In the eastern suburbs of Backlund, a group of Nighthawks wearing black windbreakers appeared among the ruins with only ruins left. They formed a team of three and quickly searched among the ruins, and soon gathered together again.
"Archbishop Your Excellency, four corpses were found. The altar has been completely destroyed. It seems to have been caused by an internal explosion."
A Nighthawks captain reported.
The person he calls Archbishop is Saint Anthony Stevenson of Backlund Diocese. He is in Sealed Artifact "0- 17" After returning to Chanis Gate, he re-sealed it, and then led half of Nighthawks here to look for traces of "Demoness Sect".
"Try divination to find clues, but remember not to Spirit Channeling, the evil spirits here have not dispersed yet."
He frowned and looked at the sky, gave instructions, and then led a team of Nighthawks to push open the inner door of the ruins and continue moving along the downward passage.
Along the way, they discovered several rooms that had been recently occupied, some belonging to guards and some belonging to imprisoned people. It was obvious that there were people moving underground in the ruins not long ago. Even the outer shell of Kerosene Lamp was hot, but at this time, neither the guards nor the innocent people who were Imprisonment were anywhere to be seen.
Anthony didn't stop until he entered the deepest room.
"This is the last place they stayed..."
After looking around with deep eyes, Saint said slowly.
Suddenly, the oil lamps in the hands of the following Nighthawks lost their light, and the whole room became dark.
After a while, everything returned to normal. The walls around the room seemed to evaporate and disappeared without a trace. However, there was no secret door or passage behind, but an unexcavated stone wall.
"Bring '2-155' down and try to track it."
Anthony was silent for a while, then gave instructions to Nighthawks beside him.
At the same time, East Borough.
A four-wheeled carriage with Police Badge was driving slowly on the street, occasionally avoiding obstacles on the ground. Some of them were driverless carriages with dead horses, some were survivors asking for help, and there were also freight carriages driving in the opposite direction towards East Borough. The tops were covered with white cloth, and underneath were long strips of "goods" stacked together.
It wasn't until the carriage was completely blocked and unable to move forward that five Nighthawks jumped out.
They wore thin trench coats that were convenient for movement, half-high silk hats on their heads, and gloves as red as blood on their hands.
"The distance is not far. Go forward on foot and be careful. Although the haze is no longer fatal, it may still be dangerous."
The middle-aged man who took the lead looked at the obstacles in front of the carriage, frowned and gave instructions, then took the lead and continued running forward.
Several Nighthawkss behind him responded in low voices and followed their captain forward.
Leonard Mitchell, who was last, looked gloomy and looked at the freight carriage parked in the middle of the road in front of the carriage. The white cloth above its carriage was half lifted, and you could see corpses placed randomly underneath.
"Old Man, what on earth is going on?"
He didn't know who he was asking, his voice was vibrating, but his tone was very low, for fear of being heard by his teammates in front.
"My senses come from you. How can I know something you don't know?" Leonard heard an old voice, containing a hint of subtle shock, "But I guess it's probably related to Demoness Pathway's High Sequence Beyonder is related. The last time such a large-scale disease occurred was hundreds of years ago... It's just not clear whether their purpose this time is to sacrifice, or to conceal some larger conspiracy."
"Sacrifice..."
Leonard repeated in a murmur, with uncontrollable sadness in his eyes. He had only seen a similar scene in Tingen three months ago. At that time, "Aurora Order" sacrificed the lives of nearly a hundred people in an attempt to give birth to the offspring of "True Creator", killing his captain and teammates. But now, there are hundreds of dead people within his sight. He doesn't know how many dead people there will be in East Borough and Backlund.
So who will be the target of the sacrifice this time? What is the purpose?
Full of doubts, he hurriedly followed his teammates in front and soon came to a deserted street.
It is not accurate to say that there are no people. There are countless dead victims lying on both sides of the street and in the corners of the alleys. The doors and windows of the buildings on both sides are closed, as if the entire street has been abandoned long ago. But Leonard knows that with the population density of East Borough, there are at least hundreds of people living here.
At this time, there was silence.
"The divination hints are here."
Soest, the captain of Red Gloves team, said slowly.
No need for divination is needed to tell that this is the most severely affected area in East Borough. There are no whispers and curses here, no moans and calls for help from survivors, only deathly silence. But the haze here was the lightest they had seen along the way, and above their heads they could even see Sun starting to tilt westward.
"There are traces of battle, bullet holes, bullet casings, ice that has not yet melted..."
"Keep the broken wand carefully. Divination may lead to new discoveries..."
There was no time to feel sad. Several Nighthawks quickly got into work mode and quickly spread out to conduct a detailed search around, trying to find out the truth about this Great Smog.
Leonard gently picked up a bullet casing on the ground and brought it close to his eyes to observe.
"Storm Convergence..." He quickly recognized the complicated patterns on the bullet shells and Night Emblem, stood up and walked towards Soest, "Captain Soest, are there any other teams participating in the battle?"
"We were the first ones to arrive. There are other teams searching East Borough's other locations. There are also traces of large-scale ceremonies there. Archbishop Your Excellency took the remaining half of the people to the suburbs, and it is impossible to be faster than us."
Soest replied, looking at Leonard with curious eyes, and then moved to his hand.
That's strange. Backlund Diocese belongs to Church of Evernight and Saint only has Archbishop Anthony Your Excellency. Apart from that, only "Goddess's Sword" who is stranded here has similar strength. Could it be that the latter arrived early and solved the source of Great Smog? But his fighting style doesn't seem to use pistol bullets...
Leonard held the cartridge case speechlessly and fell into deep thought. He hoped that the old voice in his head could give some hints, but this time, the other party was also silent.
"Captain, other teams have arrived."
The voice of another Nighthawks interrupted Leonard's thinking. He looked to the side, and three Nighthawks who were not wearing Red Gloves hurried over. They did not belong to "Red Gloves", so they were sent to explore in another direction to avoid facing the most dangerous enemy.
"Soest Your Excellency," the leader was "Nightmare" with deep eyes, but with tiredness and worry. It seemed that he had seen many post-disaster scenes on the way here. "We found a Sacrificial Ritual not far from here. According to the identification of the traces left, it is part of a large-scale ceremony. There are three places in total, and the center point is here."
"In addition, there is a body of a young woman next to the altar. It is suspected that it is the host of the sacrifice. There is no external injury on the body, but Beyonder Characteristic has been taken away."
As he said this, Nightmare looked at Soest with doubtful eyes, as if he suspected that "Red Gloves" had destroyed the sacrifice in advance and solved this Beyonder.
"It's a pity that I don't know the specific situation. Maybe only Archbishop Your Excellency knows the full story..." Soest shook his head and lowered his voice, "But I heard that this time the church used a '0' level Sealed Artifact."
Leonard behind him opened his eyes slightly and lowered his head.
"Old Man, do you know which one it is?"
he asked quietly.
After the battle to hunt down "Desire Apostle", Leonard has personally understood the power of "1" level Sealed Artifact. Almost every item has the same ability as High Sequence Beyonder, and the "0" level above it...
"You are getting bolder and bolder, and you actually ask about things at this level," the voice in his head replied with a joking tone, "I can only say that the less you know about them, the longer you can live..."
This vague answer obviously did not satisfy Leonard. He looked towards the center of the street, imagining the previous battle and the origin of these bullet casings.
"Boom——"
Suddenly, there were several bursts of thunder, and large raindrops fell densely. Sun, which had just tried hard to let its sunlight penetrate the haze and shine on the ground, was covered by dark clouds, and a heavy rain came without warning.
Strong winds blew away the haze that still hung over Backlund, and the rain fell, taking away the germs clinging to the streets and buildings.
However, in severely affected areas such as East Borough and Docklands, the doubts and anger of the living and the resentment and reluctance of the dead are still lingering around.
Luxurious villas at Empress Borough, Hall Family.
Audrey Hall stood quietly in the living room on the east side of the first floor, looking at the dark clouds outside the window and the faint thunder.
This belated Storm rain blew away the thick light yellow fog. Although before that, the haze had changed from the palpitating iron black to a common color, but only then was she sure that Backlund this big crisis had gradually dissipated...
... probably?
She looked worriedly at Susie at her feet. This extraordinary dog that could communicate with people normally and even began to think about complex problems was also looking out the window with a bitter look on her face, wondering what she was thinking about.
"Click——"
The door was pushed open, and Earl Hall walked in with a tired look on his face. He handed the coat and hat he had just taken off to the maid at the side.
Audrey immediately greeted him and asked with concern:
"Dad, how's it going?"
"It should have been solved, but the specific process is not clear yet," Earl Hall forced a smile and touched Audrey's head, "My little Princess, you have been a big help. Your Majesty should give you a medal weighing one ton."
Hearing this compliment, Audrey jumped up in his heart. Different from the previous times, this time she really played a key role in conveying the information collected by Mr. Fool and his followers to Goddess Church, so the sense of accomplishment was much stronger than before.
But soon, she calmed down amidst Earl Hall's worried expression and asked gently:
"East Borough is in a bad situation?"
"It's not just bad, it's already..." Earl sighed, thinking carefully about his words so as not to scare his daughter, "... the statistical results are not expected to be out for a few days, but East Borough alone may have tens of thousands of casualties. The nearby Factory District There are also a large number of patients in and Docklands who are struggling with life and death. The church and the military have sent personnel, and all hospitals and churches in Backlund are busy, but it is only a drop in the bucket, and patients will continue to die in these days."
"I didn't expect that the smog that appears every winter would become so deadly... Try not to go out these days. The plague will continue to spread, and the security situation can be expected to get worse."
Tens of thousands, or even more...
Audrey had a rare look of confusion in his eyes.
"Dad..." She started hesitantly, then summoned up more courage, "What should we do? Can the medal you just mentioned be donated to East Borough? And the gift you mentioned for me after the coming-of-age ceremony..."
Earl Hall raised his eyebrows, as if he was shocked by his daughter's words. After a moment, he showed a smile of relief and replied:
"Don't worry, Audrey. I have promised Goddess Church to donate no less than 50,000 pounds in cash and materials for the treatment and resettlement of survivors after the disaster. Other nobles may also contribute some, but in the end, if these are to be implemented, it depends on the decision of the one in the Sodela Palace..."
50,000 pounds, that sounds like a lot, but it is not even enough for our family's expenses for one Social Season. Even with the donations from other nobles and Your Majesty's decision, can the impact of this Catastrophe really be eliminated?
Audrey pursed his lips and cast his gaze out the window, looking at the rain clouds that were gradually approaching, feeling as if something was weighing heavily on his heart.
Susie next to her feet gently rubbed her legs and looked at her master with some worry.
Thanks to the leader of "No-Prayer Ten Strings" (づ￣ 3￣)づ~☆