The next day, early Wednesday morning.
The morning in Saint Delan Square was so leisurely and pleasant. Most of the neighbors living there had not yet gone out, while Xia De, Luvia, Dorothy, and Doctor Schneider were already standing together at the entrance of Saint Delan Square Six. Mia was temporarily entrusted by Xia De to the Dawn Church, and the nuns there were very fond of the cat.
"I've roughly explained the situation last night on the carriage. Today, I hope everyone can help me inspect the house. If we really can't find the problem, I'll have to go outside the city to ask my High-Ring Sorcerer friend for help."
Xia De took out the key, opened the door, picked up the newspaper delivered through the mail slot, and invited everyone inside.
His friends could see that Xia De was in a very bad mood; he truly cherished his house.
"Are we searching floor by floor, or acting together?"
Doctor Schneider, who had been called over early in the morning, asked with a frown, his expression very serious. He also knew the rumors about this house. He had thought there would be no problems after Xia De moved in, but unexpectedly, evil spirits were still frequently appearing.
"Doctor, you have rich experience, what do you think?"
Xia De asked in return.
"Can we determine now where the potentially problematic area is?"
The doctor continued to ask. The four people stood in the foyer, looking respectively at the first floor and the staircase leading upstairs.
"The basement is definitely not problematic, that's beyond doubt. Also, the evil spirit should not have come from the second floor. After I was startled awake last night, the dense fog I saw was surging from the stairwell. So, the problematic areas should be the first floor, which I've temporarily left unused, as well as the third floor and the attic."
He paused:
"The third floor is more likely. When we helped Dorothy perform the ritual a while ago, we encountered a mirror ghost. Mirror ghosts tend to attack the nearest target. It didn't go to Mia on the second floor first, but went to the attic, indicating that the thing was more likely to have emerged from the third floor."
"Then let's split into two teams to search. Louisa and I are PentaCircle Sorcerers. I'll go upstairs, and Louisa will stay downstairs."
He then looked at Xia De and the female Diviner who had already advanced to Four Ring:
"Xia De, you follow me. Annette, you follow Louisa."
"Okay."
So Xia De placed the newspaper in his hand on the shoe cabinet in the foyer, then took his sword and followed the doctor up the stairs. Downstairs, Dorothy threw out two parchment scrolls. As the parchments burned, the princess holding a spindle and the match girl carrying a basket appeared together.
The two summoned fairy tale characters walked ahead. Dorothy was about to call Luvia to follow, but she saw the female Diviner behind her toss a coin, then slightly frowned, looking at the shoe cabinet behind her. More precisely, she was looking at the newspaper Xia De had placed on the shoe cabinet.
They had all been called by Xia De early in the morning, and none of them had read today's news:
"Dorothy, wait a moment, I want to take a look at the newspaper."
The doctor chose to have Xia De follow him, also implying that if something happened, he could use demonic power without any scruples. But everything on the third floor of Saint Delan Square was very peaceful. Room No. 1 displayed Luvia's astrological equipment, as well as densely packed star charts hanging on the wall. Room No. 2 was completely empty; because the maids cleaned it weekly, almost no dust could be found.
The hallway and the attic above were also completely normal. The doctor even carefully checked the two high-pressure steam fire extinguishers that Dorothy had been too lazy to take away after her last advancement ritual, but still found no abnormalities.
"Luvia has been stargazing on the third floor almost every night and has never encountered an evil spirit. Could it be that the problem is really downstairs? Or, are the mirror ghost and last night's pus-filled evil spirit not from the same place?"
Xia De voiced his confusion, then he and the doctor summoned their Destiny Rings together to sense the third-floor space with the sensitive senses of Ring Sorcerers. The result was still that everything was normal.
Because they had to check an extra attic, by the time they returned to the second floor, the girls had already returned to Room No. 1.
Dorothy was in the kitchen preparing hot tea, while Luvia was holding the newspaper Xia De had just placed on the shoe cabinet, seemingly having found interesting news.
Of course, they also found no abnormalities on the first floor. And when all four were seated on the living room sofa, Luvia placed the newspaper on the coffee table, pointing to a small square on the edge of the second page.
This newspaper was the "Terraril River Daily." Unlike the "Steam Bird Daily," which is currently only sold in the central-western regions of the kingdom and a small part of Carson Rick, the former is a newspaper that can be bought throughout the entire Delarion Kingdom.
According to Xia De's understanding, the front page and second page of this newspaper should both be full of major news. The appearance of a small square news item could only mean that breaking news had occurred after the newspaper's layout was finalized last night.
"Yesterday at midnight, a major earthquake occurred again in the Sicar Mountain area in the western part of Middlesburg, and this earthquake was stronger than the last one."
Luvia repeated the short news, and Doctor Schneider was the first to react:
"I remember Xia De said that when a mirror ghost last appeared in his house, an earthquake also occurred in the Sicar Mountain area?"
"Yes, it was on the same night. It's just that the last earthquake was in the evening, and the mirror ghost appeared in my house after ten o'clock at night."
Xia De nodded. That night, he was just performing a ritual for Dorothy, so he and the Golden-haired girl remembered it very clearly.
"Are these two things connected? An earthquake in Sicar Mountain, and an evil spirit appears in Xia De's house. But they are so far apart, what could be the connection?"
Luvia hesitated, she glanced at Xia De, already knowing the answer in her heart. And Xia De, as the owner here, naturally also thought of the answer, it was just that this answer was a bit too terrifying.
Xia De hesitated:
"I have a Ring Sorcerer friend in the church. Do you still remember the Between Life and Death in Middlesburg? The earthquake in the Sicar Mountain area is actually caused by the instability of the Gap. And my friend said that as the largest life and death boundary in the material world, and an unstable boundary on the verge of death's eruption, every Vibration there will synchronously cause changes in all the life and death boundaries throughout the world (649)."
The wrinkles on Doctor Schneider's forehead deepened. He suddenly looked up at the third floor and said softly:
"Detective, if I'm not mistaken, among the previous owners of this house who died a hundred years ago, some disappeared suddenly after entering the third floor—just like Priest Augustus who disappeared in Mi Fort."
"Yes."
Xia De nodded.
Dorothy also understood:
"The earthquake in Middlesburg will cause anomalies in the life and death boundaries throughout the material world, and the earthquake there will cause evil spirits to appear in Xia De's house. Moreover, one of the former owners also encountered the misfortune that Priest Augustus encountered in Mi Fort—"
She looked at Xia De:
"So, there's an entrance to a life and death boundary on the third floor of Saint Delan Square Six!?
It is certain that there is no so-called underworld in this world, and death itself is merely a concept. Including the body of water Xia De once saw, they can only be considered extensions of a concept. Life and death originally had no so-called boundaries, but for reasons still unknown, the material world, in past eras, has seen an incalculable number of large and small boundaries of life and death.
That place is neither the world of the living nor where the dead should go, so according to Mr. Edmund, the old tower keeper of the Guiding Light Hermitage, the boundary of life and death is a kind of world error.
Among them, the one beneath Middlesburg is the largest life and death boundary, and because it has become a relic, it is called the 【Between Life and Death】. Including three passages, it is rated as a Level 0 relic, the highest level.
While other life and death boundaries in the material world are far less dangerous than the one in Middlesburg, it is clear that no one wants such a place to overlap with their home.
"The scope should not be the entire Saint Delan Square Six."
The doctor reacted the quickest, pointing to Room No. 2 next door:
"The 【traveler's travel door】 that the Detective bought will have problems if used in an abnormal spatial zone. Since the relic placed on the second floor shows no signs of losing control, then the scope of the life and death boundary parallel to this house should be limited only to the third floor, and its scope is extremely small, perhaps only causing problems once in a hundred years. Recently, it has only been frequently releasing evil spirits due to the Vibration of the 【Between Life and Death】."
The doctor's speculation also received support from the others. And Luvia also admitted that during the half-month she spent stargazing on the third floor, she frequently used divination to assist in mapping the star charts, but the divination had never been abnormally affected.
"I often leave Mia at home. Besides scratching the walls in Room No. 2 next door recently, she also likes to stroll on the third floor, but this cat never seems to have encountered anything scary."
Xia De also said, stroking his cat, feeling very afraid. He couldn't imagine how terrifying and cruel it would be if only this cat was at home when the Between Life and Death vibrated again, causing new evil spirits to emerge from his house.
"This makes things difficult. Xia De also told us that life and death boundaries can only be sealed, not completely resolved. So, will the third floor of this house have to be completely sealed off from now on?"
The Golden-haired girl also said, looking at Xia De with great concern:
"I didn't expect that besides the basement you mentioned, the third floor also has problems. Perhaps, other floors... Saint Delan Square Six truly lives up to its reputation as a haunted house. Xia De, if it's really not possible, let's move. How about buying another house in the city, or renting an apartment temporarily as a transition? I know there are good properties available on Feather Pen Street, and I'm very familiar with the landlady there."
"No, this is my home, and I will absolutely not give up Saint Delan Square Six!"
The Outsider was very persistent about the house's problem, and he also believed he could solve it:
"Even the descent of a god this Summer couldn't scare me away from Tobesk, so can a few ghosts make me abandon my home?"
"Meow~"
Mia, squatting beside Xia De, let out a soft meow, not knowing what she wanted to express.
"I knew you'd say that, so what do you plan to do?"
Luvia asked, while the doctor glanced at the longsword Xia De had placed on the coffee table:
"You can't just hang this precious relic in the third-floor hallway as a permanent alarm, can you?"
"Of course not. I met a very powerful friend in Mi Fort. If it really doesn't work, I'll ask her if she can come here through the door next door; her eyes can capture traces of the boundary. However, if that's the case, I'll need to transport the 【traveler's travel door】 to Mi Fort first."
Xia De was referring to Sister Devlin of the Spiritual Cultivation Order. The Order has a deep understanding of the Gap, and even helped Xia De rescue Priest Augustus.
PS: Exchanging book recommendations with a big shot.
"My Espionage Years" by Pig Head Seven
Cheng Qianfan, codenamed 'Spark', 'Chenzhou'; an infiltrator whom the enemy hated to the bone, would dig three feet deep to find, and wished to eliminate quickly!
