The knife that Shade found in Miss Norma's house was used to draw blood to make those potted plants and give them to the men who loved her, so that after her death, she could continue to use her soul to draw strength for the land. And letting the three men who loved her bury her was the last call of the land to her. This was a very ancient ritual about "love", voluntary sacrifice, crazy and pure love, and the deceived ritual performers.
These together gave birth to the horrifying undead that Shade had just seen. Although the undead was not strong to him, he was not an ordinary five-ring warlock. Needless to say, most of his skills were extremely targeted at this kind of monster.
As Shade loosened his left hand that was touching the soul, the magic "Guided Death" stopped working, and the resentment entangled in Miss Norma's soul was also alleviated. But she still looked so crazy, even though she was nailed to the ground by the Moonlight Greatsword, she still struggled to bite Shade.
"Answer me, ma'am, what is in this land?"
Shade asked in a deep voice. He did not feel that there was anything wrong with the ground under his feet. But Miss Norma's strange appearance after her death could not be explained by her mental illness and auditory hallucinations.
“You cannot hear the pulse of the earth, and you cannot hear the earth’s final cry. I am already with this land, and I will seek more blood for it until the very end.”
She struggled continuously, but more frequent contact with the Moonlight Greatsword caused the dark things on her soul to be continuously reduced.
"Don't pretend to be crazy with me. You made the three of them unconscious and erased their memories of seeing me. Wasn't it because you wanted to protect them? Besides, none of the men who received the potted plants from you died because of you."
Shade said calmly, canceling the spell, causing the three swords summoned by the "Blade of Chaos Time" to disappear, leaving only the last sword:
"Tell me what happened here, and then I'll send you away and figure out how to fix the problem here."
Sure enough, the struggling soul stopped moving. The terrifying head covered by long hair lifted up, revealing the face of Miss Norma. In the photos that Shade had seen, this lady had a good appearance. Even after death, one could still see the former glory from the terrifying face:
"I just... don't want... this land to go crazy."
"Crazy Earth? What does that mean?"
Xia De asked in confusion. In order to show his sincerity, he loosened his grip on the sword and let the Moonlight Greatsword disappear. Of course, he was not without precautions against the other party's escape. The Sin Chain in his sleeves could not fail at such a close distance.
"I don't understand either... But the earth is indeed going crazy. Someone must stop this. I am willing to sacrifice myself and collect blood food just to appease this land. I know what I did is wrong, but this land should not be crazy... May the earth be with me."
She was very vague in what she said, not hiding anything, but she herself did not understand what was going on. And Shade also knew why he did not feel the abnormality of the land under his feet, because the abnormality was stopped by this "self-sacrifice".
"I understand. Please leave now. I will do my best to solve the problem here. Even if I can't solve it, I will at least warn people not to get close to here."
He said, Miss Norma's soul looked at him, she didn't open her mouth, but her voice appeared directly in Shade's ears:
"You promise?"
"Yes, I promise to fix the problem here as soon as possible, or stop people from getting near here."
His idea was to come here once a week, waiting for the land to have problems again, and then sense the problem and determine whether it was caused by some kind of relic or other strange things. Even if he couldn't stop the danger here, he could tell Yin Luna and let Yin Luna notify the Sun Church.
Although the righteous god Lantern Old Man is the sun god, his full name is "God of the Sun and Earth". The church specializes in land issues. Even if the believers of the earth god have no solution to the situation here, the believers of nature will surely not be stingy in giving help.
Of course, these things can only be solved when problems arise here again. There are no problems now, and there is nothing we can do even if we call the church.
Seeing Shade's sincere attitude, Miss Norma bowed slightly to him. Shade waved his hand and drew a dark crack beside him, revealing the shallows illuminated by the dark moon.
The soul gradually turned pure white, and finally looked at the three young people who were unconscious in the snow. Tears flowed from the soul, turning into ice crystals and falling into the snow. The soul drew a white light and shadow, crossed the crack, and entered the real afterlife. As the crack closed, Miss Norma really entered death.
"Soul tears?"
The crystals in the snow flew to Shade. This was a very rare special material that could only be produced after the stranded undead had their wishes fulfilled. Not only did the wish need to be fulfilled, but the undead itself also needed to be very powerful. This was a very useful alchemical material, and it was expensive. Shade had obtained this material before the battle of Mount Sikar because he had given a starving undead a sense of fullness, but later he gave the soul teardrop from that time to Luvia.
But this thing is useless to Shade. After the battle of Xikar, the "light rain" blessing he received on the top of the mountain was the purest soul tears of thousands of souls. However, if it is only regarded as an alchemical material, this drop of crystal alone is far more than the sum of all other rewards Shade received in this commission.
"Take your payment and I'll fix the problem here."
Xia De exhaled, watching the white smoke drift away from his mouth with the wind. Then he looked at the three people lying on the snow:
"Although it was Miss Norma who lied to you that she could be resurrected and made you bury her alive, you still killed someone... This time, why did I send the client's relatives to the Redwich Field again?"
In the empty courtyard, only Xia De could hear her gentle laughter. Xia De raised his hand to cover his eyebrows and looked up at the sun that was half covered by the edge of the clouds:
"May the earth be with all of us."
(Little Mia is running...)
"That's pretty much it."
At 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, in Dr. Schneider's clinic, Shad was holding little Mia and sharing his story with the other four people in the group.
Dr. Schneider was amazed:
"So, Miss Norma..."
"Buried alive by the three of them."
Shade stroked the cat's head and said something that he knew was cruel:
"The cause of death was asphyxiation, so..."
Father Augustus had already begun to pray quietly, and the writer had listened attentively. She was very interested in another question:
"Did the three young men you mentioned finally learn the truth? In other words, um, bury their loved ones alive?"
Xia De recalled what happened in the morning:
"Before coming here, I went to Redwich Field to confirm the details of the confession. As you know, the church is very sensitive to this kind of thing, so the person who contacted me at the time was the ring warlock arranged by the church at Redwich Field... ... Off topic, it was me who told those three young people this morning that there would be no resurrection, and that the dead were dead. Those three people cried and collapsed. Tsk, tsk, I have never seen anyone cry so miserably."
"You told them on purpose, didn't you?"
The purple-eyed fortune teller joked that she knew Shade well:
"Deliberately let them know this cruel truth."
"Although they blindly obeyed Miss Norma's orders out of love, they did kill someone with their own hands. Shouldn't they be punished for killing someone? Sooner or later, someone will tell them about this."
No one will comment on Shad's words. However, although the three were arrested on the spot by Redwich, since this case can be viewed in two ways: suicide and homicide, the specific crime will depend on how the families behind the three young people operate.
The lawyer will probably play a big role in this, but it has nothing to do with Shad. Although Professor Martin knew that Shad sent his son to Redwich Field, he still paid the commission. This professor of literature is a very upright person. As for Mr. Franco, he paid three times the fee as promised, and smiled and praised Shad for being the most famous detective in Tobesk.
“But I still don’t understand, what is in that land?”
Father Augustus asked again:
"Is there something buried underground? A relic? Or a sealed evil demon?"
"It can't be a demon, right?"
The doctor also said casually.
But this time Xia De did not give an answer, but shook his head gently:
"I will check on that piece of land from time to time. If there is any problem, I will deal with it immediately. It is too early to draw a conclusion. According to the memories I got from Miss Norma's soul, that place will be peaceful for at least two or three months."
"The sacrifice of a soul to an ancient ritual of love can only suppress the land for two or three months. It does seem to be no small trouble."
Dr. Schneider sighed slightly, but everyone enjoyed hearing various detective stories from Shade.
The exam week had ended half a month ago, and the five people in the group had become relatively lazy, but they did not forget to get their own new magic from the library. Except for the Augustus priest who had not been upgraded, the new grade textbooks of the others had been delivered last week, and this week they were considering taking some elective courses.
In addition to the fifth-year courses in the School of History and the School of Library Management, Xia De has also chosen the course "Introduction to the Basics of Locks" taught by Professor Garcia of the School of History.
This was an advanced course on "Closed Space" that he had chosen in the fall. Since Shad had mentioned the problem of "multiple labyrinth nesting" in class in the fall, and this hypothesis itself had been confirmed by the God Summoner, Professor Garcia hoped that Shad would continue to participate in the course and submit a paper on multiple labyrinth nesting at the end of the course.
This was a simple matter for Shad.