The Master of the Strange Realm

In the living room on the second floor of Dad's Antique Shop, the doors and windows were closed, but the curtains were not drawn, which made the room even hotter when the sunlight penetrated the gray fog. But Detective Vivendi believed that his anxious mood at this time had absolutely nothing to do with the indoor temperature. How he wished he hadn't heard anything just now.

"You are exactly what I thought..."

Even though he knew he shouldn't express any opinions, the middle-aged police detective couldn't help but speak in a joking tone, hoping to ease the awkward atmosphere in the living room. He recorded what he had just heard about the dissolute life of the noble children, and then shook his head with a wry smile. The middle-aged man seemed to want to throw away all his troubles:

"Okay, I understand all of this. So, can you let us check the small-caliber pistol you registered at the city hall?"

"Okay, but the gun is in the coat downstairs."

Jenkins pointed to the crowd's feet.

The detective nodded again, not forgetting to explain:

"Of course you won't kill anyone, but this is a routine inspection, please understand."

Then he asked Hathaway, Britney and Julia to confirm Jenkins' schedule in the past few days, and then closed the black-covered notebook:

"So any more questions?"

The middle-aged police detective looked at the big shots around him and saw that no one spoke, so he announced that the routine inquiry was over.

The originally depressing and dull atmosphere in the room seemed to be swept away by these words. The police detective wisely left first, using the excuse of going to get the pistol downstairs. After his footsteps faded away, Jenkins asked the three dukes:

"what is going on?"

"Six heirs were assassinated in succession, that's what happened. The death was the same as that of Wicktum who died last week. He was hit in the head by a bullet, his heart was pierced by a sharp blade, his throat was cut open, and there were needle holes in his body. Tests revealed toxins of unknown composition. However, no specific cause of death could be found. All the injuries may have caused death. The police suspected that these injuries were caused at the same time.”

Duke Douglas Jerrod said, and then asked the silent servant to stand behind him and handed Jenkins a thick brown kraft paper waterproof document bag.

Jenkins turned the coil away and took out the information, finding that it was all information related to the murder.

"I don't believe you can kill people, nor do I believe you can hire murderers to kill people. Obviously, whether they die or not will not affect your succession order."

The Duke said, looking out the window:

"The most suspicious suspect at present is the foreigner Horace Luther. We suspect that some people in Chesland want to do something...so during this period, you must pay attention to yourself. Safety. Although the succession status of the murdered heirs is very low, this may be a trick to confuse us. William, you must pay attention to your own safety."

The old Duke emphasized, and Jenkins nodded, a little confused about this matter. He thought for a moment, then turned to the police officers at Carfax Field and asked:

"Can I see the bodies? I think it would be helpful to keep me alert if I could know how those unfortunate fellows died."

This request was strange, but at the suggestion of the Dukes, Carfax Field agreed to Jenkins' request.

Seven bodies, including Wicktum's, are now in storage at the Carfax Field headquarters morgue downtown. This is not the first time Jenkins has been to this place, but the summer heat cannot dispel the coldness in the morgue.

The coroner, who looked like a butcher in a dark red stained apron and a mask, took out the corpses from the corpse cabinet and placed them on the put together "bed" for Jenkins to watch. Although the royal family paid for ice cubes to freeze and preserve these corpses, the corpse of Wicketmu, who died relatively early, still showed a certain degree of decay.

Similar to what was written in those documents, there were many scars on the surface of the corpse, and most of them could cause death. Jenkins wore a mask that blocked the odor, scanned it with his True Eyes to make sure there were no extraordinary traces, and then asked the coroner accompanying him:

"Have you invited the priests from the Church of Death to come and see it?"

People who are engaged in the professions of teachers and writers are not necessarily believers of the Sage, but people who are engaged in the profession of coroner are most likely believers of death, or believers of the false god sect that has good relations with the church of death. Therefore, the coroner did not pay attention to the suspicion of distrust in Jenkins' words, but explained in a heavy Nolan accent:

"Only corpses transported to the morgue outside the city can apply for the help of the Church of Death and Doomsday for autopsy. The corpses parked here are all autopsied by the own coroner at Carfax Field."

Thinking of the relationship between the church and the secular world, Jenkins nodded clearly, and then looked down at the neck of the cold young man's corpse in front of him. There was an undisguised bleeding spot there. If you look closely, it was caused by a pinhole. of.

"Can the toxin components in the blood of the corpse be analyzed?"

"It's difficult, not because the toxins are rare, but because all the deceased people had more than one toxin in their bodies. It looks like someone mixed different lethal toxins together, swirled them around in an aqueous solution, and then injected them through more than one site into the body of the deceased.”

He pointed out to Jenkins the pinholes that were difficult to find elsewhere on the body in front of him. Jenkins looked at it for a while, but found no other clues.

So after leaving Carfax Field, Jenkins went straight to find his divination teacher, Miss Audrey. But Miss Audrey was not at home, so Jenkins had to go out of town to Evergreen Forest to find someone.

When he jumped off the carriage with today's Nolan Daily Supplement and the cat in his arms, it was already afternoon. When he found Miss Audrey and explained the whole story to her and asked her to help with divination, the sunset glow had even appeared in the west of the sky.

The two had dinner together in Evergreen Forest. During the dinner, Miss Audrey asked about Dolores becoming the heir, and teased Jenkins that he had earned an entire country in one go. Miss Audrey herself was Alexia's friend, and she knew Alexia's affairs very well, so she didn't ask too much about her affairs.

After dinner, Miss Audrey suddenly became interested, so she imitated the way ancient fortune-tellers taught their skills and found a clearing by the lake in the forest where she could see the stars. Both of them sat on the grass. Miss Audrey asked Jenkins about his recent learning progress. After learning that he had not made any more divination attempts, she thought for a while and asked:

"So have you seen fate again recently? I noticed that your eyes are a little abnormal. That purple color should not be the same as before, right?"

This is one of the few people who noticed the abnormal color of Jenkins' eyes, but she did not think much about it. She just thought that Jenkins was gifted and that after seeing fate, his eyes tended to transform into magic eyes.

The class under the starry sky lasted until about nine o'clock, and the two officially began to try to divine the death of the royal family members. Tonight, the mood was good, and the lady of the Church of Destiny chose the uncommon "water divination" method.

But she did not intend to use a special container to hold liquid and then explore the veins of fate under the water.

Miss Audrey pointed to the lake beside the two:

"I will use this lake for divination."

The nuns of the Church of Destiny in the forest were asked to help, and everyone placed 365 candles around the edge of the lake and lit them together.

Then Miss Audrey held a quarter of a purple candle and prepared to preside over the ceremony. This candle symbolizes "fate" and is the reflection of the God of Lies' star of fate. Of course, the God of Lies standing next to her knew that He did not have such a priesthood.

The female fortune teller had changed her clothes and was now wearing a brown floor-length robe. After asking everyone to leave the lake, she walked towards the lake barefoot with her eyes closed, holding the candle.

As she walked, some unusual wind caused ripples in the grass and the lake. Jenkins leaned against a tree in the distance and watched, watching the spirits in the air become disordered, and then the purple spiritual light rose from the center of the lake and spread to the surface of the lake like morning mist.

Miss Audrey, holding the candle, did not stop at the lake, but walked straight into the lake with her eyes closed. The lake water hitting the shore under the starry sky first soaked her bare feet, then slowly moved up along her fair legs, climbing up between the fine pores of her delicate skin, and also soaking her robe.

As Miss Audrey walked, the water level continued to rise until it submerged her waist, and then her hands holding the candle also entered the water, but the candle did not go out, still emitting a faint swaying light below the water.

Soon Miss Audrey's head was also immersed in the lake, her messy long hair was scattered on the water, swaying with the flow of the waves, which looked quite scary in this dark night. But as the woman went deeper, her hair gradually disappeared.

Suddenly a black thing rose from under the water. It turned out that the brown robe floated up, and then it was rolled onto the grass on the shore with the flow of the lake.

Jenkins held his breath and looked at the position of the faint candlelight, exploring and thinking about what kind of meaning and symbol this large ceremony in front of him had.

In fact, divination of ordinary things does not require such complicated rituals, but as Miss Audrey's student, the female fortune teller always likes to let Jenkins see something new. This is something that is very enviable in the eyes of ordinary fortune tellers. Not every teacher is willing to show students those dangerous and strange rituals, and not every teacher is willing to pass on all his knowledge to students.

Jenkins couldn't help feeling ashamed when he thought that his divination skills had not made any progress. Therefore, he stared at the lake more intently, wanting to see something different from it.

Chapter 1732 Chapter 1705 Under the Black Lake

The galaxy is upside down, and it is also reflected on the clear lake. Today is a good day, with no dark clouds blocking the starry sky, showing the galaxy of all things to mortals on the ground. The trajectories of the starry sky are connected together, which are the traces of gods and fate. Divination believes that the night with stars is the best time to do divination, because that is the moment when mortals are closest to fate.

Jenkins recalled this knowledge, but suddenly felt the cat on his shoulder moving restlessly, then called "meow~", then lowered its head anxiously, grabbed the clothes with its hind paws, and grabbed Jenkins' shoulders with its front paws alternately.

Jenkins was a little confused, and at this moment, he saw the dim candlelight under the water in the middle of the lake, shaking abnormally.

"What's wrong?"

Thinking in his heart, without hesitation, he took two steps forward and broke into the ceremony site by the lake. At the same time, a strong wind suddenly blew from the west, causing the forest tree sea to rustle, and actually blew out more than half of the 365 candles that were part of the ceremony base.

This is not normal. After the ceremony starts normally, because it is contaminated with mystery, the flames of these candles cannot be blown out by the wind at will.

Jenkins was shocked, but he ignored the observation and hurriedly ran to the lake. At the same time, the candlelight in the middle of the lake was completely extinguished after shaking violently for a few times. This meant that there was a big problem with the ceremony, and Miss Audrey might be in trouble.

There was no time to take off his shoes, so he just threw the cat and coat on the grass. Jenkins stepped into the mud of the river beach, and then plunged into the water.

The lake water has a strange cold feeling, which quickly takes away the heat from the skin. Jenkins, who was not very good at swimming, flopped a few times before he got used to it. He raised his head from the water and swam forward, while the Eye of Truth kept capturing Miss Audrey's aura under the water.

When I swam to the middle of the lake, I took a deep breath and plunged into the water. I used the Eye of Truth with my eyes closed, and the aura around me became more obvious and strange. Now you can not only see Miss Audrey's light spots, but also the vague aura forming her shape, and even her expression can be barely seen.

Miss Audrey was at the bottom in the middle of the lake, her hands stretched upward and her long hair swaying with the deep and strange water under the lake, as if she wanted to touch the starlight that could not shine here.

Jenkins felt like he couldn't hold his breath anymore. The lake was deeper than he thought.

"But do I really need to breathe?"

He thought about continuing to swim downstream. As this thought appeared, the feeling that his lungs were about to explode suddenly disappeared. The spirit flowing in his body provides him with the necessary living conditions for all living things, and he is the embodiment of life.

Continuing downward, he finally touched Miss Audrey's cold fingertips, and then he took the woman's hand and tried to pull her up. But that didn't work, as something seemed to be tugging on her below. Jenkins had no choice but to let go of her hand and swim further down, and then discovered that it was actually a water plant.

"Damn it."

He thought in his mind, grabbed Miss Audrey's leg and shook it to confirm that she was unconscious, then he could only reach out and touch the water plant. With the influx of the spirit of life, the originally slender water plant seemed to come alive automatically. He let go of the woman's ankle.

Jenkins immediately stepped off the slope at the bottom of the lake, then carried his teacher upstream. Because the robe was taken off, Miss Audrey is now only wearing simple summer singles. She wasn't heavy, and carrying her upstream wasn't strenuous for Jenkins.

It's just that the "water fortune" ceremony didn't seem to be over yet. Not long after Jenkins swam upward, a strange spirit flowed from Miss Audrey's hand into Jenkins' body. At the same time, the red moon in the sky was obscured by clouds, leaving only the blue moon shining mysterious light on the lake.

The 365 candles that were all extinguished had a wonderful reaction with the blue moonlight. Under Chocolate's gaze, the ritual array seemed to be rewritten by invisible hands, and the two people under the water fell into coma at the same time.

(Fini is praying...)

Cold, shaking...

At the moment of awakening, Jenkins did not immediately jump up from the ground like a gorilla, but closed his eyes and scanned the surroundings with the Eye of Truth. At the same time, the eyeballs under the eyelids moved slightly, and the fingers trembled in small and regular ways. After understanding the situation around him, he groaned in his mouth and slowly sat up on the ground, as if he had just woken up and didn't understand the current situation.

"Yes, you are the most qualified among the people who came this time."

This is a stone room with no windows in the surrounding walls, only an open door. There is no light inside the stone chamber. Light shines in from the outside, making the middle-aged woman standing at the door talking seem to glow:

"Okay, let's wait outside."

The woman said, and Jenkins nodded hesitantly without saying anything. He deliberately pretended to be dizzy, so when he stood up slowly while holding on to the wall, he had time to look around. The dark room was filled with young boys and girls, some of whom looked like they were about to wake up.

Jenkins saw Miss Audrey in it, to be precise, a younger Miss Audrey. Although this lady looked to be in her mid-twenties when Jenkins met her, she should be truly fifteen or sixteen at this time.

He hesitated and did not pick up his teacher. Instead, he walked straight past the woman standing at the door and came to the stone room.

There was a forest outside, which made Jenkins much more comfortable. He took a deep breath and easily understood from the feedback from the spirit of nature that this was not an evergreen forest.

Looking back, I saw a lonely stone house standing in the forest, with a path connecting the stone house to the distance.

After waiting for a while, people came out one after another. Jenkins also took this time to confirm that this was not a dream, but he was not sure whether it was an hallucination. However, he was sure that the current body was still the normal body of Jenkins Williams, and there was no "Shrunk" like Miss Audrey.

He looked suspiciously at the younger version of the teacher, who was standing next to Jenkins, but the young woman shook her head and motioned for Jenkins to stop talking.

"Okay, it looks like this batch of qualified people are you."

The woman standing at the door held a pocket watch and said, and then people wearing gray priestly robes around the room entered with water bottles, seemingly trying to force others to wake up.

"Becoming a qualified diviner requires not only the talent of being in touch with fate, but also a strong mental ability to withstand stress, because we can never predict what we will 'see' in our next divination and prophecy."

The woman spoke in a soft voice. She wore a slightly pink women's formal dress on her upper body and a black skirt on her lower body. This combination would be strange on others, but it fits this woman's unpredictable temperament perfectly.

"You have passed the penultimate level, and you only need the last test before you are qualified to touch your destiny.

Young people, come with me. "

Chapter 1733 Chapter 1706 Sacrifice Site

The woman who spoke didn't explain much, as if she acquiesced that everyone here understood the meaning of "trial" and "penultimate level". Of course, she didn't care that there was a young "boy" in the team who obviously had a different clothing style.

After speaking, she motioned for everyone to follow her onto the path. Jenkins deliberately fell behind and walked side by side with Miss Audrey:

"What is going on? We have traveled through time and space? Is this impossible?"

He asked quietly, not believing that he had traveled through time and space. After all, even simple space travel in the physical world carries considerable risks, not to mention the more dangerous time jump.

Although there had been a similar experience in Black Town, that time a master took action, and it was a very important and necessary action to solve the disaster in the past. This time, Jenkins couldn't see the importance.

Of course, Jenkins actually met other time travelers, that is, the Williamte from the future. Unfortunately, the girl did not meet Jenkins at that time. Only Alexia knew what Jenkins' niece was going to do.

"It seems like we really traveled through time and space, or we entered my memory..."

Miss Audrey answered in a low voice, looking at the surrounding environment with a somewhat confused tone:

"Now should be the day when I pass the church's test and officially become the church's reserve diviner... Next we go to the church's sacrificial site, which is the core area of ​​the trial... If now It's really time travel. You are probably the first pagan to enter the trial in thousands of years... How is it possible? Although the water fortune ceremony I held is larger in scale, will it have such an effect? ?”

Her tone was very uncertain when she talked about the past. Jenkins didn't understand why, but he was curious about what happened next:

"What's next?"

"I don't remember. I was seriously injured that day. After recovery, I irreparably lost a small part of my memory. It's very fragmented... so I can't judge whether 'you' really existed that day. Our current situation..."

"That's it~"

Jenkins sighed, then glanced at the road ahead. The trails carved out of the forest were probably frequently used, so weeds and moss did not invade. There was a normal forest scenery along the way. It was daytime and no stars could be seen. Jenkins could not tell where in the material world the current location was. But every church has its own secrets. According to Miss Audrey, this time they may have really come to an extraordinary place.

Because they didn't know the specific situation now, the two decided not to take any action that was inconsistent with history for the time being. After walking with the team like this for a full hour, a small hill appeared vaguely in front of the group.

And the real destination is actually the top of that mountain. In this way, we walked from day to night, and from night to dawn. There was no rest, food or water during this period.

Of course Jenkins doesn't care about this because he came from the original body, but Miss Audrey, who is one size smaller, now has the body of an ordinary person. Even though the power of the soul can affect the body, it is still difficult without eating or drinking.

Other young people also encountered this problem, but everyone gritted their teeth and persisted. This was probably part of the test, so no one questioned it. Fortunately, there is no shortage of plants in the forest. If you grit your teeth and be patient, you won't be left behind due to hunger and thirst. But fatigue was unavoidable, so when dawn came and the group actually arrived near the short mountain, everyone except the woman and Jenkins who were walking at the front were grateful to be able to stop.

Jenkins had been supporting Miss Audrey from the second half of the show. When the team stopped, the two of them followed the example of the others and sat down together. I looked up at the short mountain. Because I was already at the foot of the mountain, I couldn't see the whole mountain clearly.

But it is easy to find that this mountain is incompatible with the forest below the mountain. They are separated by a clear line. There are no plants within the scope of the low mountain. The whitish land looks like ashes accumulating, with ancient boulders standing everywhere and ravines with a sense of vicissitudes of time, making it difficult for people to imagine how this bare stone mountain was formed.

"The sacrificial site is on the top of the mountain. As the last item of the test, each of you will be allowed to look at the holy objects to witness your own 'essence'."

The woman said, looking at the people sitting. Seeing that no one asked questions, only a young "boy" looked confused, so she explained: