Chapter 625

The endless darkness, the constricted environment, and the muddled thoughts made Lu Mian exceptionally irritable even in his dreams, wishing he could tear open this cage and smash everything he saw before him.

He gradually understood that he was dreaming and tried hard to open his eyes, wanting to wake up, but he could not succeed no matter what. Every time, he spent a lot of effort and felt that he had finally woken up, but in the blink of an eye, he fell into deeper darkness and a deeper dream.

I don't know how long it had been, but Lu Mian woke up naturally and saw a little light seeping into the window with curtains drawn.

It was six o'clock in the morning.

Lu Mian raised his right hand and wiped his forehead, finding a layer of cold sweat that was about to dry.

"Is this a spiritual warning, or did I recall the 'Samaritan Woman's Spring' and the 'Blood Emperor' shadow when I was thinking about the scent of death on Hant Island yesterday? I had also considered the similarity between witnessing a devil and mysterious death with the Monsuri ghost before, so I had a connection with them again and suffered shallow-level contamination?" Lu Mian could not accurately interpret the complete meaning of this dream and could only remind himself to be careful enough in the future and keep in mind his original purpose for coming to Hant Island:

It was just to investigate the devil legend, not to solve that devil.

Not to mention whether he had the strength to deal with that devil and whether he needed to ask for help, just the fact that the Church of Mother Earth had been operating here for more than a hundred years without completely eradicating the target shows that even if all the major Arcana cards of the "Tarot Club" came together, they might not be able to completely solve this matter.

Lu Mian rolled off the bed, took out the gold-cased pocket watch he got from the Breeze Ballroom, and pressed it open to take a look:

Six-fifteen.

Although it was still early, Lu Mian felt a sense of urgency. The "Berry" was leaving Hant Island the day after tomorrow morning. He only had two days to investigate the devil's legend, roughly figure out the truth, and lock onto the corresponding suspect.

If he could do this, his "Conspirator" potion would likely be digested.

The collection, screening, and utilization of information are also an important part of a conspiracy!

And if Lu Mian were a Sequence 7 "Detective" of the "Reader" pathway, the fact that he successfully investigated a century-old cold case involving high-level power in just two days would be enough for him to cross from initial digestion to complete digestion.

Nine o'clock in the morning, Hant Port suburbs, "Return Cemetery."

Lu Mian held a bunch of small yellow flowers and walked through the tree-lined cemetery.

With Ludwig's notification and last night's dream, he revised his previous plan. He didn't rush to the forest to look for the remains of the missing persons but came here, intending to dig up graves!

He wanted to investigate what kind of problems the victims who mysteriously died after witnessing the devil's figure deep in the forest died from, and whether they would show situations like hanging or self-mutilation like those killed by the Monsuri ghost.

And according to the collected information, the last person who reported the devil's appearance to the Church of Mother Earth was lying quietly in a corner of the "Return Cemetery."

His name was Antonio Elias.

Not long after, Lu Mian, holding a bunch of small yellow flowers, found the grave and saw that on the stone tombstone, in addition to the name of the deceased, the date of birth and death, there was also a short epitaph:

"This poor man was deprived of his life by a devil."

Lu Mian bent his waist and back, placed the bouquet in front of the tombstone, then straightened his body and quietly watched the grave covered with stone slabs.

In his mind, the information about Antonio Elias flashed by quickly:

A local, not a foreigner, had parents, a wife, and children. Nine months ago, when he went hunting in the forest, he saw a wandering devil. He was very afraid of his fate of dying, and stayed in the church and monastery of the Church of Mother Earth for a full five months. Afterward, he intended to be a sailor for three years, stay away from Hant Island, and avoid the hidden danger. Who knew that when he went to sea for the second time, he was found dead in the bottom of the ship's cabin......

Lu Mian looked left and right, picked up a dozen or twenty dead branches from under the nearby trees, inserted them in a circle around Antonio Elias's grave, forming a low, simple, and ineffective wall.

Finally, he placed a dead branch flat on the adjacent two tree branches, letting them combine into a crumbling door that could not let anyone pass at all.

After doing this, Lu Mian crossed the "wall" and came into the cemetery.

Immediately afterward, he bent his waist and back, stretched out his right hand, and touched the simple door made of dead branches.

At the same time, a black mark on his body was triggered.

In the blink of an eye, looking from the outside, Lu Mian's figure disappeared, and Antonio's grave had no movement, just an extra circle of dead branches.

But in fact, Lu Mian pulled out the iron pry, shovel, and other things he had just bought from the "Traveler's Bag" and was prying open the stone slabs and digging the soil.

"Bottle of Fiction"!

Lu Mian used the "wall" and "door" he built to complete the contract ability of the "Bottle of Fiction."

In less than two minutes, relying on his observation of the cemetery structure and two precise explosions, Lu Mian cleared the soil above the coffin and pried open the wooden boards painted with black lacquer.

A strong scent of decay rushed out, and Lu Mian casually ignited them.

After waiting for a while, he squatted down, put on gloves, and looked through the white bones that had no flesh left.

The first thing he picked up was Antonio Elias's skull. After just a simple glance, he found that there were cracks on the inside of the skull, while the outside was intact.

"The cause of death was that the brain exploded?" Lu Mian imagined the damage that could cause this phenomenon and felt that no matter what ability caused it, Antonio's brain, cerebellum, and brainstem should have already exploded into a paste when he died—it made no sense that the inside of the hard skull was cracked while the soft brain was fine.

Lu Mian checked Antonio Elias's other bones again, found no other scars, and the stains left in the coffin did not provide other information.

At this point, Lu Mian initially judged that Antonio's cause of death was an explosion of the head from the inside out. The physical destructive power of this explosion was not strong, not even completely blowing up the skull, but it was enough to destroy the brain.

"I use 'Flame Injection' to precisely control the amount and quality of the flame, which should be able to achieve a similar effect. How did the devil do it?" Lu Mian's understanding of the "Devil" pathway mainly came from his sister's notes, the information provided by the Tarot Club, and Franca's narration. He had only dealt with a devil above Sequence 6 once, and that was Napo Redisli.

He suddenly associated the feeling of being incited by Napo Redisli to explode his desires and emotions, and associated the babble transmitted through the gray fog when the other party was driven away and the resulting ups and downs of desire.

"For ordinary people, first inducing the fluctuation of desire and then directly detonating it, the brain can be directly blown up as long as the intensity is increased... For a demigod creature like a 'Devil,' it should not be difficult to do... And it can also use that kind of babble to complete this matter at a relatively long distance?" While Lu Mian completed the reasoning, he basically confirmed that there was indeed a devil hiding on Hant Island, a devil of the "Criminal" pathway, a devil above the sequences of "Demon" and "Desire Apostle."

After confirming this, Lu Mian believed that if he really wanted to find that devil, it would still be quite simple.

Of course, the premise is to find it, not to solve it, and at the same time, he has to risk his life.

Taking off his gloves, he stretched his right hand into the "Traveler's Bag" and touched the hard-textured "Torture" gloves.

After the matters of "Fu Sheng Xuan Huang Tian Zun" and "Great Mother," Lu Mian was already guessing that the "Mother Tree of Desire" was the evil god standing at the top of the three pathways of "Prisoner," "Criminal," and "Miser," so the "Rose School of Thought's" "Indulgence Sect" and some members of the Demon family would believe in Her and follow Her.

Since this is the case, the "Torture" gloves made of the branches of the "Shadow Tree" closely related to the "Mother Tree of Desire" have a high possibility of attracting the devil's gaze within a certain range, just like its negative effect is to suffer the gaze of some hidden existences and be affected and attacked by some dangerous creatures!

"Sigh, there are no useless items, only Beyonders who don't know how to use them." Lu Mian laughed at himself and withdrew his right hand that touched the "Torture" gloves.

He gave up the plan to directly fish out that devil.

This is because that devil is still active on the island and is still killing people, and the Church of Mother Earth actually hasn't completely cleared it!

After experiencing so many things, Lu Mian had a considerable degree of understanding of the strength of the orthodox churches and understood that if the Church of Mother Earth really made up its mind, it could completely kill all residents suspected of being devils and destroy this island, just like the "Church of Storms" did to Bansi Port.

The Church of Mother Earth didn't do this, it must not be because they didn't want to, but because there was some reason preventing them from doing so.

This made Lu Mian think of the valley burning with sulfur flames deep in the forest and felt that the devil could not be killed under normal circumstances and could only be sealed and restricted.

Since the Church of Mother Earth couldn't do it, Lu Mian didn't think he could either, so fishing out the devil lost its meaning and instead put him in intense danger.

Lu Mian's current idea is to rely on his own fake level and attraction to evil gods to wander around in the forest, and at a critical moment, take out the "Torture" gloves to see if he can gather near the mysterious valley burning with sulfur flames and investigate the source of the devil legend clearly.

Deep in the forest with many huge trees, Lu Mian walked along a road that seemed to have not been stepped on by humans for many years, moving neither fast nor slow.

He occasionally took out the "Torture" gloves, chose the direction entirely by intuition, and then put them away after ten or twenty seconds.

Nearly an hour passed, and the huge forest suddenly became sparse.

A brown, terrifying giant bear turned out from behind a tree and walked toward Lu Mian with heavy steps.

"Stop, outsider!"

The giant bear made a buzzing human sound.

(End of chapter)