Chapter 55

"It's all your fault!

"It's all your fault!

"Damn it!

"Son of a bitch!"

Guillaume Béné kept punching the air in front of him as if there was an invisible creature standing there.

His face was filled with hatred, and his inner emotions were unleashed without any restraint.

Aurore deepened the darkness in her eyes and directed "White Paper" to look at the empty space where the parish priest was hitting.

There was nothing there, no indescribable creature, no transparent and ethereal existence—nothing but air.

"This is someone he's been dissatisfied with for a long time but doesn't dare to express it to their face," Lumián clicked his tongue, "Who is he blaming?"

Aurore shook her head and casually replied,

"It could be the bishop who suppresses him, preventing him from advancing to the divine rank and obtaining extraordinary powers, or it could be someone who tempted him to convert to a secret existence, hoping to gain blessings and become stronger..."

She felt that as a deputy deacon of the "Eternal Sun" Church, a person with real power in a rural church, it wasn't easy for the parish priest to establish contact with a secret existence through his own efforts.

In matters involving extraordinary powers, he would certainly request assistance from the church in the Dijon region. The corresponding magical items and witchcraft notes would also have to be handed over to the Inquisition for storage or even sealing, and would not be left in the church in Cordu village. More importantly, it was already impressive that he could master ancient Fussac, and languages like Hermes and Elvish, which could invoke supernatural powers, were not something a deputy deacon could access. Aurore had already confirmed through the "Eye of Secrets" that he was not someone with naturally high spirituality who could easily attract evil things.

So, without the "guidance" of someone, what could the parish priest use to contact a secret existence?

Of course, Aurore did not rule out the possibility that Guillaume Béné had accidentally obtained a mystical item and not turned it in.

Hearing his sister's words, Lumián laughed,

"Is it not allowed for the parish priest to curse the secret existence?

"He's willing to let Saint Cis suffer a bit, so it's not impossible that he's blaming the secret existence for tempting him."

After mocking Guillaume Béné, Lumián seriously analyzed,

"I've been thinking about why the parish priest suddenly fell. After much consideration, I think there are two suspects, uh, suspects. One is Madame Pouilly, who is clearly very powerful. Whether it's Louis Londe giving birth in the castle or the woman suspected to be her surrounded by undead in the wilderness, it shows she is not simple. Involving abnormal paths and secret existences, it's normal for the parish priest to be tempted by her as one of her lovers."

"Right..." Lumián suddenly slapped his head.

"What's wrong?" Aurore didn't know what her brother was thinking of.

Lumián answered with a serious face,

"Do you think the parish priest has ever had a child with Madame Pouilly?"

"..." Aurore now regretted believing her brother's performance, thinking he had made an important discovery.

She retorted irritably,

"Who told you that Louis Londe's child is Madame Pouilly's?

"What if it's the administrator Beuster's? What if it's a secret existence's? No, if it were, you would have exploded and transformed into a monster when you saw that scene."

"I just feel that when the administrator and Madame Pouilly are together, Madame Pouilly is clearly more dominant." Before the cycle began, Lumián felt that Administrator Beuster was a bit weak, unable to discipline his butler or control his wife, and always seemed to be trying to please Madame Pouilly when they were together.

Lumián originally thought the administrator loved his wife very much, but now he had a new guess,

"Do you think the administrator might be another breeding tool for Madame Pouilly?"

"Maybe." Aurore rubbed her forehead, "The world of mysticism really broadens my horizons. Many scenes that only exist in novels and imagination have come true, in a twisted way..."

After sighing, she muttered to herself,

"It doesn't seem like just one or two people giving birth in the castle. Where did those children go?"

Lumián thought for a while and indicated he had no way to guess.

He also didn't dare to suggest infiltrating the castle for a detailed search. After witnessing Louis Londe and the events in the wilderness, he instinctively wanted to avoid the line involving Madame Pouilly.

Aurore felt the same way, and both siblings had a deep fear of Madame Pouilly.

At this moment, after venting for a while, the parish priest walked to the table in the room, poured a small glass of red wine, and gulped it down.

He took a long breath, put down the glass, and walked to the bed.

Not until the parish priest's breathing became steady, seemingly asleep, did Lumián mock,

"Going to sleep so early?

"I thought he would find another mistress, and, by the way, he doesn't smoke privately either."

This was inferred from the absence of cigar boxes, pipes, and other items in the bedroom.

"He only tastes wine lightly, everyone says he is very normal." Aurore chuckled.

She let "White Paper" observe for a while longer, and when there was no new information, she ordered it to return. She then turned to Lumián,

"You only mentioned one suspect earlier, who is the other?"

"That sneaky, peeping owl!" Lumián made his guess, "It might have guided the parish priest to the remains of a legendary wizard."

"Um." Aurore thought it was quite possible.

Lumián then suggested,

"Next time that owl comes to see me, we should capture it and interrogate it harshly."

"Are you sure you can beat an owl that has lived for who knows how many years?" Aurore laughed.

"Don't I have you?" Lumián flattered his sister.

Aurore chuckled,

"Even if we work together, the chances of success won't be great.

"Um... but we can try. Doing nothing means discovering nothing, and it would be a waste of the limited time we have. Of course, the key is not to affect the arrival of the twelfth night, which is the most critical point."

Lumián nodded heavily.

Seeing that he was already exhausted and pale, Aurore caught the returning "White Paper" and instructed,

"You've practiced spirit vision too many times today. You can go to sleep and rest well. Continue tomorrow."

She thought for a moment and added,

"Tomorrow morning, I'll teach you the relatively simpler Hermes language among the supernatural languages. In the afternoon, you can go to Pierre Berry and have him buy you a drink. I'll take the opportunity to go to his sheep pen and communicate with the three sheep to see if I can get any useful information."

She felt this was the easiest line to investigate at the moment.

"Isn't it too dangerous?" Lumián, who had already stood up, asked.

Aurore smiled and reassured her brother,

"Don't worry, I'm not going to fight or immediately try to help them recover their human form. It won't trigger any possible alarms. I just plan to communicate with them in the plateau language. They should know something."

Lumián nodded,

"Tomorrow afternoon, I plan to 'get to know' those three strangers at the old tavern. They can be trusted allies."

Of course, on the condition that they don't expose the siblings' identities as wild supernaturals.

"Good." Aurore agreed with her brother's choice.

...

In the faint gray mist, Lumián woke up in the bed of the dream bedroom.

As expected, he found that all the gold, silver, and copper coins, as well as the axe and steel fork beside him, were gone.

The dream ruins had started a new cycle.

I have to pick them up again... Lumián muttered as he left the bedroom and entered the study.

He picked up the small blue book on the table, flipped through it, and saw many words had been cut out.

"Sure enough, it was the letter I sent for help..." Lumián felt no emotional fluctuation about it anymore.

Moreover, he suspected it was sent under Aurore's guidance, as he, lacking mystical knowledge at the time, would likely have chosen a reliable messenger or waited for the postman.

Thinking of the postman, Lumián realized that the one who came once a week was not in the cycle.

He thought for a while and felt it was normal. After receiving the letter for help and confirming the abnormality in Cordu village, the authorities would likely find an excuse to prevent ordinary people from entering Cordu.

Lumián casually looked around, trying to see if any boxes for storing letters were missing, but he didn't remember how many similar items Aurore had collected, so he quickly gave up the attempt.

Without affecting his actions, Lumián put on some more clothes and pants, took the iron-black axe, and left home again, entering the cracked wilderness, heading towards the ruins surrounding the dark red "peak."

With previous experience, he easily dealt with the two familiar monsters, picked up the hunting rifle, the bag of lead bullets, and the various coins.

Lumián cautiously moved forward, deliberately not choosing the original path and heading in a different direction—thinking he probably couldn't handle the monster with three faces on its head.

As he passed through the collapsed buildings in the thin gray mist, he concentrated and sniffed the air.

He smelled a faint, weak scent of blood.

After some thought, Lumián followed the shadows towards the source of the blood scent.

Soon, he hid in a concealed space on the roof of a half-collapsed building, looking through a larger gap between some stones at a spot ahead.

On the barren ground, among the completely collapsed and haphazardly piled buildings, a mass of flesh was writhing.

The flesh was mixed with some yellow fat, looking like a creature had been crushed by a falling boulder.

It still had life, slowly writhing towards a building.

"How do you deal with this kind of monster? Cut off its head? It doesn't even have a head..." Lumián fell into deep thought.

At that moment, several deep black, elastic, and fleshy "ropes" suddenly emerged from somewhere, binding the mass of flesh.