Azure Scepter

Page 23

"High Priest?" The subordinate looked anxious. "Are you... alright?"

Byron's left eye involuntarily turned to the left again, and he unconsciously glanced at the space outside the door—

Outside the door was the town hall, where several members of the Silent Whisper Society were busy at work. Between them were several giant flesh and blood structures made of body parts stitched together, with layers of bone plates covered by dense black stitches, the bone plates gleaming with a metallic luster under the light.

"A Frankenstein's monster?" Byron suddenly heard Trier's flat, monotone voice. "I see..."

An indescribable sense of dread instantly gripped the priest. The familiar surroundings now seemed like cold, icy claws, tightly clutching his heart. Although he was in the headquarters of the Silent Whisperers, he suddenly felt fear.

—It is a fear of things that cannot be understood.

"Run! He's still on me!" Byron shouted hurriedly. The next moment, he pulled a dagger from his sleeve and stabbed it into his uncontrollable left eye without hesitation.

"Who's on you?" The subordinate was clearly taken aback, and he instinctively rushed forward to try to stop Byron's crazy and decisive action.

The priest's left eye darted around frantically, as if trying to take in everything in the room. A cold, sharp dagger gleamed as it lunged at his eyeball, but the next moment, a large, scarred hand gripped the hilt tightly, snatched the dagger away, and hurled it to the ground.

"You're safe!" the impatient subordinate said.

Byron stared in despair at his subordinate, who was smiling and seemingly waiting for praise.

"It's all over," the pastor muttered to himself.

"Boom!" A bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the sky, the blinding white light briefly obscuring everything.

The next instant, a figure clad in black plate armor emerged from the shadows in the corner. It reached out an iron hand, grabbed Byron's eyeball, and yanked it violently. The bloodied eyeball, still attached to the optic nerve bundle, slammed to the ground. As soon as it hit the ground, it rolled and tried to stand up using the nerve bundle, seemingly attempting to dodge. However, in the blink of an eye, heavy, cold plate armor boots whistled in and crushed the bizarre monster.

“My dear Byron, the curse of death haunts you,” the collector said. “But do not grieve, do not fear, for here is as safe as a radiant divine kingdom.”

The normally terrifying, bloodthirsty undead monster now appeared unusually kind and gentle in Byron's remaining eyes—amidst the lightning and thunder, it seemed like a savior straight out of a myth!

The phantom pain twitched in Byron's eyes, and he felt somewhat dazed.

“It seems it’s not a Bodashi. The fact that you had no other spellcasters with you when you cast the spell proves that your spellcasting power is already very weak…” In a daze, he heard Trier’s calm voice again, “Alright, this is really goodbye, Byron—I know everything I wanted to know, thank you for your guidance.”

"boom!"

"boom!"

A lump of warm, viscous blood suddenly appeared in Trier's palm, as if a paladin had just crushed a tomato. He gently released his hand, and the viscous, scarlet blood slowly dripped through his fingers.

[xp+3000!]

PS: I'm currently two chapters short. I'll update three chapters tomorrow.

Chapter 42 Unnecessary Suspicion

The stone, still warm from his palm, turned to dust and scattered along with the blood plasma onto the cold stone floor.

Trier took a towel out of his backpack and gently wiped the blood-soaked iron gauntlet. With a steady, monotonous rubbing sound, the deathly aura surrounding him began to slowly dissipate, and the frenzied disorientation he felt while casting spells, as if he could see through everything, gradually returned to normal.

He turned his head and found Noy spying on him. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, her eyelids were lowered, and her scarlet eyes dared not meet his gaze—her previous composure had completely vanished.

Seemingly noticing her gaze, the nun gave a rather forced smile.

"Did you just use the Storage Stone to unleash Heart Control?" She blinked. "That's an extremely powerful and terrifying divine spell—who were you casting it on?"

“High Priest Byron, he used prophetic magic to plant a trap in the spirit-binding crystal, but he failed.” Trier calmly put away the blood-stained rag and answered the nun’s question truthfully, “Mental bodies lack the protection of the physical body and are therefore particularly vulnerable.”

The next moment, he abruptly changed the subject: "Is there anything you need to be honest with me?"

"Am I hiding something from you?" Noy retorted. "You clearly promised not to doubt me anymore!"

Noi's thin shoulders were trembling slightly, and even the curled silver hair beside her ears was shaking. The nun raised her head, looking nervous, and her eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of moist mist.

"If you doubt me, you can always find evidence! It's like adding weight to a table: if a suit of plate armor doesn't break it, add a longsword; if the longsword and plate armor don't break it, add a layer of stones; if none of that works, keep adding weight—one day the table will collapse!"

The paladin calmly observed the pitiful Noy, and after a moment, he took a deep breath and made his final decision.

Whether before or after his time travel, he was an extremely suspicious and stubborn person, but at this moment he decided to put aside his probing.

“She handled it too well; there’s no point in continuing to probe,” Trier thought. “As she said, if I intuitively assumed she was suspicious, I would have found evidence—but now, all the objective signs indicate that she is indeed innocent, and even High Priest Byron hasn’t given anything away. From a rational point of view, perhaps I’m just being paranoid.”

"In short, continuing to test her will be ineffective and could very likely cause a violent backlash, so I should not try to provoke her anymore—however, I should remain highly vigilant and suspicious, after all, her behavior in the Realm of Honesty is too strange."

Upon realizing this, the paladin wanted to speak and offer words of comfort, but a soft laugh interrupted his plan.

"Hahaha..."

He looked in the direction of the laughter and saw that Futia, who was holding a torch, was covering her mouth with her right hand and even bent over laughing.

"Is it funny to be constantly doubted?" Noy's tone was no longer gentle; his speech quickened, and his voice unconsciously rose. "Please stop laughing!"

“It’s really funny,” the elf said, straightening up. “Noy, have you noticed that this scene happened seven days ago? It’s practically a reenactment of you two switching roles!”

Noy's anger suddenly froze, her shield hovering in mid-air. After a moment, she said haltingly, "That...that...it's not the same thing at all!"

“Let me help you remember,” Futia said. “At that time, the blood plague hadn’t broken out yet; only a few poor old people had contracted the strange disease—Trier was in the town hall discussing the specific amount of the grain toll with the tax collector…”

"Stop...stop talking!" Noi's voice trailed off.

The elf gave a mischievous smile and, ignoring Noi's protests, continued, "We all got to know each other because of this."

"Terre believed that the tax rate given by the tax official was unreasonable and therefore concluded that the tax official was embezzling funds. He threatened to protest to the local baron. Harlan happened to be in the town hall at the time and mediated the dispute. In the end, Terre and the tax official agreed to pay with grain instead of gold dragons."

“When you heard this news, you went into a hysterical frenzy.” The elf looked at Noy. “The scene then was exactly the same as now—except that back then the suspect was Trir, and the suspect was you.”

“That grain is very important. If it’s withheld, those poor people won’t receive relief. That tax collector is simply extorting money!” Noy turned her head away, not daring to look directly at the elf and Trier. After a long silence, she whispered, “Okay, I admit there’s an element of resentment towards Trier, but I’ve already…”

Fythia interrupted, "Think about it carefully. If you hadn't argued back then, would Trier have been seriously injured the day before yesterday when he was ambushed by a ghoul while saving you? He almost died!"

The nun immediately shut up and looked to Trier beside her for help.

The transmigrator was currently struggling to retrieve and organize his fragmented memories, with scenes from the past constantly flooding his mind. If we follow the logic provided by Futia, then Noy's strange behavior upon his awakening could be reasonably explained.

"In short, we're all in the same boat now." The elf shook his torch as if waving a signal flag. "Outside is an ocean of the dead, but as long as we unite, we can definitely defeat them—anyway, let's go and take down that last hiding shadow first!"

“We don’t need to actively look for it,” Trier said after a long silence. “Just now, I saw a ritual circle in the memories of the spirit-binding. The circle is in the morgue room around the corner. It should be a small-scale ritual to revive the dead.”

“The shadow is a shadow that has detached from the corpse. It will actively hunt down the body that has been revived. So as long as we throw the cultist’s corpse into the ritual and wait for it to revive, the shadow will come to us on its own.”

PS: First update, two more chapters to go.

Chapter 43 Cremation

After passing through a narrow passage and turning a corner, you arrive at the place in the hotel where the survivors keep their bodies.

It was an extremely spacious area with heavy, rough stone pillars supporting a massive cross-shaped vault. The arched stone vaults were covered with reliefs, and due to the lack of light, Trier could only barely make out that the delicate and intricate reliefs depicted some religious classics of the Radiant Church.

Between the arched pillars were corpses covered with white cloths. On the stone surface between the corpses was a huge ritual array drawn with purple powder, and the purple lines on the ground were now emitting a cobalt blue light.

The blue flashes were intermittent, like a neon light with a faulty connection.

"Why did Old Bart build such a structure?" Futia raised the torch in her left hand, the dim light dispelling the shadows overhead. Dust motes slowly drifted down in the light, and behind the dust, the spiderwebs covering the magnificent religious reliefs were clearly visible. "Do halflings also worship human gods?"

“According to Pastor Byron, this used to be a very important church, which was later converted into a hotel.” Noy’s voice sounded weak and dejected. “After Olius killed the Duke of the South, this place was abandoned for some reason.”

"Around forty years ago, during the Quail War, this building, along with the surrounding land, was sold by the church to Old Bart's grandfather. The shrine, which used to be a secondary church, became the main church. Futia, you must have been a witness to that war, right?"

Futia stopped in her tracks, extended her torch, and lit the brazier hanging on a stone pillar near the corner. The steady orange flame instantly filled the entire room.

“No,” the elf said. “I wasn’t even born then. In fact, I might not be much older than you.”

"boom!"

Trier casually tossed the body, which was tightly bound with rope, onto the ground.

The cultist's headless corpse cast no shadow. Due to inertia, it crashed to the ground, and crimson blood gushed from the wound, splattering onto the white cloth.

The next moment, a blue flash disappeared in an instant, the blinding light almost overpowering the light from the brazier, and the stench of death raged again. However, this time Trier was unable to control this violent magical power, and he felt a fine, needle-like pain near his neck.

"Uh..." A confused and low groan echoed in the empty space.

"It doesn't have a head, so how does it make a sound?" Futia asked curiously.

“The fitting of the winds of magic under the form of spells.” Trier lowered his longsword and pressed it against the corpse’s chest. “In places where negative energy and the winds of death are prevalent, people sometimes hear inexplicable wailing. This is the principle behind it. People are using magic while also changing magic.”

The cultist's shadowless corpse trembled violently. In the next instant, it abruptly arched its back at an angle so high that it almost broke itself. The ropes binding the corpse immediately snapped under the strain.

Trier noticed a small crack in the rope. He reversed his longsword and struck the corpse's chest with the hilt, restoring it to its original state.

"Get ready to deal with the Shadow; they should be here soon."

However, the dazzling cobalt blue light suddenly dissipated, and the cultist's corpse fell straight to the ground like a wind-up puppet that had lost its power.

"What's going on?" Trier couldn't help but feel a little confused.

He looked down at the magic circle and immediately noticed that several lines within it had somehow become twisted together like braids, the spiral lines clinging to the stone pillars like spiders—the ritual was completely ruined.

"The magical form has come to life, which is due to the lack of magical winds. This seems to be because the Heart Mastery I just released with the Storage Stone consumed an excessive amount of death winds," the paladin observed for a moment before drawing his conclusion.

“The ritual has stopped, so it probably won’t attract any more ghosts.” Fythia walked among the corpses, torch in hand. “Do you have any other good plans?”

Just as Trier was about to speak, Sister Neu suddenly and silently took a bottle of black fuel from her pocket and poured it between the corpses, instantly filling the air with the acrid smell of kerosene.

“Bury the body; that will also destroy this evil ritual,” Noy said softly.

Having said that, she snatched the resin torch from the bewildered elf's hand and bent down to probe the black kerosene with it.

"Bang!" A scorching flame instantly shot up, engulfing the white cloth and corpse on the ground in an instant. The bright flames, like a grotesque plant that preys on its prey, spread menacingly across the corpse.

“Noi, you just said this violates doctrine.” Futia’s tone was tinged with surprise.

In the firelight, Noy's face appeared to be in shifting light and shadow.

“I have just thought about it carefully. Preserving these corpses is indeed of no benefit. We must not let the dead hinder the living. The principle as an end is naturally higher than the precept as a means.”

Upon hearing these remarks, Trier couldn't help but think to himself, "Adaptive doctrine, Neu's flexible level of faith is enough to make him a theologian."

The white cloth instantly dehydrated, shrank, and twisted under the scorching heat. The charred edges turned into black embers in the blink of an eye. Through the charred shroud, Trier saw the remains of old Bart.

He couldn't help but feel a little regretful—without a doubt, the halfling boss was a helpful and kind person; he would even remind him to be careful of the wound on his shoulder, because the smell of blood would attract the dead.

When he first touched on "solid emotions," Trier also fully experienced the hotel owner's resentment and despair at the time of his death.

The halfling's lifeless eyes stared straight at the ceiling. Soon, his small body was assimilated by the flames, and then the blinding sparks melted his eyes.

“Trier, do you know that according to the theological theory proposed by Bishop Vercingetorius, people sometimes have to act as instruments of evil in order to achieve the ultimate good?” the nun suddenly spoke up. “The course of history is the essence, and people are unconscious instruments—what do you think?”

"This is a fundamental principle of the Silent Words. It may seem self-consistent, but just look at the actual tragedies it has caused to see how absurd it is," Trier replied succinctly, still looking at the halfling's remains.

Old Bart's skull gradually began to carbonize, turning into pungent black particles that rose with the heat.

“Perhaps from the very beginning, it was a mistake for us to choose to stay here…” Noi murmured to herself. After saying that, she fell silent and began to quietly observe the burning flames and the corpses.

"Crack." The flames burned through the leather belt of a corpse, making a crisp sound.

Suddenly, Trier realized something: in old Bart's dying recollection, he had also heard the same crisp "click" sound.

If we also consider the building's strange shape with no windows, and Noy's statement that it was once a church of the Church of the Radiant, then a peculiar but quite reasonable conjecture emerges—this building may very well have a hidden room.

Logically, the Shadow lacks basic rationality and would immediately attack upon spotting living people. However, they had been inside the building for at least twenty minutes, and the Shadow still hadn't appeared. There's a strong possibility that the Shadow had accidentally wandered into some hidden location and gotten lost inside—the Dark Room is undoubtedly a very likely explanation.

The paladin gently closed his eyes, quickly recalling the location of the "click" he heard when old Bart died.

He first recalled the external view when he entered the building. Then, like an architect, he imagined the abstract internal structure of the building by constructing the correspondence between functional structure and mechanical structure. Then he superimposed his location and the location of the sound into the imagined coordinates.

After a moment, he came to the conclusion that the sound was coming from the location where the cultist's body had initially been, and that the dark room should be located in the area between the narrow passageway and the large-span space.

Upon realizing this, he immediately explained his judgment to his two teammates.

"A dark room?" Noy looked doubtful. "This used to be a church. How could such a sacred place have a dark room?"

Trier remained silent, raising his head to carefully examine the religious reliefs on the arch.

P.S.: QWQ I broke my promise yesterday, I'm really sorry.

Chapter 44 Photosensitivity

The flames raged, and the intricate religious reliefs on the vaulted ceiling became exceptionally clear in the firelight.

The relief depicts a complete religious story, telling the tale of the Radiant Saint "Jama" resisting the temptation of vampires and ultimately summoning three angels through his righteousness and piety to burn the ghostly count who was corrupting the free farmers to ashes.

In the story depicted in the relief, the eyes of the three angels are all fixed on the Ghost Count, while the Count's gaze is fixed on the handsome "Jama Man," whose gaze is directed at Trier.

“The answer is quite obvious,” Trier thought to himself.

He followed the gaze of the man in the turban and looked behind him—it was empty, there was nothing there, and the acrid smoke from the burning corpses drifted across the ground, then covered the charred bodies nearby.

The paladin bent down and gently tapped the floor tile that the "Jama Zhe" was looking at. A hollow echo came from inside. He placed his hands lightly on the edge of the tile and then pulled it off suddenly.

"Click!" The same crisp sound I remembered came from outside the door.

"Is there really a mechanism?" Noi asked in surprise.

Fythia smiled and said, "You see, you'll get used to being shocked when you're around Trier."