Whispering Verse

"Amazing."

Shade, who appeared behind Miss Sylvia, praised sincerely, and the witch turned her head with a smile:

"Be my apprentice, I can teach you everything."

Without giving Shade time to react, he added with a smile:

"Don't be my apprentice and establish other relationships with me. I can teach you everything."

"Let's wait until this matter is over. I actually don't quite understand. Where did the snake go?"

Shade asked, getting on his horse again with Miss Sylvia.

"It was compressed into a mass point by space. Don't look at the monster. It doesn't look powerful, but on the ground, we have no way to completely destroy it. Only a few seals and methods like mine can really make sense. I'll make them lose their fighting power. So, you'd better not leave me tonight."

The sound of horse hooves faded away, and the two continued to move deeper into the valley.

At half past seven in the evening, in the heavy gray snow, Shade and Miss Sylvia arrived at the small bridge outside the forest surrounding Oxenfurt Manor.

Shade and Miss Sylvia stopped here. After dismounting, Shade looked up in the snow and looked at the manor in the distance:

"That's enough. Although it is a superstition among country women that demons and vampires will not cross rivers, if we go further, they may really be able to sense us."

Shade took off his gloves and stuffed them into his saddle bag:

"Miss Sylvia, next, you have to wait for me in the wind and snow. This is not a good job."

The young witch looked at him:

"The things you have to face are scarier than the weather. So just go ahead and take this."

She handed Shade a stone rune, with ancient elven runes representing "space" engraved on it with dark red paint:

"As long as you carry this with you, I can locate you at any time. And if you crush it hard, yes, crush this stone, even if you fall into a different space, I can still find a way to find you. .”

Shade handed her [Creation·Balance]:

"If I need help, this card will disappear from your hand."

At this point, except for [Founder Silver Moon], all four cards in Shade's hand have been temporarily loaned out.

"I see."

Miss Sylvia didn't say anything more and kissed Shade gently. At this time, Sister Devlin, who had arrived early, walked out of the forest. After explaining to the two of them that the person who was with the church team was a clone, she and Miss Sylvia each held a horse. , heading towards the direction they came from just now.

After the two figures flickered briefly, they disappeared together with the two horses.

Shade touched the various relics and casting materials on his body, then pressed his chest to feel the presence of the Mia doll, and then walked to the forest path at the other end of the bridge.

No one greeted him in the wind and snow, and there was no light in Oxenfurt Manor at this night, as if there was no living person in the manor.

[Note that after crossing that bridge, the devil's power has already infiltrated into the soil. 】

"She" reminded softly, while Shade stared at the gray snow and came to the gate of the manor. This time, there was no old housekeeper to greet him.

Looking through the gate, the courtyard surrounded by high walls was empty. Shade didn't want to call someone to open the door, but directly reached out and pushed it, and then found that the door was locked as expected.

And it was not an ordinary iron rope. As he exerted force, the demonic runes appeared on the fence with a dim light. Shade has been in contact with doctors many times. Interpreting ordinary demon runes no longer causes mental stress. The meaning of the runes is roughly:

[No traffic is allowed until the end of the night. 】

"The prohibition order at night is very similar to the 'Law Order' thaumaturgy that Miss Carina taught Iluna."

Shade was thinking in his heart and muttering in his mouth:

"You let someone else come to get something, and then you locked the door on purpose. I hope you didn't mean to owe me a debt. Generally speaking, I don't like to force my way in."

The spell [Key of the Door] can open this special concept lock, but Shade did not do this. Instead, he looked at the sky and said softly:

"There is no moon and no stars, so it is not night. Because it is not night, it is day."

After saying that, he took out the secret-keeper-level relic [The Soul-Draining Demon's Blade] given by the devil last time at the Sturgeon Tavern, and engraved the sentence "It's dawn" in ancient elven script. It would be better if Devil's language could be used here, but unfortunately Shade doesn't know Devil's language, and the tree father has not given him a reward such as "a piece of knowledge - the devil race" for the time being.

And as the elven writing was engraved on the fence door, there was a click, and the fence door opened automatically. Shade re-inserted the soul-sucking demon blade into the scabbard on his waist, and then took out the hilt made by Priest August.

Press the last end of the sword hilt, and then shake it four times. With four clear sounds of metal friction and collision, the long sword appeared in Shade's hand. A faint light emitted from the crossed finger bones, as if sensing the presence of the undead.

He officially entered the manor.

After crossing the gate of the manor, the courtyard with gray snowflakes looked increasingly gloomy. The manor, which was originally in a semi-destroyed state, now looked more dilapidated than any time Shade had arrived. The renovated pavilion collapsed, the flowerbed was buried in the snow, the big tree fell to the ground as if struck by lightning, and even the fountain sculpture that could not spray water was gone.

"Why does it look like decades have passed since my last visit?"

There is no moon tonight, and Xia De’s footprints were left on the snow. The footprints extended all the way to the door of the mansion. But this time, Xia De did not reach out to push the door, because only the left side of the double doors at the entrance of the mansion was left. That one:

"What's going on? This place is abandoned?"

The building seemed even darker and gloomier than outside, with worn furniture blocking the corridors and spider webs clinging to every corner. The corridor was filled with gray snowflakes blowing in from the windows, and from time to time, you could even hear the sound of a woman sobbing from an unknown direction.

"Did you discover the power of time?"

Shade asked in his heart.

【No. 】

"She" replied softly.

Instead of exploring the first floor, Shade found the stairs in the darkness. The stairs leading to the upper floor on the first floor were divided into left and right sides, but the right one was broken. He chose the left side, and then continued up to the third floor.

After visiting Oxenfurt Manor many times, Shade had never been to the bedrooms of the owners of the manor, and this time his destination was there. Although he didn't know the specific location, the architectural layout of this kind of large manor was similar. He easily found an ajar door with candle light inside in the dilapidated building. After pushing the door open, he entered , the interior decoration is indeed the master bedroom of the manor.

The decoration here is not very luxurious, but it has a lively atmosphere.

A large double oil painting by Helena Oxenfurt and Stone Oxenfurt was hung above the bed, and fruits and snacks were placed on the small table beside the bed. On the desk is an unfinished letter, and a burning candle is placed on a gold candlestick. This candle is also the only source of light in the room.

In addition to the door through which Shade entered the room, there was a door on the other side of the double bed that led to the outside terrace. And although there is a wardrobe in the corner of the room, there are still clothes hangers at the door. Gorgeous men's robes were hung on it, and a walking stick with a golden lion on its head was placed against the wall under the hanger.

There was no moon outside the window, and the light from the candles was not very bright, but this did not prevent Shade from seeing Helena Oxenfurt in a black dress lying on the bed, on the side near the window and the terrace. Her hands in black lace gloves were clasped together in front of her chest, but she still wore shoes, but her veil was placed on the bedside instead of wearing it as before.

"Fell asleep?"

Shade rudely entered the room and came to the bedside. He did not speak, but touched the woman's neck with his hand while his own shadow was reflected on the woman's body.

Completely cold and lifeless.

【die. 】

"Her" voice was still gentle.

Haela Oxenfurt's eyes were closed tightly, and her already pale cheeks became even less like a living person. The lips are purple and the blood vessels on the face are quite obvious. In the hands held together, there was a withered black rose.

Such roses also appeared in the hands of Stone Oxenfurt and the Stone Mirror Demon Goethe.

In addition to the black rose, Shade also saw familiar sapphire earrings on her ears and a familiar wedding ring on her finger. On the pillow next to her on the free side by the door, lay the familiar medal of the Oxenfurt family.

"What kind of trick are you playing? See the demon."

Shade activated the thaumaturgy given by the doctor, and while other locations in his field of vision became distorted, he squinted his eyes to look at the corpse lying on the bed.

Just like what I saw before, snowflakes fell from Haila Oxenfurt's body. But what was different from before was that petrified rose vines were climbing on her body, and those rose vines seemed to grow from her heart. Apart from the stones, there was nothing abnormal about the body itself. It was indeed a corpse.

"The body didn't have any temperature, but there were no signs of decomposition either."

Shade turned around and looked at the unfinished letter under the candle on the desk. When he walked over, he saw the quill inserted in the dried ink bottle, and the spread out parchment had short dark blue words written on it. That was the history of history. East Oxenfurt's handwriting:

"What you want is down there."

Opening the parchment, the Rhodes card with the woman in robe, the Holy Grail, the countryside and the village appeared on the card in the flickering light of the candle.

Shade picked it up:

"Flowers 12, the origin of the earth."

This was the real thing, and it appeared in Shade's hands easily. He originally thought that he had to kill Oxenfurt before he could find it out of his body pocket.