Chapter 1351: Undead Guard and Laboratory

The Old God that the Granger family believed in was the God of Sun and Earth, 【The Old Man with the Lantern】, so this small church from a hundred years ago was also a Sun Church. Generally speaking, the specifications of a church in a cemetery area are different from those of a regular church, and this was also Xia De's first time seeing a Sun Church in a cemetery area.

Although it had been abandoned for more than three hundred years, and the cathedral in the urban area of Randel Valley had long since stopped sending priests, perhaps it was because the loggers working here had repaired it out of respect, or for some other reason, the church in the abandoned cemetery looked like it had been maintained, and at first glance, it didn't look like it had been destroyed three hundred years ago.

That great earthquake in 1498 destroyed the most important underground cemetery area in the Granger family cemetery. According to Earl Granger, although they tried to reopen the passage to the closed underground cemetery area after the earthquake, they gave up after finding it too difficult.

The underground rock layer in this area was extremely thick. Wanting to dig open the ground was actually not digging open soil but digging open large rocks. Therefore, there was no need to worry about anyone easily stealing those sealed tombs. And by the time the outsider arrived in 1854, the only area worth exploring was the small church in front of him.

"If it wasn't mentioned in the memoir that Mr. Lyman left one of the four gem keys in the hands of his descendants for safekeeping, I would really doubt if I'm wasting my time today."

Xia De muttered. That book, "The Butterfly Family: My Life," only used a very small part of the chapters to introduce Mr. Lyman arranging his funeral affairs. The book didn't mention the location of the cemetery, but it mentioned the whereabouts of the four gems.

One was stored near the statue of the Old God along with the memoir; one was entrusted to a close friend to be taken away from his hometown; one was given to his most precious daughter to be passed down to future generations; one was thrown into the trading market, letting fate decide the direction it would go.

Because the colors of the four gems were mentioned in the memoir, Xia De was able to determine that the white gem provided by Stone Osanfort was the one "entrusted to a close friend to be taken away from his hometown."

Therefore, Xia De believed that he should have a harvest coming all the way here today. If not, he could only consider consuming precious coins and letting Luvia help with divination.

The gray outer walls of the small church in the cemetery were covered with withered vines from winter. All four windows were sealed with wooden boards, but fortunately, the entrance was not sealed.

The lower end of that rusty metal door was almost integrated with the ground. Xia De pushed it but couldn't push it open. After unlocking it with the Door Key, he still couldn't push it open, and only then did he understand that the deformation of the door frame had completely jammed the door.

"I apologize for this."

He said softly, then kicked the door open, and reminded himself to find a way to seal the door again before leaving in a while.

The interior of the small church, which had been closed for a long time, was extremely cold and permeated with a foul smell of decay. The area of this small church was quite limited, generally only containing the main hall for prayer and the area for clergy to live in.

At this time, the main hall was empty, with some construction waste piled in the corners. The remains of dead rats and dead spiders lay in hidden corners, and it was unknown which side had starved to death first.

Xia De bent down, wanting to lift the iron door he had kicked completely off the door frame and place it against the wall, but after lifting the thick metal door, he found traces of it having been damaged at the lock position, but it was unclear if this was something from decades or hundreds of years ago.

And afterward, he actually saw imperceptible bloodstains on the rusty metal handle on the inside of the door. There was an extremely sharp protrusion on the door handle, which looked like it had been accidentally scratched.

"Interesting, who has been here—Blood Echo."

Narrowing his eyes slightly, the imperceptible bloodstains on the door handle immediately began to emit a scarlet light.

Xia De then looked at the ground under the door frame and, as expected, saw the dripping bloodstains. It looked like the area was quite large when the wound appeared.

It was just that the owner of the wound didn't seem to have any intention of treating their wound. Xia De looked toward the inside of the church, and the scarlet color of dripping blood appeared on the ground every certain distance.

He walked inward along the bloodstains, only to find that the bloodstains didn't spread to the back of the church where the clergy lived, but extended all the way to the vicinity of the stone preaching platform and then disappeared.

"Did they treat the wound here?"

Because the windows were tightly closed, the light inside the church was quite weak. To prevent the forester from earlier from following him again, Xia De didn't light up the light at his fingertips. Therefore, in the darkness, he easily saw that the lower side behind the preaching platform also had a scarlet light representing bloodstains.

The amount of bloodstains attached here was extremely sparse. If it weren't for the fact that the sunlight at the door couldn't shine into such a deep place, Xia De wouldn't have been able to observe it at all:

"Didn't bandage and clean the wound for themselves, but instead came here in a hurry... What is here?"

Behind the preaching platform was the place where the clergy stood, similar to a lecture platform, and the space below was generally empty. Xia De also squatted down, observing the position of the bloodstains with his own dark vision. He tried to reach out and touch it, and then was surprised to find that there was a stone button that could be pressed on the inner side below this stone preaching platform. The faint bloodstains were attached here: "Is there really a secret?"

He didn't rush to press the button, but first dropped a silence spell, and only after confirming he was ready did he press the button that seemed a bit jammed.

And as a harsh friction sound that only Xia De could hear rang out, the preaching platform moved to the right as a whole, revealing the hole leading to the underground, as well as the steps at the hole.

Xia De took a slight breath, just wanting to light up the light at his fingertips and walk down, when he heard a dull roar coming from below the hole. Just thinking about what this was, a miserable green light had already shone out from the hole.

"Moonlight Greatsword."

The silver greatsword was pulled out from the air. Two seconds later, as the miserable green light became stronger and stronger, Xia De also saw the source of the light. A ghost with a skeleton face, holding an oil lamp in its left hand and carrying a shovel in its right hand, with tattered clothes all over its body, floated out from the depths of the cave along the steps:

"This outfit... grave robber?"

The interior space of the dark church was illuminated in a miserable green. Xia De retreated two steps, leaving himself space to fight. And the floating undead roared again, raised the oil lamp high, and then turned into smoke and disappeared below the cave.

【Left side.】

As the roar of the undead came from the left side again, Xia De hurriedly dodged to the right, and then the miserable green light appeared at the source of the sound. The ghost wielding the shovel slashed toward Xia De's original...

Although the ghost looked extremely terrifying, Xia De had seen similar things in Mid-Hill Fort.

Taking advantage of the ghost raising and lowering the shovel, Xia De took a step forward and brandished the greatsword in his hand. The greatsword passed directly through the ghost's spirit body but didn't directly destroy it, instead making its soul color much dimmer.

"Hmm?"

This was the first time he had encountered a ghost with resistance to the Moonlight Greatsword.

The ghost opened its arms and puffed out its chest, the mouth of the skeleton face opened, and the rune light on its forehead flashed. At the same time as the harsh sharp sound appeared, obvious shock waves appeared in the air around it.

Xia De, who was nearby, was swept by the ripple and actually felt that the recovery speed of his own spirit suddenly slowed down. This wasn't a permanent slowing, but it would take at least half a minute to recover:

"No, this isn't a normally formed undead! It's the guard here!"

This kind of method specifically used to deal with ring warlocks could only be catalyzed by special undead rituals. Realizing this point, Xia De didn't intend to hold back. As the ghost, carrying the oil lamp and wielding the shovel like a scythe, floated toward him rapidly, he raised...

his empty left hand and slashed forward with a moonlight strike.

The ghost's shovel smashed into the silver light arc, and then the shovel emitting green light perished together with the silver moon strike. This further confirmed the speculation that this undead was set up by a ring warlock to watch the door.

Xia De continued to retreat. This time, his left hand stood up, and a rotating silver light wheel formed in his hand. The Moonlight Wheel was thrown toward the ghost that had lost its weapon. The ghost immediately raised the oil lamp emitting green light in its hand.

That lamp didn't provide protection, but it actually absorbed the light of the Moonlight Wheel. But as a price, the lamp also shattered into light spots because it couldn't contain the holy moonlight's...

power.

"That's now!"

Xia De still didn't choose to get close to this ghost, which he didn't know how many other skills it had. This time, thunder burst in his hand. The silver thunder spear left a bright silver light trail in the dim church, then pierced straight through the ghost's chest and exploded along with the ghost.

The thunder spear didn't form much smoke and dust, only leaving some jumping electric arcs on the ground.

After waiting for the smoke and dust to dissipate and carefully confirming that the ghost was really destroyed, Xia De let out a sigh of relief and walked down along the hole revealed under the preaching platform.

The steps weren't long, and below the hole was a relatively flat square basement about half the area of Xia De's bedroom.

Two skeletons lay against the wall at the end of the steps, one of which was dressed exactly the same as the ghost just now; this was the grave robber who had come together.

And in the small underground space, two stone tables were placed against the walls, and a cabinet was placed against one wall. On the table were flasks, funnels, balances, beakers, and a few books, while in the cabinet were various biological material samples. Because they were preserved with medicinal water similar to formalin, one-third of the contents in the bottles in the cabinet were still intact. Xia De could see frogs, snakes, and things like tiger penises soaking in them.

As for the ground between the table and the cabinet, a huge ritual base array was drawn, which, even though it had severely faded, still looked exquisite and complex in Xia De's eyes. Even without touching it, he could perceive the element reactions remaining in these traces.

"A ring warlock's laboratory." ===== CHAPTER 1352 =====