69novels 0012 Could he have come back from the dead?
0012 Could he have come back from the dead?
The first card was presented to Zhou Yun.
It was a clown dressed in elaborate costume, dancing on the parchment, his slender body making comical movements, his face, heavily painted, full of mockery and ridicule.
The clown card is based on the clowns who were loyal to the Laughing God of the Elven race, Sigaki.
Zhou Yun breathed a slight sigh of relief. It seemed that painting the Corpse King on the Golden Throne as a weasel had indeed been effective.
When Zhou Yun was still a diviner, he once drew the "God Emperor" card thirteen times in a row, which greatly frightened Grefax.
If no changes are made to the "God Emperor" card, the first card Zhou Yun draws will almost certainly be the "God Emperor" card, which symbolizes cold hope.
Zhou Yun looked at the clown card.
This card belongs to the Conflict suit, one of the four suits, which symbolizes enemies, hostility, and disputes.
The Clown card symbolizes trickery, deception, and conspiracy...
As expected, Cicero was plotting against Zhou Yun.
So, how did he carry out his trickery?
Zhou Yun turned over the second card.
On it lay an ugly man with a withered and decaying face, shackled and paralyzed on the ground.
The lost symbolize depravity, addiction, and being trapped in darkness.
Cicero is luring Zhou Yun into depravity, into darkness; this is how he uses his cunning...
Why beat around the bush?
Zhou Yun frowned slightly, his expression becoming subtle.
So he turned over the third card, hoping it would answer his question...
A distorted and chaotic subspace, amorphous dimensions, and the hideous and monstrous creatures that dwell within those dimensions.
This is... the Devil card...
Symbolizing the interference of those distorted and chaotic things in the subspace,
Zhou Yun stared at the card; the ink lines on its surface had actually begun to slowly move on their own.
The ugly, grotesque creatures on the parchment gradually transformed.
The monster revealed its bull's head and its androgynous body, with venomous snakes coiled around its body.
Slaanesh...
The serpent-headed statues in the Baths of Agath continuously spewed out pinkish-purple steam mixed with spices, enveloping the entire grand celebration in a hazy mist.
Looking around, the people gambling, bathing, singing, dancing, and engaging in lewd acts all turned into writhing shadows, intertwined and coiled together like snakes mating in a nest, with only their sticky sounds able to pierce through the pinkish-purple mist.
Cicero's red shoes trod on the damp ground as he walked deeper into the steam. He pushed open the narrow door at the end of the bathhouse corridor, inlaid with gold and jewels, and entered the private box.
He heard a suffocating sob.
The young girl's neck was being gripped by fingers as thin as withered vines, and her plump thighs, which sat atop the blind witch's withered legs, were trembling.
But the girl did not resist or show fear. Instead, she slightly stuck out her tongue, her face flushed, and her eyes rolled back, as if she were immersed in great joy.
The slave trader, Tuer, was licking the girl's trembling, delicate skin with his tongue, as if he wanted to lick her skin open and drain her life force.
Lipo, the priest of the Temple of Simonetta, crossed his legs, his red shoes, similar to Cicero's, swaying gently with the girl's sobs. He saw Cicero enter through the door and raised his wine cup in greeting.
Cicero nodded slightly to the priest Ribo, then sat down next to him.
The girl let out a whimper and collapsed onto the blind witch, like a snake with its bones removed, sliding off the witch's leg.
The slave trader, Thur, instructed his servants to carry the girl's body out, while lightly licking his lips a few times.
"The young lady of the Paulus family?" Cicero glanced at the girl and said, "Her, offered up by Lord Paulus?"
"No, it was voluntary. Her soul longed to ascend to the courtyard and enjoy bliss," the blind witch said with a smile, her voice hoarse and dry.
Killing the girl seemed to have granted her some kind of power.
Cicero never liked this kind of suicidal pleasure. There were still so many joys and sorrows in the world that he had not yet experienced, so how could he return to the metaphysical world so quickly?
"You should have already confirmed it, right?"
The blind witch turned her head toward Cicero, who couldn't understand how this woman "saw" anything.
"That scholar has probably committed suicide. Shouldn't you now learn to trust in the blessings of the first-crying god?"
"Suicide?" Cicero sneered. "I see Zhou Yun is still alive and well."
As he spoke, Cicero pointed to his nose.
"Look, this is what you call a dead man's doing."
"...This is impossible!" The blind witch was stunned for a moment, then said in a sharp voice.
"Then it seems my 'friend' has come back from the dead," Cicero said with a sneer.
"How could he, a mere foolish mortal, withstand the venomous bite of the first-crying god?"
The blind witch's voice was filled with disbelief:
"While you were leading him to pleasure, I was undoubtedly injecting the poison of joy into his mind, making him sink deeper and deeper into it."
"When he was in debt, I also instilled the poison of despair into his mind without a doubt, and let him be overwhelmed by the darkness of despair."
"And yesterday, when the Father's eyes were open, when heaven and reality were closest, and when the influence of the God of the Broken Lighthouse was weakest, I did indeed allow the serpent to gnaw at his soul, leading him to commit suicide."
"But he is still alive," Cicero emphasized again.
The blind witch's expression darkened.
"Perhaps it's Lucretius; that old fellow was his teacher," said Ribo, the priest of Simeneta, smiling as he finished his drink.
"If it was him who made the move, I would know," the blind witch retorted sharply.
"Then something must have gone wrong with your witchcraft!" Libo snorted a couple of times.
"What I used was the blessing of the God of First Cry, and the venomous snake's bite will never be an accident... He must have tried to commit suicide, but something else went wrong and he failed."
The blind witch hissed:
"Give me sixty-six willing sacrifices, and I can curse him to death, letting the serpent of the First Crying God tear his soul apart..."
"Sixty-six? Do you know how difficult it is to cultivate a believer who is willing to dedicate themselves? Do you know how much effort it takes to prevent Connor's hounds from smelling it?"
Lippo almost immediately rejected the blind witch's suggestion:
"For a girl like the Paulus girl, I would have to get the Paulus family to worship the god of first cries, and I would also have to make the girl spend time cutting off all her other social relationships before I could get her into your mouth without attracting hounds."
"In my opinion, there is no need to worry so much. That scholar has not yet escaped our grasp."
"After all, he still owes me money. If he can't pay it back next month, we can rightfully turn him into a debt slave."
Upon hearing this, the slave trader Tuer nodded approvingly and said, "I told you before, you've been killing too indiscriminately. There was absolutely no need to kill him. A scholar like him is highly sought after in the slave market. Killing him would be a huge waste."
"I'm afraid it won't be that easy."
Cicero pinched his brow:
"The reason we let the witch control him to commit suicide was because we were worried he wouldn't be able to get through the first phase of debt... His niece had some compensation money, and if we borrowed some more from that old man Lucretius, we should be able to get through the first phase of debt."
"That depends on your eloquence. If you can get him to the bathhouse, we'll have plenty of ways to make him owe even more," the slave trader Tull shrugged.
"I need to find an opportunity for him to be alone; his niece is quite troublesome," Cicero said, looking up.
Just then, the door to the private room was pushed open, and the aroma of grease, along with the girl's natural fragrance, wafted into the room.
"Now that things have come to this," Tours smiled slightly, "let's have our meal first. We can't waste the young lady of the Paulus family."
Inside the apartment, Zhou Yun looked at the tarot card that depicted the appearance of Slaanesh, the demon.
Cicero was indeed backed by cultists of Slaanesh, who were also able to use the power of the warp to some extent.
But why, why go to such lengths to target a scholar?
Given the sheer thickness of Macurag's veil, performing warp magic here is no easy feat.
Is it just for a tutor position?
Zhou Yun looked at the last tarot card and slowly reached out to turn it over.
This tarot card reveals the true goals of Cicero and the cultists behind him.
Zhou Yun, or rather, the scholar, was never their true target.
Zhou Yun probably just happened to be blocking their way.
The fourth tarot card depicts a monarch with short blond hair, clad in navy blue power armor, wielding a short sword. His face is filled with anger, as if he is about to punish those heretics who are plotting schemes...
The name of this card,
It is Guilliman's wrath.