After confirming the thickness of the stone wall, Shade did not continue to use his soul to melt the stone wall using [Feliana's Witch's Light]. Instead, he took off the cloth wrapped around the scabbard and inserted the [Night Watch] into his arm to melt it.
In the hole.
Taking a deep breath, he drew the elements and spirits to the sword of [Night Watcher]:
"Witch's Light!"
In an instant, golden light radiated from the sword, and the diffused light instantly melted the stone wall to create a large hole. Shade pulled the [Night Watcher] back with satisfaction, then bent down and drilled through the hole with an unusually smooth gap.
The space behind the stone wall.
The space behind the stone wall seems to have been forcibly excavated by some external force. The interior is not in a regular shape, and the first users who wanted to come here only used it as a temporary base.
The total area was about the size of three or four closets. After entering, Shade immediately squatted down and looked at the ground with the light of the setting sun coming from behind. Sure enough, he found messy footprints in the thick dust on the ground.
He reached out and touched the dust on the ground:
"The dust means that no one has been here for many years. It is basically confirmed that it was the stronghold of Halder Ondiba, the previous owner of the Arrow more than ten years ago, or a safe house. The footprints should be fifteen
Left behind by the two people who visited Rust Alley days ago."
He straightened up and squinted his eyes to look at the space behind the stone wall illuminated by the dusk light. The footprints on the ground were extremely messy. Although Shade claimed to be a detective, he did not have the reasoning ability to restore the entire movement trajectory of the opponent in such messy footprints.
He only knew that the footprints belonged to two people, and that these two people had stepped on almost all the ground here.
In addition to the dust in this small space, there is also a spliced iron frame bed and a shelf made of welded iron pipes. However, there is nothing on either the bed or the shelf. But judging from the traces of dust,
There should have been a mattress on the bed, and there should have been seven or eight kinds of sundries on the shelves.
I think it was the two people who came here earlier than Shade and took all those things away.
They did more than that. When Shade turned on the light at his fingertips, he saw that there were very fine holes everywhere on the side walls of this narrow space, about the size of a sweater needle. After inspection, they found that
It was also a trace left recently. Shade immediately understood that the two people were checking whether there was any other hidden space here.
Although he did not witness that scene, Shade could simply imagine one of them standing in the center of the ground, then waving his hand to send the spikes around, and then confirming one by one whether the spikes penetrated other holes.
"Why don't these people do something so incredible? Can't you leave me some clues?"
Shade complained dissatisfiedly in his heart, and then took a chance and checked the only remaining iron bed and heavy shelves.
Both of these were metal products. Although there were some scratch marks on the surface, those marks were not passwords. He spent ten minutes inspecting them in detail, and then he had to admit that there were no clues about these two items.
The two people who arrived first did not take these two things away simply because they were too heavy.
"The thread is interrupted again."
The only thing that Shade knows so far is that the materials for the iron frame bed and the storage racks come from the same batch of steel. This leaves a possible point for Shade to take them away and then entrust Father Nobel to find a blacksmith or a professional in the city.
Experts in the steel smelting industry identified the provenance of this batch of steel, and then investigated the specific location where this batch of steel was sold more than ten years ago, hoping to find the next step by restoring Halder Ondiba's movements many years ago.
clue.
Just thinking about it, Shade knew that this was definitely not something that could be solved in a few days, and with so many things on his hands now, he had no intention of delaying the second trial of the Lady of the Lake for such a long time:
"Although I'm not a very good detective, I don't have other investigative directions."
【What else did you think of?】
she asked softly.
"I'm not sure whether Halder Ondiba uses this place as a pure warehouse or a temporary stronghold. But the furnishings here are too few. He obviously created such a hidden and safe space, but there is no
Thinking of making more use of this place. For example, if I were the other party, I would definitely hide more daily necessities here."
Shade turned his back to the sunset at the entrance of the cave and looked here:
"Even a magician who comes out of the Pantanal doesn't care about the quality of his life at all. I can't imagine any reason not to store clothes, food, and even luxury sugar and tobacco here.
.The things originally placed on the shelf were all bottles and cans. This bed has not had any metal deformation due to uneven stress for more than ten years, so there must not be the things I expected. Then consider
, the final battle between the church and Halder Ondiba happened unexpectedly, and it was impossible for the other party to transfer the supplies here in advance, so there is a problem with this place."
【What is the problem?】
"This is not like a real stronghold, but more like a disguise, a disguise that makes others think that this is a safe house."
Shade twisted his neck to look at the dazzling sunlight outside the cave entrance. The setting sun had already reached below the horizon, and the half-yellow sun was slowly sinking on the river bank. The heavy fog gave the setting sun a strange color, and the sun would completely set in about half an hour.
:
"The two people who arrived earlier than me did not know this place because they got clues from Rust Alley. According to the white mouse, they already knew this place. In other words, Halder Ondiba did not strictly
There is absolutely no value in keeping a secret base here without strict confidentiality."
[You mean, this is not Halder Ondiba’s secret stronghold at all.]
"Yes, this is just a 'secret stronghold' that he made his enemies and even his companions think."
【Knowing this, is it of any use to you?】
"I just have an inference that this is a cover-up, so there must be something covered up, which is a real secret stronghold or safe house."
Shade bent down and walked out of the cave, took a deep breath, and used [Breath of Time] to restore the cave entrance that had been melted by the witch's light.
"I have heard of a strange kind of tomb. In order to prevent the tomb from being robbed, the owner of the tomb will set up a fake tomb on top of his own tomb and place some funerary objects. When the tomb robbers dig up the fake tomb and see the funerary objects,
In the future, I will think that I have found the real tomb, so I will not continue digging."
Shade thought to himself as he stepped on the mud on the river beach and looked at both sides of the river bank. The blood-sucking insects poked out their wriggling bodies in the mud, and then got into the mud again. The thick black boots were not afraid of the mud. In winter, Shade was in time.
Changed his outfit.
"It has just been confirmed that there is no other space behind the upper, lower, left, right, and rear walls of this fake stronghold. So let me assume that Halder Ondiba hid the real stronghold not far from the fake stronghold.
How about using the principle of 'darkness under the lamp' to protect your own secrets?"
He put his hand on the restored stone wall, and then walked to the left. His palm always stayed on the stone wall on the river bank. He did not return to the starting point until he had walked 200 steps and confirmed that he found nothing.
Then he put his hand on the restored stone wall again, and this time chose to walk to the right. When he reached step 129, "her" voice finally appeared:
[The traces of elements are very thin.]
Shade smiled:
"It seems I have really found it."
He drew his sword and pierced the stone wall, and the triggered defense method immediately released a curse that could freeze the soul. However, the curse was not even able to be passed to Shade's hands under the power of the angel-level relic sword.
The long sword continued to move forward, and several green vines emerged from the holes melted by the golden light, shooting towards Shade's throat like stabbing swords. They appeared silently and very fast, when Shade's eyes
When he caught traces of green, the vines had almost touched his skin.
[Night Watch] took the initiative to flip his wrist and smash the vines hidden in the stone wall. Although the broken vines that were shot still hit Shade, they only left a faint red mark on his neck. But the poison was
Therefore, it penetrated into Shade's skin, and as the [Night Watch] in his hand shook violently, large purple marks spread from his neck to his whole body.
At the same time, the light of the setting sun became dim in Shade's field of vision. In his surprised expression, a huge and terrifying colossus appeared in the darkness. The colossus, which was made up of countless plant residues, slowly stretched out towards him.
With the "hand" out, in the dark scene, the evil things in the Pantanal are about to
Fire shot up into the sky, and the giant statue in the darkness was ignited, and then disappeared amidst the ear-piercing wails. The light reappeared in the field of vision, and Shade, who was in a daze, realized that he was still standing in front of the stone wall under the river bank.
The rays of the setting sun warmed his back, and the stone wall in front of him had been melted into a hole large enough for him to pass through.
"Psychotoxin?"
He touched his neck with some worry. His neck had returned to normal and the toxin had completely subsided. [Primal Fire] did not make Shade completely immune to the effect of the toxin, but unfortunately, [Primal Fire]
】Considering the evil things in the Pantanal as firewood, the toxin just now was most likely related to the evil things obtained by Halder Ondiba, so it was burned directly.
"This man is really cautious."
Shade sighed softly in his heart, and bent down to touch the vines crushed by the night watchman with his fingers. After the fingers touched, the resin-like amber viscous gelatinous liquid flowing out of the vines immediately ignited spontaneously, and ignited in Shade's body.
It burned directly to ashes before my eyes.
He only left a small section of the vine containing the poison, put it in a bottle, and prepared to give it to Sister Devlin. This was considered a small gain.