The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 781

Chapter 781: The Cursed Town

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

This nameless town was held up by witchcraft in an alien dimension, and it was larger than expected. After climbing up a wooden tower in the town, Hao Ren saw buildings rising and falling according to the terrain. They stretched out into the distance as if it was the disgusting wrinkled skin of a dirty behemoth. Everything looked dark and dull without colours that soothed the heart. At the end of the town, away from the riverbank, stood a large building, which could be the residence of nobility.

It was likely that the wizard used to live there.

Hao Ren came down from the watchtower and told everyone what he saw. “There is a big house at the end of the town. Let’s go and check it out.”

“Keep your eyes open.” Vivian reminded. “The wizard might have laid traps, especially those as large as this… he who set up this mysterious realm is by no mean an ordinary fellow, even during Mythological Period.”

They began to carefully explore this quiet, strange town. Lily’s eyes darted between the old houses and streets. Then she asked the most knowledgeable one in the team, “Battie, how old is this town?”

“Four hundred to a thousand years. The style of architecture and level of civilisation had not changed much during that period. The time flow in this town is obviously not in sync with the time on the outside, so it is difficult to ascertain what era the town is from,” Vivian said as she frowned. “But one thing is certain; this mysterious realm did not form naturally. Some magic power dragged the town from the real world into this dimension.”

“Have you got more details about the wizard?” Hao Ren looked at Hessiana.

Hessiana replied with an unenthusiastic voice, as she did not feel like talking to Hao Ren, “Wizards are very secretive, there is not much information about them. About this particular wizard, I know something about him though. The earliest recorded activity of him was around 1346 AD. He was once a French named Baptiste and had stayed in France for a hundred years. But he was very low profile, seemed like a good guy. But one day, he suddenly left France, and moved around many European countries and left behind many records of black magic and evil rituals. Around 1500 AD, he was reportedly active in Finland and Russia and possibly it was during that time that he began to do something to this town.”

“And then?”

“Not much about him afterward. He was barely active for the subsequent two centuries.” Hessiana shook her head. “Baptiste was a freak; he had never been in contact with other wizards. He was supposedly more powerful than many other wizards were, but his reputation was notoriously no more better than a black magic apprentice. I have utilised almost all the intelligence network of my family to get this information, but I still couldn’t find where he got his ability from nor which wizardry school he belonged to. He is definitely an extreme hermit, a lone ranger.”

Vivian looked up at the sky; it was all smoke. She asked casually, “Is that wizard dead?”

“Nothing seems to suggest that,” Hessiana said with forced smile. “It was said that he was involved in the conflict between the demon hunters and the descendants of Anubis two centuries ago and went missing after that for two centuries. Probably he was dead. But who knows? We just need his manuscripts and relics, that fellow is better dead than alive.”

“I would rather wish he is still alive.” Hao Ren shrugged. “That way I can ask him about the summoning ritual.”

By now, they were drawing close to the heart of the town and the road before them became slightly wider. The houses in the surroundings were larger and nicer and most likely a social upper-class enclave. There was a small open space, which was not even a square by any measure. The space was flat and neat. The road encircling the open space paved with medium-sized pebbles. In the centre of the open space, a wooden stage had rotten and collapsed. The townspeople might be used to gather here and listen to the speech of the seigneur.

Further out, encircling the open space were old, wooden and stone buildings that looked haunted with their dark hollow faces staring at the outsiders who were breaking into the town. All doors were shut. Tattered cloth or planks were hanging from the narrow windows. The gap on the doors and windows revealed the darkness inside as if there were unknown pairs of eye—the eyes of the residents who disappeared mysteriously and whose fate was unknown—peering out from the dark.

The atmosphere jittered Nangong Wuyue. She summoned her water mist and shrouded herself in it before transforming into a siren. Then, she tossed her cloth-ball to Hao Ren before doing a little body stretching. “Phew… it feels so much better this way.”

Hao Ren tucked her clothes into the dimensional pocket and asked, “Are you not cold?”

Wuyue laid her half-snake body and wriggling on the ground that was close to the Arctic Circle. Hao Ren could feel the cold even by just looking.

Wuyue straightened up the tip of her tail and waved. “I’m a water element. Water element isn’t afraid of cold provided it’s not freezing.”

Lily was more interested in the wooden stage in the middle of the open space. She walked around it and then raised her Flamejoy suddenly. “I felt a strange chilly air around the stage.”

“There are spirits here,” Nangong Sanba said with two bottles of magic oil in his hand, and his face looked damn serious. “Don’t poke around with the fire stick. If you disturbed the evil spirits they will haunt you.”

Lily was cheesed off. She wielded her Flamejoy at Nangong Sanba. “Don’t ever call it fire stick again! Can’t you see there are three forks?”

“Do you mean the spirits here are ghosts?” Hao Ren had been interested in this from the beginning. “Can ghost talk?”

A lost town, wandering spirits, run-down streets and houses; all these were enough to scare people out of their wits. But they seemed like child’s play in the eyes of Hao Ren. He had worse. He had won over the vengeful spirit of an entire planet. And, he had the nerves of steel. All he cared was to talk to the ghosts.

“It’s a shame that these spirits are very weak,” Nangong Sanba said as he shook his head regretfully. “They are everywhere, but also chaotic and look blurry. You can’t communicate with spirits that aren’t self-sustaining. They lack memory and thinking.”

Hao Ren murmured. “Are they the natives of this town?”

“Most likely,” Vivian said. “They were humans, and judging from the condition of the houses, they didn’t even have time to react when the town fell into the alien dimension. Humans wouldn’t survive in this space.”

“He dragged the entire town into this? What the wizard was thinking?” Hao Ren frowned and his face looked not very pleasant. “He didn’t have to do this if all he wanted was just live in seclusion.”

When they were discussing, Lily had done many rounds around the wooden stage. The stage attracted her in an inexplicable way. Her eyes began to glow in golden light when faint shadows emerged from the ground. The shadows had the figure of human, all wearing clothes that looked like they were from ancient times, and standing expressionlessly, looking up at the wooden stage as if they were listening to someone speaking on the stage.

Lily’s ears slowly stood erect when some chatters drifted into her ears:

“…the child really was stolen by the devil, we should have expelled the witch earlier…”

“It seems that we haven’t seen the seigneur for a long time.”

“…the scholar said he would help the child to exorcise the devil, but I don’t believe in magic…”

“Hey, do you want to be cursed by the witch? They will throw you outside the town, and the witch is still wandering there…”

“Why not seek help from the church?”

“…the seigneur didn’t come…”

---

Chapter 782: Ashes

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Everyone else was talking about wizards, mysterious realms, magic and ghosts. No one noticed what Lily was doing: the others knew that it was normal for the husky maiden to run around like a curious bunny. No one would blink an eye even if she suddenly decided to dig a hole and bury herself in it. Lily was now standing beside the stage, wide-eyed as she listened to the sounds of the other dimension. She did so until the sound slowly became distorted, as though there was radio interference. This caused her to snap out from her stupor.

Lily’s ears flickered as she tried to listen to the voices again. But it vanished and the faint shadows before her eyes were fading like water ripples. She lifted her Frostfire Claws in the air trying to catch them, but it turned out they were mere phantoms.

Hao Ren noticed her. He asked from afar, “Lily, what are you doing?”

“I just heard someone talking!” Lily immediately darted towards Hao Ren and told them what she had heard and seen.

Nangong Sanba’s brows pulled together. “Message from the ghosts?”

“Didn’t you say the spirits here are very weak, and they have jumbled as much that they couldn’t be separated from each other?” Hao Ren slid Nangong Sanba a glance. “What’s the matter?”

Nangong Sanba looked at Lily curiously and sprinkled some powder into the air. “The spirits here is indeed very weak; you can see it for yourself—”

Before his voice trailed off, the powder that he had just sprinkled was suspended in the air by magic and spreading like a mist around them in a faint fluorescent glow. Under the illumination of the glowing powder, some faint shadows gradually emerged, but disappeared after a few seconds.

“Those are the spirits that are entrenched in the town,” Nangong Sanba said, arching the corner of his mouth. “As you can see, there are so vague.”

“I don’t know you,” Lily’s ears shook a little and said, “but cold see them pretty clearly.”

Hao Ren looked at the husky maiden in surprise, thinking what a special ability she got there! She could even see faint ghosts that the demon hunters could not. Nangong Wuyue was no less awed. She asked Vivian, “Does werewolf has wraith-perceiving ability?”

“No, they don’t,” Vivian replied. Her expression looked strange as if she was in some kind of deep thought. “But it’s true that the dogs ward off evil spirits. Doesn’t the Chinese says pets have supernatural vision; they could see spirits?”

Everyone: “…..”

Vivian was dead serious when she said that. Lily did not know how to refute it. Next to her, Turcan had wanted say “that’s not scientific” but he bit back. His sudden self-awareness told him that as a fantasy creature, he was neither more scientific.

Hao Ren motioned with his hands to brush this conversation aside as he was looking thoughtfully at the empty little square. “It seems ghosts might be in town. I have also heard some voices when I first got here but not as clearly as Lily did. So why not you keep an eye on the spirits, Lily? Tell me if you hear or see anything. Maybe those spirits could tell us something about the town.”

“You got it!” Lily replied, holding her head high. “Just now I heard they were talking something about the seigneur. This town should have been a land of some seigneur. Is this information useful?”

“Land of the seigneur?” Vivian frowned. “It doesn’t reveal much. In that era, almost all the land belonged to the seigneurs.”

Lily snorted regretfully and turned to walk in front of them. Her eyes was emanating a golden glow as she kept seeing the invisible shadows roaming and disappeared again in the lost town. In the visions of other people, the path in the town was shrouded in a layer of grey mist, but Lily could see translucent shadows were flashing across her eyes from occasionally.

It was a pity that most of the shadows are very, very thin. They were not even wraith, just an echo of dying souls reverberating in the air, but the real souls had already left.

Hao Ren took out the MDT, which was showing some readings of the spirits. This gadget was not specifically used to detect the wraiths; he could not rely on its radar alone to communicate with the ghosts, so he tucked away the MDT.

They came before an abandoned house. Nangong Sanba checked the street sign in front of the house. “Domir… Was there such a town in history?”

“No,” Turcan replied. “We have checked; neither the name ‘Domir’ nor record of any human towns in this area exist. It’s not sure whether it was because of magic or simply the length of time, this place has been completely wiped off from history.”

Vivian thought for a while and said, “Probably it was time. Only people like Odin and Zeus were capable of casting spell that could tamper with history on a large scale in Mythology Period. I don’t think a human wizard had such ability. Europe was in turbulence hundreds of years ago. It wasn’t unusual for remote, small town like this being buried in history. Moreover, it has completely disappeared from the map, there’s no way to investigate.”

Nangong Wuyue was crawling at the back of the team. She felt something strange, rolled her tail up and checked what it was. “Do you guys notice there’s ashes everywhere in this town?”

“Ashes?” Hao Ren looked down at his feet and found himself stepping on a layer of greyish black powder. He did not really notice it before this. “This is…”

“Like the ashes of burned wood.” Nangong Wuyue picked up a little ashes and squeezed it with her fingers. “It’s everywhere, right from the entrance of the town until here.”

Hao Ren looked around thoughtfully. He did not see obvious signs of fire. So where did the ashes come from?

There was no record of Domir in history. No one could tell when and how it disappeared, and how it looked like before the destruction. Judging from the enclosed condition and the entrenched spirits here, the place should be intact until it was pulled into the dimension, and the ashes only appeared after the mysterious realm was locked away, Hao Ren so thought.

Unless the town had a custom of scattering ashes. Hao Ren pondered for a while and dismissed this theory, which was less probable.

Lily held her Flamejoy that doubled as a torch in front of the pack. She focused her vision and saw more spirits appearing in the air. There were so many of them that it looked so abnormal. It was so crowded together that they were overlapping, almost walked into and on top of each other. The little town could never accommodate such a large population. Lily became suspicious. She observed carefully, and finally discovered the secret: these ghosts were shadows of each other.”

She could not see them clearly but judging from the outlines and shapes, some of the wandering ghosts were actually one. They were generally walking along the same path and direction, the difference was just the timing. A group of seemingly different shadows would always walk into the same door, and that was a giveaway that they were actually one.

She told her puzzling findings to Nangong Sanba who then told the others. Suddenly, a thought across Vivian’s mind. “Perhaps these spirits are not of human at all.”

Hao Ren did not get it. “You mean…”

“Perhaps it is the memory of this town, or perhaps the resonance of a more powerful soul. In short, they are not ghosts, but something that is projected by another force, so that explains the repetition and their same trajectory and action,” Vivian said as she surrounded herself with a faint blood mist. “I was already suspicious just now. If all the residents of the town had become ghosts, there should be a wraith-energy field here. But there’s none except for a little change in temperature and the wandering spirits.”

Hao Ren was a little ignorant in this field. He asked Kasandra who later told him that when a large number of ghosts (or similar wraiths) gathered they would form an energy field. The more their number, the stronger the energy field. When the number of ghosts exceeded a hundred it was enough for humans to perceive the energy field. This energy field could cause hallucinations and even death.

At least wraiths of human were capable of doing this.

The MDT agreed with Kassandra. But its explanation was simpler: the superposition of electromagnetic field.

Hao Ren gave it a little more imagination. But that only gave him goose bumps.

Chapter 783: Nightfall

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Hao Ren did not know what had happened to this town, but one thing was sure, it was not something good.

The lurking spirits in the town suggested the residents’ final destiny. They were obviously dead at least hundreds of years ago, and these spirits were just a heap of “memories”. The empty memories reverberating in the space contained no traces of the souls. So, where were souls?

Meanwhile, Nangong Sanba became the only wraithologist in the team. He might not be an effective fighter, but what he had was a century of experience in dealing with spirits and ghosts. “Human souls could vanish quickly. They are impossible to remain in existence for hundreds of years. But the spiritual body in this dimension is more stable; maybe the souls could linger on for a while longer. Thus, there are two explanations for the ‘reverberation’ in the surroundings. The souls of the residents are trapped, their leaked energy is creating an illusion of phantoms, or the residents might have suffered tremendous torture before they died or a wraith spell has been controlling them after their death, and forcibly extracting their memories and turning it into phantoms in this land.”

Hao Ren sensed a chill ran up his spine, as he looked at a house closest to him. The rotting old house stood quietly in the narrow street with its dark windows and doors looking like the eyes of the devil that peered at the shadow of the other houses. The dark, dusty sky was drooping down behind the roof, it felt suffocating. It was the same in other buildings—empty, lifeless as if the houses were a curse that imprisoned the people who used to live in this land.

Nangong Sanba pulled his wind coat tighter to himself. He said in a low voice, “It’s full of evil. Something very bad had happened in here.”

An old house had attracted Lily’s eyeballs. She came before the dark old house and gently pushed the heavily rotten, wooden door. The door swung open with an ugly-sounding squeak. The dust fell from the beam choked Lily’s nose. She coughed and waved away the dust frantically. She held up a ‘torch’ to light up the surroundings before stepping into the haunted house.

Hao Ren followed her curiously from behind.

It was pitch-dark. An unknown grayish-black substance covering the surfaces seemed to be light absorbent; no matter how close Lily carried her ‘torch’ at, it could not illuminate the place. Hao Ren stepped his foot onto the floorboard and it squeaked loudly under his foot. Despite the darkness, he could see the simple layout and furnishings.

It looked like a commoner’s home but slightly better than those houses on the riverbank. The owner was certainly not wealthy. Inside had only a few simple wooden furniture. Ironware of various shape and sizes were hanging on a huge column in the center of the house. One of them was an oil lamp, but there was no oil in it. Lily smelled a strange odor in her nostrils. She could not help coughing because of the unbearable air. “What is that smell?” she asked and frowned.

Hessiana followed. Her eyes glittered with a soft red glow in the dark. “What have you found?”

“Just like the previous houses; dark and weird. Dust everywhere. The air stank. I couldn’t tell what the owner was doing before he abandoned the house.” Pointing at the ironware hanging on the column, Hao Ren said, “Sickle, ax, and other stuff were left untouched. They could use these things to defend themselves but they did not. There is no sign of struggle. It seems they left unhurriedly.”

“Was it?” Hessiana mumbled as she rubbed her hand across the table near the wall. “Ashes… a lot of ashes. I don’t like the atmosphere here.”

Vivian’s voice came from the door. “In those days, the flame was a symbol of evil purification. So did the ashes.”

“As in the trial of witches?” Hao Ren said casually. Just as his voice trailed off, the room suddenly lit up!

But it was not the fire from Lily’s claws. Her ‘torch’ could not do that. It was the oil lamp hanging on the central column.

But the light did not feel the warmth and calm. They were shocked. Lily was wielding her Frostfire Claws while Hessiana unleashed her vampire whip. But there was no enemy. Except for the oil lamp that lit up suddenly, nothing had changed.

Hao Ren stepped up to check out the oil lamp. It was empty. The flame was actually floating directly above the lamp. The lamp would switch on at the pre-set hour like an automatic lighting system

At this time, Kassandra, who was standing guard outside, suddenly called out. “Ma’am! There’s a situation out here!”

Everyone rushed out and saw the entire town began to light up.

Light leaked through the gaps in the windows and doors. It was almost as if someone in the empty houses lit up their lamps when the nightfall with. As did the oil lamps on the wooden poles in the streets.

Now the town had come alive much to the amazement of everyone.

“Looks like this is not simply a mysterious realm, some kind illusion is shrouding this dimension, it is between reality and illusion,” Vivian said as she gazed out at end of the road, looking thoughtfully. “That house has light too.”

It was a magnificent mansion at the end of the town. That was where they were going. If they had not guessed it wrong, the seigneur must have lived in the house.

Hao Ren and his team headed towards the big house. Lily was keeping up with them. As she left, voices began to drift into her ears again.

“…people are sick again and this time, it’s not only children, but adults too.”

“…the witch…has been burned to death… the seigneur must think of something, a solution. The curse that the witch left behind is still here.”

“The seigneur has not appeared in public for two months already. I heard that he is locking himself in a room. Only scholars could see him occasionally…”

“Since the seigneur’s wife… now it’s getting harder…”

“Shhh, stop mentioning about the seigneur’s wife, the guards might hear us.”

Lily blinked and then jumped up to Hao Ren. “Mr. Landlord! I just heard something again!”

Lily recounted what he heard to Hao Ren as they slowly came in front of the big house at the end of the town.

The big house looked more gorgeous than the other houses. This was a fine house that people would envy back then. But it could not even be counted as a mansion. It had a grand rectangular main building, and a tall, bell tower-like entrance. Hao Ren picked up a piece of plaque on the ground near the main entrance. The writing was illegible except one: Heimerwin.

It could be the name of the house owner.

“The world is bound to no man.”

Vivian shook her head and looked past the oak plaque, which she didn’t show interest. She pushed open the front door of the mansion.

As expected, the mansion was just as well lit as the rest of the town. Obviously, the house owner had plenty of money for more oil lamps and a brighter house.

Hao Ren took the lead while Lily was on his heels, guarding him. She was a competent bodyguard. But only when she was not freaking out. They entered one after another into the house.

There was a fire pit in the center of the main house. There was a fire in the pit, but no firewood. Hao Ren placed his hand above the fire but he could not feel any heat.

He pulled his hand back. “It’s fake.”

“Since we’re already here,” Nangong Sanba looked at Hessiana, “where is the thing that the wizard left behind?”

Hessiana pursed her lips. “Search slowly, this is a big house. That wizard was a weirdo; God knows what the weirdo had done to the town—”

She suddenly paused and turned to look in the direction of the stairs with a puzzled look on her face.

Nangong Sanba also looked into where she was looking. “What is it?”

“Maybe it’s just an illusion but I sense the breath of a living person.”

---

Chapter 784: A Memory of History

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

It frightened them when Hessiana said she saw something, adding a more eerie feeling to the already spooky atmosphere. Nangong Sanba quickly drew his small crossbow and aimed it straight at the stairway. “Are you sure? But, I didn’t sense it.”

Vivian sent out a tiny bat to check out the upper floor without saying a word. The bat came back with nothing after going around for a while. Shaking her head, she said, “Nothing. Not even a faint shadow.”

“You are giving me goosebumps,” Hao Ren mumbled, rubbing his arm. He had experienced more dangerous situations, but sometimes, dangerous and spooky were not the same. This town was spooky, he felt it more intensely the longer he stayed. There was a surreal feeling where he could not make sense of the inexplicable atmosphere, not only because of the flame in the pit, but also the invisible things that lurked in the air.

Probably the ubiquitous spirits were giving him the goosebumps.

“Let’s first check the house out,” Vivian said. She sent out more bats and gave the command to check out every corner of the big house. “There chances are high that the wizard had hidden in here.”

“Then I should transform into human form first, the corners of the corridors in this old house are too narrow to maneuver.” Nangong Wuyue waved to Hao Ren. “Give me my clothes.”

Then they split up. Hao Ren and Vivian were in the same team checking the upper floor.

The interior of this big house was complicated, although looking from the exterior it was not that grand, the interior had a complex design that the nobility of that era liked. The house consisted of a long main building and two separate wings on both sides. A large part of the building was built of thick wood. On the ground floor were the lobby and several rooms for servants and livestock. More rooms and a straight corridor were on the upper floor where the seigneur and his family lived. The house lit up brightly with oil lamps that hung a few meters apart each on the dark wall. The flames here were the same, there was no heat and flame was floating a few millimeters above the lamp with no oil inside.

Hao Ren and Vivian slowly explored the upper floor. The wooden floor under their feet was squeaking in protest as they put their feet down, it sounded as if the floorboard was going to give way and snap. Hao Ren noticed that thick carpet was in front of some of the rooms in the corridor. Ashes was covering the carpets and objects in the surroundings but that did not hide the elaborate patterns on the objects.

Vivian bent down to check the carpet; she had a nostalgic look on her face. “Made in Italy, nice stuff. Even nobility in such a remote town had such a good life. Do you know that a blanket here is enough to feed a commoner family of five for six months?”

“More ashes here,” Hao Ren picked up some ashes on his hand when he pushed the door of the other room. “It’s just as bad as the outside. The ashes are weird; this is not unnatural.”

As he pushed open the door, he came into the room, which was not big and the decoration was nowhere near expensive. It did not look like this was a room for the seigneur nor his family. Vivian examined the furnishings. and she inferred based on her understanding of that era. “This must be a room for either the butler, consultant or similar senior servant. Senior servants were in charge of all the affairs of the nobility’s family, and they were hereditary, following and living close to their master. But they didn’t have a noble title, so they were not allowed to use the ornaments that were limited to the nobility.”

Hao Ren nodded slightly. “Looks like you are comfortable with the atmosphere here. I have goosebumps all over my body.”

“I didn’t feel it though,” Vivian said and laughed. “I used to live at the graveyard. As someone from the Blood Clan, it’s normal to deal with these things.”

Ashes was all over the room too. There was an oak bed in the southeast corner of the room but the fine bedding had mostly rotted away. Next to the bed was a writing desk with drawers, old stationeries and fragments of paper were still lying on the table. On the other side of the room was a small heater where an unnatural, heatless fire was still burning. In front of the heater was an old rocking chair where several pieces of rags were hanging down from it.

Hao Ren looked at the room and he started to reconstruct the scene in his mind: the warm little flame was burning quietly in the heater illuminating the small room. An old butler came back to the room after finishing the work his master had instructed. He settled in his favorite rocking chair and covered himself with a blanket to get warm. Firelight shone on him and cast a shadow on his wrinkled face. Suddenly, something seemed to cross his mind. He stood up, went to the writing desk, and wrote something on a piece of parchment. After he finished writing, he kept the parchment in the second drawer of the desk…

Hao Ren shook his head and came out of his stupor. He felt his heart was beating a little quicker. The scene that he saw—illusion or imagination—was still fresh in his mind. He squinted at the old rocking chair in the middle of the room; the feeling was so real as if he had really seen with his own eyes the wrinkle-faced, old butler sitting on it, and all that happened subsequently. For a moment, the boundary between reality and illusion was blurred out. He felt his consciousness had left the current space-time and fell into a memory hundreds of years ago. Vivian immediately noticed the anomaly. “Hao Ren, what happened?”

“I think I saw something, but it’s not the same way that Lily sees,” Hao Ren said as he instinctively came to the desk next to the bed, noticing a rusty hook hanging on the second drawer under the desk. “I think I have seen a memory…”

As he spoke, he squeezed the hook in his hand, the hook just crushed into pieces. He pulled the drawer open and saw parchments lying inside.

There was paper, which had rotten away so much that it broke into pieces in the drawer too. But the parchment was well preserved. Hao Ren took out the fragile pieces of paper and put them on the table, and said to the MDT. “Scan it. Need high contrast. Let’s see if you can find what’s written on it.”

The MDT hovered in the air and began scanning. A blue light from its belly ran across the paper as a holographic projection showed the parsed text. Some of the texts were completely missing, and technically, they could not be reconstructed. But other texts were still visible and it looked a diary:

“…The suspicion and temper of Heimerwin are getting worse. He is convinced of the superstitions circulating among the commoners, and even actively spreading them… I watched him grow up, but I started to not understand him. After Karina fell sick, he was like… maybe the ‘scholar’ was suspicious, but Heimerwin’s trust in him was overwhelming, and the scholar touched the cross with his hand… I had better write it down, but for whom I want to write? I hope that these things will not be exposed someday…”

After deciphering the contents of the paper, Hao Ren let the MDT scan parchment too. He found that the record on the paper were more significant than he had imagined; the information could be the key to unlock the secrets of this town.

“…Who is that scholar? I cannot find his information about his background, but he has solid and credible evidence to prove that he is not evil. He touched the cross and cleaned his teeth with clean salt, neither was he afraid of the spices I have added in the fireplace. Maybe he noticed that I was testing him, so he chose to reveal the qualities himself… But doubts are still lingering in my mind. The rumors in town have not subsided, and they have become worse by the day. The witch who was expelled a few days ago was found dead near the river this morning. It looked like she wanted to steal a piece of clothing but did not make it before sunrise. Did her magic fail?”

“…the body of the witch was burned. The signs of the black magic are unmistakable. I should probably regret it. I had even once suspected she might be innocent. But when the fire rose, I only felt intense fear. The corpse of the witch was trembling violently when it was ignited. Then huge smoke rose from the flame and it was a horrifying sight. The ash spilled from the smoke covered almost the entire square… The ash collected was heavier than three adult men were. Some people say it is the total weight of the children that the witch had eaten. They used sacred water to purify the ash and then sprinkled it into the bottom of a pit covered with lime…

“… After the witch incident, my doubts about the scholar remained because the disease did not end as he said. Despite the expelling of the witch and the burning of her body, children in the town are still falling sick, and the adults are also starting to weaken…

“…One night, I saw that the scholar stopped in the place where the witch’s body was burned. There was no one there, but his mouth was moving as if he was talking to someone. I dared not get too close, but I could vaguely hear him mention something about ‘the opposite side of the door’ and a person named ‘King of Blood’… I’m sure he and the witch are related.”

---

Chapter 785: Human?

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

 

Hao Ren had never expected himself to find “King of Blood” in the diary of a commoner. Things became to make sense when the MDT finished parsing the remaining writing on the parchment.

“Heimerwin” in the diary matched the name on the plaque that Hao Ren found outside the big house. By now, he was certain that this Heimerwin was the seigneur of Domir and the area around it. The person who left behind these parchments did not leave behind his own name, but one thing was sure, he was the butler of Heimerwin. The diary recorded what was happening before the town underwent changes. Reading between the lines, Hao Ren could feel the emotion and uneasiness of the writer when a series of grotesque events, shadows, and turbulence befell Domir.

It seemed that an infectious disease started it all. The voices that Lily heard and the text on the parchment confirmed this. Children in the town were infected with a strange disease that gradually robbed their strength, and there was no medical cure. During the dark period, events like this always created an air of horror, where people would inevitably link it to witchcraft and curses. Heimerwin, the seigneur did not do anything to arrest the spreading of rumors. Instead, his personality changed and he was listening to an unknown scholar. Instead of finding a cure for the disease, he put the witch on trial. Obviously, the foreign ‘scholar’ was the one instigating this.

Record about the witch was scarce. It was hard to tell whether she was only a normal woman who was framed or a real witch who knew magic. Only when the witch’s body was burned and it produced so much ash that it became a concern. This explained the black ashes that existed everywhere in the town. If she was a real witch, then the ashes were probably a curse.

Hao Ren and Vivian zoomed in on the ‘scholar’. The wizard was undoubtedly the one leaving behind the ‘King of Blood’ ritual.

While reading the parsed text, Hao Ren asked Vivian, “Is this very common in the past?”

“You mean the wizards and curses?” Vivian arched her eyebrows. “Sort of. Witchcraft, magic, cursed cities and villages, the fights between the exorcists and demons, and the commoners that were caught in between. It was a chaotic era where demon hunters and otherworldlings hadn’t completely faded out of the commoners’ life, the number of people who died from unnatural causes was just astounding. But what had happened to this town was still uncommon; it was dragged into an alien dimension. The wizard who could do this was definitely very strong, and he certainly had the help from some external forces, for example, the gate of Inferno. No ordinary wizards could do that.”

Hao Ren suddenly stopped what he was doing. “You mean the power of the Inferno gate traps the town in this dimension?” he asked.

“The gate to Inferno should be the beginning of space-time distortion, but now the gate must have been closed.” Vivian waved her hand. “Inferno is very unstable and it couldn’t keep the gate open for centuries.”

Then Hao Ren continued reading the manuscripts. The record that the old butler left behind contained this message:

“…I found that the scholar always holds a black book. When he reads the book, he always has a weird look on his face. No one who is blessed should have such expression, especially when reading a good book… I asked him about the book, and he gave me a cold reply. He said that it was a handwritten Bible, but for some religious reasons, he would not let anyone touch it. This is enough to cause suspicion in him: What kind of Bible will reject a person of conscience to touch it? Unless it is the book of the devil…

“…I finally found an opportunity, and I took a glance at the strange, black book he had in his hand. The insidious man quickly discovered my move. He suddenly had a heinous look in his eyes though only for a short while. At that time, he finally took off the glorious mask of ‘scholar’. I think I would never forget that a person’s eyes could be so sinister… the eyes that one would get when he sells his soul to the devil. It was as cold as glass; his real eyeballs must be hanging on the devil’s mantelpiece! But the weirdest thing was the book itself… there was no text, what I saw was only a blank page. Now I can only believe that God uses His miracle to protect His devout servant. The page must be filled with blasphemous symbols, and I was fortunate not having seen them.”

The MDT flashed twice, which meant it had finished parsing the texts.

“Is black book mentioned in the text the magic book we found?” Hao Ren said to Vivian, feeling perplexed. “We didn’t find the text on the magic book disappearing though.”

Vivian shook her head. “It should be another book. It is improbable that the wizard had only one magic book. Anyway, we know who the wizard is now. I suspect he was the one behind the plaque and the witch incident. He seemed to have systematically dragged everyone in the town into some kind of ritual… but based on the information at hand, I couldn’t tell what kind of ritual it was.”

The two rummaged around in the room but found nothing. Hao Ren tucked the parchments and they went back down to the long hall on the ground floor.

Soon the others had also returned. When they all gathered, they did debrief on the spot.

“I’m no expert in witches, wizards, curses and things like that,” Lily muttered, pointing to her own eyes. “I saw ghost shadows lurking around. They looked like the servants who worked here. I presumed Heimerwin the seigneur is among the shadows. But it was too chaotic that I couldn’t tell who is who. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything related to the wizard, nor his shadow. Probably, his spirit isn’t here.”

“Sanba and I had checked the basement.” Nangong Wuyue raised her tail. “There were rotten potatoes and barrels, and more ashes. Other than that, nothing else.”

Turcan and Kassandra shook their heads one after another. They did not find anything in the side wings.

“The wizard must have lived here, but where did his hide his magic books and spellcasting props?” Hessiana scratched her chin. “This stuff is as important as a wizard’s life, it was impossible that he didn’t carry them with him all the time…”

Hessiana suddenly paused. They turned their head and looked into the direction of the stairway on the upper floor. Nangong Sanba suddenly broke the silence. “Did you hear what I heard?”

Lily’s ears shaking. “Yup. I heard footsteps.”

Turcan and Kassandra immediately raised their guard and drew their sword and a large caliber pistol respectively. These were standard armament of the Hessiana family. The two then trod carefully towards the stairway. After moving just a few steps, they saw a shadow suddenly ‘walked’ down the stairs!

The shadow was made up of ashes, dark and dirty as soot, in the figure of a human. The figure paused on the stairway for a moment before it continued to walk down clumsily. Ashes dropped from the figure as it moved. Then the incredible happened; the figure had shaken off the ashes and revealed the underlying clothes and skin. It had the contours of a human. When it finally came down to the long hall, it almost appeared like a human.

Everyone held their weapons on guard but was curious at the same time until the ‘thing’ finally revealed itself as a tired-looking, middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man looked about forty years of age, his hairstyle and clothes suggested that he was the wealthy during the Medieval Period. The man was still in a stupor. But he quickly came out of it and stared at the strangers, wide-eyed.

The man froze for a few seconds before he screamed, turned and ran back up the stairs onto the upper floor.

Hao Ren snapped. “Go and get him!”

A white shadow lunged up the stairs; Lily had caught up with the man. She yanked a brick at the man and knocked him down. Hao Ren’s heart missed a beat when he saw Lily’s action; she could have broken up the man if he were made up of ashes.

The man fell but he quickly got back to his feet as if nothing had happened.

Before the man ran again, Lily lunged forward and overpowered him, and dragged her ‘trophy’ back down. “I’ve got him!”

Lily tied the man up with a rope. The man looked at Hao Ren, terrified. “You… what are you going to do? Are you humans or ghosts?”

Hao Ren thought he had the wizard, but this man did not sound like one. He asked the man, “Who are you?”

The man replied in fear. “I… I’m the seigneur here, Heimerwin Ahtisaari…”