Chapter 85

Beside the winding river outside the village of Cordu, under the bright sunlight, Aurore sat on the ground, wearing a light blue dress, and listened with closed eyes to Lumián's feedback and speculations about the song.

She remained silent for a while, as if lost in thought.

After nearly a minute, Aurore finally spoke, carefully choosing her words: "If it's true that something went wrong with the Twelfth Night ritual, causing the power of that hidden existence to disperse and create a time loop for the entire village of Cordu and the surrounding area, then I believe that everyone, and even spirits, in this region at the time would not have been spared."

"What do you mean?" Lumián, who was also sitting on the ground, didn't quite understand his sister's logic.

Aurore explained in detail: "What I mean is that it was both power and pollution. Once it dispersed, everyone in this area would have been relatively equally affected by this pollution. Only those protected by the Black Thorn symbol or other high-ranking existences could barely remain unaffected. Think about it, at that time, it was like a dam collapsing and quickly flooding the entire area, including the rooftops. Unless you had a boat prepared in advance, your body would inevitably get wet."

Lumián imagined such a scene and hesitated, saying: "So, you mean everyone in the village was polluted by the dispersed power and became part of the loop? When you say 'part,' you don't mean they joined the loop and were influenced by it, but rather that they became components of the loop, right?"

Aurore, with her golden hair lightly tied back, nodded gently: "I suspect that not only would killing the parish priest cause a reset, but killing any other villager in Cordu would also result in a similar situation. It's like trying to destroy a part of the loop, which would inevitably trigger a systemic response."

"But we only killed the midwife yesterday afternoon," Lumián's sentence trailed off, as he instantly thought of many things and hesitated, saying: "Is it because the people in the castle were protected by other high-ranking existences? Is this why Mrs. Pouali said she could leave at a specific time?"

She wasn't polluted by that power and wasn't part of the loop, but rather someone influenced by it, who could leave by exploiting loopholes or opportunities. Aurore sighed gently: "That's why she said she couldn't save us and couldn't take us out, because we are already polluted and are part of the loop."

At this point, she gave a bitter laugh: "Or, in other words, we are already dead, currently living as components of the loop."

No wonder that mysterious lady said that forcibly breaking the loop would cause everyone here to die, because we are the loop itself that would be forcibly broken.

Lumián fell silent. He had wanted to contradict his sister, saying it wasn't so pessimistic, but this well corroborated the words of the mysterious lady.

What he couldn't understand was that, given her ability to freely enter and exit the loop and her boldness in mentioning the rank of the hidden existence, even if she couldn't break the loop without damage, she should have been able to protect two or three people.

For her to leave should have been a simple matter.

Now there was a more reasonable, though more despairing, explanation.

After a few seconds, Lumián sought a counterexample: "Ava, Raymond, and Naruka are all dead, and it didn't cause the loop to reset."

Aurore smiled with a complex expression and said: "Perhaps they were already dead when the loop started, not participating in the Twelfth Night ritual, and thus not polluted."

Her meaning was clear: in the world before the loop, Naruka died before Lent, Ava and Raymond were sacrificed during the festival, and none of them made it to the Twelfth Night, so they weren't part of the loop.

She thought for a moment and added: "Jean-Mauri, who went missing today, might also be in this situation. According to normal development, he should have discovered the anomaly after Lent and before the Twelfth Night, tried to escape, and was silenced. Our investigation just made it happen earlier. The only thing I can't understand is, wasn't Raymond's body sacrificed? He shouldn't have been part of the loop from the beginning..."

Hearing his sister's words, Lumián immediately thought of what happened in the basement of the church.

The无形的人穿着黑色长袍，是由雷蒙德等人的灵魂组成的！

Lumián, combining his existing knowledge of mysticism, tried to offer a sacrifice to the hidden existence, and speculated: perhaps the sacrifice at the Lent festival altar was part of the Twelfth Night ritual, which is why Raymond's soul appeared in the church basement.

His body was of no use, but in the development before the loop, Ponsbene and others could leave Cordu. To prevent the bodies from being discovered downstream and reported, which would bring an investigation, they might have retrieved the bodies after completing the part of the ritual involving the river.

After the loop started, the power had its own limits and didn't cover the area where Ponsbene and others retrieved the bodies, so they were influenced by the pollution in their bodies and couldn't think of leaving the area.

Aurore thought for a moment and nodded in agreement: "In all these days of the loop, apart from you, the three outsiders, Mrs. Pouali, and her subordinates who retained their memories, no other villagers have left Cordu, or even thought of going into the mountains to hunt or gather wild fruits."

"If I hadn't been reminded by you, I would have been the same," Aurore said, with a bitter, self-mocking smile: "We are already a group of monsters, barely living as humans thanks to the loop."

"No, there must be a way to save us, the lady said there is," Lumián interrupted his sister's self-pity.

Aurore slowly exhaled and said: "Can't you let your sister be vulnerable for a few minutes?"

She then said: "Based on this reasoning, we can only rely on ourselves. External forces breaking the loop would mean killing us."

Lumián sighed: "Unfortunately, this hypothesis can't be verified now; we can only wait until the Twelfth Night to confirm it."

"Verification is possible, but it would waste a lot of time, and I can't do it," Aurore replied.

"Right," Lumián roughly understood his sister's meaning or plan: to kill a villager not in the parish priest's team to see if it would cause a reset, and if it did, to try to kill one of the three outsiders to see if it would trigger the loop, and if not, it would confirm Aurore and Lumián's hypothesis.

Most of the people in Cordu before the loop were polluted and were part of the loop, while later arrivals were only influenced by the loop and had a chance to escape using loopholes or external help.

But that would waste the many days of waiting, and Aurore wasn't the type to kill innocents, especially those with whom she had a good working relationship.

Lumián, however, had no such moral qualms. In his view, dying in the loop wasn't truly dying; it was probably just a matter of some residual issues, which was better than being trapped in the loop forever.

Of course, if he were to do it, he wouldn't try to murder or trick Lya and the others, but would directly reason with the three outsiders.

Given Valentine's fervor and piety, he had a good chance of convincing this guy to try suicide.

The siblings looked at each other, falling into silence for a moment, saying nothing.

After a while, Lumián changed the topic: "Sister, where do you think the key to breaking the loop from the inside lies?"

Aurore had been thinking about this problem and said, pondering: "I think breaking the loop from the inside can't just be about breaking the loop; we must use this to remove the pollution from each person's body, otherwise, it's no different from suicide."

"What's the difference? Well, according to our previous hypothesis, the ritual went wrong, causing the entire village to enter the loop. The reason the ritual went wrong is because you have the mark of that great existence, which was activated, sealing the heavy pollution in your heart," Aurore said, looking up and down at her brother.

Lumián instantly understood: "You mean the key to breaking the loop is me??"

Aurore nodded: "The source of the problem is with you, so the key to breaking the loop might also be with you. Of course, this is just a guess. Perhaps the key to the loop is the vessel that received the power of the hidden existence during the Twelfth Night ritual, such as the parish priest or someone else."

Aurore suddenly fell silent, looking at her brother for a few seconds: "Is there a possibility that these two hypotheses are equivalent, and you are that vessel? Otherwise, as a minor sacrifice and a polluted entity, any problem wouldn't have caused the ritual to fail completely, with the power dispersing uncontrollably."

"Uh," Lumián thought more and more that his guess had some merit.

He muttered to himself: "So, the black thorn symbol on my chest is darker than the parish priest's. So, when the parish priest was attacking me, there was a sudden loss of control, and I killed him. So, the mysterious lady never revealed the key to breaking the loop, only telling me to explore the ruins of the dream and uncover the secrets there."

Aurore was a bit excited: "Right, that might be a hint! The ruins of the dream might directly originate from the pollution in your body, or be closely related to it, so you can use the black thorn symbol to suppress every monster you encounter there."

"Once you understand the secrets there, you can, to some extent, control or safely activate the power within you, recover the pollution from every person in Cordu, and the loop will naturally be broken."

"Right, this might only be possible at a specific time, such as during the Twelfth Night ritual."

Lumián stood up suddenly: "Let's go back and dream now!"

"No need to rush," Aurore supported herself with her hand and slowly stood up, "Aren't you injured? Don't you need to rest?"

Lumián patted his chest: "The water Mrs. Pouali sprinkled healed all our injuries, and our spirits were fully restored."

"Uh, Yangzhi Ganlu? Guanyin of the Child?" Aurore murmured.

"What?" Lumián didn't understand at all; his sister was speaking in a very unfamiliar language.

Aurore closed her eyes and smiled slightly: "I mean, go home, eat a full meal, take a nap, and then explore in your dreams!"