Chapter 56 Purity

All the runes were ready, the "text" of the symbiosis contract was written on the ground of the deep sea, the summoner was in place, and the demon had arrived at the correct location—all the conditions required to start the ritual were complete.

Agou stood in the center of the rune matrix, its eyes flickering with eerie green flames as it watched Shirley at the edge of the array. With its consciousness becoming increasingly chaotic, it slowly nodded.

Encouraged by Agou, Shirley came to the "node" position of the array and tried to calm her mind.

She didn't know anything about these complex runes, had never received any formal occult training, and didn't understand the profound and dark rituals of the Annihilation Cultists—she was now uneasy, and in the face of these mysterious and difficult runes, she only felt nervous.

But she trusted Agou—she needed this friend, and she had to rebuild this connection.

She took a light breath, slowly closed her eyes, and used all her memories and imagination to outline the appearance of the demon she wanted to "summon."

And that image had already been deeply imprinted in her mind over the past many years. There was no need to describe it in her heart; that incomparably familiar figure had already appeared in her mind.

The runes on the ground began to light up slowly, and the ancient communication protocol was "awakened" in a logic and form unique to the Deep Sea Era. A secret and subtle sense of connection appeared simultaneously in the perceptions of Shirley and Agou, and it grew stronger and stronger as the rune matrix lit up…

However, just a few seconds later, all the runes went out without warning, and the connection that had just been established was instantly interrupted—a short, piercing shriek came from the air, vibrating the charred bone fragments all over Agou's body and the twelve skeletal limbs behind Shirley.

Shirley woke up from her meditation, widening her eyes in confusion and astonishment as she saw all the runes suddenly extinguished—her figure swayed, and she saw Agou in the center of the array also suddenly raise its head.

The rebirth ritual for the symbiosis contract had failed.

"How could this happen…" Shirley's expression was one of astonishment as she looked at the runes she couldn't understand at all, and then looked up at Agou, who was also in a state of confusion. "Did I do something wrong just now? Or are these runes wrong?"

"That shouldn't be… I even felt it start up…" Agou was obviously also confused. It walked down from the position representing "demon" and came to Shirley's side to carefully check the situation near the node. "These runes must be correct. This knowledge is almost directly imprinted in my mind. Your operation should be fine just now, otherwise you wouldn't be able to light up these things… But I don't know where the problem occurred in the middle… The whole process got stuck halfway…"

Shirley frowned hard. She noticed that the flames in Agou's eye sockets had begun to dim gradually, and its speech was also intermittent. She immediately panicked: "I… let's try again!"

Agou immediately nodded: "Okay, let's try again!"

So they returned to the correct positions again and tested the previous process again—but the result was still the same.

The rune array was briefly activated and lit up, but it could only last for a few seconds, and then it was "stuck" like a malfunctioning machine, and all the runes went out with a short, sharp screech.

Shirley began to panic. In the brief connection that had just been established, she felt that Agou's condition was getting worse and worse—reason and humanity were gradually receding from it. In a series of dazes, it could no longer even distinguish her appearance.

Accompanied by increasingly severe dizziness and interruptions in thinking, Agou staggered to the "node" position where Shirley was. It could hardly support its body. It could only lie down with difficulty, and while trying to concentrate, it opened its mouth in a low voice: "No… there must be something I've overlooked… The ritual arrangement is… is not a problem. The problem must lie in… in our current special states. We must… make adjustments…"

"Adjustments? How to adjust?" Shirley asked quickly. "Should I change my position? Is the position of the node not quite right? Or is this place not suitable..."

However, Agou seemed unable to hear what she was saying. Its head drooped, and an unsettling clicking sound came from its body. Its head shook from side to side, and it could only emit a series of low murmurs that Shirley couldn't understand at all.

And at this moment, Shirley suddenly felt a familiar aura. Immediately afterwards, a deep and dignified voice, yet one that made her feel especially safe and pleasantly surprised in this situation, entered her ears: "What are you doing?"

Shirley and the drowsy Agou almost simultaneously raised their heads and looked in the direction of the voice.

Duncan and Alice were standing not far away in the wilderness.

"Captain!?" After a brief hesitation and daze, Shirley suddenly reacted. She seemed to have forgotten the changes in her body, so that she almost tripped herself when she took a step forward—but she quickly supported herself again with the long limbs behind her, and quickly came to Duncan. "Captain, please help Agou, it… it's in bad shape. Our connection is broken. There was a problem with the rebirth ritual just now, and I don't know..."

"Stop, stop, speak slowly," Duncan quickly waved his hand to interrupt Shirley's rapid balabala, while frowning slightly as he looked at the girl in front of him, who had completely changed her appearance—he could still confirm from the "mark" that this was the Shirley he knew, but the other party's current demonic state made him a little stunned—Agou not far away also seemed to have undergone great changes. "What exactly happened to you?"

Shirley was stunned for a moment, her lips trembling slightly: "I… our chains are broken."

Agou not far away seemed to have temporarily recovered a little at this time. It raised its head with difficulty: "We… tried to hold a symbiosis contract ritual again, but there was a problem with the ritual…"

"There was a problem with the ritual?" Duncan immediately frowned and asked as he walked towards the rough temporary array on the ground. "What were the specifics?"

"It just started up and then suddenly stopped," Shirley explained to Duncan quickly while supporting herself forward with her hind limbs, and she explained to the captain the "knowledge" that Agou had just told her again. "... I was standing in this position, Agou was standing in the position representing 'demon', and then it didn't work..."

As she spoke, she bypassed the temporarily immobile Agou and quickly came to the center of the array, pointing to her feet and explaining the situation just now to Duncan: "This is where Agou was just now. The runes around here lit up just now, just… like now… like this?"

She hesitated and stopped.

Because she saw a circle of runes around her suddenly release a dim glow—immediately afterwards, all the runes on the entire array began to light up one by one, and flashed rapidly according to a complex pattern.

Duncan, who was next to the array and had just figured out how the so-called "contract ritual" worked, also saw this scene, and his expression gradually became a little subtle: "...?"

Shirley & Agou were also: "...?"

The ancient communication protocol took effect.

Alice saw a special set of "lines" extending from Shirley and Agou at the same time. Almost in the blink of an eye, the lines were guided by the faint light in the array to merge together, and quickly transformed into a physical form, reshaping the broken chain.

The whole process was too fast to react at all—when Shirley finally realized what had happened, the chain between her and Agou had been restored to its original state.

Afterwards, the contract array completed its mission, and all the runes finally dimmed completely, and gradually covered with a layer of withered texture representing depletion.

Shirley in the center of the array was in a daze for a while, and finally walked out of the position representing "demon". She raised her arm, and the black symbiosis chain made a clattering sound, while at the other end of the chain, Agou, who had recovered his spirits, was slowly getting up from the ground, shaking his huge skeleton head.

In those eye sockets that had once dimmed to almost extinguished, the fire was re-igniting, and once again releasing the light of wisdom representing the peak of high school graduation and half a step into a city-state university.

The atmosphere on the scene was slightly awkward for half a minute.

"Am I to understand," after a moment, Duncan stood next to the wreckage of the array and looked at the two "crew members" in front of him who had rebuilt their chains, but were still in the same form as before, "Agou, you are now really Shirley's 'guardian dog', and Shirley… you are now Agou's 'contract human'."

Shirley's expression was a little dazed, and Agou's posture was also a little dazed.

Alice had been in a daze for a long time, and she finally reacted at this time, and suddenly blurted out: "Why is this happening..."

Shirley's expression continued to be dazed.

But Agou's wisdom suddenly started to work. It thought for a while, and hesitated to speak: "...Purity."

Duncan's expression was subtle: "Purity?"

Agou raised its head and pointed to Shirley, who now had a part of human appearance, but looked almost like a deep sea demon as a whole: "Her purity as a deep sea demon… is very high."

"...That's not right," Shirley finally reacted from her daze at this time, and immediately spoke after hearing Agou's words. "My purity can't be higher than yours. Only the demonic part of my body has appeared. You were originally from 'over there'..."

Listening to their whimsical and serious analysis, Duncan looked at Shirley, and then looked at Agou. He also felt that this matter was incredible, so he couldn't help but think about it. As a result, a strange and uncontrollable thought suddenly popped up in his mind: "Perhaps..."

Shirley and Agou spoke in unison: "Perhaps?"

"Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Agou was once 'marked' by Rahm, the God of Wisdom," Duncan thought for a while, and despite feeling that this idea was outrageous, he still said with a serious face, "Although it wasn't dragged away at the time, it is now indeed a saint of the God of Wisdom—that's probably the reason."

Shirley's expression started to be dazed again: "..."

After a moment, Duncan took a step forward and patted Shirley's arm (she is very tall now, and can't reach her head anymore), and said earnestly: "That's why I often say, knowledge changes destiny."

(End of this chapter)