After confirming the thickness of the stone wall, Xia De did not continue to expend his spirit using Felianna's Witch Light to melt the stone wall. Instead, he removed the cloth strip wrapped around the scabbard and inserted the Night Watchman into the hole melted in his arm.
He took a deep breath, drawing elements and spirit to the sword body of the Night Watchman:
"The Witch's Light!"
Instantly, golden light radiated from the sword body, and the spreading light immediately melted a large hole in the stone wall. Xia De, quite satisfied, pulled the Night Watchman back, then bent down and squeezed into the space behind the stone wall through the exceptionally smooth opening.
The space behind the stone wall appeared to have been forcibly excavated by some external force; its interior was not a regular shape, suggesting that its original user only treated it as a temporary stronghold.
The total area was about the size of three or four wardrobe interiors. As soon as Xia De entered, he immediately squatted down, checking the ground with the light of the setting sun shining in from behind him. Sure enough, he found messy footprints in the thick dust on the ground.
He reached out and touched the dust on the ground:
"The dust indicates that no one has been here for many years. It basically confirms this was the stronghold, or rather, the safe house, of Harald Ondiba, the previous holder of 'Arrow' over a decade ago. The footprints should be those left by the two people who visited Rust Alley fifteen days ago."
He straightened up, squinting at the space behind the stone wall, which was illuminated by the twilight. The footprints on the ground were extremely messy. Although Xia De called himself a Detective, he did not possess the deductive ability to reconstruct the complete movements of the other party from such chaotic footprints.
He only knew that the footprints belonged to two people, and these two people had almost stepped on every inch of the ground here.
Apart from dust, this small space contained a modular iron frame bed and an iron pipe welded shelf. However, neither the bed nor the shelf held anything. But judging from the dust marks, there should have originally been a mattress on the bed and seven or eight miscellaneous items on the shelf.
Presumably, the two people who arrived here earlier than Xia De had taken all those things away.
They did even more than that. When Xia De lit the light on his fingertip, he saw that the side walls of this narrow space were covered with very fine small holes, about the size of a knitting needle. After inspection, he found that these were also recent marks. Xia De immediately understood that those two people were checking if there were other hidden spaces here.
Although he hadn't witnessed the scene, Xia De could almost imagine one person standing in the center of the ground, then waving a hand, causing sharp thorns to shoot out in all directions, and then confirming one by one whether those thorns had penetrated into other cavities.
"Do these people have to be so thorough? Can't they leave me some clues?"
Xia De complained silently in his heart, then, with a hopeful attitude, he inspected the only remaining iron frame bed and the heavy shelf.
Both of these were metal products. Although their surfaces had some scratches, those marks were not codes. He spent ten minutes conducting a detailed inspection and then had to admit that these two items also held no clues. The two people who arrived before him did not take these two items away purely because they were too heavy.
"The clue is interrupted again."
The only thing Xia De currently knew was that the materials for the iron frame bed and the shelf came from the same batch of steel. This left Xia De with a possible direction: take them away, then entrust Father Nobel to find a blacksmith in the city or an expert in the steel smelting industry to identify the origin of this batch of steel, then investigate the specific location where this batch of steel was sold over ten years ago, hoping to find the next clue by reconstructing Harald Ondiba's movements from many years ago.
Just thinking about it, Xia De knew that this was definitely not something that could be resolved within a few days, and with so many things on his hands now, he had no intention of dragging out the Lake Goddess's second trial for so long:
"Although I am not a very formidable Detective, I am not without other directions for investigation."
“What else did you think of?”
She asked gently.
"I'm not sure if Harald Ondiba treated this place as a pure warehouse or a temporary stronghold. But the furnishings here are simply too few. He clearly created such a concealed and safe space, yet he didn't think of utilizing it more. For example, if I were him, I would definitely hide more daily necessities here."
Xia De stood with his back to the setting sun at the entrance and looked around:
"Even a Ring術士 who emerged from the Pantanal Great Swamp would not be completely indifferent to his quality of life. I can't imagine any reason not to store clothes, food, or even luxurious sugar and tobacco here. The items originally placed on that shelf were all bottles and jars, and this bed has not undergone metal deformation due to uneven force over more than ten years, so there definitely aren't those things I expected here. Considering that the final battle between the Church and Harald Ondiba happened unexpectedly, he couldn't have transferred supplies from here in advance. Therefore, there's something wrong with this place."
“What's wrong?”
"This doesn't look like a real stronghold; it's more like a disguise, something to make others believe this is a safe house."
Xia De twisted his neck to look at the dazzling sunlight outside the cave entrance. The setting sun had already dipped below the horizon, with half of a dim yellow sun slowly sinking along the riverbank. The thick fog gave the sunset a peculiar color; the sun would probably set completely within half an hour:
"The two people who arrived before me did not get clues from Rust Alley to know about this place; according to that white rat, they already knew about it. This means Harald Ondiba did not strictly keep this place a secret, and a secret stronghold that isn't strictly secret has no value at all."
“You mean, this is not Harald Ondiba's secret stronghold at all.”
"Yes, this is just what he made his enemies, and even his companions, believe was a 'secret stronghold'."
“Knowing this, what good is it to you?”
"I just have a deduction: if this place served as a cover, then there must be something being covered, which means the real secret stronghold or safe house."
Xia De bent down and walked out of the cave entrance, took a deep breath, and used the Breath of Years to restore the hole melted by The Witch's Light.
"I once heard of a peculiar type of burial where the tomb owner, to prevent the tomb from being robbed, would set up a false tomb above their real tomb and place some burial goods. When tomb robbers excavate the false tomb and see the burial goods, they will believe they have found the real tomb and therefore will not continue digging."
Xia De thought to himself, stepping on the mud of the riverbank and looking at both sides of the river. Leeches emerged their wriggling bodies from the mud, then burrowed back into it. His thick black boots were not afraid of the mud; Xia De had changed his attire in time for winter.
"It has just been confirmed that there are no other spaces behind the upper, lower, left, right, front, and back walls of this false stronghold. Therefore, let me hypothesize: could Harald Ondiba have hidden the real stronghold not far from the false one, using the principle of 'darkness under the lamp' to protect his secret?"
He placed his hand on the restored stone wall, then walked to the left. His palm remained pressed against the stone wall of the riverbank until he had walked 200 steps and confirmed there were no discoveries before returning to the starting point.
He then placed his hand on the restored stone wall again, this time choosing to walk to the right. When he reached the 129th step, "her" voice finally appeared:
“Traces of elements, very faint.”
Xia De smiled:
"It seems I've really found it."
He drew his sword and stabbed it into the stone wall. The triggered defensive mechanism immediately released a soul-freezing curse, but the curse, under the power of the angel-level relic longsword, couldn't even reach Xia De's hand.
The longsword continued forward. Several green vines drilled out from the hole melted by the golden light, shooting towards Xia De's throat like rapier thrusts. Their appearance was silent and their speed extremely fast; by the time Xia De's eyes caught the green blur, the vines had almost touched his skin.
The Night Watchman actively rotated his wrist, shredding the vines hidden within the stone wall. Although the broken vines that shot out still struck Xia De, they only left faint red marks on his neck. However, the poison consequently permeated Xia De's skin, and as the Night Watchman in his hand violently trembled, large purple marks spread from his neck across his entire body.
At the same time, the light of the setting sun in Xia De's vision dimmed. To his surprise, a massive and terrifying colossus appeared in the darkness. The colossus, pieced together from countless plant residues, slowly extended its "hand" towards him. In the dark scene, the Pantanal Evil was about to...
Flames shot into the sky, and the colossus in the darkness was ignited, then vanished amidst piercing wails. Light reappeared in his vision, and the dazed Xia De then realized that he was still standing in front of the stone wall by the riverbank, the light of the setting sun warming his back, and a large hole, big enough for him to pass through, had been melted into the stone wall in front of him.
"Mental poison?"
He touched his neck with some concern. His neck had returned to normal, and the poison had completely receded. The Original Fire did not give Xia De complete immunity to poison, but unfortunately, the Original Fire regarded the Pantanal Evil as kindling, and the poison just now was most likely a toxin related to the Evil's main body obtained by Harald Ondiba, and thus was directly burned away.
"This person is truly cautious," Xia De murmured in his heart, bending down to touch the vines shredded by the night watchman with his fingers. Upon contact, the resin-like amber viscous jelly-like liquid flowing from the vines immediately spontaneously combusted, burning directly into Ashes before Xia De's eyes.
He only kept a small section of the poisonous vine, put it in a bottle, and planned to give it to Sister Devlin. This could also be considered a small gain.
