"Detective, well done. Your Silver Moon Slash was almost more powerful than my Sunlight Gun. A sage-level relic is truly extraordinary."
Confirming the opponent's death, Bei Ya Si gasped and praised him, taking a sip from a small bottle of holy water she took from her pocket. She had used multiple Miracles consecutively just now, consuming a considerable amount of energy.
Xia De looked down at the necklace around his neck, then at the PentaCircle Sorcerer's corpse. If the opponent hadn't chosen to transform into a ghostly mist, the three of them wouldn't have won so decisively.
"Even among sage-level relics, the necklace the Detective borrowed from some lady is quite formidable, oh~"
Annette clutched her chest in pain and groaned, sitting down on the steps. Victory was not without cost; she was injured.
Neither Xia De nor Bei Ya Si checked on Annette. The former quickly walked towards the steps to listen for footsteps outside, while the latter vigilantly watched the paper-strewn basement, guarding against the appearance of a second Ring Sorcerer.
"No problem."
After a long silence, Xia De spoke softly.
"No problem here either. The battle ended quickly."
Bei Ya Si said. They were both decisive and reliable people, and Xia De admired such women.
The young Sorceress continued to observe her surroundings vigilantly, while Xia De took out a small bottle of water from his pocket and went to Annette's side:
"Drink a little, not too much, or you'll hiccup. If the external injury is severe, you can pour it on the injured area."
A blasphemy silver spiritual glow shimmered on the water. After Annette took it, Xia De consciously turned around. Only when the lady behind him whispered that she was fine did he turn back and take the empty bottle.
Xia De had many healing methods: Gluttony's Feast for physical injuries, Cindyia's Silver Moon Grace for mental trauma, and the youth everlasting leaf, if used as a one-time consumable, could allow someone to fully recover from a severely injured state.
In this operation, setting aside his combat power, his auxiliary abilities alone were sufficient.
"Do you need more healing?"
Xia De didn't forget to ask, and Annette stood up, shaking her head:
"I'm fine now."
Xia De then asked Bei Ya Si:
"Do you need healing?"
The latter also shook her head:
"Not for now, Detective, quickly search the body, then leave immediately."
relics are incredibly precious; the total number of recorded relics would not exceed five digits. Not all Ring Sorcerers possess relics, at least not those from non-church or non-academy backgrounds. But this doesn't mean the killed Scarface didn't have any relics. Mercury Blood, for that absurd goal, had collected many good things with the help of the Puppeteer's Script.
Although an initial search found no suspicious items on the corpse, Annette simply tossed a coin and determined that the opponent must have a relic on him.
"It's really convenient to have a diviner working with you."
Xia De and Bei Ya Si both had this thought.
Another search of the corpse still yielded nothing, but with the help of the woman's voice in his head, Xia De, wearing gloves, still retrieved a small glass bottle from inside the opened corpse. The bottle was roughly disc-shaped, but only a quarter the size of a palm, without a stopper, and was hidden directly in the position of the corpse's liver.
Ring Sorcerers can pay a price for power. Bei Ya Si didn't care about one eye, and this Scarface also had the courage to stuff such a large object into his stomach. There was very little Mercury Blood inside the bottle, only covering the bottom. As Xia De shook it, the residual Mercury Blood also moved within the container, but no matter how it was tilted, the Mercury Blood could not be poured out of the bottle.
"Do you know what this is?"
Xia De asked his companions, and both ladies shook their heads:
"An unknown relic itself is a hidden danger. Hide it here first, and take it when we leave. Today's most important target is the Silver-Eyed One."
Annette said, so Xia De temporarily placed the bottle back under the corpse.
The basement was quite large, with stacked cardboard boxes forming almost a labyrinth. After searching the body, the next step was to find the entrance to the underground ruins, which was hidden.
Annette was preparing to perform another divination, but this more specific search would take some time. Xia De, meanwhile, used Blood Echo to observe the ground. Unfortunately, apart from the blood Annette spat out, there were no other traces for Xia De to observe.
So he used Echoes of the Past again to capture sounds from within 36 hours. The underground warehouse, guarded alone, rarely had human voices, so Xia De immediately captured a sound, which was the voice of the deceased Scarface:
"Damn Diack, hiding down there and not coming out, making me guard the door for you here. One day, I'll take your place, and I'll shove your ** into your **."
From the tone, this was a voice of complaint.
After this sentence, there was only the sound of pacing back and forth, so Xia De ended the Miracle's effect and then listened again.
There was no sound at all; presumably, there was no movement in the nearby area at that time.
So he listened a third time.
There was still no sound, but Xia De waited patiently for dozens of seconds. He actually heard the sound of the underground warehouse door being opened.
He was startled, but seeing that the two ladies beside him were still, and the door hadn't moved, he knew this was a sound from the past.
The door must have been fully pushed open, then footsteps came from the stairs, followed by Scarface's voice:
"Good morning, Mr. Maidis."
His tone was very respectful:
"When did you arrive in Tobesk? Sorry, we didn't come to greet you."
This didn't seem to be someone from Mercury Blood.
"Just arrived. The weather here is really bad."
Mr. Maidis spoke delarion with a heavy accent, and Xia De couldn't discern where the accent was from.
"You've worked hard."
Scarface continued, and Xia De could even imagine his respectful expression.
"It's what needs to be done. So, according to the plan discussed by the Blood Spirit School and the Silver-Eyed One..."
"Hmm? Blood Spirit School? But didn't Jialinna say they wouldn't arrive until the weekend?"
Xia De frowned slightly.
"...I will go into the ruins to confirm what exactly you've found."
Mr. Maidis continued.
"No problem, please follow me. Opening the ruin's entrance is not easy."
Xia De frowned deeply at what was in front of him, then raised a finger to his lips, shushing his companions to keep quiet. Then, following the voices he heard, he walked deeper into the underground warehouse, stopping at its southern side.
The earlier fight hadn't reached here; the printing factory's stored cartons were neatly stacked.
The sound of boxes being moved rang out, then a key unlocking, and a trapdoor being opened with effort. The two men said goodbye, one of them clearly entering below the trapdoor, then the trapdoor closed again, the lock was fastened once more, the cartons were moved again, and Scarface's footsteps sounded, walking towards the warehouse exit.
"Quick, over here!"
Only then did he speak, and the two ladies immediately followed.
Xia De spoke quickly:
"Someone not from Mercury Blood entered the ruins this morning to meet Mercury Blood. Possibly from the Blood Spirit School."
"Such an ancient organization? It doesn't matter, no enemy matters. But did he come out again?"
Bei Ya Si asked.
"I don't know. I can try to capture the sound again, but I'm not sure how long it will take to hear valuable clues again."
"We don't have that much time to waste. Since the Silver-Eyed One already knows someone attacked here, he must be preparing as well."
Annette said, quickly shuffling the cards in her hand.
"The Detective has already found the entrance."
Bei Ya Si said.
"No, not finding the entrance. I want to try to divine for the upcoming actions..."
She drew the top card, but without showing it to the other two, she put it back into the deck:
"The divination shows that the Silver-Eyed One probably hasn't discovered the problem above ground yet. There's no reason to retreat, let's keep going."
As she spoke, her purple eyes scanned the other two in turn. Xia De would definitely not turn back for the god's gift box, and Bei Ya Si was also eager to comprehend and explore the source of her own power, so she would not give up easily:
"Let's keep going, there's no reason to turn back."
Working together, they moved the cardboard boxes aside, finally revealing the trapdoor on the ground. The entrance was here.
Xia De used his unformed Miracle to conjure a blade on his fingertip, roughly cutting the lock. After laboriously pulling open the door, beneath it was a very steep passage extending deeper underground.
The three stood around the opening, looking down. There was no light inside the passage; it looked like a giant mouth about to swallow their lives.
This was a passage dug by Mercury Blood, and the true entrance to the ruins was even deeper. Otherwise, when this house and the Tobesk City's underground pipelines were laid, traces of the ruins should have been discovered long ago.
But the entrance to the underground ruins couldn't be too deep either. According to Annette's conjecture, when the ruins were built, the Old God's cult was already in decline, almost to the point of disappearing. They didn't have the financial resources or energy to excavate large underground ruins so deeply, and Mercury Blood couldn't have dug such a deep underground passage in just one year.
Entering such a narrow passage, the person at the very front might directly face attacks from underground. To avoid being discovered by the Ring Sorcerers within the ruins, the three immediately set off. Xia De even took out a youthful immortality leaf and had Bei Ya Si, who was walking in front, hold it in her mouth. This leaf, held in the mouth, could effectively allow a severely injured person to remain active.
The young woman didn't say much, holding the leaf and bending down to enter the crypt. Xia De followed behind her, placing his hand on her back, ready to use False Immortality at any moment. Annette walked last, preventing anyone from attacking from behind.
This artificially dug tunnel was very difficult to navigate, but no one complained. For safety, they didn't create light and used a silencing charm to eliminate their footsteps. The passage was indeed not very long; with quick movement, it only took ten minutes before Bei Ya Si slowed down.
She vaguely sensed in the darkness that the passage had reached its end, and the exit was ahead.
