Chapter 1 Ailing Noble Manor

A dilapidated noble manor, collapsing corridors permeated with a musty odor, the murmurs of the undead from the depths of the earth, and an eerie wind blowing through – though Hao Ren thought the style of the undead hiding here seemed a bit abnormal, all the other conditions were met. The standard settings of a supernatural thriller were complete, and walking through the crumbling corridor, he felt a sense of gloomy horror.

Even more eerie and terrifying was that as everyone stepped into the manor's grounds, the surrounding environment quietly changed.

When Hao Ren noticed, the daylight outside had darkened.

He found the corridor dimming and looked up through the broken holes in the corridor walls to observe the sky. The sunny, clear day had become overcast, and heavy dark clouds hung down like thick ink from all around, the light dimming to near dusk.

A chilling wind blew from nowhere, and Lily's fur stood on end. She instantly transformed into her werewolf form, holding up her ice and fire claws, looking around vigilantly. "Landlord, I think this situation is getting weirder... Is that undead planning to trick us?"

"She still won't show herself," Vivian frowned. "Knowing that this kind of pretending to be a ghost is useless against us, she's still stubbornly hiding... I don't know what this undead is up to."

The light continued to dim, the dark clouds completely closed in, and the forest outside the manor was covered in darkness, becoming shadowy and eerie like a ghost realm. The voice from the depths of the earth came again, ethereal and indistinct: "...I have no intention of harming you, nor have I set any traps. It's just that you have stepped onto that boundary, and it's too late to turn back now... You should take care of yourselves..."

After leaving these last words, the voice of the undead faded away as ethereally as it had appeared, never to be heard again.

"It doesn't seem to be the undead's doing," Hesperides said, looking at the sky outside. "And such a large-scale change in the celestial phenomena... it can only be the result of a secret realm being activated. It seems we've fallen into a new secret realm again."

"I hate these mystical things. Why are all the supernatural relics left over from ancient times so troublesome?" Hao Ren muttered, frowning. "Wouldn't it be better if everyone was more straightforward? Show off your abilities, and then settle things with one shot."

Lily gave Hao Ren a strange look. "Landlord, your tendency to explode is getting more and more serious. Did you get infected by meeting the Goddess too much?"

Hao Ren scratched his head awkwardly and turned to continue deeper into the manor.

They entered the still-standing part of the main house. After confirming that the building structure was still solid, Hao Ren released an autonomous robot to check the potentially collapsing second floor, while he led the others to look for clues on the first floor.

The data terminal floated at the front of the team, emitting scanning beams, constantly detecting every corridor and room they passed, and using high-speed calculations to restore these structures to their original appearance. Two hundred years of wind and rain had almost completely destroyed the original appearance of the house, but as long as the framework was still there, the data terminal could still perform up to eighty percent restoration. It projected the calculated original image onto the surrounding charred ruins, so as the team advanced, within two meters in front of and behind Hao Ren, one could see the original appearance of the manor.

On both sides of the corridor, there had once hung two rows of portraits, showing men and women in noble attire. They must have been members of the family during its prosperous period or past patriarchs; the corridor had also been covered with luxurious velvet carpets, but now the carpets and floors had been destroyed in a fire; at the corner of the corridor, there had been a corner table filled with silverware, but it was not a magical item used for rituals.

Hao Ren slowed down, carefully observing any possible clues as he walked, and at this moment, a touch of red suddenly caught his attention.

"Stop, scan this place."

He stopped at the end of the corridor, pointing to a blurry red patch in the corner. The edges of the red patch had sharp, trembling boundaries, because the data terminal had not performed precise calculations on this area, resulting in "pixelation." After Hao Ren gave the order, the data terminal immediately switched the calculation weight, the holographic image around them faded away like flowing water, and the red area on the charred corridor wall quickly became clear.

"Increasing restoration accuracy... Component confirmed as blood, image processing complete."

As the data terminal finished speaking, the bloodstains in the corner became clear. It was a line of text, seemingly written in a hurry:

"...It's coming out, it's coming out, it's coming out..."

The line of text was all repeated words, the twisted and trembling handwriting seeming to show the writer's extreme fear at the time.

"It's coming out..." Hao Ren repeated subconsciously. "What does 'it' refer to here?"

"Perhaps it's the thing that the village is really meant to trap," Hesperides said. "Didn't we speculate that the village is like a cage? Maybe that cage really imprisons some kind of very dangerous power."

"It's a pity that the undead just now isn't saying anything now," Hao Ren shook his head. "Terminal, can you find the undead's location?"

The data terminal's voice was a bit helpless. "It's everywhere. She may have already become symbiotic with this land. Her energy fluctuations can be found everywhere, but there's no clear core. Now that she's unwilling to speak, I think unless you detonate a spatial implosion bomb here, there's no way to force her out."

Hao Ren thought about it, but still didn't implement this seemingly tempting plan...

At this moment, Lily suddenly raised her head, staring straight in a certain direction and twitching her nose.

Vivian glanced at her. "Did you find something?"

"Bones!" Lily's eyes lit up as she looked at the corner, then she ran over and rummaged through a pile of collapsed debris.

Soon, a charred skeleton was dug out from under a pile of tiles and planks.

Looking at the result of her digging, the husky girl curled her lips. "Tch, what a letdown."

"It hasn't completely decayed in this environment?" Vivian looked at the unrecognizable remains in surprise. Her focus was clearly different from the husky's. "Could this be the owner of the manor... a family member of that nobleman from over two hundred years ago?"

Hao Ren frowned and squatted next to the skeleton. Although he didn't have much hope, he still hoped to find some relics of the deceased. Surprisingly, there really were relics preserved: under the skeleton's body, there was a booklet that had been two-thirds burned!

He carefully pulled out the booklet. His first thought was that the material of the booklet was suspicious: it had been through a fire, and then it had been through two centuries of rotting and weathering in the humid and hot environment of the forest, and after experiencing all this, a significant part of it was still preserved?!

Vivian examined the material of the booklet and immediately realized that it was not ordinary paper. After casting a small spell, she confirmed that it was a type of black goat parchment that had been enchanted.

"A real magic book," Vivian said, pinching the charred fragment with her fingers. "Even though it's been burned like this, it can still resist weathering and corrosion. The way this thing is processed is very strange... I don't remember which wizarding school uses this method to process black goat parchment."

"It seems that the noble family back then really had the real thing," Hesperides said softly. "How much can you translate?"

The manual was severely burned, with only a third of it remaining, and half of that was fragmented images and symbols that had completely lost their meaning, but the data terminal still tried to restore some of the text. Everyone found that this manual was actually something like a notebook.

Using a precious magic book to write a diary instantly filled Hao Ren with great suspicion: was the family that built this manor really an ordinary human family?

At the beginning of the manual, it seemed to record the situation when this "family" first moved to this place:

"...After a long journey, we have finally arrived at this place... We must also hide our tracks to prevent being detected by the Order. These are truly difficult days, but in any case, we have made our decision, and there is no turning back...

"...This is a place where magical energy is very active. Perhaps the artifact is gradually changing the environment here...

"...Successfully found him... He is now using the name Fernand, and lives in seclusion in a small village in the forest... After meeting with Hercules, we found that his condition is extremely bad. The backlash of that power is about to... He is struggling at the boundary. No wonder he sent us a letter asking for help..."

The content that could be deciphered from the first few pages of the manual was this. Although fragmented, it contained the most crucial information. After reading this, Hao Ren and his group looked at each other. After a long while, Vivian finally spoke: "Pierre's investigation was indeed quite inaccurate."

"This family seemed to know Hercules' true identity from the beginning!" Hesperides said with disbelief in her voice. "They came for Hercules!"

Lily blinked. "And it sounds like Hercules took the initiative to summon them here."

Hao Ren pointed to a sentence in the restored text: "I'm more concerned about this sentence: this family seems to be tracked by someone. They said they had to avoid the 'Order'."

"There are many churches on Earth, but in the world of magic, there is only one Order that can be referred to with the greatest fear," Vivian sighed. "The Hunter Order. They are indeed related to the situation here."

Hao Ren frowned. "But Bai Huo's information didn't mention this."

Vivian nodded slightly. "Well, anyway, let's continue reading."