Super Righteous Player
Chapter 838 - 376: The Rotten Husband’s Experience Gift Pack

Chapter 838: Chapter 376: The Rotten Husband’s Experience Gift Pack

Although Annan did not make use of the emergency rescue ritual prepared by the two Cardinals,

he still appreciated their kindness.

After all, these Priests of the Silver Baron had previously considered using the "Ritual: Dreamworld Exchange" to directly rescue them from the door...

The reason this ritual could ignore the locking effects of other nightmares and rituals, forcibly pulling people out, was not because it was of particularly high standing.

It was because the locking effects of the nightmares and rituals had not completely disappeared, but were simply transferred from the targeted individual to the person who was swapped in.

In other words, it was simply one person locked in place of another.

—This was precisely a tactic of exchanging life for life.

Had Annan not woken up early enough, it’s likely that the ritual would have been initiated as soon as their vital signs began to fall, forcibly pulling Annan out.

Tossed unprepared into an unknown nightmare of high difficulty with an uncertain number of cycles.

This was almost equivalent to death.

But those Priests of the Silver Baron did not show the slightest fear.

Because they were already accustomed to it.

And it was not because Annan, as a foreign Grand Duke, had to be kept safe. Even if an ordinary person were trapped in the nightmare, if the conditions allowed, they would also try to rescue them using whatever means they had at their disposal.

The duty of the clerics was to purify nightmares and eliminate curses.

They did not become Transcendents and did not engage in Transcendent powers not because they did not desire that power,

but to ensure that their death would not become a new nightmare—would not burden the innocent and their own comrades.

Because neither the senior nor Kafney had the compatibility with the "Beauty" Elemental Power, only Annan was locked in this nightmare.

If after clearing this nightmare, complete purification was not achieved—then Annan would be pulled back to the start of the nightmare.

But the one being pulled back would be only Annan himself.

By then, Annan would no longer have the assistance of Kafney and Salvatore but would have to duel with Twisted Husband alongside the original roles of the instance, the real "Dmitry" and "Bella."

In that case, the difficulty of winning against Twisted Husband and achieving the conditions for perfect purification... might well be more than doubled. Perhaps it would take cleansing all remaining chances before Annan could escape.

And that was if there was even a possibility to "exit with dual victories."

If they kept failing, it would become an endless Cycle.

"...And thankfully, you didn’t directly haul us out."

Annan felt a little frightened.

Not only because that would have led to the failure of his plan to fleece Twisted Husband of the "Immortal" Curse Binding and secure its positioning on Twisted Husband,

but it would also have meant innocent Priests dying in the nightmare in his stead.

"Twisted Husband personally came into this nightmare."

Annan explained the happenings within the nightmare to both Cardinals and Captain Alexander, "He used the duel ritual of the Thousand-Faced Phantom Tower, intending to tamper with me in the nightmare.

"If this ritual was arranged by a tragic playwright or Professor Wolf, it means they have reached some agreement with Twisted Husband. If you had directly swapped me out, it would have resulted in an enraged Twisted Husband killing me."

"If it’s truly necessary, I will personally enter the nightmare."

As if reading Annan’s thoughts, Cardinal Lorenzo comforted him, "I am very familiar with nightmares and might not be unable to escape... Besides, ’Sleeping Beauty’ is not a completely unsolvable ritual, as long as I keep purifying and completely deplete the power of the nightmare, I could escape.

"Even if I die accidentally in the nightmare, I can use Divine Arts to seal the nightmare away, so it would not involve innocent people any further.

"After all, I am already old, I have lived enough... but it is different for those young people. They are still young, they have time, they have potential."

Cardinal Lorenzo said seriously, "They can go on to purify more nightmares and save more people."

——Annan could feel that the old man was serious.

So, Annan could only be grateful that he was strong enough.

He hadn’t been slashed by the Rotten Husk—instead, he killed it instantly without losing any health. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have just been a problem of forgetting something, but it could also have resulted in the respectable old man dying in a nightmare.

After Annan had thanked the two Cardinals and the other Ritualists who had rushed over, the priests of Silver Baron didn’t take Annan’s gift; instead, they accepted Kafney’s offer to "deduct money from my account" and soon left with their expressions normal once more.

They were clearly used to it.

Emergencies involving the future heir to the kingdom and the ruler of a neighboring country weren’t common, but illegal rituals in the city of Noah weren’t rare... Otherwise, the shops that sold cursed materials would have long since gone out of business.

To prevent the failed rituals of those amateur Ritualists from causing disaster, the patrolling priests, upon detecting a ritual reaction, would immediately notify the Silver Baron’s priests on the Ritual Squad to interrupt the ritual.

Generally speaking, rituals take a considerable amount of time to set up, so there’s a chance to interrupt them if they are detected; but disrupting a ritual itself requires a certain degree of ritualistic knowledge.

If they were disrupted haphazardly, it could lead to the completion and failure of the ritual, and potentially trigger even worse outcomes.

And in the face of rituals not detected, more comprehensive rituals are needed to rectify the situation—the rituals that the Silver Baron’s priests can use, aside from the public domain rituals, are all unique to Silver Baron.

This limited their methods to some extent, but their skills also grew gradually as a result.

"Are you really, really okay?"

After they had left, Maria leaned in close to Annan and asked in a worried whisper, "Are you physically okay? And your mental state? Didn’t the Rotten Husk cast some weird Curse Binding on you?"

"I won the ’Immortal’ Curse Binding from the Rotten Husk,"

Annan reassured Maria in return, "But it’s not a big deal; I did it on purpose... With this Curse Binding, I can trace the Rotten Husk in return.

"Besides, I bet he won’t be able to recover anytime soon."

As Annan said this, he couldn’t help but smile.

This was all part of the plan set by Annan in the first cycle, a conspiracy to murder the Rotten Husk—the "Immortal" Curse Binding, which bypassed the Rotten Husk’s authority and granted directly to Annan, must also have been part of Annan’s original arrangement.

The ultimate goal was to paralyze the "especially good at escaping" Rotten Husk’s ability to flee.

Apart from this "mission material,"

It truly was a bountiful harvest this time.

Although some of it was due to Annan displaying talents in "Wisdom" and "Understanding," causing spontaneous growth...but it definitely wouldn’t have increased by so much.

The state of Annan’s soul elements panel now looked like this:

[Soul Elements: Brilliance (100%), Wisdom (100%), Understanding (85%), Beauty (43%), Strictness (26%), Glory (10%)]

Compared to before, the awakening degree of his elements had increased by far more than 100% in total. In addition to Wisdom and Understanding, even [Beauty] and [Strictness] had risen.

——This was all "the flesh and blood of gods" squeezed out from the Rotten Husk.

If these had to be obtained through cleansing Twisted Tier nightmares to gain sporadic Elemental Power, it probably would have taken more than ten nightmares to acquire...

The "Wisdom" element which reached a hundred percent awakening depth, didn’t seem to cause some kind of mutation in Annan as the "Brilliance" element did immediately, but it must have started working in less obvious ways.

For example, when faced with a "Conan-like" choice among three options, there were far fewer wrong deductions...

——He remembered it well.

When they entered the nightmare, the total erosion rate displayed was 68%.

Annan suddenly turned his gaze towards Salvatore, his eyes sharpening.

"Senior Salvatore," Annan narrowed his eyes slightly, "please explain.

"Why did your erosion rate suddenly rise so much?

"——What exactly did you do? Why haven’t you told me about it until now?

"Were you planning not to tell me if I hadn’t noticed?"