"As expected, you are the lowest level of undead creature. Although you have amazing strength and agility, your intelligence is only at the level of a wild beast. Can't you see how dangerous I am?"
Thinking in his heart, Shade drew out the Moonlight Great Sword from the air with his right hand. As the corpse ghost approached, he thrust the sword in front of him—
"Blade of Chaos Space and Time!"
The corpse twisted its body nimbly in the air to avoid Shade's first sword, and was then pierced through the head by the second sword that shot out from the air.
Its "vitality" was extremely strong. Even so, it still pounced forward towards Shade's neck, but Shade dodged it easily.
With a stroke of the moonlight in his hand, the arc-shaped blade of light cut the fallen corpse ghost into two. The two halves of the corpse squirmed at the same time, trying to escape, and the wounds of the corpses flowed out of a foul-smelling black-green liquid.
After a long time, it completely stopped moving, and Xia De confirmed that it had finally truly entered "death".
He squinted his eyes and looked at the disgusting corpse on the ground:
"Although Priest Augustus is a second-level warrior, he is not good at fighting. Facing this kind of ghoul that can be called an 'elite', he will indeed be forced into the catacombs. But he will definitely not die because of this. The priest may have a backup plan, but it will make too much noise, so he must find a place where there is no one..."
He used the sword in his right hand to stir the hideous corpse on the ground. In fact, a lot of alchemical materials and potion materials can be separated from the "corpse ghost" that has become stronger after the mutation. But this requires professional techniques and professional equipment to complete the harvest. Although the witch Zan Xiang Fei Lian Anna has taught Shade a lot of basic knowledge, including simple material separation techniques, he does not have professional equipment.
This is not like using a sword, just simply cutting a piece of meat will do.
Therefore, he chose to open the locked door of the ancient tomb, pressed his palm on the ground, used "Felianna's Witch Light" to "melt" a big hole in the ground, and threw the body cut into two parts into it.
The corpses of undead creatures must be handled with caution, otherwise it will lead to greater trouble. The best way to deal with it is to use oil such as the Heart of Fire used by the Augustus priest to burn the corpse completely into ash, but Shade does not have such a magic potion, so he buried the corpse first and dealt with it later.
After burying the body, he returned to the wall where the priest disappeared last, and put his hand on the wall. The surface of the cold earth wall was not flat, but it was not strange either:
"What did you find?"
Nothing was found.
"Really... Filianna's Witch Light."
The palm of his hand radiated a golden light, and then the wall was "melted" by the light like butter. Shade controlled the power of the magic and only let his hand penetrate the inside of the wall.
But until his elbow was inserted into the wall, the back was still solid.
"This is troublesome. There are no traces of elements, and it's not a mechanism."
He pulled his hand out and took a deep breath. As invisible air rushed from the wall into Shade's nose, he restored the wall to its original state at the cost of less than two seconds of life.
"Did the priest really evaporate into thin air?"
Xia De looked around again. The cold and damp underground cemetery seemed to have no other clues:
"Do you want me to lick the ground and the wall?"
No need, because by using the magic "Breath of Time", you have a deeper contact with the space in front of you and obtained detailed information.
"Breath of Time has this benefit?"
Considering that the thaumaturgical effect is to inhale a stream of air representing "past time" into the nose, this seems reasonable:
"I know that a magic that uses lifespan as a casting material cannot only have the effect of changing time... ... What do you know?"
An area similar to a space anomaly zone once appeared here briefly. Your friend has most likely fallen into the space anomaly zone.
"Priest Augustus was teleported to some other place?"
Shad thought of the time when he and Luvia were in the cornfield in the dark realm, crossing the spatial rift and coming directly to the gate of Miss Carina's manor.
I didn't sense much information, but the other side was not a material world. I felt distortion, malice, and pure death.
Xia De thought about it, and then confirmed that with his knowledge, he had no idea what this meant:
"Could it be that Priest Augustus fell into the underworld? But in the mythology of this world, the underworld does not exist at all..."
After the people in this world die, if they are not taken away by gods or dragged to the wall (referring to the wall of non-believers), they can only "keep going on". There is not even the concept of "reincarnation" as in the hometowns of outsiders.
"Isn't it some subspace that seals away evil things?"
This is the most likely outcome.
Since there were no more clues in the underground cemetery, Shade left the misty cemetery and took a carriage back to the "Blind House" in the city. When he knocked on the door of No. 15 Luffy Lane again, it was almost five o'clock in the afternoon.
At this time, the effect of Shad's Blood Echo completely disappeared, and the only clue Shad had was that the priest finally disappeared in front of the deepest wall of the underground cemetery at the foot of Mount Sikar.
This time it was not Ms. Michelle who opened the door for Shad, but perhaps with Ms. Michelle's permission, the young nun, who also had her eyes wrapped with cloth, took Shad directly to the third floor.
Ms. Michelle's eyes had returned to normal, but instead of covering her eyes with sackcloth again, she covered them with an eyepatch that looked like a silver crown, which Shad had seen once.
When inviting Shade to sit down, Ms. Michelle also told Shade that in the spiritual order, only the monks who were formal nuns could wear such blindfolds. In the stronghold of the "Blind House", she was the only one who was qualified.
The two met in the reception room again, and Shade told him about his experience. Ms. Michelle frowned slightly when she heard the word "corpse ghost". When Shade said that he found out that the priest had fallen into a strange space by a method that was not convenient to disclose, the middle-aged woman in her forties frowned even more:
"I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to doubt a powerful ring mage like you."
She probably had some misunderstanding about Shad, but before Shad could explain, the nun continued:
"Excuse me, are you sure that it is a twisted, malicious, and death-filled place?"
"Very sure."
"And do you know the local myths and legends?"
"I know nothing except that the driver told me that every autumn there is fog on Mount Sikar for no apparent reason."
Shade said this honestly, thinking that he could go to the tower keeper of Coldwater Harbor, Mr. Edmund, who claimed to be a folklorist, to inquire about the rumors about the city.
"In fact, there is a very old rumor in this city that is difficult to tell whether it is true or not."
Ms. Michelle lowered her head and said cautiously:
"The first point that needs to be emphasized is that cases like Priest Rat Augustus suddenly disappearing in a certain place occur frequently in this city every one or two years. He may be walking and suddenly disappear, or he may be talking to his companions, but as soon as he turns his head, his companions disappear."
This sounds like an urban legend from the Steam Age. When the tabloids in Tobesk couldn't find a suitable topic such as "The Duel between the Grand Duke's Lovers", they liked to use such shocking stories to occupy the pages. There were even people who compiled these stories and published them, which was also an illegal publication.
"Mysteriously disappeared?"
Xia De frowned slightly:
“It seems that there are similar rumors in many places, but they are just bizarre cases that the city hall and the police have difficulty solving.”
"But in Fort Midhill, this is real. I originally thought that Father Augustus just encountered an accident, but I didn't expect this to be the case."
“Has the church ever explained this situation?”
"Rumor has it that in Mount Sikar..."
Xia De looked out the window. From the third-floor window, he could directly see the mountain range that was now shrouded in fog. The Sikar Mountains were part of the Rommel mountain range. The continuous mountain range was like a giant dragon in a foreigner's hometown, stretching across the distance of the city.
"Under Mount Sikar, there is an ambiguous area connecting the world of the living and the world of the dead. The church calls it the gap between life and death."
Although there is no "underworld" in this world, because the dead will continue to move on, there is a clear boundary between the living and the dead. This "boundary" is only a conceptual thing. Shade has never heard of such a place:
"This is not normal, a place like this shouldn't exist."
Shade pointed out, and the nun nodded:
"This is indeed abnormal. Death and the material world should not have any connection, nor should there be a passage connecting the two, but similar gaps do exist in the material world. Most of them are small in scale, and Midhill Castle is built on top of the largest known boundary between life and death. Including the white fog that must appear on Mount Xikar every autumn and the inexplicable disappearances of people, these are all caused by the blurred boundaries of the border, resulting in a direct overlap between the world of the living and the dead."
Ms. Michelle sighed softly:
“Once you fall into that boundary, it is almost equivalent to death; once you enter a special door in the narrow space between life and death, you have truly stepped into irreversible death. There, it is really connected to the concept of death itself.”
"Are these rumors you mentioned local legends?"
These things are not mentioned at all in the folklore-related courses for second-ring warlocks.
"No, there is a lot of evidence to prove that this is true. Mr. Watson, the cult has long ago determined that there is something under this Mount Sikar, this volcano..."
Xia De was stunned:
"Volcano? Sorry, please forgive my impoliteness. Mount Xikar is a volcano? Although I am not good at geology and geography, this place does not look like a volcanic terrain at all."
“This is indeed a dead volcano.”
Ms. Michelle said that although she was wearing a crown-like blindfold so that Shad could not see her eyes, the woman was clearly not joking:
"The Orthodox Church knows about the narrow space of life and death under Mount Xikar, but they do not reveal any information to the outside world. The church believes that it is actually a relic of extremely high danger level."
"Angel level?"
Shade asked tentatively, but Ms. Michelle shook her head slightly.
"Unknowable level?"
His eyes widened.
"That's what the cult thinks. There are some things that are inconvenient to tell you, but in fact, the cult has been exploring the secrets here. We worship death and we perceive spirituality. You can glimpse its emergence, even the twisted and terrifying power of death, and it seems that nothing has happened. This is incredible to me."
Ms. Michel concluded:
"Based on the current information, Priest Rat Augustus should not have entered the door in the gap between life and death, but simply fell into the gap between life and death. The corpse ghost you encountered appeared because of the blurred boundary."
"So that's the case... Then you guys can help dispose of the corpse of the ghoul. The valuables on its body will be your reward."
Shade put his hand on his head and said, this situation is really an unimaginable big trouble. Just a day ago, he was still making final preparations for the Grand City Players Finals with the help of Tifa, but 24 hours later, he heard another terrible rumor here.
Today is Thursday, the 19th day of the harvest month. After more than half a month of rest since the beginning of the month, the strangers know that their adventure is about to begin again.
The nun whispered:
“Thank you for your generosity.”
It was not difficult to dig up the buried corpse, and the materials that could be separated from the mutated powerful ghouls were indeed valuable. The most valuable of these were the ghoul brain and the ghoul lungs, which could be sold for at least 20 pounds at Mr. Kopps's in Tobesk.
Xia Deken gave way to the other party not only to express his gratitude, but also because he might need more help from the spiritual group in this city.
"So suppose the priest really fell into such a place, is there any way to get him out?"
Shade asked again.
"You can only get out by yourself. We living people cannot interfere with that kind of area where life and death are ambiguous. And once you fail to leave for a long time, or really cross the border, cross the door between life and death, and enter the world of the dead, you will never be able to get out again."
Shade nodded. He almost understood the meaning of the priest's "dead but not dead" state. The priest thought he couldn't get out, so he used his last strength to enter Shade's dream and say goodbye to him.
"Then I will stay in Midhill Castle for the next period of time until I rescue the priest."
Xia De stood up and walked to the window, looking at the mountains in the sunset:
"I will."
"Good luck to you."
Ms. Michelle said quietly.
It's not that she's unwilling to provide direct help, but she really can't do anything.