"This is such unfortunate news... Could you please help pass the money to Mr. Lemaire's family? I think they need it."
Although he knew that Mrs. Lemaire's commission was fine, Shad did not forget to continue acting. Then, as he expected, Mr. De Laer waved his hand at him:
"I know that Lemaire has a distant relative in Tobesk who can inherit the estate, but only the lawyer knows the exact address. Since he has unfortunately passed away, I think there is no need to pay back the money."
Mr. Delal and Mr. Lemaire are old friends who have known each other for many years, and they feel a little sad when talking about this.
After Shade pretended to be enthusiastic and comforted him for a few words, Mr. Dellal found a wine glass and red wine and drank a glass with Shade. When the two clinked their glasses, they wished that the soul of Mr. Lemaire, who was buried in the sea, could rest in peace.
Xia De had achieved his goal, so there was no need to stay any longer. After drinking, he planned to leave immediately, but the liquid in the cup reminded him of another red liquid, so out of sheer curiosity, he blinked his eyes and used the spell Blood Echo to observe the room.
The result was far beyond my expectation. The floor and walls were normal, but the entire ceiling was filled with a creepy blood-red halo. It wasn't that the ceiling was stained with blood, but that the blood was seeping down from the top of the second floor.
Judging from this amount, it was hard for Xia De to imagine what was going on upstairs.
"Are you sure Mr. Dellal is an ordinary person?"
I had already confirmed it when I entered the door, but I still couldn't help but ask at this time.
Very sure.
"Okay then."
It seems that there are still some things that need to be investigated about Lemaire's inheritance. And since the other party is just an ordinary person, Shade thinks there is no need to pretend that he didn't see it.
He nodded, put down the wine glass in his hand, took out the pocket watch from his pocket and took a look:
"It's getting late, so I'll see you later, Mr. Dellal."
After saying that, Mr. Dellal stood up and walked Shad to the door normally.
Opening his umbrella at the door, the young stranger nodded to Mr. Dellal again and walked out into the rain.
An hour later, Shad returned from the hotel. He changed into the clothes that were soaked by diving, put on a hooded cloak, put on a mask on his face, and stood in the alley behind Mr. Dellal's house without an umbrella.
Mermaid Alley is a very good alley nearby, with bluestone paving the ground, so even on a rainy day like this one, you won't step into the mud. But the alley behind the row of two-story buildings, like all the alleys you can see everywhere in this era, has completely turned into a mud pit after being soaked by rain. Not many people are willing to come to such a place, so it is convenient for Xia De to move.
He observed the metal pipe on the back wall, tried to shake it and found it was fairly solid, so he climbed up along the pipe. This kind of pipe fixed on the wall is fixed with buckles and steel nails at intervals, so it is also convenient for Xia De to move.
After climbing to the second floor and seeing that the distance was almost right, he reached into his pocket with one hand, chanted a spell, dropped his frog legs, and then pounced, with a jumping ability that a normal person definitely did not have, and jumped onto the windowsill of the second floor window.
There were some flower pots on the windowsill, and some of them fell down when Xia De bumped into them. But the rain was so loud that the flower pots fell into the mud and made almost no sound.
According to the location of the living room, the room with blood should be behind this window. But the curtains were closed and it was impossible to see inside, so Xia De asked:
"Can you feel the elements?"
Not at this time.
I tried to push the window, and sure enough, it was locked from the inside with a brass buckle.
But this did not bother Xia De. He waved his hand forward, and the arc of moonlight accurately cut the metal window frame and then destroyed the lock inside. Similarly, the slight shattering of glass and the breaking sound of metal were also covered by the rain.
He did not open the window immediately, but held his breath and listened to the noise inside for a while. After confirming that he had not been discovered, he gently pushed the window open a crack.
The bloody smell wafted out from the window gaps almost immediately and quickly dissipated in the moisture from the heavy rain.
Xia De couldn't help but frowned. He didn't push the window open immediately. Instead, he squatted on the windowsill and carefully used his fingers to open the curtains in front of him.
There was light in the room, and through the window one could see six long red candles stuck on the floor covered with fresh blood plasma. A huge six-pointed star was drawn on the ground with black blood plasma, with six candles placed at the six vertices.
At the same time, in the gaps between the hexagram patterns, there were some strange ancient characters written on them, and some glass vessels filled with meat were placed there.
Inside the room behind the curtains, all the furniture had been cleared out. Except for the wall where the invisible window was located, the other three walls were all covered with prayers written in common language, and the paint was of course blood.
Looking up at the ceiling, several human skulls were nailed to the top with ropes tied to the nails, hanging down from the ceiling. Because the windows were opened to let the wind in, the skulls swayed slightly, which was particularly creepy in the dim light of the candles.
"Still no trace of the four elements or spirits?"
No.
"Then I understand."
The horrific scene in the room made the expression behind the mask more serious:
“This is a cult of ordinary people.”
Ring warlocks are not the only ones who believe in evil gods for the sake of power. The worship of evil gods among ordinary people is the most common type of cultists.
Maybe they came into contact with and joined the cult, maybe they just saw something in the book and derived worship from it, maybe they came into contact with some special objects, maybe it was family reasons, maybe there was something wrong with their brains... But no matter which one it was, according to the words of the senior priest Rat Augustus -
Any cultists should be executed immediately, there is no need to save them.
Mr. Delar was probably a cultist among ordinary people, and the things in the room were some kind of ritual he was performing. The layout of the room looked a bit like a so-called evil ritual, but in fact, based on Shade's shallow knowledge, this ridiculous ritual did not conform to basic ritual studies at all, and was more like something imagined and fabricated by ordinary people.
The ritual itself would naturally have no effect, but this behavior was also quite dangerous. In a world where supernatural powers truly existed, even if the ritual was not performed correctly, it might still attract some terrible twisted power.
The Orthodox Church strictly prohibits such behavior. The contemporary Five Gods Church is relatively mild in the eyes of the people, but if it was the church instead of Shad who discovered this scene today, Mr. Dral would probably be executed immediately.
"Things seem to be getting a little complicated. So, that inheritance... How did the crew member Flamel die? Did Mrs. Flamel accidentally get involved in some conspiracy? Or, these two things are actually unrelated."
After thinking for a moment, Shad pushed the window open enough for him to get in, then jumped in from the windowsill. The feeling of his boots stepping on the blood plasma was terrible.
I gently closed the window behind me and looked towards the wall with the window. I immediately saw a tripod placed against the base of the wall with a large open book on it.
Not hearing any footsteps outside, Shade walked over and flipped through the book. The black leather cover, the faded dark blue ink, and the yellowed and worm-eaten pages looked very much like an ancient occult book.
But after reading it, Shade knew that everything in it was made up through imagination, with no system, ridiculous content, and completely wrong terminology. It was okay to fool ordinary people, but any ring sorcerer could see through the truth of this book at a glance.
The only thing that surprised him was that the page of the big book titled "Conch Text" that was opened was a ceremony of praying to the evil god and asking for the curse to be lifted.
The pentagram ritual pattern on the ground is exactly the same as the hand-drawn pattern on this page of paper, which shows that the owner here, Jason Drall, is not crazy enough to worship evil gods, but wants to pray to the other party to lift the curse.
Things seem to be getting weirder and weirder.
He placed his hand on the book, letting the woman's voice in his heart confirm that the book itself was just an ordinary object, and then he took out the revolver from his waist. He took a look to make sure that he had taken it correctly, then quietly walked to the door and deliberately stomped on the floor.
The silence downstairs continued for a second, and then Xia De heard the sound of a porcelain teacup falling to the ground. The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs was heard, but the footsteps did not enter this room, but entered the next room.
Chairs were pushed aside, locks were turned, drawers were pulled open, and then there was the sound of bullets being pushed in.
The frightened Mr. Dral pulled the safety of the cold gun in his hand with trembling fingers, then walked out the door carefully.
But just as he walked out the door, the muzzle of a gun was pressed against his forehead from outside.
Wearing a black robe with water dripping from it, Shade stood in the corridor. For some reason, when Mr. Delar saw that his opponent was a human being and the weapon he used was a gun, he actually breathed a sigh of relief.
He probably thought that his ritual had really attracted something extraordinary.
"Put down your weapons."
Xia De's dull voice came from behind the mask. The middle-aged man did not recognize that the person in front of him was the young man who had visited him not long ago. He hesitated, and Xia De snorted.
"oh!"
Under the effect of the spell, flames suddenly jumped out from the sleeve of Mr. Dellal's gun-holding hand. He immediately dropped the gun in panic and slapped the wall with his sleeve to put out the fire.
The flames were quickly put out. He trembled and tried to turn around and run away, but was kicked in the knee by Xia De.
He sat on the ground in fear, his back against the wall, the muzzle of Shade's gun still pointed at his forehead. From the moment his sleeve caught fire for no apparent reason, the middle-aged man had understood what the stranger was:
"Ringmaster."
"Yes."
"Save me, I can give you whatever you want."
He raised his hands high and even wanted to hug Xia De's arms, but when the gun muzzle moved, he immediately dared not move.
"Save you?"
Xia De raised the gun in his hand and pointed it at the room covered with blood plasma:
"Now, follow me into this room and tell me what you've been through."
"I'll tell you anything. I can give you money. Save me!"