Returning from the abyss

Chapter 468 The Interrupted Shadow

From a global perspective, Juno is the tourist who touches the core of all people, and she can survive until now, whether it is skill, luck, or calculation is one of the reasons.With such a wide range of investigations, she has already intervened in more than one weird case that happened in Ewalong, just like the monk who broke the precepts that Lu Ning saw.After she prevented the murderer from continuing to commit crimes, all these cases ended without exception.

"I don't care about your past." She pointed her gun at the door, not relaxing for a moment, "I just want to tell you some facts."

"Oh?"

"Existences like you - people who hide their identities, people who suddenly gain great power, people who have undergone special transformations on themselves, people whose temperament has undergone a huge change, these days I have met a lot." Zhu Nuo curled his lips, "They all participated in a vicious case without exception, causing injuries or even death. But when I traced their identities and pursued them, all of these people died."

"died?"

"Yeah, the deaths were pretty weird. I'm pretty good at examining dead bodies, and I'm pretty sure everyone died less than 5 minutes before I found them, like someone was waiting for me to find them, and take a look first. You were one of the few alive when I found it."

The door slowly began to dissolve. After a while, a prototype of artificial life used the material of the door to reorganize into a half-melted face. It took a step forward, and the metal on its two arms drooped into irregular spikes. .

"say clearly."

"You should know that a lot of things have happened in Ewalang recently. It seems that because of the guidance of some forces, many people have become restless, but these things have not caused much trouble. As for you, it is only in this scene One of the farces born in the chaos. Before you do it, do you want to think carefully about whether the person who made you what you are now has any other hidden plans?"

"...Hidden? Who can hurt me in my current state?" The artificial life sneered, "Of course, if what you said is true, then I really have to be careful..."

"Everyone is as confident as you before they die." Juno shook his head slightly, "I said that I want to prevent the next victim from appearing, not only this 'alchemist attack case', but also what happened in the Eva corridor. 'Serial Murder Cases of Unusual Murderers'."

"...I need a proof."

Juno threw a small crystal.

"do you know him?"

The artificial life holds the crystal, and a projection emerges in the air. It is a set of fixed images, all of which are black shadows with blurred outlines.

"I have a kind of magic that can print out what I saw before death through pupil rubbings." Juno said, "And the biggest commonality around these dead people when they died is this black shadow, have you seen it?"

"No, I haven't seen this shadow, and I don't know..."

"You're lying." Juno interrupted it. "Maybe you haven't seen a shadow, but you must suspect someone you have."

The artificial life paused for a moment and did not answer.

Juno frowned: "Not ready to answer? The existence of this person is the real danger to Avalon. If you don't pay attention, even in this state—isn't it?"

She rushed forward, stretched out her hand and shook in front of the artificial life, but found that it was unresponsive, and realized that the unknown murderer had left.But instead she had a smile on her face.

"OK."

After retrieving the crystal, eliminating the traces left by him coming in, returning from the window and repairing the window, Juno quietly left the block.

And when the morning came, the people in the room woke up from their slumber and yelled in horror when they saw the big hole in the door. Unlocking the door and rushing into the room, the two happened to see the artificial life outside.

=
In the Violet Library, the highest magic laboratory, a tall man wearing a purple-gold mage robe with a serious face and a slight beard strode in.

No one in Avalon would recognize him. Dulemond, the Sorcerer Emperor, is also the head of the twelve official members of the entire Magic Council.

"Good morning, Your Excellency Durhamund."

Now there is only one person in the laboratory. This lady with no signs of age on her face nodded slightly to Dulemond. This attitude can also be seen that the lady's status is comparable to that of Dulemond.

"Good morning, Gabriel." Dulemond bowed to the lady, "Maybe you have been conducting magic experiments all night again?"

"It's just a few experiments that need to be taken care of. The main thing is to observe the magic power changes of the Avalon through the Void Realm Tower." Gabriel smiled, "Although your Excellency is not here, I think you haven't slept all night."

"That's not a problem. As long as everything in Avalon is still under control, we don't need to worry. What news did the Void Tower return?"

"Three targeted magic powers appeared last night, and three dangerous elements were recovered. Of course, the source of the magic power was still not marked."

"The other party didn't hide his identity at all, he was among the 12 of us." Dulemond said with some anger, "Only we understand the working principle of the Void Tower, and only we have the ability to perfect it." Avoid all distractions."

"Have you found out who it is?"

"If he can be found out so easily, that person will not be able to be an official member of parliament. But I already know his purpose." With a wave of Dulemond's hand, the rows of collection cabinets on both sides of the laboratory opened one after another. A piece of utensils flew out of it, neatly arranged on the table in front of him.

"You didn't pay special attention to recover those lost magic books, why?" Gabriel asked.

"Because those are not the other party's intention." Dulemond stared at the items on the table that contained powerful magic power, each of them was a magic book, and the magic book kept in this laboratory Unlike libraries, they also require content identification.And there are not many people who can identify magic books, so the progress of this project is quite slow.

But today, Dulemond did not take these out to see the content.

""Closed Pavilion", "Seven Famous Mountains", "Stone God's Recitation", "Autumn of No Return", "Bone Talk"."

A dilapidated storybook, a miniature landscape, an inscription, a string of bookmarks made of different leaves, and a bone flute floated from the table and landed on the table next to it.

"Huh?" Gabriel raised his eyebrows when he saw the magic books that Dulemond picked out.

""Corpse Buddha", "Journey to the East in 33 Years", "Recycling Festival", "One Man with Thousands of Appearances", "Death Confused"."

Three relics, a pair of tattered straw sandals, a painting of a continuous closed-loop scene, nine exquisite masks, and a sharp knife stained with coagulated blood.

"And, the three targets recovered this morning, tell me who they are, Gabriel." Dulemond turned his head.

"Iris the Poisoner, Carpenter the Bonemaker, Xin Qing the Soul Refiner." Gabriel quickly replied, "Dullemond, do you think..."

"Not in my opinion."

A magic power swept across the specially selected magic books. For the magic guide emperor, the pollution could no longer harm him, but only stimulated the magic power contained in the books.

""Sea of ​​Dirt", "Bone Love Religion", "The Prison of Soul". I must not use what I think to speak out. We are a parliament, and we must show real evidence."

Following Dulemond's cold reprimand, the last three magic books also fell on the stage.

"Someone is collecting books... Collectors... No, what does it matter? I don't understand." Gabriel frowned. "Is there anything special about these untested magic books?"

"No, it's the person's actions that make it special. We found out a little later, so that person has already completed part of the plan. However, because of the disturbance of some people, the plan did not proceed so smoothly."

Dulemond grabbed it in the air, and the powerful magic power immediately resonated with all the magic books on the table. After a while, he lowered his arm and snorted coldly.

"Sure enough, although the knowledge in these books is still preserved, the more important things inside have been taken away."

Part of the experience, experience, and even the soul from the owner of the magic book no longer exists in these magic books.

"Who took it?" Gabriel also examined it, frowning.

"I don't know yet, but I will be able to catch this person in a few days when the library is open." Dulemond sneered, "These magic books... no, they can no longer be called magic books Now, find a special place to seal it up. How many 'baits' are there left?"

"Four. Invisible Abel, Sawtooth Craftsman Fang, Demon Dao Li Chenyi, Ronin Ghost Face."

"enough."

=
At Lu Ning's request, Rochester temporarily blocked the scene, and did not step forward to check the "statue" standing outside the door without authorization.

"Lilian, you guessed it right, but... tonight's attack seems to have failed."

"No." Lu Ning glanced at the statue that was originally an artificial life. The alchemists could basically tell that the completion of this thing is quite low, and it can only have the most basic mobility, and it can't even be called life, but it's strange. is the last pose of the statue.

The fuzzy face looks forward, and the "hand" stretches forward slightly in a half-fisted shape.If she wanted to restore the scene, it should be holding something in its hand, and it should be looking at the scene reflected from that thing.

"It was cut off by someone, otherwise it would have done it last night. That... the owner here, I'm sorry I haven't asked your name yet, did you hear anything yesterday?"

This alchemist specializes in experiments, and he is still so frightened that his legs are weak after encountering such a thing. Sitting on the sofa in the living room, drinking a hot drink, he heard Lu Ning asked and quickly shook his head: "I slept very soundly..."

"You have been hypnotized." Rochester and Lu Ning said at the same time.

Someone stopped the killing from the outside, but judging from the situation, there was no sign of a fight at the scene, so the murderer probably saw that there was nothing he could do and left.It is obviously abnormal for the people in the room to be ignorant of this.

"Then there should be some deviation in my thinking. The murderer didn't accumulate enough power to kill because of the long time interval, but became able to kill after a period of time." Lu Ning looked at the statue at the same time The arm that can also be used as a murder weapon, "The good news is that if the murderer leaves, then this statue should not be the medium for the next step. The bad news is...we failed to catch him."

"I think it should be reported to the Alchemists Guild."

"I don't think they can play any role." Lu Ning expressed her dissatisfaction very directly, "To be honest, I came here with the intention of coming here for an autopsy. The atmosphere in the association shows that the leaders are incompetent."

When she said that, Rochester also felt somewhat embarrassed.

"But how did the murderer do it?" He changed the subject.

"The victim must be an alchemist, and the strength is between intermediate and advanced. I think the victim Xu You has already explained this problem."

"Why does he judge like this? This is the strangest thing to me."

"It's very simple. The murderer can only use the alchemist himself to perform alchemy, so he needs to choose intermediate and advanced alchemists who can form sufficient lethality to launch effective killing. At the same time, the strength of this murderer can only hurt At these two levels, if you encounter an alchemist above a mage, you will probably be killed. That Mr. Xu You must have noticed this when he was attacked, so he told the alchemists of these two levels in the association Focus on vigilance, but because the murderer's logic of killing is not yet understood, subsequent incidents have not been prevented."

"If you don't trust the association, let's report it directly to the guards." Rochester is not good at persuading Lu Ning, he also knows the situation of the association, and he can probably guess what kind of cold reception Lu Ning will encounter when he goes to the association by himself. .

"Better so."

It's not that Lu Ning couldn't notice the strange situation at the scene. The problem was that except for the statue, the rest of the traces were swept away, and she couldn't do anything at all.The conclusion that can be drawn is that someone arrived at the scene in time to drive away the murderer, and then cleaned up all traces and left quickly.

"...Is there anyone in Ewalang who can do such a clean finishing job?" Lu Ning said to herself.

All the cleaning she'd seen so far had been to wipe out what was there and build a new one to replace it.Lu Ning also got a general understanding of the habits of some magicians. For them, who are easy to create and destroy, there are too few people who can clean up the traces without destroying the scene.

"Lilian, let's go." Rochester told the alchemist to take refuge in the association first, and he called Lu Ning to go to the guard to report the discovery of this incident.

(End of this chapter)