Lord: I have built a witch's sanctuary.

Chapter 157 If the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold

With a clang, Victor drew his longsword, the tip pointing directly at Evelyn.

The pale flames in Anna's palm suddenly erupted, illuminating the stone walls of the hall in a ghastly white light.

Lorraine raised her hand and pressed it down, signaling the two to step back.

He stopped joking, his face gradually darkened, and his gaze became as sharp as a knife.

"You've got quite a temper. Since you still have some backbone, then listen up."

Lorraine stood up, walked around the desk, and went to the edge of the steps.

"The Lord of Winter is dead, but do you think that means the world is at peace?"

He pointed north, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"The abyssal rift in the north has been fully opened, and the Winter Lord is merely a stepping stone thrown out by the abyss. In a few months at most, the Khorne army will cross the frozen tundra and march south in full force."

The air in the hall grew heavy with his words.

Evelyn frowned, her anger somewhat dissipated by these words, replaced by a solemn expression.

"Abyssal Rift?"

Ignoring her question, Lorraine continued, "Faced with the abyss, if humanity continues to stab each other in the back over the tax revenue of a few cities, the entire North will eventually fall and become ruins. Camille City can't withstand it, and Frostwolf City doesn't want to face the monsters alone."

He walked down the steps and stopped three steps in front of Evelyn.

"I need to strengthen the entire human force in the North. Since you are the guardian of Camille City, restoring your fighting strength will be more beneficial than harmful to me."

Lorraine stared into her eyes, speaking slowly and deliberately.

"So, I can indeed help you repair your magic circuits, and even reshape a perfect path for you to reach the sixth tier. The prerequisite is that you and your family are willing to agree to two conditions."

Evelyn was stunned.

She originally thought it was just a one-sided humiliation, but she never expected that Lorraine would actually try to help her.

She swallowed hard, then lowered her voice and asked, "What are the conditions?"

"First," Lorraine said, holding up one index finger. "Cammyr must forge a top-level military alliance with Frostwolf. If the Abyssal Army marches south, or Frostwolf is attacked, Cammyr must provide unconditional military support without any excuses."

Evelyn quickly calculated in her mind.

The military alliance means that the Desa family is completely tied to the Frostwolf City's war machine.

But this isn't unreasonable. If the Khorne's army were to truly march south, the monsters would slaughter the entire North, and Camille City wouldn't be able to escape unscathed anyway.

This condition is entirely within the family's bottom line.

"And the second condition?" she asked.

Lorraine raised her second finger.

"You, Evelyn Desa, must swear an oath of your soul and sign a witch's contract with me."

Evelyn's fingertips twitched.

Witch's Contract?

Such contracts are usually guaranteed by the rules of the world and cannot be violated by anyone, but they can only be signed between witches and lords.

What does this lord intend to demand with this contract?

Lorraine didn't give her time to overthink and directly stated the price: "The terms of the contract are simple. I will help you restore your full sixth-tier combat power and even eliminate any potential future threats."

In return, you must obey my orders and unconditionally serve me five times.

"this one?"

Evelyn's lips parted slightly, and she even forgot to control her posture.

She had prepared herself to be completely enslaved.

A sixth-tier witch's indenture in exchange for a complete sixth-tier path—this is considered a bargain even in a transaction.

Kororin only needs her to make five moves?

She stared intently at Lorraine, her purple eyes filled with doubt.

The conditions are too lenient.

His generosity made her feel that Lorraine was trying to fool her with an empty promise.

"The conditions are very acceptable."

Evelyn slowed her voice, carefully considering each word, "But—do you truly possess a complete path to becoming a sixth-tier witch?"

Lorraine looked at her suspicious face and gave a slight smirk.

"If you think I'm lying to you," Lorraine spread her hands, making a gesture of dismissal, "the door is right behind you. You can leave now and go back to your Camille City to wait to die."

Silence fell over the hall once again.

The firelight from the fireplace cast interplay of light and shadow on Evelyn's profile.

She stared at Lorraine's face, her mind racing as she weighed the options.

Staying is the only chance of survival.

Go, the Desa family will be destroyed sooner or later in the royal purge.

Moreover, Lorraine's description of the prophecy about descending into the abyss had given her a sense of extreme danger.

Evelyn closed her eyes, her chest heaving as she inhaled a breath of hot, charcoal-scented air.

When she opened her eyes again, the doubt in them had been replaced by a resolute determination.

She didn't ask any more questions. Instead, she lifted the hem of her black robe, took a step back with her right leg, and slammed her knee heavily onto the hard stone slab.

"Bang."

The sound of bones hitting the ground was exceptionally clear in the empty hall.

Evelyn knelt on one knee, her back ramrod straight, her long, light-gold hair cascading down her shoulders and spreading across her black robe.

She lowered her head, her right hand clenched into a fist, pressed tightly against her left chest.

"If you can truly restore my magic circuit."

Evelyn's voice was no longer hoarse, but had a crisp, metallic quality to it.

"I, Evelyn Desa, along with the entire city of Camille, will repay this kindness with my life. Five times is nothing; wherever your sword points, the Desa family's iron cavalry will never retreat a single step."

Victor, standing behind, watched this scene and slowly sheathed his longsword.

Lorraine accepted the bow without hesitation.

He nodded, turned around, and walked towards the desk.

"Alright, get up. Now that the rules are set, let's get started."

Evelyn propped herself up on her knees and dusted off her robe.

"How do you need my cooperation?" she asked.

Lorraine pulled out a chair and sat down, casually pulling out a brand new piece of parchment, picking up the quill pen on the table, and dipping it in the ink bottle.

"Repairing the magic circuits and reshaping the ascension ritual cannot be accomplished with mere words. This process requires a large amount of magical materials to serve as the base for inscribing the magic circle."

Lorraine's pen tip scratched across the parchment with a soft, scraping sound.

"Frostwolf City has a weak foundation, so your Desa family naturally needs to provide these high-level materials themselves."

Evelyn nodded in agreement.

This is common sense.

It's only natural that others provide the technology and we provide the materials.

As Lorraine wrote, she mentally reviewed the information about the sixth-tier advancement array for the Sound Witch in the Witch's Codex.

The recipe provided in the secret manual is extremely precise.

It requires three vocal cords of a fifth-tier demonized sonic bat, a fourth-tier ice crystal marrow, and five milliliters of heart's blood from a high-tier demon.

Lorraine looked at the list in her mind, her pen pausing slightly.

He recalled the three magic crystal veins that Camille City possessed, and pondered that these old nobles must have stockpiled a lot of good stuff.

So the pen tip made a turn on the parchment.

The vocal cords of a fifth-tier demonized Berserker Bat? Write down ten.

Ice crystal marrow? Write down thirty ounces.

High-level monster's heart's blood? I'd rather just take a liter.

Without batting an eye, Lorraine tripled or even quadrupled the normal dosage, writing it down in great detail across an entire page of parchment.

These extra materials naturally became additional income for the Frostwolf City Treasury.

After writing the last line, Lorraine held the edge of the parchment, blew on the ink to dry it, and handed it down the steps.

"Take this and go gather all the materials listed above. Come back to me when you've collected everything."

Evelyn accepted the parchment with both hands.

She had assumed Lorraine would ask for an exorbitant price, after all, this was a sixth-tier ritual.

For generations, the Desa family has attempted to deduce the promotion ritual, and each time the list they compiled was despairingly long.

She looked down at the pages in her hand.

My gaze swept across the first line, the second line, and all the way to the end.

Evelyn froze.

She began to tighten her grip on the parchment, causing the paper to wrinkle.

She looked up, her eyes wide open, her usually cool face filled with astonishment.

"What?" Lorraine raised an eyebrow. "The Desa family can't even produce this much?"

No—no.

Evelyn's throat was dry, and the pages trembled in her hands.

"Your Excellency, are you sure you haven't forgotten anything? Or—is there another page on the back?"

"That's all." Lorraine leaned back in her chair.

Evelyn pointed to several items on the paper, her voice rising a few octaves.

"This is far too little! When my Desa family deduced the incomplete ascension ritual, we used two hundred ounces of Ice Crystal Marrow alone, and over a hundred vocal cords of the Mad Sound Bats were used. The quantity on your list, at most, is only one-seventh of the normal amount!"

Lorraine's hand, which was about to pick up the water glass, froze in mid-air.

He looked down at the sixth-tier witch at the bottom of the steps, her face filled with existential doubt, and gave a weak twitch at the corner of his mouth.

He had already cruelly increased the amount of materials three or four times, but in the eyes of the witch in this world, it was still considered too little.

In this era, without proper theoretical guidance, how much resources have humans wasted on things like witch advancement through haphazard trial and error?

Lorraine shook her head and slammed her water glass heavily on the table.

"Just prepare according to the list, and stop talking nonsense."

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