Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 304 Cause of Death
"Xiren, you're a piece of trash!"

In the cardinal secret hall on the seventh floor underground of the Flame Cathedral, the third archbishop Yuno, who had just rushed back, grabbed Xiren's collar fiercely, and punched Xiren in the face like an angry mad tiger, causing blood to spurt out!

Yuno was about to swing his fist again, but the other archbishops reacted and rushed forward to hold him down. Someone else forcibly pried open his hand that was clutching Xillen's collar and rescued the pale-faced deputy archbishop.

"You are a waste, trash! A complete bastard!" Yuno, who was held down by several people, continued to curse, "Is this how you f*cking watch over the house? Pilak has been practicing fire prayer for nearly 30 years, and he hasn't made any mistakes in these 30 years, not even a single flaw in the deployment of divine power. Now you tell me that he committed suicide right under your nose?!"

"I don't know." Xiren wiped the bleeding corner of his mouth and repeated absentmindedly, "I don't know. He is the one with the strongest faith among us. How could he lose control? How could it be possible?"

"Yesterday morning, I just went to his room to say hello and check on his physical condition as usual. Before I even got there, I was knocked down by a violent storm of divine power. Then the flames blasted through the floor and hit the sixth floor. I heard the monks above making unimaginable screams and wails."

"When I arrived, he had already killed all the monks on that floor, and had scratched his chest and back to pieces. He was standing in a pool of blood, smiling at me."

"I was stunned. My instinct told me to run away, but my mind forced me to stay and subdue him. But before I could think clearly, he rushed towards me frantically!"

"His hair grew longer and longer, turning a fiery red, and his body swelled larger and larger, encased in flames. He exploded less than 20 meters away from me."

Xiren leaned against the wall, slid down to the ground helplessly, and scratched his messy hair with his hands. He said, "The whole person exploded. The flesh and bone fragments were all over the wall. He had no internal organs. There were only charred charcoal residues in the body. In the end, only the head in the iron helmet was preserved. It fell from the ceiling to the ground and then rolled in front of me."

"He just stared at me, staring at me all the time. There was no blood in his eyes, only a burning fire that could not be stopped. Ahem—"

Xillen suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood. Perhaps it was because of the collapse of his faith, his blood turned an extremely unhealthy black color. His hands, which were shaking and grabbing his hair, were a completely different color, pale. The aura emanating from his body was no longer as dignified and serious as before. What was left was only fear and panic that seemed to be real.

Yuno stared at this opponent who had disagreed with him on countless issues. He was also his most trusted and respected comrade besides Pilak in guarding the North for so many years.

His eyes changed several times between anger, disappointment and regret. He was stunned for a long while and couldn't utter a word.

"Let's go check out the scene first." The cold voice of Olivia, the sixth seat, calmed everyone's chaotic thoughts. "Whether Xiren is hiding something or Pilac has indeed encountered some unknown problem, we need to see it with our own eyes before we can make a judgment."

The aloof and cold lady looked around at the five archbishops present and said calmly, "Don't forget what Pilak said. Any one of us can die, but the cathedral must not be in chaos, and the North must not be in chaos either."

"Bishop Olivia is right," the fourth seat of the Southwest Snowfield, Kylein, sighed softly, "No matter what, we must first investigate the scene and do a good job of post-processing. Yuno - don't be so impulsive."

Yuno turned his red eyes and glanced at his best friend, then looked at the depressed Fifth Silodi and Seventh Sishifo, nodded stiffly, and said, "Then let's go to the scene together. If I find details that contradict what you said, Xiren, you should know the fate of betrayers better than anyone else."

Xiren did not say anything, but stood up silently, walked in front and led everyone to Pilak's residence on the top floor.

During the meeting of cardinals, the Holy Sepulchre of Flame, in accordance with custom, imposed strict restrictions on the activities of monks below the rank of bishop to avoid the risk of leaking confidential information.

Compared to the 21st Cardinals' Conference in March to discuss the banning of the Giant Prayer Book, although no official meeting notice has been issued yet, the control of actions in the church is more stringent than ever before.

Since yesterday morning, Xiren ordered all personnel from the fifth to seventh floors to be evacuated, and issued a strict gag order to the few bishops and high-ranking monks who witnessed the truth that day.

At the same time, he immediately used the magic of fire to seal off the seventh floor, and then dispatched his personal guards to send secret letters day and night to the other five archbishops and the royal capital to inform them of the news and summon them to the cathedral to discuss follow-up issues.

After such a intensive operation, the impact of the Chief Archbishop Pilak's out-of-control massacre of the members of the Holy Temple was compressed to the minimum. Most of the monks in the Holy Temple only knew that Bishop Pilak had met with an accident and died while practicing. The Flame Branch Hall further away had not even received this round of news. This squeezed out the most precious few days of reaction time for the Holy Temple and the King's Capital. The six archbishops walked in the empty corridor under control, and the heavy and chaotic footsteps rang in their ears, just like the unpredictable ups and downs of people's hearts at this time.

Five minutes later, they arrived at the seventh floor, the highest floor of the temple. A chaotic curtain of flames appeared in front of them. It was the divine seal left by Xilun.

Xi Lun waved his hand to remove the seal, stepped aside to make way, and said, "See for yourselves."

At this moment, even though the five archbishops had already prepared themselves mentally, they could not help but feel a suffocating sense of fear when faced with the hellish scene before them.

It was a horrifying scene that could hardly appear in the deepest nightmare. The long corridor was stained a sickening scarlet with broken flesh and blood. All kinds of human tissues that had been completely disfigured by the high temperature impact were stuck to the walls and ceiling, and the air was filled with a strong smell of burning.

In the center of the floor, there were two blurry footprints on a large piece of charred charcoal. That was probably where Pilak stood for the last moment of his life.

However, the pair of footprints were unusually large. Based on this, Pirak's height before his death had expanded to more than five meters, and his shoulders and neck had reached the ceiling.

Following this line of thought, everyone looked up and saw that the remaining tissues in that area were indeed more than in other places. There was also a semi-arc-shaped impact crater at the highest point, the shape of which exactly matched the archbishop's standard bowl-shaped iron helmet.

They endured the discomfort and walked forward. After carefully observing the ground, they found that there was actually a series of footprints behind the pair of footprints. However, the traces quickly became lighter and smaller in size until they became normal size in front of Pilak's room.

Pushing open the half-melted door, most of the furniture and objects inside were surprisingly intact, as if someone had lived here just a moment ago. There were ink bottles and feather pens on the desk in the room, with a few drops of dried ink on the edges.

Yuno frowned, walked over to grab the ink bottle, took out the quill and sniffed it, and said, "It was used not long ago, one or two days at most. It is very likely that he wrote something just before he walked out of this room-"

"Maybe it was just placed here casually?" Rody asked.

"Impossible," Yuno shook his head firmly. "Pilak has always been a meticulous person. It's possible that he forgot to put away his pen and ink while he was unconscious, but he definitely wouldn't have left things everywhere while he was awake, and he didn't even clean up the ink that dripped onto the table."

"That's right," Kellin, who has also worked with Pilak for many years, nodded, "but where are the things he wrote?"

"I haven't checked this place yet, and I haven't seen any writings he left behind—" Xi Lun, who was the last to enter the room, explained, "I know that at this critical moment, we have to maintain the trust between the six of us, so everything you see is the original appearance of this room."

"Shiver, you are proficient in the art of detecting forgeries. I can cooperate with you at any time to test whether I am lying or not."

The Seventh Xishifu subconsciously looked at Yuno, who seemed not to have heard anything and did not say a word in response.

On the other side, Olivia had bent down, opened all the drawers, and stretched out her hand to grope in the crack deep in the desk.

A faint blue light shone in her pupils, and the intricate structure deep inside the desk appeared in her eyes like a silhouette reflected in the lake, and the corners where possible mechanisms might exist were also revealed one by one.

That was the secret magic "True Deconstruction" she learned from her sister. Looking through the three major dynasties, only the star sorcerer Orlanvinia had reached such a pinnacle in the attainments of various applied magics.

Soon, she found a secret compartment hidden in the center of the desk. She reached out and pressed it. With a slight click, a notebook covered with an unknown leather popped into the central drawer.

(End of this chapter)