World Occult Usage Guide

"plan?"

"Hehehe, you've fallen into my trap, ranger!"

The voodoo priest smugly patted the hand drum at his waist, making a rhythmic "dong dong" sound, while his bare feet danced a twirling dance.

Lin An sniffed, and a strong smell of alcohol and chili water wafted over.

Guede, or in Creole, “Fèt Gede”, the name of the Guede family.

The families of mediums within Voodoo who control the powers of life, death, and reproduction are quite famous in the Caribbean and western parts of the United Kingdom.

This concept is a fusion of the image of a "saint" from Western religions, and the secondary "medium" Loa, which is an extension of orthodox sects.

Its spread across two oceans allowed Voodoo's doctrines and principles to deviate from tradition and flourish everywhere.

The Gede people are composed of five famous family figures: short, dark-skinned, wearing tall hats, fond of smoking cigars and eating apples, and each presiding over different forms of death, such as accidental death, death of children, death from disease, etc.

According to voodoo legends, the Gerd family possesses the divine ability to read minds and understand everything that happens in the world of the living and the dead.

Compared to the Loa, the five Ged mediums are easier to communicate with, acting as intermediaries.

Human requests are relayed by them to the orthodox deities, who will then act as executors.

All Souls' Day on November 2nd is the most active time for the Gede family. On this day, Voodoo believers usually drink raw rum, rub their bodies with a mixture of goat chili peppers, tie hand drums around their waists, and dance a dance called "Banda" to the rhythm of the drums.

It is no surprise that the voodoo priests are "Gerds".

Strangely, no matter how Lin An silently chanted in his mind, the system did not display any interface.

Did it crash?
Suddenly, two fragments of memory flashed through my mind.

Since arriving in the Southern Continent, this kind of "crash" problem seems to be happening more than once.

Neither Mezo nor the white unicorn, nor the first out-of-control mystery he encountered in the Southern Continent—the father of the hyena-man—jumped off the panel.

Whether the former is the prototype of the Kingdom of Abyssinia is still unknown, but the latter makes Lin An think more and more strange.

After obtaining the finger of the creator god and gaining a thorough understanding of the mysteries of Bantu, Lin An searched high and low but could not find a third unicorn image besides Kapalanka and Abada.

Logically speaking, the white unicorn was one of the two prototypes he had guessed.

That's strange, could the system really have a bug?
Lin An opened his panel. Recently, he had recklessly allowed the pollution level to increase to the point that the value almost broke through the 30% mark, and it was currently at 29.4%.

"Brother Tongzi, you're not going to go on strike because the pollution level is too high, are you?" Lin An rarely chatted with it.

"【Mysterious Encyclopedia】All data modules are operating normally, code monitoring is normal, and data display is normal." The system's notification sound became extremely slow, as if it had instantly switched from 5G to 3G.

This is probably related to the voodoo magic that imprisoned him.

“Isn’t that guy a ‘Gede’? His features all point to that prototype,” Lin An continued to ask.

"I'm sorry...we are temporarily unable to...obtain..."

"Forget it, killing him will naturally get me the entry. I want to see just how obscure this mystery is."

The system's voice grew slower and slower, so Lin An had to temporarily withdraw his attention.

"Forest ranger! Hehehe, you didn't expect that, did you! From the moment you arrived in Ivory Coast, from hearing the recruitment announcement for helpers, from the medical assistant test, it was all—"

The voodoo priest was still rambling on when Lin An interrupted him expressionlessly.

"Is this some kind of 'prophet's' plan? A shaman, let me, as a 'seeker of knowledge,' sort out the ins and outs."

The voodoo priest froze, and the drumbeats and dance steps slowed down by half a beat.

“First, you killed someone remotely during the World Tree’s online meeting in Kinsasha, and deliberately proclaimed your support for ‘Kapond Kumasi’ to win the election, which piqued my interest in tracking him down to Lacono by inquiring about his whereabouts.”

"Then you released the news of the press conference, which restricted my activities to Abidjan in Ivory Coast. So as soon as I landed, you were able to easily lure me in with the bait of the press conference and further shrink my range of activities."

"In the end, you used my curiosity to lure me into investigating the lady's background and the strangeness of the vaccine, thus delaying the process. And I, guided by the 'prophet,' actually worked diligently and conscientiously for six whole days."

Lin An rolled his eyes.

"The 'prophet' is the most cunning medium. Despite having little combat power, they can utilize every available element to guide others toward a destiny predetermined by human intervention."

"So what if you guessed right?" The voodoo priest's sinister laughter came from beneath the bone mask. "In nine minutes—it's eight minutes—you'll be dead without a burial place. Hehe, do you want to try and see if you can still sit up now?"

Lin An tried to sit up, but his arms went limp, and he lay back down on the ground.

An indescribable heaviness not only weighed on his body but also imprisoned his soul.

Lin An felt as if he were being crushed by a stone weighing a thousand pounds. His chest felt tight, his abdomen was cramping, and he felt indescribably uncomfortable all over his body.

As time went on, the three "chains" binding Mrs. Adamek became tighter and tighter, and the negative feedback to him became more and more severe.

"Comers" is sluggish, its system reacts slowly, and it even has difficulty manipulating mysterious objects.

Sleep paralysis, right...?

“It seems it wasn’t just the rope; you also gave her a sedative.” Lin An pinched his numb muscles and continued speaking to himself, “I initially thought you were the ‘Mother of Desire’.”

"Are these your last words?"

“When I first examined Mrs. Adamek, she wasn’t a mystic, and then a vague feeling told me she was safe.” Lin An rolled his eyes. “I guess it was that prophet’s misleading statement that made me convinced she was an ordinary person.”

Just now, as countless mysterious prototypes of Voodoo swept through his mind, although he did not obtain the priest's specific panel, the system did project a green data onto the bound Mrs. Adamek, which indirectly indicated that its identification function was not damaged.

[Name]: Little Angel of Kindness, Little Soul
[Rating]: Ghost Story, Level D

Radiation level: 0.8%
[Pollution Level]: 72.1%
[Medium]: The Mother of Desire
A newly awakened mystic could not reach such a high level of contamination, even if the Mother of Desire transferred her level of contamination.

Therefore, the lady probably became a mysterious figure a few days ago, but Lin An was unaware of it.

As for the so-called "little angels of goodness" or little souls, they come from one of the central theories of Voodoo, which believes that everyone has two souls, a "big soul" and a "little soul".

The "greater soul" is responsible for thoughts, memories, and feelings, while the "lesser soul" is responsible for protecting the former's spirit.

All forms of voodoo can affect the soul, which is easily displaced. When a priest communicates with a Loa, they can cause the blood of the target to rush to the head, heating and infecting the spirit, causing it to fall into a trance.

This state means that the individual's "little soul" has been driven away, and a "deity" has taken its place.

From then on, this person speaks, acts, and behaves like a god, because he has lost control of himself and finds himself able to do things he wouldn't normally do or couldn't do. This trance-like state will last for several days, after which the exposed person will remember nothing.

Voodoo priests will allow the possessed person to fulfill their wishes unharmed. Before starting the ritual, they put the possessed person's little soul into a jar, send the Loa away, and then return it to the person who was being targeted.

However, the person in front of him was clearly not a proper priest.

Lin An had a premonition that when Mrs. Adamek's level of contamination reached 100%, she would become a living "voodoo doll" linked to him.

The voodoo priest only needs to kill her to kill Lin An as well.

As for how his sorcery suppressed the source-level...

“The weakest insects are often the most terrifying and efficient predators.” The voodoo priest picked up a candlestick inlaid with turquoise and crystal, placed it on the back of his neck and lit it, “especially when they are in swarms.”

"Boom!"

Flames ignited, and faint vibrations came from above as a thousand people danced in sync with the voodoo priests.

Lin An blinked, and dense green data appeared on the ceiling, like countless greenbottle flies crawling all over the cracks in the stone walls of the dome.

"Little soul", "Little soul", "Little soul"...

The data is all the same and there are countless numbers.

He had never seen so many mysterious figures before; it was like a "sea of ​​monsters" in a low-quality legendary web game.

Those foreigners who had been vaccinated have now become semi-out-of-control mysterious figures of the "Mother of Desire".

Their eyes were vacant, their fragile wills possessed by higher thoughts. Although their bodies remained seated, their souls began to leap, their hips rhythmically bending, moving, and twisting like centipedes with their spines.

The collective trance-like prayer created a hallucinatory mist that swirled and lingered above the space, gradually gathering above the voodoo priest's head, condensing and dripping like water vapor hitting an ice ball, and an even greater power descended upon him.

The dripping mist emitted a cool-toned light, seemingly at an extremely high temperature, distorting the surrounding colors.

The dripping flames multiplied and coalesced into a pillar of fire that descended from the sky and shone upon the candle atop the voodoo priest's neck. Its outer shell melted, revealing a serpentine dagger with a sharp, poisoned tip that gleamed with an ominous dark green luster.

Wait, collective strength?
The more of the same medium present, the stronger its force...

Lin An, who was observing, frowned. Wasn't this the "Lord of the Earth"?

Even the beams of light penetrating down from the ceiling were somewhat similar to the amplifying aura of the Earth Lord, reminding Lin An of his former teammate Barry.

However, the fact that only the "Mother of Desire" can graft and give birth to such mystical beings of the same kind indirectly explains the medium of voodoo priests.

Then why did he exhibit the characteristics of a "lord of the earth"?
What the hell is this thing?!
"vomit!"

Before she could think further, as the dagger appeared, Mrs. Adamek, who was tied to a tree and unconscious, suddenly vomited. Her vomit was full of live maggots and cockroaches.

"Hehehe, hehehe, you're going to die when the dagger cuts off this woman's breasts, forester!"

The voodoo priest grinned wickedly as he drew his dagger and approached her while drumming and dancing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lin An, who was also affected, casually wiping the acid from the corner of her mouth.

Damn it, this isn't the finale of The Devotion of Suspect X.

When Mrs. Adamek vomited, Lin An personally experienced the pain described in the phrase "as if she were vomiting out her soul."

He almost fainted from the pain.

The collaboration between the source-level "prophet" and the "mother of desire" is indeed terrifying. From the moment Lin An decided to come to Abishang City, the fate of death, like the sword of Damocles, was already hanging over his head.

Previously, Lin An could only react passively, but one cannot fall into the same river three times.

"No...use?"

As the system's extremely slow final syllable echoed in his mind, Lin An's lips curled into a smile.

"use."

At the same time, the voodoo priest raised his dagger and stabbed at Lady Adamek, the wind whistling sharply.

“You are not Mary Gilgood Adamek, but the Ranger! I will call you by his name, and you will take his place!”

"You are Him in this world and in time, in all worlds! Make Him so! Make Him so!"

"Dad, clean up this space, let all living things return to nothingness!"

"Pfft!"

He laughed maniacally, and the poisoned dagger drew an arc as it pierced the lady's chest. Blood gushed out, soaking her clothes and the taut ropes, dripping onto the ground.

"Hehe, hehe... Hmm?"

The voodoo priest's laughter stopped abruptly. He paused, then reached out a finger to wipe the blood from his wound and licked it.

"Fresh blood, red blood—impossible!"

The next moment, his pupils suddenly shrank, and he saw that Madame Adamek in front of him was like a two-dimensional flat painting. Her entire figure collapsed and shrank in a spiral shape until it became a small black dot.

"Boom!"

Immediately afterwards, as if by the Big Bang, her form exploded, becoming transparent and untouchable.

She died, but exists as a spirit.

"Actually, the reason I've been acting alongside you for so long is mainly because I don't want to alert the enemy and scare away the prophet who's been secretly observing. After all, my experience is that to deal with them, you have to kill them with one blow."

A chillingly calm voice drew near, sending goosebumps up the back of the voodoo priest's head.

"What did you do!?"

"The nemesis of 'prophet', the 'god of truth'."

The priest's dagger clattered to the ground, and his colorful ribbons and rosary trembled and rustled as the footsteps behind him grew closer.

"Hehehe, you've fallen into my trap."

The voodoo priest finally couldn't withstand the pressure. He turned around abruptly and, through the hole in the ram's skull mask, saw the young man's magnified face.

"That's the kind of laugh a villain should have. Learn from that in your next life, and become a shaman." (End of Chapter)