Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

Chapter 629: Chapter 629: Predicting Death

Chapter 629: Chapter 629: Predicting Death

Shard knew he had found the place.

Outside the broom closet, the chains hung loose, apparently someone had unlocked it before, but the door was tightly shut. Shard tried pulling at it, and the frail wooden door immediately opened a crack.

He instinctively reached for the revolver at his waist, but hesitated for a moment, instead touching the Roder Card in his pocket. After all, this was a school, and Shard did not want to make too much noise by firing a gun. And besides, bullets can’t turn corners, but his Roder Card could even trace a pentagram in the air.

Looking around, and taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, Shard quickly slipped into the broom closet. Perhaps because mops were often put away wet, the sizable interior space was damp, about the size of the cloakroom in Shard’s house.

To avoid the possibility that the chamber behind the wall was Henry Val’s secret chamber, Shard held his breath and took slow, cautious steps.

Without touching the gaslight switch on the wall, Shard squinted in the darkness, then watched as a blood-red halo of light vanished right in front of the wall at the deepest part of the broom closet.

Shelves were placed in front of the walls to the left and right, and in front of the wall where the red halo disappeared were longer brooms and mops. It was the only wall with nothing placed against it.

“Is there a hidden passage? But where is the mechanism?”

If there really was a mechanism, it would surely have made a loud noise, so Shard resorted to a simpler method:

“Feliana’s Witch Light!”

A golden glimmer lit up on his right palm, and then, like a red-hot poker being thrust into a block of ice, Shard’s right hand plunged into the wall in front of him. Only the front end of his forearm had entered the ground when he faintly heard voices coming from behind.

“Excellent.”

He pulled his arm back, then lay flat against the wall, pressing his ear to the almost-penetrable hole in the stone, listening intently to the voices below:

“Praise the great Death, praise the eternal rest…”

It was a prayer, somewhat distorted because it was spoken through a layer of stone, making it difficult to discern who it was. But Shard could at least tell that the voice was coming from a distance behind him, not just on the other side of the wall.

So, he pointed a finger toward the hole and melted through the last bit of the wall. Peering through the hole to confirm that there was a narrow passage on the other side, he completely melted enough space for him to pass through sideways before using “Breath of Ages” to restore the wall to its original state.

“Are there traces of elements?”

“No.”

The gray stone-brick walls lined the passage behind the wall. Five or six steps ahead was an iron door, toward which the red halo continued, and from which the sound of prayer also emanated. At the same time, Shard sniffed out a foul odor—that of decaying, spoiled corpse materials:

“I hope the scene I am about to witness won’t affect my appetite for dinner.”

He thought of Mia, picturing the cat with its paws tucked in, lying on the windowsill, bathing in the sunshine, and napping. This image helped to dispel the imagining of nauseating scenes in his mind. Shard moved quietly, paying attention to the continuity of the prayer as he approached the iron door.

He placed his hand on the door, and not being able to use the Key of the Door meant it was not locked. After confirming once more that there were no elemental traces, he closed his eyes and imagined the source of the praying voices in the space behind the door. With a card in his left hand and the revolver, which he didn’t intend to use, in his right, he opened his eyes, took two steps back, and forcefully burst through the door:

“Nobody move!”

He burst through the door, pointing his gun at the young man who seemed to be praying before a bronze jar on the ground.

He was dressed in a black robe, with the bronze jar suspended in the air by several iron chains, and a small coal stove used for heating in the countryside was below it. The stench came from the bronze jar. It appeared there was a ventilation opening; otherwise, he would have been poisoned by the gas. The floor was lined with candles that served as the light source in the secret chamber. Henry Val stopped praying, stood up silently, then turned to face the detective holding the gun behind him. The space here was a bit larger than the broom closet outside, but aside from Captain Lades lying against the wall and the bookshelves and desk next to it, there was not much else.

“You found me?”

He asked as he gazed at the muzzle of the gun.

Shard glanced briefly at the bronze jar:

“What are you cooking?”

The young man laughed softly:

“What do you think?”

“The serial killings in the city, did you do them?”

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“Yes.”

He actually admitted it.

“Why? Don’t tell me that you have a fiancée in the countryside who is ill or already dead, and you want to use this method to extend her life.”

Shard looked into the man’s eyes. Henry Val was indeed an ordinary person, and the scene that closely resembled a ritual in front of him did not possess any power. But the man’s disregard for life and his unfazed demeanor made Shard realize that this guy was probably a madman.

Come to think of it, compared to the ordinary people he had met in this world, the evil deeds done by Circle Sorcerers seemed less frequent, probably because Outlanders had seen too little of the world.

“No, no. I would never risk this for someone else’s life.”

Henry Val looked back, glancing at the jar that was cooking something:

“I am going to die, from a brain disease, but I cannot die.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? How could someone destined for greatness die so young?”

Shard thought the man was a madman, but hadn’t expected him to be so shameless.

“So you think your life is more valuable than others? Using others’ lives to prolong your own is worthwhile?”

Shard asked, and the young man dressed in a black robe surprisingly turned to look at him:

“Oh, you actually understand this point?

Yes, a month ago I was introduced to a very magical boy, who could precisely predict a person’s manner and time of death. The boy told me that I would die of a brain disease with the first snow of this winter. So, I spent a lot of money to buy ancient scripts, and after translating them, I got this potion recipe which could extend life. I have always believed that I can control my own fate.”

“Hmm…you didn’t actually need to say so much in detail.”

“No, no, I’ve been holding these words in for a long time, I could only talk to my diary before, and later to the corpses that gave their lives to me, and now finally I can talk to a living person.”

Shard confirmed that the other party was indeed a madman:

“The captain’s gun is in your hand, right? I guess it’s in the sleeve of your robe. Now stretch out your hands, put them above your head. I’m going to count…”

Henry Val raised his gun at Shard, who had been prepared and, the moment the other man made a move to raise the gun, threw his playing card with his left hand.

He didn’t hold back, his playing card directly severed the finger that was about to pull the trigger. Because of the speed, it wasn’t until Henry Val tried to pull the trigger several times and failed to fire the bullet that he realized his finger was gone.

“Ah~”

The scream had barely left his mouth when Shard, who was striding over, punched him in the face:

“Psychic Shockwave!”

The power of the Psychic Shockwave depends on the target’s mental strength, and the closer the hand is to the opponent’s head, the greater the force.

After the blow, instead of exploding like a watermelon, Henry Val’s head was hit as if struck by a projectile with a great amount of kinetic energy. He instantly flew backward, his head hit hard against the bronze jar with a ‘thud’ sound, his body slumped to the ground, and he completely lost consciousness.

Shard shook his hand with disgust and, under the candlelight, noticed that the other’s eyes, nose, ears, and mouth were all bleeding. Although he was still breathing, Shard thought it was unlikely he would ever wake up again.

“So, ‘Psychic Shockwave’ has such a strong effect when used on an ordinary person.”

[You really didn’t show any mercy this time.]

“She” lightly laughed beside his ear.

“Anyway, he said he had a diary, so I don’t need to ask for more details. Besides, what use do I have for someone like him?”

Shard said as he took Captain Lades’ gun from the other’s hand and stuck the fingerless hand into the furnace beneath the bronze jar. After burning it for a while, he then pulled the hand out.

This was done partly to confirm whether the other party was truly unconscious and partly to conceal the injury from the finger being instantly cut by a sharp object. He was still hoping to exchange the criminal’s body for the reward money.

Finally, he turned his attention to the evil spirit “crouched” behind the young man; it became even more transparent, and the sickly green of the spiritual body was dimming bit by bit:

“You can leave now.”

He watched the soul and drew a vertical line in the air with his right hand; the black mark left by his fingertip expanded into a pitch-black crack. Through this portal, the extreme cold and light of the Nether Moon came piercing through, and on the other side was the Land of Death.

The souls of Midshire Fort were mostly taken by the Interstice of Life and Death, so Shard had opened the door to real death, allowing this poor soul to leave directly.

The already weak evil spirit seemed to be affected by the black wind blowing from the Land of Death, and the sickly green light gradually faded from it.

She slowly regained the appearance of a normal human female, her slightly immature face lowered, bewilderedly looking at her hands, then at Henry Val on the ground, and finally at the young detective in front of her:

“Thank you.”

With a slight bow to Shard, she turned into a beam of white light and entered into death.

The portal disappeared, and Shard breathed a sigh of relief:

“Another good deed done, I can reward myself by taking Mia out for some good food tonight.”

He thought to himself, intending to check on the condition of the tied-up captain, but then he suddenly paused:

“Wait a minute, Henry Val was heavily struck by my ‘Psychic Shockwave’, and his occipital just now slammed into a heavy object. He’s definitely not waking up, and looking at the injuries, it’s very likely that he will die of brain death this winter.”

[And so?]

“She” was chuckling.

“Although the life extension elixir recipe Henry Val bought had issues, that so-called ‘boy who predicts death’ was right, Henry would indeed die of a brain condition this winter. But not because there was something originally wrong with his brain, rather because he thought there was and started killing people, which led to me…”

Shard narrowed his eyes slightly, precise predictions of the manner and time of death, something even the Arcane Technique provided by Priest Augustus couldn’t achieve.

“Midshire Fort has a prophet who can foretell death? It seems I need to pay some attention to this matter.”

[I have a very interesting thought.]

“What is it?”

“She” chuckled as if her lips were opening right beside Shard’s ear:

[The other party predicted Henry Val would die in the first snow of this winter.]

“That’s right.”

Shard looked toward the young man slumped beside the stove.

[So, do you want to try—killing him right now.]