Deserted aristocratic mansions, collapsed corridors that exuded a musty smell, whispers of the undead from the depths of the earth, and the eerie cold wind that blew through the hall. Although Hao Ren felt that the style of the undead hiding here was a little unusual, he was not lacking in any of the other conditions. The standard settings of a supernatural film were all there. Walking in the crumbling corridors, he still felt a little creepy.
What was even more creepy was that when everyone stepped into the range of the old house, the surrounding environment also quietly changed.
When Hao Ren noticed it, the sky outside had darkened.
He found that the corridor had become dark, so he looked up at the sky through the hole in the corridor wall. However, the sunny sky was now overcast. Dark clouds hung down from all directions like thick ink, and the sky was so dark that it was almost dusk.
A cold wind blew out of nowhere, and Lily's hair suddenly stood on end. She instantly transformed into a werewolf, raised her Frostfire Claws and looked around. "Mr. Landlord, I think the situation is getting more and more abnormal. Is the undead trying to set us up?"
"She still refuses to show up." Vivian frowned. "She knows that this kind of trick is useless against us, but she is still so stubbornly hiding. I don't know what the undead is trying to do."
The sky continued to darken, and the thick clouds had completely closed. The forest outside the old house was covered in darkness and became shadowy like a ghost town. The voice from the depths of the earth came again. "… I don't mean to hurt you, and I didn't set a trap. But you have set foot on the border, and it's too late to turn back now. Take care …"
After leaving this last sentence, the voice of the undead faded into the distance as if it had just appeared, never to be heard again.
"It doesn't seem to be the work of the undead," Hesperides looked at the sky outside. "And such a large-scale meteorological change … it can only be the result of some kind of mysterious realm being activated. It seems that we have fallen into a new layer of mysterious realm."
"I hate this kind of thing. Why are the supernatural relics left behind from the ancient times so troublesome?" Hao Ren frowned and muttered. "Let's just be straightforward. Show us all what you have, and then settle the score with one blast."
Lily looked at Hao Ren strangely. "Mr. Landlord, your tendency to explode is getting more and more serious. Have you been infected by the goddess for too long?"
Hao Ren scratched his head awkwardly, turned and continued to walk into the depths of the old house.
They entered the part of the main house that had not collapsed. After confirming that the structure here was still solid, Hao Ren released an autonomous robot and let it check the second floor that could collapse at any time. He led the others to look for clues on the first floor.
The MDT floated in front of the team, scanning every corridor and room with its scanning beam. It used high-speed calculations to restore the original appearance of these structures. Two hundred years of wind and rain had almost completely destroyed the original appearance of the house. But as long as the framework was still there, the MDT could still restore up to 80% of the original appearance. It projected the original image back onto the surrounding scorched ruins. As the team moved forward, within two meters in front and behind Hao Ren, they could see the original appearance of the old house.
On both sides of the corridor, there used to be two rows of portraits of men and women dressed in noble costumes. They should be the members of the family when it was in its heyday or the patriarch. The corridor used to be covered with gorgeous velvet carpet, but the carpet and floor had been destroyed in a fire. At the corner of the corridor, there used to be a corner table full of silver utensils, but they were not magic items used for rituals.
Hao Ren slowed down, carefully looking for any possible clues as he walked. At this moment, a touch of red suddenly caught his attention.
"Stop. Scan this place."
He stopped at the end of the corridor and pointed to a blurry red patch in the corner. The edge of the red patch had a sharp, jittery edge. It was pixelated because the MDT did not perform accurate calculations on this area. After Hao Ren gave the order, the MDT immediately switched the calculation weight. The surrounding holographic images faded away like flowing water, and the red area on the scorched corridor wall quickly became clear.
"Increasing the accuracy of the restoration … Confirmed to be blood. Image processing completed."
As the MDT's voice trailed off, the blood in the corner also became clear. It was a line of words, which seemed to be written in a hurry:
"… It's coming out, it's coming out, it's coming out …"
The words were constantly repeated, and the twisted and trembling handwriting seemed to show the writer's extreme fear at that time.
"It's coming out …" Hao Ren repeated subconsciously. "What does it mean here?"
"Maybe it's the thing that the village really wants to trap," Hesperides said. "Haven't we guessed it before? The village is like a cage, and probably there's some very dangerous force in the cage. "
"It's a pity that the ghost is silent now," Hao Ren said, shaking his head. "MDT, can you find the location of the ghost?"
The MDT sounded a little helpless. "Everywhere. She may be symbiotic with this land. Her energy fluctuations can be found everywhere, but there's no clear core. Now she's not willing to speak. I think unless you put a dimensional bomb here, there's no way to force her out. "
Hao Ren thought for a moment, but he still did not carry out this tempting plan …
At this moment, Lily suddenly raised her head, stared straight in a certain direction, and wrinkled her nose.
Vivian glanced at her and asked, "What did you find?"
"Bones!" Lily's eyes lit up as she looked at the corner of the wall. She then ran over and rummaged under a pile of collapsed debris.
Soon, she dug out a charred skeleton from under a pile of tiles and planks.
Looking at what she had dug out, the husky maiden curled her lips. "Pfft, I've been looking forward to it for nothing."
"It hasn't completely decayed in this environment?" Vivian looked at the unrecognizable skeleton in surprise. Her focus was obviously different from the husky. "Maybe it's the owner of the house … a member of the noble family from more than 200 years ago?"
Hao Ren frowned as he squatted down beside the skeleton. Although he did not have much hope, he still hoped to find some of the person's belongings. To his surprise, there was indeed something that had been preserved: under the skeleton, there was a book that had been burned by two-thirds!
He carefully pulled out the booklet. His first thought was that the material of the booklet was suspicious. It had been through the fire, and then it had been through the decay and weathering of two worlds in the humid and warm environment of the forest. After all that, there was still a large part of the booklet left?!
Vivian examined the material of the book and immediately realized that it was not ordinary paper. After a small spell, she confirmed that it was a kind of enchanted black goat skin.
"A real magic book," Vivian said, twirling the charred remains with her fingers. "Although it has been burned to this extent, it is still resistant to weathering and corrosion. The processing method of this thing is very strange … I don't remember which school of wizardry uses this method to process black goat skin."
"It seems that the noble family did have the real thing," Hesperides said softly. "How much can you translate?"
The book was badly burned. Only one-third of it remained, and half of it was incomplete pictures and symbols that had completely lost their meaning. But the MDT still tried to restore some of the text. They found that the book was actually something like a notebook.
Using a precious magic book to write a diary instantly made Hao Ren puzzled. Was it really an ordinary human family that built this house?
At the beginning of the book, it seemed to record the situation when the 'family' first moved here:
"… After a long journey, we finally came to this place … We still have to hide our traces to avoid being discovered by the church. These are really difficult days, but in any case, we have made a decision, and there is no way to regret it …
"… This is a place with very active magic energy. Perhaps the divine artifact is gradually changing the environment here …
"… We have found him … He now goes by the name of Fernand, living in seclusion in a small village in the forest … After contacting Hercules, we found that he is in a very bad condition, and the backlash of the power is coming … He is struggling at the border, no wonder he sent us a letter for help …"
That was what they could decipher from the first few pages of the book. Although it was intermittent, it contained the most important information. After reading the book, Hao Ren and his team looked at each other. After a long while, Vivian said, "Pierre's investigation is really off the mark."
"This family seems to have known the true identity of Hercules from the beginning!" Hesperides said in disbelief. "They are coming for Hercules!"
Lily blinked. "And it sounds like Hercules summoned them."
Hao Ren pointed to a sentence in the recovered text. "I am more concerned about this sentence: This family seems to be still being tracked, and they say they want to hide from the church."
"There are many churches on Earth, but in the world of magic, there is only one church that people fear the most," Vivian said, exhaling. "The Demon Hunter Order. They really have something to do with the situation here."
Hao Ren's brows knit together. "But White Flame's information did not mention this."
Vivian nodded slightly. "Well, anyway, let's keep reading."
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