Chapter 2774

Among the Condé family and the "Dringor Restorationists" who had direct contact with Lady Shatara and George Condé, the former would definitely be directly arrested by the church's religious tribunal, and the Condé family would become history from now on, just like the Brontë family some time ago.

And the latter should only be secretly investigated by the church, and would not be destroyed by the church in one blow.

The difference here was because the Condé family directly traded with the demon, and those antiques from three hundred years ago with demon power were the evidence. Xia De even suspected that Director Condé himself knew of the demon's existence.

And the latter did not have a face-to-face trade with the demon. Although Lady Shatara was a member of the latter, it consciously kept the latter at a distance from itself.

Thinking about it now, this was also a precautionary measure left by the demon to prevent the situation it had painstakingly managed from being completely destroyed once it was exposed.

In short, less than eight hours after the demon was just eliminated, Sir Wayne of course didn't know what happened to Lady Shatara, so he remained locally and didn't leave.

When Xia De came to the door with the business card from yesterday's afternoon tea party, this knight was still thinking about the "big business" in Xia De's hands, so he happily took Xia De and his "appraiser" companion to see the antiques in his hands:

"Everyone doesn't have much cash these days, but when it comes to antiques and precious metals, I definitely don't lack them here."

He had a private residence with a courtyard locally, and those antiques were placed in the basement of the residence, while the basement was protected by an all-steel insurance door.

And compared to a storage room, the space behind the insurance door was more appropriately called an "exhibition room."

Dazzling oil paintings, antiques, and artworks of various colors were filled on every shelf. After getting permission, Xia De and Miss Dannister put on gloves and checked those antiques, and then were very sure that these antiques were the batch from three hundred years ago.

It was just that Xia De originally thought the tree hole would be placed with these antiques, but he didn't see anything suspected to be a tree hole in the end. So he gave a wink to the red-haired girl who was specially dressed to look more mature, and the latter suddenly said:

"Sir Wayne, look, is there a problem with this painting?"

The man who was happily talking about a non-existent business with Xia De immediately turned his head, and then was met by those rose-red eyes.

Although there was a time curse on him, he was just an ordinary person, and the hypnosis of the eighth-level sorceress controlled him at once.

Xia De put down the silver pendant he had just been playing with, but before asking about the main business, he first curiously asked:

"Knight, speaking of which, you know about the curse on you, right?"

Sir Wayne, who looked dull, nodded:

"I know."

"What is the content of the curse?"

"The more wealth I have, the worse my luck in other areas. So I basically don't keep property for myself; the money I earn will be spent or transferred to others as soon as possible."

"Look, this is the price of greed. However, if he could remain completely poor, maybe this curse could change his life."

The red-haired girl sighed like this, and this kind of "time curse" was also the mildest one Xia De had ever encountered. After all, Sir Wayne was just an ordinary person, and the things he did by traveling through time were just transferring some property:

"Where did these antiques of yours come from?"

Satisfying his curiosity was asking about the main business. Under the effect of hypnosis, Sir Wayne had no resistance at all:

"When I came to Vesta City for business reasons more than ten years ago, I accidentally discovered a peculiar trapdoor locally. The door was in the Hoy Manor, which was still in ruins at the time. Through the trapdoor, I discovered that the other end of the trapdoor was actually connected to the night of the great fire three hundred years ago.

I have been moving wealth from there for years. The wealth of the Hoy family back then was greatly underestimated by people."

The red-haired girl asked puzzledly:

"That door was still in the ruins of Hoy Manor at the time? Why didn't you dismantle the door?"

"I was worried that the door would fail after being dismantled. I don't know why that place could connect to three hundred years ago. I couldn't risk killing the goose that lays the golden eggs."

Xia De also asked:

"Then why didn't you find a way to buy the old site of Hoy Manor? Or stop Director Condé from buying it?"

The hypnotized knight continued to answer:

"I didn't dare to buy it, and I didn't dare to stop it. Every time I had this idea, I would fall into terrible nightmares at night, dreaming that once I intervened in matters related to that manor, I would be entangled by the vengeful spirits of the Hoy family."

So the fact that he accidentally discovered that door more than ten years ago, was able to use that door, and the series of things afterward, should all be the demon's means.

"Then those antiques you brought, besides the one you kept yourself, are there any others?"

"Yes, I once met a legendary supernatural being, that is, a ring-warlock. He pointed out that every time I put a part of the antiques I obtained into a cursed small village in the Vesta woods, I could curb the curse to a certain extent.

I tried it, and sure enough, the upper limit of the wealth I could hold became higher. I don't care if there is a problem with this; I don't want to explore too much why this is."

Needless to say, the so-called "ring-warlock" was also the demon's means. As for suppressing the "time curse," it once again showed the connection between the demon of fire and the "wreckage of the World Tree."

And only that evil thing could suppress the Tree Father's time curse.

Afterward, Xia De asked Sir Wayne some more questions, and judging from his answers, although he kept traveling through time to move wealth from the past, he indeed knew nothing about the demon.

And the entire "Dringor Restorationists" organization indeed had no actual connection with the demon. However, Xia De confirmed one of his conjectures, which was that Director Condé had indeed been in contact with this group of people.

According to Sir Wayne, that police director was "greedy like a demon." He even thought that his desire for wealth was not even one percent of Director Condé's, and frankly said that the director not only had contact with them, but actually had contact with many other royal opponents within Carcen-Rick:

"He doesn't care about loyalty or honor; as long as you give him money, he is willing to do anything."

Thus, the huge web of wealth, power, and conspiracy woven by the demon's split body was completely displayed. From being defeated by the "Forest Ranger" three hundred years ago to being devoured by the doctor in the late autumn of 1854, even though the final outcome was a complete defeat, to a certain extent, at least its planning among mortals was completely successful.

This should also be the demon that the Outlander had encountered so far that participated most deeply in human affairs.

Sir Wayne finally gave a precise summary:

"The situation in the Old Continent is so tense now, and Director Condé and we have all played a big role in it. The Dringor Restorationists don't have the power to overthrow the rule of the Anjou royal family at once, but if that old lion is deeply trapped in the war with the Northern Kingdom, we and our partners might not have a chance to revive the annexed territory of Dringor."

"Were the flames of war ignited by you?"

"Of course not, we just provided the fuel. Weren't the flames of war ignited by the ambitions and greed of the power-holders and conspirators in Willandale? Peace is just an illusion of the era; flames, in the end, still have to be ignited by war. And war and conflict are the true norm of civilization."

In this whole matter, the only one who traveled through time and created paradoxes was Sir Wayne, so the Paradox Worm was also expectedly in his soul.

But the problem was, the time paradox he caused was really too small compared to the "Death Apostle." The latter let himself, who should have died, live for so many more years, but Sir Wayne just took some dead things that no one had obtained from three hundred years ago to the present.

Xia De even felt that to a certain extent, he didn't count as causing a time paradox.

In short, the "Paradox Worm" attached to Sir Wayne's soul was extremely weak. After the two brought the knight to the woods outside the city, although the elf girl emerged from the woods with an umbrella as usual, she had no intention of taking action:

"You do it yourself, this bug is too weak."

After Xia De forced it out of Sir Wayne's soul with the "Staff of Yggdrasil," watching the bug, which was less than half a person tall and in the "first stage," fly away toward the forest, he thought of the nun saying "from now on, initial fire can also deal with Paradox Worms."

He then decided to try the spell Sister Devlin taught him in death, so he told Miss Dannister and the elf girl to be careful, raised his right hand to his side, and let the flames gather in his palm.

A large group of flames rotated rapidly in his hand, violent and silent, and the faster it rotated, the faster it went. The outer edge of the flame showed a normal orange-yellow color, while the inside even turned white due to the high temperature. The rotating flame tail constantly threw sparks into the forest in the rain around it, and the rise in temperature even caused heat to rise at the location where Xia De was.

This was also the first time Xia De used this spell, and he even once thought that this spell was about to lose control. The volume of the flame, which was rotating faster and faster, was maintained at the size of two human heads and stopped expanding, but the temperature in the rotation was still rising rapidly.

Before Xia De lost control of this group of flames, he threw it into the forest where the bug flew:

"Spell—Chaos Residue!"

The flames touched the branches and trunks, melting them into large holes like magma touching ice. And in the third second after he threw the large group of rotating fireballs, dazzling white light erupted in the forest, and then a loud bang came. The shockwave generated by the explosion swept over, and Xia De and the two girls even took two steps back because of this.

The expanding flames swallowed the entire forest area in front. The heat wave even caused the rain nearby to stop, and large patches of steam mist rose, and then were directly scattered by the shockwave.

The mushroom cloud rose in front after a few seconds. In the rumbling sound, the ground was also shaking violently.