“Oh~”
Seeing the flying heads becoming clearer in the fog, Margaret groaned, covering her neck with her hand and closing her eyes:
“In its normal state, this relic cannot produce so many clones. The relic is about to lose control. Mr. Hamilton, retreat quickly, the curse is taking effect on us.”
“There’s no need for that.”
Xia De stepped forward, clapping his hands together forcefully:
“Ha!”
With his arms spread, a huge arc of light cut through the dense fog, slashing towards the densely packed wall of human heads. The Moonlight light blade struck the wall, and amidst the increasingly eerie whispers of the human heads, Moonlight clashed with the flying heads. Dull curses appeared in patches, and a huge gap was cut into the “wall,” but it was immediately filled with new human heads:
“Don’t attack again, the curse on you...”
Margaret immediately reminded him, and then was surprised to see the blackness on Xia De’s neck suddenly brighten, burning as if ignited by fire, and then disappearing.
The Divine Radiance state protects the soul from contamination, and the First Fire’s Embers can make the body immune to specific curses. The Document-level relic 【Charles II’s Beheading Curse】 is a flesh-type curse, precisely the type that First Fire restrains.
“Which one is the main body?”
Xia De looked intently at the overwhelming human heads.
【Just like before, they are all the main body.】
“Great Sin Chains!”
Black chains poured out of his sleeve with a clatter. After they extended to a sufficient length, Xia De gripped one end of the chains with his right hand and whipped them towards the “wall of human heads” like a long whip:
“Red Dragon Power!”
The tensed muscles drove the chains to strike. The whooshing sound of the air breaking brought Margaret, who was disturbed by the runes on the Great Sin Chains, back to her senses. The pitch-black chains, which seemed to absorb light, almost collapsed more than half of the “wall of human heads” with just one strike:
“What a powerful Miracle!”
The Princess couldn't help but praise, but Xia De explained softly:
“It has no offensive power!”
Saying that, the Living Rope Trick controlled the chains to change direction in the air, completely disregarding physical laws. Then Xia De struck the chains again, completely breaking through the constantly approaching wall of human heads.
The densely packed human heads rolled like balls into the dirty alley, turning into puddles of black mud amidst curses. The Great Sin Chains continued to strike the only remaining human head in the air. Perhaps because it had lost too much power, that human head did not try to escape, but instead opened its mouth and bit one end of the Great Sin Chains:
“Good opportunity!”
Both sides exerted force simultaneously, and the head’s strength competed with Xia De’s physical strength. In the end, Xia De had a slight advantage. As the head was pulled over, the chain, under Xia De’s control, drilled into the head’s mouth, then went down the esophagus, and came out from the bottom of the head. It made a loop and then wrapped around the back end of the chain, effectively stringing the head onto the chain.
gluttony, greed, sloth. The Great Sin runes glowed faintly on the chains. The still trembling human head gradually calmed down as Xia De’s spirit rapidly depleted:
“Great Sin...”
Finally, its eyes closed, and it became completely motionless.
“Alright.”
Xia De finally let out a sigh of relief. With a clatter, the Great Sin Chains pulled the human head towards him. He held the chain with his right hand, lifting the head. When Xia De looked at Margaret again, she subtly took a step back.
She pursed her lips. Although she had guessed that this Delarion knight might be very capable, she hadn't expected him to be so capable. The relic, on the verge of losing control, she certainly couldn't contain it alone, but after Xia De appeared just now, he actually defeated it head-on with brute force.
“Mr. Hamilton, may I ask how many Ring術士 you are?”
“Miss Mary” asked softly, Xia De shook his head:
“Miss Mary, since you refuse to reveal your true identity, I have no reason to tell you my level. However, you are a Ring術士 from out of town, and you probably don’t know the local situation. Since this Summer, various strange things have been happening frequently here. Our team and Mr. Madison’s team are friends, so I want to remind you to be careful in Tobesk.”
“Okay.”
The Princess said cautiously, retracting her puppet. Xia De put his hand into his pocket, took out a paper bag to put the human head in, then retreated a few steps, took a running start, kicked the wall with his shoe, and with his empty left hand, he just reached up and grabbed the brass-colored metal pipe climbing on the wall. He agilely leaped upwards, and in a few movements, he reached the second-floor window sill, returning himself to the Three Cats Inn.
Looking at Margaret in the alley again, she looked at the second-floor window with some difficulty, clearly unable to climb up directly like Xia De.
“Please come up.”
The chain hung down from the window, but Margaret shook her head.
When she returned to the inn through the main door and saw the group of people on the second floor, Xia De and Doctor Schneider were already sitting back at the table.
The human head returned to the woman’s body. Afterward, Xia De requested a room from Mrs. Sangmei. Doctor Schneider sent his patient back to her room. Mr. Madison supported the woman, and together with Margaret, entered the new room on the third floor with Xia De.
Containing the Document-level relic 【Charles II’s Beheading Curse】 was Margaret’s college assignment. She needed to use this relic to exchange for a special material, “Silk Thread of the Blood Puppet,” from Cerces. This was one of the core materials for her promotion from Four Ring to PentaCircle, and even as a Princess, she couldn’t obtain it from other sources.
Extracting the relic from the woman’s body required quite complex steps. When Doctor Schneider knocked on the door and slipped in, the ritual was only half-prepared. Xia De and the doctor had, after all, taken money from others, so they also helped set up the ritual.
By four o’clock in the afternoon, they placed the unconscious woman on a chair and moved the chair into the ritual array drawn on the floor.
Xia De closed the curtains, and the doctor blocked the light from the door crack with newspaper. Once everything was ready, as Mr. Madison by the wall turned off the gas lamp, in the darkness, all the chalk marks on the ground lit up.
Margaret, holding a specially treated silver dining knife, wearing a brown leather apron, and a raven mask that served as a ritual symbol, stood beside the chair under the gaze of the three men, and personally cut off the woman’s head.
The cut surface did not bleed; instead, there was wriggling black sludge. Margaret held the head in her left hand, and with her right, she took out a wide-mouthed glass conical flask containing fresh flesh from the large pocket of her apron, placing the glass vessel beneath the head.
The flesh in the glass conical flask was bait. The wriggling black sludge gradually detached from the incision of the head, then drilled into the bottle, and instantly corrupted the lump of flesh. The wriggling black sludge, at this point, finally truly transformed into a disgusting black parasite, but having detached from a truly living person, its whisper element was already quite faint.
“Miss Mary seems very skilled at this kind of surgery.”
Xia De whispered from the side, and the doctor explained:
“Success Higher Medical College and Saint Byron’s have different cultivation focuses. Besides their excellent potion and alchemy techniques, they are also very proficient in necromancy and human modification.”
Seeing the relic perfectly peeled off, Margaret also breathed a sigh of relief. She handed the bottle to Mr. Madison beside her, while she re-stitched the woman’s head. This unfortunate woman was not from Tobesk, but had traveled all the way from a City further south, and then her identity was discovered by Cerces.
After the relic was removed, if her head could be stitched back quickly, she could still survive. However, because she had been attached to the relic for too long, her mind had suffered irreparable damage. Afterward, Success Higher Medical College would send someone to pick her up, and after confirming she could return to a normal life, they would send her back to where she lived.
“Thankfully, the containment process went smoothly. If it had truly lost control, this would have been a huge problem.”
《Immortal Wood Fates》
Mr. Madison, wearing gloves, said, shaking the bottle vigorously. After confirming that the pitch-black worm in the bottle was no longer moving, he carefully placed it into the open metal box on the table. This box was the true containment vessel, and its surface bore the emblem of Success Higher Medical College—a book pierced by a scalpel.
“What would happen if it lost control?”
Xia De asked curiously.
“Within three hundred meters of the flying head, the heads of all humanoid creatures would automatically separate from their necks.”
Mr. Madison touched his neck, and Doctor Schneider clicked his tongue by the door:
“These strange relics have become increasingly common in the past six months. Previously, dangerous uncontained relics also existed in large Cities, but their frequency was not this high.”
“Is Tobesk very dangerous?”
Margaret, still performing the “suturing surgery,” asked.
Doctor Schneider looked at Mr. Madison, Mr. Madison looked at Xia De, and Xia De looked at Doctor Schneider; for a moment, no one gave an answer.
After stitching the woman’s head, Mr. Madison hired a carriage to send the woman away. Margaret, holding the box containing the relic, paid Xia De and the doctor their remuneration. She clearly had more to say to Xia De, but ultimately left with words unspoken.
This made Xia De even more anticipate what Margaret would be like the next time he saw her in public.
He and Doctor Schneider stood at the window of the third-floor room, watching “Miss Mary” disappear into the crowd of St. Anthem Square. Only then did the doctor ask:
“Xia De, now the Princess knows you are a Ring術士, but the Princess doesn’t know that you know she knows you are a Ring術士. And you know she is also a Ring術士, but you also know that she doesn’t know that you know she knows you are a Ring術士. What will you do next?”
The doctor’s words were easy to understand, and Xia De replied:
“What if Margaret knows I am a Ring術士? Compared to her, I am more interested in another correspondence student from Senrick.”
“Sir Prisha?”
The doctor asked.
Xia De nodded:
“Doctor, if you know Sir Prisha is involved in relic containment or other Ring術士-related activities here, remember to notify me. I have some matters I need to discuss with him.”
The doctor didn’t ask what Xia De wanted to do:
“No problem, I’ll ask Alan and I’ll know. Actually, I wanted to say last time, since there are Ring術士 in the Anjou Royal Family, there should be some in our kingdom’s Royal Family members as well.”
As he spoke, he glanced at Xia De, clearly hoping to get confirmation from him.
Xia De hesitated for a moment, then nodded:
“The Royal Families of both countries and the Miracle academies have private relationships. Although the Five Gods Church promises not to interfere with secular royal power, the Royal Family cannot possibly not make their own plans.”
“Understood.”
The doctor sighed, looking at the bustling crowd in St. Anthem Square:
“We are in the best of times. Divine power and royal power support each other, social changes are generally peaceful, and the two great human kingdoms basically maintain peace due to the arrival of the Steam Age. I truly hope that such an era can continue forever... but it’s impossible to think so.”
The doctor tapped the wooden window sill with his finger, then motioned for Xia De to go with him to see Mr. Jims. That gentleman had slept all afternoon, and he should probably be awake by now.
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