"Three in the Randall River Valley, one in Tobesk, and one in the Pantanal. In just half a month, I saw five."
While sighing, Shade took out the normal mud he had prepared in advance from his pocket and prepared to cast a spell. However, after the mud was crushed and sprinkled, the spell did not work:
"This time is different from the previous situation. I need to see the core of the contaminated area before I can purify this land."
Xia De shook off the dirt on his hands, Yin Luna nodded, and the two of them still had to enter the building in front of them first:
"So what are the characteristics of this crazy land? It's not the petrification or gathering of evil spirits that you mentioned."
The spirits in the mansion didn't look like evil spirits, at least not in any way.
"Let's go in and talk about it. The residual power of the evil creature has seriously affected our perception. I can't tell what will happen."
He drew out the Night's Watch, and the silver blade shone in the moonlight. The long sword sensed the power of the evil creature, and the runes on the sword lit up. Shade was ready for battle.
Of course there was no light in the abandoned mansion. After entering the corridor under the moonlight, the two found the stairs to the second floor and planned to meet the soul trapped here first.
The degree of desolation inside the house was far beyond their expectations, even the stairs were broken. Fortunately, for the two middle-ring warlocks, this was not a big problem.
Only when they reached the second floor did they realize that the souls that had been standing at the window staring at them were gone. The deserted corridor was illuminated by the bright moonlight, and this scene was quite eerie.
"Let me see."
Yin Luna said, looking at the window, and put her hand on the windowsill, with golden light flickering under her palm. After waiting for a moment, she looked up and noticed the message:
"There are so many souls here. Let's go to the third floor. They are all waiting for us there."
"they?"
"All the souls here, hundreds at least."
Although it was unknown how many people there were in the Farmer family, the distant relatives of the Granger family and the legal owners of this land, it was obviously impossible for there to be so many.
The staircase from the second floor to the third floor was also broken, and there were many blackened blood-stained graffiti on the walls of the stairwell. Those crazy words either cursed the people who came here, or complained about the unfairness of fate, or were just meaningless curses. Many things probably happened here before.
It is impossible to verify who built this manor, but it is clear that the largest room on the third floor was used as a banquet hall when it was first built. When Xia De and Yin Luna came to the third floor, music like a dance song suddenly appeared in the empty building, and the door of the banquet hall on the left side of the stairs was open, with warm yellow light pouring out, and the sounds of men and women talking and drinking became clearer, as if a grand banquet was still being held here.
Xia De and Yin Luna looked at each other, and when they arrived at the door of the banquet hall, they saw a banquet being held under the bright crystal chandelier and the kerosene lamps on the wall. Ladies in evening dresses and gentlemen in tuxedos were dancing, and waiters in white shirts and red vests were carrying trays and wine glasses and weaving back and forth among the crowd. An elderly man wearing a monocle was sitting on the sofa in the corner rest area, chatting with acquaintances about interesting things, and middle-aged people in military uniforms and young people were looking at the scenery in the distance by the window.
Such a lively banquet in the abandoned mansion made the scene even more bizarre. Xia Deming knew it was fake, but he could not see the truth for the time being. Yin Luna, who was standing by, saw that the scenes in her left and right eyes were completely different. The eyes with divine structure were enough for her to see the truth here.
"Really? You're playing a trick like that... Lend it to me."
She took the Night Watch from Shade angrily, and stabbed the red carpet illuminated by the light in the banquet hall with the sword in both hands:
"Law-Destroy the Demon!"
The golden light spread along the ground with the tip of the sword as the center. It did not cause any ripples in the corridor with peeling walls behind the two people, but in the banquet hall in front, as the golden ripples spread, the magnificent banquet hall faded and returned to its old and dilapidated appearance. The people in bright clothes disappeared like soap bubbles.
The warmth on my skin turned into the coldness of the winter night. The cold wind poured in from the window without glass, and then blew into the corridor from the door. The empty banquet hall was illuminated by the three-color moonlight from the window on one side. There was no grand banquet here at all. There were only hundreds of shadowy souls in the room looking at the two people at the door.
In the center of the banquet hall, there was an old long table without a tablecloth. The suspicious marks on the tabletop looked like large patches of blood. At the end of the long table, there sat a male soul dressed up in "fancy clothes". He was dressed in the clothes that nobles in the old times wore when attending banquets, and he looked like a middle-aged man. On the side of the long table near the door, there were two chairs, which were obviously prepared for Xia De and Yin Luna.
"Are you Lord Farmer?"
Shad asked.
"Yes."
The sitting man answered, and as he spoke, the souls around him whose faces were unclear began to become restless, but soon calmed down.
"I am the owner of this manor. Isn't it a bit rude of you to break into my house?"
The man asked while turning the ring on his right hand with his left hand. Xia Deze and Yin Luna walked in and pulled out chairs to sit down. It was just a few hundred souls, which was not a threat.
"Well I'm sorry for breaking into your house."
Shade looked at him:
"No offense, I just want to ask you about someone. Mr. Thomas Granger, if my investigation is correct, the Farmer family has had a lot of correspondence with him. If possible, I want to know what the content of your correspondence is."
The middle-aged noble clasped his hands together and placed them on the table:
"Thomas Granger..."
The soul had no expression on his face when he said this. He was stronger than most of the souls that Shade had ever seen—except for Thomas Granger in the Emerald Dream and the mutated evil spirit in the narrow space between life and death. Among the hundreds of souls living in the house, this was undoubtedly the strongest individual:
"Yes, I do know him."
The souls' thumbs pressed together their knuckles:
"About seventy years ago, he wrote to me to inquire about this manor and asked for records about it. That's why I remembered that my family owned this property. It happened that the kingdom sent soldiers to garrison here, so I brought my family here. At that time, I thought that maybe I could find letters or relics from my ancestors here, which might be useful to Thomas... ... A week after we landed on the island, an epidemic broke out and we all died."
He said this expressionlessly, and Yin Luna quietly touched Xia De with her leg, indicating that he should be ready to fight at any time.
"You hate him?"
Xia De asked again.
"How could I not feel resentment? If my good friend hadn't talked to me about this manor, how could our whole family have died here?"
The Baron's soul stared at Shade, with a faint green flame visible in his eye sockets. The moonlight was obscured by the dark clouds, but the room was not dark at all, and all the souls were emitting a pale green light:
"You know what? This land is alive. Anyone who dies here will have their soul bound here forever and slowly devoured by the land. The land draws strength from all souls, so the more souls trapped here, the longer we can exist."
Xia De's fingers tapped the table unconsciously:
"Why, you're not going to say that one of us must stay behind before you're willing to tell me where the letters are?"
"Of course not."
The man shook his head slightly:
"I hope both of you stay!"
With a loud bang, the door behind them closed automatically in the strong wind, and the thick cloth curtains that shouldn't have been there covered the window with a swish sound. The souls wandering around seemed to have entities in an instant, and rushed towards Xia De and Yin Luna with the horrible appearance of tragic death.
The pale green flames illuminated the banquet hall, and the howling and crying were enough to make any determined person give up the will to live in an instant.
"Silver Moon."/"Sun!"
The golden and silver light burst out from the tide of the soul, and the holy and warm power directly melted the first batch of souls that rushed in the fastest. As Xia De and Yin Luna stood up, two brass rings rotated behind the two people standing side by side. The life rings were so close that when they rotated clockwise and counterclockwise, they collided with each other in a harsh sound, producing dazzling sparks.
The golden sunlight and the holy silver moonlight illuminated the enclosed space together. Without even the two of them having to do anything themselves, the wailing souls took the initiative to pass through the wall and quickly escaped.
The soul of the baron on the other side of the long table looked at the scene in astonishment, as if the sun and the moon had really descended here. He also wanted to escape through the wall to the downstairs, but as soon as his legs touched the floor, the silver halo flew over and caught his neck.
The soul's movements suddenly stopped, and then several halos flew over and wrapped around his hands and legs.
Xia De stretched out his arm, and the chain of sin shot out like a long snake, swept across the table and tied up the baron who was completely unable to move, and dragged him along the dusty table like a dead dog in front of Xia De and Yin Luna.
Although the soul does not have the body's instinctive reaction, the Baron still felt himself trembling in front of the "Sun" and the "Moon". He stared at the two with wide eyes, and the spiked tail of the black chain was pointing at his face. The cold metal feeling was not fatal, but the filth of the sin was enough to make this soul collapse.
"I believe that you are not the only one in this manor who can answer our questions."