Whispering Verse

After confirming the thickness of the stone wall, Shade did not continue to use his soul to melt the stone wall using [Feliana's Witch's Light]. Instead, he took off the cloth wrapped around the scabbard and inserted the [Night Watch] into his arm to melt it. In the hole.

Taking a deep breath, he drew the elements and spirits to the sword of [Night Watcher]:

"Witch's Light!"

In an instant, golden light radiated from the sword, and the spreading light instantly melted a large hole in the stone wall. Shade pulled the [Night Watcher] back with satisfaction, then bent down and drilled into the space behind the stone wall through the hole with an unusually smooth gap.

The space behind the stone wall seems to have been forcibly excavated by some external force. The interior is not in a regular shape. The first users who wanted to come here only used this place as a temporary stronghold.

The total area was about the size of three or four closets. After entering, Shade immediately squatted down and looked at the ground with the light of the setting sun coming from behind. Sure enough, he found messy footprints in the thick dust on the ground.

He reached out and touched the dust on the ground:

"The dust means that no one has been here for many years. It is basically confirmed that it was the stronghold, or safe house, of Halder Ondiba, the previous owner of the Arrow more than ten years ago. The footprints should be fifteen Left behind by the two people who visited Rust Alley days ago."

He straightened up and squinted his eyes to look at the space behind the stone wall illuminated by the dusk light. The footprints on the ground are extremely messy. Although Shade calls himself a detective, he does not have the reasoning ability to restore the entire movement trajectory of the opponent in such messy footprints.

He only knew that the footprints belonged to two people, and that these two people had stepped on almost all the ground here.

In addition to the dust in this small space, there is also a spliced ​​iron frame bed and a storage rack made of welded iron pipes. But there was nothing on the bed or on the shelves. But judging from the traces of dust, there should have been a mattress on the bed and seven or eight kinds of sundries on the shelves.

I think it was the two people who came here earlier than Shade and took all those things away.

They did more than that. When Shade turned on the light at his fingertips, he saw that there were very fine holes everywhere on the side wall of this narrow space, about the size of a sweater needle. After inspection, it was discovered that these were also traces left recently. Shade immediately understood that the two people were exploring whether there were any other hidden spaces here.

Although he did not witness the scene, Shade could simply imagine one of them standing in the center of the ground, then waving his hand to send the spikes around, and then confirming one by one whether the spikes penetrated other holes.

"Why don't these people do something so incredible? Can't you leave me some clues?"

Shade complained dissatisfiedly in his heart, and then checked the only remaining iron frame bed and heavy shelves with a lucky mentality.

Both of these are metal products. Although there are some scratch marks on the surface, those marks are not passwords. He spent ten minutes conducting a more detailed inspection, and then had to admit that there were no clues about these two items. The two people who arrived before him did not take these two items away purely because they were too heavy.

"The thread is broken again."

The only thing Shade knows so far is that the iron frame bed and storage racks are made from the same batch of steel. The possible clue this left for Shade was to take them away, and then entrust Father Nobel to find a blacksmith or a specialist in the steel smelting industry in the city, identify the origin of this batch of steel, and then investigate the sale of this batch of steel more than ten years ago. As for the specific location of the steel, we hope to find the next clue by restoring the movements of Halder Ondiba many years ago.

Just thinking about it, Shade knew that this was definitely not something that could be solved in a few days, and with so many things on his hands now, he had no intention of delaying the second trial of the Lady of the Lake for such a long time:

"Although I'm not a very good detective, it's not like I don't have other investigative directions."

[What else did you think of? 】

she asked softly.

"I'm not sure whether Halder Ondiba uses this place as a pure warehouse or a temporary stronghold. But the furnishings here are too few. He obviously created such a hidden and safe space, but there is no Thinking about making more use of this place. For example, if I were the other party, I would definitely hide more daily necessities here."

Shade turned his back to the sunset at the entrance of the cave and looked here:

"Even a magician who comes out of the Pantanal doesn't care about the quality of his life at all. I can't imagine any reason not to store clothes, food, or even luxury sugar and tobacco here. . The things originally placed on the shelf were all bottles and cans. This bed has not had any metal deformation due to uneven stress for more than ten years, so there must not be the things I expected here. Then consider , the final battle between the church and Halder Ondiba happened unexpectedly, and it was impossible for the other party to transfer the supplies here in advance, so there is a problem with this place."

【What is the problem? 】

"This is not like a real stronghold, but more like a disguise, a disguise that makes others think that this is a safe house."

Shade twisted his neck to look at the dazzling sunlight outside the cave entrance. The setting sun had already reached below the horizon, and the half-dark sun was slowly setting on the river bank. The heavy fog makes the sunset show a strange color, and the sun will completely set in about half an hour:

"The two people who arrived earlier than me did not know this place after getting clues from Rust Alley. According to the white mouse, they already knew this place. In other words, Halder Ondiba did not strictly There is no value in keeping a secret stronghold here without strict secrecy.”

[You mean, this is not Halder Ondiba’s secret stronghold at all. 】

"Yes, this is just a 'secret stronghold' that he made his enemies and even his companions think."

[Knowing this, is it of any use to you? 】

"I just have an inference that this is a cover-up, so there must be something covered up, which is a real secret base or safe house."

Shade bent down and walked out of the cave, took a deep breath, and used [Breath of Time] to restore the cave entrance that had been melted by the witch's light.

"I have heard of a peculiar tomb. In order to prevent the tomb from being robbed, the owner of the tomb will set up a fake tomb on top of his own tomb and place some funerary objects. When the tomb robbers dig up the fake tomb and see the funerary objects, In the future, I will think that I have found the real tomb, so I will not continue digging.”

Shade thought to himself, stepping on the mud of the river beach and looking at both sides of the river bank. The blood-sucking insect poked its wriggling body out of the mud, and then got into the mud again. The thick black boots were not afraid of the mud. In winter, Shade changed his outfit in time.

"It has just been confirmed that there is no other space behind the upper, lower, left, right, and rear walls of this fake stronghold. So let me assume that Halder Ondiba hid the real stronghold not far from the fake stronghold. How about using the principle of 'darkness under the light' to protect your own secrets?"

He put his hand on the restored stone wall and walked to the left. His palms were always attached to the stone wall on the river bank. He did not return to the starting point until he had walked 200 steps and confirmed that he had found nothing.

Then he put his hand on the restored stone wall again, and this time chose to go right. When we reached step 129, "her" voice finally appeared:

[The traces of elements are very thin. 】

Shade smiled:

"Looks like I've really found it."

He drew his sword and pierced the stone wall, and the triggered defense immediately released a curse that was enough to freeze the soul. However, the curse was not even able to be transmitted to Shade's hands under the power of the angel-level relic sword.

The long sword continued to move forward, and several green vines emerged from the holes melted by the golden light, shooting towards Shade's throat like a stabbing sword. They appeared silently and quickly, and by the time Shade's eyes caught traces of green, the vines were almost touching his skin.

[Night Watch] actively flipped his wrist to smash the vines hidden in the stone wall. Although the broken vines that were shot still hit Shade, they only left a faint red mark on his neck. However, the poison penetrated into Shade's skin. As the [Night Watcher] in his hand shook violently, large purple marks spread from his neck to his whole body.

At the same time, the light of the setting sun became dim in Shade's field of vision. In his surprised expression, a huge and terrifying colossus appeared in the darkness. The giant statue made of countless plant residues slowly stretched out its "hand" to him. In the dark scene, the evil thing in Pantanal was about to attack him.

Fire shot up into the sky, and the colossus in the darkness was ignited, and then disappeared amid the ear-piercing wails. The light reappeared in his field of vision, and Shade, who was in a daze, realized that he was still standing in front of the stone wall under the river bank. The rays of the setting sun behind him warmed his back, and the stone wall in front of him had been melted enough to The big hole he passed through.

"Psychotoxin?"

He touched his neck with some worry. His neck had returned to normal and the toxins had completely subsided. [Primal Fire] does not make Shade completely immune to toxins, but unfortunately, [Primal Fire] treats the evil objects in Pantanal as firewood, and the toxin just now is most likely Hal The toxins related to the evil object obtained by De Ondeba were directly burned.

"This man is really cautious."

Shade sighed softly in his heart, and bent down to touch the vines that were broken by the night watchman with his fingers. After the fingers came into contact, the resin-like amber-colored viscous gelatinous liquid flowing out of the vine immediately ignited spontaneously and burned directly to ashes in front of Shade's eyes.

He only left a small section of the vine containing the poison, put it in a bottle, and prepared to give it to Sister Devlin. This was considered a small gain.