Whispering Verse

There is only one enemy on the second floor, while there are three corpse dogs on the third floor. They are not disembodied undead, but undead creatures similar to corpses. The whole body is pale white like rotten flesh, with wrinkles and traces of decay everywhere on the body. Their appearance is almost identical, and they move very quickly. They are even smart and know how to coordinate attacks.

Shade encountered them as soon as he went upstairs, and almost suffered a big loss in his hasty response. Fortunately, we retreated to the stairs in time, and we could fight the enemies one by one on the narrow stairs.

To be honest, the combination of three dogs is much more terrifying than a single powerful humanoid undead.

The ground on the third floor was still covered with a layer of dust of unknown origin, like ashes. In addition to the footprints of the three corpse dogs just now, there are other messy footprints on the dust.

The footprints have been treated, but the marks have not been completely smoothed away. . Shade observed it and thought that at least three different people had appeared here recently:

"Hopefully it's traces within the past 36 hours."

Thinking in his mind, he used the thaumaturgy [Echoes of the Past].

This thaumaturgy can listen to sounds from the past, with a preference for sounds made by humans. In a narrow space where sound cannot travel too far and where there are almost no living people, Shade succeeded on his first try:

"Professor, you actually escaped?"

It’s Joey Patton’s voice, his lung-damaged timbre instantly recognizable.

"Escaped, but almost all of the personnel sent by the Truth Society to the Middle Fort area were wiped out this time. The Church's attack was accurate and ruthless."

Shade raised his eyebrows. Both the witches and Iluna mentioned that on the night of the Battle of Ice Lake, most of the people in the [Truth Society] in the area were killed or arrested, and only a few slipped through the net. Unexpectedly, they did not leave Fort Midhill, but found Joey Barton in the narrow room. It may be that Joey Barton found them.

"But fortunately, we learned the lesson of [Blood Spirit School]. Although many people were sent this time, only one of the twelve-ring warlocks from the school came, so this is not a painful lesson. I heard that Hermons, the Bloodweeper of the [Blood Spirit School], almost didn’t escape.”

People always seem to like to laugh at those who are more unlucky when they encounter difficulties.

"Mr. Barton, although I don't know how you found us in the narrow room, the society has given us a notice that we will no longer be involved in the affairs of Fort Midhill. We stay here now because we want to recover and release Some materials in the narrow room. The loss is so big this time, at least those alchemical items worth tens of thousands of pounds must be recovered."

The man who spoke had been speaking in Carsonric, and Mr. Barton in Delarian, with a heavy Middleburg accent.

"Do you know that I am the chosen one?"

Mr. Barton asked very calmly. After a few seconds of pause, Carson gave the answer:

"We didn't dare to show up in the city, but we heard some news. It's really surprising. It turns out that the target we have been looking for is one of our own people. Mr. Barton, I heard about you in the academy, but now .”

As expected, Shade heard him sigh:

"Dead chosen one, you can only work hard on your own and learn to make up your mind not to participate in this matter again. The current loss is too great. Although it is possible to get greater benefits by helping you, we must stop the loss in time and cannot Too greedy."

If the ring magicians of the [Truth Society] can give up their crazy ideas, most of them can actually be called wise men.

"I don't need your material help, I want some knowledge."

said Mr. Barton.

"What knowledge?"

"Integrating the knowledge of the relics, I know that the society has not been completely successful, but at least there is a preliminary experimental plan."

Shade frowned and looked at the empty room in front of him. He believed that not long ago, another person involved in the conversation had the same expression.

"Fusion relic, do you think... Joey Barton, you want to fight against the Orthodox Church alone?"

"I know that I am weak, so I have to think of other ways. Being in the narrow room, I can feel the kindness of the narrow room itself towards me. It does not want to be sealed, and I want to break the boundary between life and death. So, Hazama is willing to let me use part of its power. Professor, which one do you think is more powerful, the level 0 relic that controls countless evil spirits or the thirteen-ring warlock?"

"It's crazy."

Kassenric expresses a very dirty word, and Shade tentatively thinks it means "madman".

"I am honored to be called a madman by the professors of the [Truth Society]. All I have to do is enter the real death through one of the three passages, and then bring her back. So, are you willing to trade? I know Knowledge has a price, so if I really become the chosen one at Fort Midhill, I am willing to join you."

What happened next was no surprise. The "fish that slipped through the net" of the Truth Society gave Joey Barton the information he wanted, and even told the Truth Society about the "Chasm of Life and Death", "Gate of Death", etc. All the research materials were given to him.

In the words of the professor:

"These materials are all backed up, and they are not considered a loss if they are given to you. They are a hugely profitable investment. But if you are caught by the church, don't say that we gave them to you. You picked them up yourself."

At the end of this conversation, the "professor" who spoke Kasonric gave Joey Barton something. Shade could only hear the sound, so he didn't know what it was:

"Professor, what is this?"

Mr. Barton had the same doubts.

"We originally planned to try to guide the power of death in the narrow room. We wanted to repeat the undead refinement in the witch alchemy of the fifth era and make something interesting, so we prepared quite a lot of ritual items. This one in your hand, It is an ancient artifact that the Society dug up in the New World. From the research, it seems that it is a sacrificial item from the ancient Death Church. I give it to you, maybe it will be useful."

As a result, Joey Barton obtained items related to the power of the ancient god.

The conversation ended and both parties left. Shade followed the footsteps to the window. At this time, the last red butterfly on the shoulder finally broke away from the skin and appeared in the narrow space. It flew slowly and leisurely to the house opposite the back window, and stopped in front of the wall outside the window to prevent people inside the window from seeing it.

Behind the Oak Street store is a dirt-covered alley, and on the other side are rental apartment buildings. Because of the thick fog and the suppression of the field of view by the narrow room, Shade could only see the red butterfly swaying indistinctly, and could not see what was inside the window at all. But judging from Hongdie’s performance, the clown is most likely among them:

"Hiding so close?"

The window in front of him no longer had glass. Shade held on to the somewhat prickly window sill and glanced down, discovering that there were many souls wandering in the alley.

"If I take a detour, even if I have the witch's blessing to avoid the enemy, I'm afraid I still have to defeat a bunch of evil spirits. It's such a waste of time."

He carefully climbed onto the window sill and cast the spell [Leap of the Frog] without any materials. With a sudden jump, he crossed the alley and pounced towards the red butterfly who was pointing the direction. But Shade did not choose to let himself break through the window and enter the room. Instead, after approaching the opposite window in the air, he concentrated on using thaumaturgy:

"Raglai's jump!"

Shade disappeared in the air, and then appeared smoothly in the window.

Standing firm, he turned around and stretched out his right hand. The flying red butterfly landed on his fingertips, and then flew to his shoulder very affectionately.

I glanced around the room and couldn't see anyone. Shade snapped his fingers, silver mist surged out, and illusions surrounded him.

Opening the door and continuing to walk out, the dilapidated and dark corridor is like a haunted house in the story. Hongdie guided Shade to the room at the far end of the corridor. According to the layout of the room, this should be the guest room.

No sound came from inside, but there was no doubt that the target was here. Shade hesitated for a moment, dispelled the illusion, and then knocked on the door with his finger.

Dong Dong Dong~

I stood at the door and waited patiently. At 2 minutes and 37 seconds after the last knock on the door, the door was opened. Behind the door was the middle-aged man who looked like a deformed child.

At the end of last week's ice battle, he was penetrated from behind by Iluna's "Sunshine Gun", but at this time there were no signs of injury. It's just that it has obviously gone through a lot of changes, and it looks younger than last week.

Joey Barton looked up at the person at the door and hesitated:

"Mr. Watson?"

"it's me."

Mr. Barton sighed:

"Why come to me? Do you really think you can convince me?"

Shade looked into the room behind him, but Mr. Barton immediately stepped back and slammed the door.

【Ran. 】

"What?"

[Door Key] Open the locked door, and there is no trace of Joey Barton or the Joker in the empty room.

The red butterfly on his shoulder immediately flew towards the window. Shade quickly came to the window and happened to see the figure of the deformed "child" carrying a suitcase disappearing at the corner of the street at the edge of his field of vision.

The undead wandering on the street had no intention of attacking him. He walked freely through the streets without having to dodge any attacks.

"Moon Shadow's illusion."

The silver mist came again, and Shade jumped from the third-floor window to the ground. After landing, he followed the red butterfly in the direction of Joey Barton.

"How is it going?"

Miss Aurora's distant voice sounded in my ears again.

"I found the other party. He ran away when he saw me. Oh, I ran into some trouble. Although I had the help of illusion, the evil spirits were preventing me from catching up. The enemies were too dense."

"Wait a moment, my mother-in-law and I will help you catch up."

The sound was intermittent until it completely disappeared, and the souls wandering in the narrow space finally noticed Shade because of his excessive proximity. But the next moment, an extremely cold chill appeared from the top of his head and quickly penetrated his whole body. A circular ritual array emitting ambiguous gray light appeared at Shade's feet.

The appearance of this ritual formation caused the evil spirits that were already preparing to attack to ignore Shade again. Shade tried to take a few steps closer to it, but the other party didn't respond at all.

"Witches are really clever."

He continued to chase.

Shade didn't know what Joey Barton did in the cubicle. He obviously still only has one link, but he can actually run faster than Shade. Even though Shade used [Ragrai's Jump] to move in space every ten seconds, the two of them chased and escaped, and actually ran half a circle around the city center in the narrow space before Shade finally got within a short distance. Catching up with Joey Barton in a tree-lined plaza a block away from Oak Street.

The green square in the real world is a semi-park-like square in the center of Fort Midhill, while the narrow space is as desolate as a foggy cemetery.

Shade and Mr. Barton confront each other in the fog, and the evil spirits around them disappear and appear in the fog.

"Where's the clown?"

Shade still didn't see the second nail, but Hongdie pointed restlessly in the direction of the man in front of him.

"Swallowed by me."

Mr. Barton pointed to himself:

"I was seriously injured and need to recover myself. Don't worry, this nail will be removed once I fully digest its power."

His voice was still so hoarse.

"Since you know about the hazma and the nails, you should also know that at this moment when the balance of life and death is so fragile, if you bring back a dead person from death, the broken balance will directly cause the hazma to collapse."

"Yes, but if I don't do this soon, once the church re-seals the narrow room, I will have no chance to find her again."

Mr. Barton looked at Shade with no expression on his face:

"Mr. Watson, you have heard me tell my story before. Let me ask you again, do you really think you can convince me?"

"In order to revive the dead, are you willing to let a whole city die?"

Shade asked back, and Mr. Barton nodded:

"I know it's wrong to do this, but I still want to say, yes. The most important thing to me in this world is her. Even if I make a big mistake, I will never give up this only opportunity. I am the one who puts out the fire. Feather Moth, I am willing to do this."

Although he had long thought that the other party might say this, but actually heard Joey Barton say such words, Shade still wanted to sigh:

"Don't think of yourself too noble. You have to think carefully. If you do this, you will be the enemy of the Zhengshen Church, the three major thaumaturgy academies, and even most of the ring magician groups. Even if you are the chosen one, even if you really After the successful ceremony, there will definitely be no place for you to survive in the material world."

"I've already thought about it."

Mr. Button pointed to his feet. He had thought of everything:

"After I bring Marilyn back, we will live here, in Fort Midhill, which is completely integrated with the narrow space and turned into a ghostly forbidden land. With the talent of the chosen ones, the undead will not hurt me, they are me The best partner. It is simply impossible for the Orthodox Church to catch me among the thousands of undead."

"Mr. Barton, let me ask you one last time. Are you sure that even if you sacrifice the lives of tens of millions of people, you will bring your beloved back from the sleep of death?"

Shade asked in a serious tone:

"This is really the last inquiry."

Joey Barton looked at John Watson in the thick fog and vaguely understood that this question would determine many things in the future.