After the sudden earthquake, the white fog on the street became thicker, as if a veil was hanging everywhere in the air. Just now, I could still see the house across the street from the window, but after the earthquake, I could only see the hazy fog.
The concentration of the whispering elements in the thick fog has exceeded the strength of the poet-level relic, so Sister Michelle urgently organized people to block the doors and windows, especially the gaps in the windows, to prevent the white fog from seeping in.
At the same time, the Midhill City Hall and the church were also taking action. Police officers holding lanterns ran through the streets, ringing bells and loudly reminding citizens not to go out before dawn tomorrow. They even knocked on doors from house to house to remind them to seal the gaps in doors and windows in time.
Given the size and permanent population of Midhill Castle, I'm afraid this reminder work is not only done by the local police, but also by the Draerion Royal Army stationed on Mount Sikar.
The lanterns in the police's hands were not ordinary items. When Sister Michelle opened the door and talked to the police, she noticed the Holy Emblem of Dawn on the metal base of the oil lamp. This was a divine alchemy item made by the church to protect these ordinary people from walking in the fog.
It was a late autumn afternoon, and the fog was thick. Shade, anxiously waiting, stood at the third-floor window and looked outside. He could not see anything, but he knew that something important must have happened on the Sikar Mountain and in the narrow space.
Father Augustus, Sister Devlin, Miss Aurora, and even Iluna might have already started a battle with some dangerous enemy, and all this happened in just one hour.
Around 2:20 pm, the earthquake occurred again, this time with a stronger intensity, and even Xia De, who stood up, felt a little unstable. Fortunately, the two consecutive earthquakes this month have made the residents living here accustomed to such things, so no one fled outdoors in panic because of the earthquake.
Sister Michelle looked even more nervous. Blind nuns have more sensitive senses than ordinary ring sorcerers. She found Shade on the third floor and hoped that he could guard the door of the first floor. Of course, Shade would not refuse.
When he and the nun went downstairs, the sound of a bell rang out from the center of the city. The middle-aged nun signaled Shade not to speak and quietly counted the number of bells. When the bells stopped ringing, she said to Shade with concern:
"It's not the hour now. Seven bells are a sign of a city emergency. Oh, you're a foreigner, so you may not understand that border cities like ours need this kind of early warning measure."
"When was the last time seven bells rang?"
Shad asked.
"At that time, the total war in the Old World had not yet ended."
Outsiders do not understand the meaning of the city bells, but the citizens living in this city certainly do. The white fog containing the whispering elements is infiltrating every corner of the city. If you fail to seal the doors and windows in time, and your body is weaker, you will definitely not survive today.
The church's personnel were dispersing to every corner of the city. On the lampposts in the streets and alleys that Shade had not noticed, symbols of divine rituals were lighting up in pieces, forming a ritual formation centered on the core urban area in an attempt to fight against the fog.
This was a truly grand undertaking, almost transforming the entire city into a "sanctuary". Moreover, this was only the first step in the preparations before the sealing ceremony of the "Trace of the Holy Tree" began.
But even so, this fog will definitely take away a large number of lives in this city.
The overlap between the narrow space and the material world was becoming more and more serious. After the second small earthquake, Shade keenly sensed the abnormality of the space. Just as he worried, at about 2:40 pm, Sister Michelle told Shade that the nun in charge of monitoring the white fog on the upper floors of the building had found evil spirits in the white fog.
This is a very serious matter. It is daytime now, and the street where the Blind House is located is also considered a downtown area. The appearance of evil spirits here at this time means that evil spirits will appear in the entire city.
It's not that the Orthodox Church did not anticipate this situation, but now their manpower is dispersed among three channels, and they have to take into account both the real world and the narrow space, so they cannot clean every corner of the city in time.
But this time the church was well prepared. Twenty minutes after the first evil spirit was discovered, a loud horn sounded from the center of the city. It sounded like the horn that the ancient tribesmen used to blow when charging at the enemy.
As a ring sorcerer, Shad could see from the first-floor window a layer of golden glow rising from the center of the city. Then a huge golden shadow wearing a crown of thorns appeared in the fog, holding up a horn in his right hand and blowing it.
The golden glow quickly spread to the city, but did not dispel the white fog. The power that Shade felt was more like a spell to expel evil spirits, but the coverage area was really terrifyingly large.
Ordinary people couldn't even hear the sound of the horn, and among the ring sorcerers, only those with keen perception could truly see the golden aura of those divine arts. The sound of the horn lasted for half a minute before it ended, and then the city became quiet again.
Shade in the room could catch the golden light particles still in the air. Sister Michelle told Shade that the horn just now was the distorted holy sound of the angel-level relic (level 1) collected by the diocese. The use of this relic has great side effects. Although the sound can drive away malicious spirits, it may also awaken some dormant evil creatures in the subspace.
Only the Orthodox Church could do this, and use divine magic with confidence and boldness.
According to the general rules of the Orthodox Church's operations that Shad heard from Iluna, after using such a large-scale divine art, a team of ring sorcerers will be sent out to carry out targeted elimination.
But the mountain city of Midhill Castle is so large that even though ring sorcerers from surrounding parishes have been transferred to provide support in recent weeks, Shade still feels worried about the city's future.
He was still waiting, and this waiting was even more anxious than waiting for Darkness to come to Tobesk.
After the horn sounded, there was no other movement in the city for a long time. Only Shade was anxiously waiting for news in the Blind House. When it was close to half past three, a thunder-like explosion in the distance startled Shade. According to Sister Michelle's judgment, the sound came from the top of Mount Sikar.
These nuns, who have not used their vision for many years, have stronger hearing senses than Shade.
The sound of thunder meant that a battle had broken out on Mount Sikar, and one of the parties should be the Orthodox Church, because Sister Michelle recognized that the sound was the unique sound of the Thunder Hammer, a sage-level relic housed by the Church of Nature in the diocese, when it summoned thunder.
It is said that this relic is related to the evil god Fury Storm, who is also one of the three evil gods of Coldwater Port.
The rash use of this relic shows that the battle on Mount Sikar is not simple. However, neither Shade nor Sister Michelle can guess who the other party in the battle will be.
At this time, ordinary people in the home for the blind were already a little panicked, especially those blind people who came to visit in the fog today. They were eager to return to their homes, but for safety reasons, Sister Michelle could not let them leave, so some of them were almost screaming hysterically.
Ordinary people who have not experienced anything are inherently fragile, and are more susceptible to being affected in a city filled with whispering elements. Although the church's divine rituals can soothe the spirit, they are not omnipotent after all.
It was almost four in the afternoon, and the strange situation in the city continued. The sun had not yet set, but the light intensity in the entire area had dropped to almost night. In the hazy fog, it seemed that there were large groups of people walking around, but people on the street could not see the faces of those figures at all.
I don’t know how many people pray silently at home, and I don’t know how many people, after occasionally witnessing strange scenes on the street, gradually become crazy.
Even without going out, Shad could feel the anxiety and uneasiness of the city, as well as the signs of impending disaster.
At this moment, the door of the Blind House was knocked. The knocking sound was so quick and powerful that it almost scared Mia who was taking a nap in Shad's arms.
"Who would knock on the door at this hour? Does the neighbor next door want to hide here?"
He took a few steps towards the door, and the night watchman in his hand immediately vibrated.
Xia De frowned slightly and asked the people behind him to inform Sister Michelle. He boldly looked out through the peephole of the door. Standing in the thick fog was a ragged, hunchbacked man. His appearance was unclear, but he was standing in front of the door with his head down. He seemed to be a beggar.
"Mr. Watson, who's here?"
Sister Michelle also came over at this time. Shade described the characteristics of the person knocking on the door, and the nun shook her head:
"He's not someone we know here."
"He probably wasn't a beggar asking for help. I didn't see his shadow. He was an evil spirit in the fog."
Xia De judged that since he didn't feel a very strong whispering element when he was close to the door, it meant that it was not a humanoid relic. Although the power of this evil spirit that moves according to certain rules is not strong, it can cause trouble if you don't deal with it carefully.
After the nun was ready to start, Shade leaned against the door and asked:
"Who's knocking at the door?"
"Sir, can you give me something to eat?"
A hoarse and old man's voice came from outside. The strange voice gave Xia De goose bumps:
"What do you want?"
"Food, as long as it can fill your stomach."
"Fill your stomach?"
Xia De called the frightened servant and asked for a bowl of water. He gently touched the water surface to make a blasphemous silver light appear. Then he stuck to the door and carefully opened it a crack.
But before he could hand over the bowl, a blue human hand with bulging veins on the surface reached out.
Xia De's face was very close to the hand. He could clearly see the mud in the slender fingernails and the corpse spots on the back of the hand, and could even feel the chilling chill.