaint, and colorful hair. Compared to the clowns who had died in the mirror world, this one was dressed more professionally, as if... as if it were a genuine clown.

Jenkins wasn't quite sure how to describe the feeling, but the figure before him, despite its black spiritual aura, showed no signs of malice.

The eerie darkness and chill inside the house made it feel like a tomb, yet everything outside was perfectly normal. It was just an ordinary spring night.

The moment the door opened, the oppressive atmosphere and the incessant knocking vanished, as if this were nothing more than a typical occurrence on a typical night. Fınd the newest release on novel(ꜰ)ire.net

"Heeey, buddy, could you spare a piece of candy? It's for the kids watching the show."

The clown asked in a flippant tone, its voice thick with an accent. Jenkins heard footsteps behind him as the women approached.

"Of course, candy..."

There was a candy box right on the shoe cabinet in the entryway. It wasn't there for trick-or-treaters, but to keep Chocolate from wandering off after coming inside, giving Jenkins a chance to wipe its paws clean before it could soil the carpet or sofa.

He grabbed a large handful and offered it to the clown. The clown chuckled, extending two white-gloved hands to receive the candy. It cupped them together, took the sweets, and stuffed them into a pocket on the front of its overalls. Then, it plucked off its red nose and handed it to Jenkins.

"Here's payment for the candy, you generous fellow!"

With that, it ignored Jenkins completely, turned, and walked toward the gate. Simultaneously, an unseen force pushed Jenkins a step back into the house, and the front door swung shut on its own.

Jenkins held the red ball and looked back at the two women.

"That was a friendly visitor—the Red-Nosed Clown, designation A-04-1-6671-12. It asks whoever opens the door for candy, but any sugary food will suffice. When it leaves, it randomly gives one of three items: the 'Red-Nosed Bomb,' the 'Clown's Pocket Dimension,' or the 'Color-Changing Wig,' designated A-04-1-6671-12 (1), (2), and (3) respectively."

Brolignans said, then added:

"Alright, it seems we were lucky... Jenkins, whatever you do, do not let that ball touch water. It activates upon complete submersion, and it explodes in water. From our current location, it could probably blow up half of Nolan."

The house grew colder and colder, becoming unbearable even when they were huddled on the sofa under blankets. After dealing with the second visitor, the three of them returned to the living room, sitting by the hearth to draw warmth from the fire. Chocolate, naturally, was curled up beside Jenkins.

"The last divination seemed quite accurate. Are you going to perform another one?"

"No, I think that would be too difficult for me now."

Brolignans said, not touching any of the items on the table. Instead, she looked directly at Audrey.

"Audrey, it's your turn. Let me see what you have learned since leaving my tutelage."

Audrey bit her lip but did not refuse. She didn't choose the three dice, however, instead taking out her divination cards as she always did.

She shuffled the deck quickly, then cut and drew the cards according to standard procedure. Throughout the process, her expression remained calm, but her eyes had rolled back, showing only the whites. Audrey's divination abilities had improved immensely since her arrival in Nolan, but Jenkins still wasn't optimistic about this reading.

Sure enough, her hand began to tremble before she even revealed the chosen card. But no one else could interfere with the divination process. After repelling the third visitor, Audrey finally obtained a result.

The card depicted a gaunt figure holding a coin purse and a dagger. It was "The Thief." In a typical reading for fortune, this card represented the capriciousness of fate—it could mean either the purse or the dagger.

"Audrey, are you alright?"

The water in her teacup had gone cold. Jenkins used a flicker of flame to warm it before handing it to her. Audrey whispered her thanks and cradled the cup. Cold sweat trickled down her cheeks, pasting strands of hair to her face. She looked as if she had been suddenly struck by a vicious illness. The temperature in the room had now dropped below freezing, which was deeply unsettling.

The card's result was yet another ambiguous answer, but Audrey had clearly given it her all. Divination was of little use against this type of anomalous entity; the fact that the previous reading had yielded any results at all was mostly due to luck and coincidence.

The fourth visitor was growing impatient. The sound of pebbles striking the windowpanes grew more frequent. Outside the small bubble of light around the sofa, the rest of the house was now completely enveloped in darkness. Even the flames in the hearth seemed to be under immense pressure, flickering weakly.

The three of them fell silent, their ears filled with the cacophony of sounds from the outside.

Jenkins felt an immense sense of oppression; the familiar comfort of being in his own home had vanished entirely.

He looked up at the women. Brolignans had her head bowed, lost in thought, while Audrey's gaze was vacant, fixed on the deck of cards on the table.

"Two and a half minutes until the fourth visitor gives up waiting," he announced. "Any thoughts?"

He asked the two diviners, but they simply stared back at him with the dazed expressions of people who had just been woken from a deep sleep.