NOVPUBAiwass was carried by Beyard to Suite One.
Miss Beyard’s height was quite tall—Aiwass quickly estimated that she was close to one meter eighty. And even then, she was still wearing high heels.
She wore sharp-looking metal half-frame glasses, her black hair reaching down to her waist. Her emerald eyes, like those of a noble and arrogant she-wolf, hid a sense of cold indifference brimming with aggression.
She easily embraced the frail body of No. 14. Due to youth and nutritional deficiency, No. 14’s body was so thin it was almost like a shadow; Aiwass’s true form, even before becoming a Transcendent, could easily lift her up with just one hand, and Beyard, as a Son of the Moon, found it even easier.
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Within her arms, Aiwass curled up, displaying her own fragile harmlessness.
She gently gripped Miss Beyard’s collar with one hand, while the other hand curled awkwardly over her stomach. Beyard’s towering chest then pressed down on it, conveying a very noticeable sense of movement and oppression with every step.
Aiwass closed her eyes as if she had fallen asleep. But her eyelashes were trembling slightly, and her breath, suppressed into silence, betrayed her nervousness.
This is called "pretending"; pretending to be asleep.
Meanwhile, in her heart, Aiwass was chatting with the Shadow Demon:
"If I remember correctly… one of the birth conditions for a Shadow Demon includes a despondent person falling from a high place, right?"
She teased the Shadow Demon in her mind, "You couldn’t possibly be Miss Beyard, could you?"
As soon as these thoughts arose within her, a prolonged silence came from the other side.
"No way, I guessed right?"
Aiwass was somewhat astonished.
Only then did the Shadow Demon respond, extremely serious and low:
"I am definitely not her. She is definitely not me."
"—Sorry,"
Aiwass, sensing that the Shadow Demon’s mood seemed not too good, quickly apologized, trying to soothe it.
But another thought immediately followed in her heart: "Could it be… you are No. 14?"
"… What are you blindly guessing at, my adorable little master?"
The Shadow Demon was somewhat helpless: "How could I possibly be so weak?"
"Then you’re a friend of Beyard’s?"
"Stop guessing, my master. Close your eyes and rest."
The Shadow Demon sighed, but his tone became somewhat gentler.
—This was completely different from its usual arrogant and reckless tone; instead, it seemed a bit weaker.
"You’re quite adorable today," Aiwass replied in her heart.
"… Heh."
The Shadow Demon gave a cold laugh but said nothing more.
The more it refused to let Aiwass guess, the more her interest was piqued.
However, no matter what else Aiwass said afterward, the Shadow Demon no longer replied.
The distance from the hall to the suite was not far.
Aiwass was soon deposited on the bed—unlike the gentle carrying along the way, she was almost thrown onto it. Fortunately, the bedding was soft enough to allow her to continue pretending to be asleep, or rather, to feign death.
No sooner had she lay down than she could hear voices coming from the next room. Beyard, too, seemed to hear the voices and stood nervously by the wall to listen for a while.
Perhaps for entertainment, or maybe for a titillating atmosphere, the soundproofing in the suites was not very good. It was almost as if it amplified sounds—lying on the bed, one could clearly hear the next room’s voices through some kind of resonance, as if placing a cup telephone against the wall.
Considering the entire Crescent Moon Manor was fortified by Preservers, this design was obviously intentional.
The Path of Love was like this, emphasizing having a blast... the more skilled at playing, the easier it was to ascend.
From this perspective, this bizarre design could be considered a reasonable one meant to enhance the resonance of the Path.
But what surprised both Aiwass and Beyard was that the voices next door were not idle chit-chat during a break in some special game—it sounded more like they were discussing serious matters...
Aiwass clearly heard words like "Gargoyles," "Autonomous action," and "De-purification."
She held her breath slightly, wanting to listen more clearly.
But just then, Miss Beyard suddenly tore off a row of buttons from the front of her blouse.
She threw her buttons, inlaid with fine black pearls, into the four corners of the room while chanting softly:
"The Forged Buttoner, Lord of Fangs and Claws, Mother of Secrets, grant me a silent prison to incarcerate cat and pig."
—Was this a ritual?!
Aiwass was startled.
He actually recognized the ritual—his Ritual Studies teacher had told him about it before.
"Buttons" have the connotation of fangs and claws, whereas the Mother of Secrets refers to the ruler of the shadow realm, the Shadowy Celestial Marshal. "Cat" and "pig" are ritual allusions... the cat refers to a woman who, drunk or dazed, has lost the ability to resist, and the pig refers to a bound sacrifice or abductee.
Through this ritual, one can use the "Secret Art." This is a form of the Silence Art, not dissolving the sound inside but preventing sound from passing in and out of the barrier.
Was Miss Beyard also a Ritualist?
With the establishment of the ritual, a mist-like grey barrier enveloped the room.
It wasn’t particularly noticeable... it was as if, in a room of around twenty square meters, someone had smoked for half an hour, and one could feel a slight haze upon opening the door. Yet it was not so dense as to create an "otherworldly" feeling.
