Whispering Verse

"The second clue is that the devil is related to the stone."

Haela Oxenfurt nodded, waited until the maid left, and then said softly:

"That amulet hanging around your waist is beautiful."

"Yeah?"

Shade took off the unicorn amulet and handed it to the other party. Unexpectedly, Haila Oxenfurt took it directly without any sign of being hurt.

"This was given to me by a beautiful female fortune teller at the Oracle Association a few days ago."

He said the excuse he had thought of for a long time:

"I obviously wanted to divine love, but she said that I would have bad luck recently, so she gave me the amulet she carried with her and asked me to have dinner with her tomorrow."

Mrs. Oxenfurt looked at the face of the handsome young man in front of her, nodded and returned the amulet, and then suggested:

"Mr. Watson, my husband will be back in a while. Are you interested in going for a walk in the back garden with me?"

This was a rather strange suggestion. Shade had never heard of someone else's wife accompanying the guest to wander in the garden when visiting someone else's home. But this sentence was definitely not the kind of rosy invitation, because Haila Oxenfurt's tone was still so indifferent.

Shade guessed that she probably wanted to say something to him, but he did not agree immediately:

"This seems a little bad."

The veiled woman shook her head slightly:

"I'll answer some of your questions."

She stood up directly, so Shade also put down the tea cup that he had not drank from and stood up.

When the door was opened, the maid wearing an old-fashioned maid dress was still standing outside. She asked softly:

"Madam, where do you want to go?"

"I would like to invite Mr. Watson to be my model and let me paint a portrait."

The lady said, and the maid nodded:

"Then I'll prepare the painting supplies."

As he spoke, he walked in the other direction of the corridor, while Haila Oxenfurt led Shade to the first floor. She did not immediately lead Shade out of the gloomy mansion, but stopped in the foyer.

The so-called "foyer" of a manor house like this is quite large. The walls are lined with chairs and decorative armors for guests to sit while waiting, and the floor is covered with antique carpets.

Helena Oxenfurt turned and looked at the giant portrait oil painting hanging on the wall opposite the door:

"Do you know who this is?"

The oil painting shows an old man with white hair, wearing an old Southern Army uniform:

"Fry Oxenfurt?"

Shade guessed that the "Kasenlik Third Class Combat Hero Medal" belonged to him. As for whether his blurting out the name would make the lady suspicious, that's what Shade wanted to do.

"Yes."

The woman said softly:

"This is not the most famous ancestor of the Oxenfurt family, but it is the ancestor that my husband admires the most."

"Because he gained everything for himself by fighting on the battlefield and killing enemies?"

Shade asked. The woman nodded slightly and led Shade to the yard.

It was indeed snowing outside, but the snowflakes were not big and did not affect travel. The old butler also appeared when the two left the mansion, but after learning the thoughts of the mistress of the manor, he also left.

Along the path on the side of the manor courtyard, Haela Oxenfurt took Shade around to the back of the building. This was Shade's first time here.

The back of the manor courtyard was no different from what he imagined. The seemingly abandoned garden showed traces of being tidied up, but the evergreen bushes were neatly tended. A small pavilion was located in the center of the walk. He even saw a small pavilion in the corner of the courtyard. Inside the tool room and stables, I saw the locked fence gate in the backyard. The fence gate in the backyard leads to a path deeper into the woods in the Randall Valley creek.

It was still winter, and even though it was late winter, the garden was still covered in snow. There are no flowers in sight, only evergreen shrubs dotted with silvery white. Everything is quiet, and the woman in a black dress walks quietly in the snowy environment, giving her a sense of death-like beauty.

Shade knew that his thoughts at this time were very rude, but he looked at Haila Oxenfurt at this time as if he were looking at a noble lady attending her husband's funeral.

Just as he was thinking about it, the woman walking in front suddenly stopped. There was no unique scenery around. There were only empty dog ​​houses under the big bare trees, and shovels stuck in the snow not far away. Further ahead was the pavilion in the center of the back garden. Shade saw There were several small, empty brown flowerpots in the pavilion.

The woman turned around and looked at him with her eyes behind the black veil. Her soft voice with a slight dialect was still so calm:

"You are a ring wizard, right?"

This is actually an affirmative sentence, not a question.

Shade shook his head slightly:

"Sorry, what?"

"It's impossible for normal people to defeat him. Even if it's a ring warlock, only those with a special destiny can defeat him."

The woman said, as if she didn't care about Shade's opinion at all:

"Don't collect those three items for him. The ring is in his hand. I think you have already obtained the medal."

Shade took a small step back. Standing in the snow did not make him feel any cold. The God of Winter blessed him:

"Madam, I need to remind you: I gave the ring back to you, and it was you who put the ring back in the hands of Mr. Stone Oxenfurt."

There was a smile on his face, but there was no smile at all in his eyes:

"I actually hate people like Stone Oxenfurt, but he pays well enough."

He held out a finger:

"Everyone has desires, but my desires are especially big."

"Desire can make people fall into the abyss."

"The world itself is an abyss."

Shade's eyes were fixed on the other person, but he felt like he was staring at a walking corpse:

"I don't know what you and your husband are doing, but I know that your husband has given me enough reward. If you want to persuade me to give up, you must also give me corresponding reward. By the way, The reward he gave was [Origin·Earth], I don’t know if you know this, this is the original Rhodes card. No one, yes, no one can refuse this."

The foreigner is not a mercenary person, but he needs to establish his own character setting at this time:

"Or, you want to tell me what happened to Oxenfurt."

He never acknowledged his identity as a ring sorcerer from beginning to end, and Haela Oxenfurt didn't ask.

She stated her request:

"I want to entrust you with defeating him, defeating my husband, Stone Oxenfurt."

"I've defeated him three times."

"It's about truly defeating him, making his career fail, making his ambition collapse, and finally stabbing the sword into his chest in this manor. But you can't kill him, he can always rise from the dead, so you have to Outsmart him at the game he ultimately comes up with.”

"Resurrected from the dead? It's really amazing."

Shade curled his lips:

"Why should I promise you?"

"Because you have the noblest soul."

This answer was really unexpected. Shade looked at the woman inquiringly, but the latter did not explain:

"Please clear the snow and have a look."

Shade lowered his head and glanced down. The snow layer at his feet moved aside automatically, revealing soil. But after the soil was scraped open by the spell [Moving Object], he saw the gravel in the soil:

"Anything worth noting?"

"My husband has many enemies. He will turn his enemies into stones, then bring them back here and smash them with a hammer. Those souls are therefore permanently trapped in this land."

This certainly sounds like Stone Oxenfurt's style:

"Do you think that after hearing this kind of story, I will act righteously and eradicate evil?"

The woman wearing a black veil shook her head, and Shade could directly see her indifferent eyes:

"You know him, which means you are favored by him. If you have noticed something is wrong with him, then you should understand that you also need help. The eyes of evil spirits are also staring at you."

This is indeed the truth. According to the doctor, when Shade defeated Stone Oxenfurt at Rhodes for the first time, the devil behind him had already set his sights on him.

"I won't help you for free, what can you give me?"

Xia De actually didn't care what the other party gave him. Even if the woman just gave her a piece of jewelry, he would agree to it.

But unexpectedly again, Haila Oxenfurt grabbed his right hand and pressed it on her left chest.

The first thing that the astonished Shade felt was not the touch, but the warm heat:

"The reward is, my soul."

"Sorry, what do I want with your soul?"

He asked rhetorically, breaking away from the other party's hand, but not entangled in this issue. His purpose had been achieved:

"I promise to take over your commission, but not for any soul. I want to make sure that after I complete your husband's commission, I have the ability to get what I want. I need your help, tell me, I What should I do? Although I have some strength, I still can’t deal with an unkillable monster.”

"Her" laughter could be heard in his ears. So far, almost all the powerful enemies that Shade had defeated were labeled as "unkillable".

"Before I help you, please forgive me. I also want to confirm how much power you have."

The veiled woman said calmly, Shade tilted his head and looked at her:

"What?"

The snow surface under the shovel in the distance trembled, and then a rotten human hand emerged from the ground.

"Please defeat him, the gardener who served me so loyally. He was killed and buried here because he saw my husband's secret."

She retreated to the doghouse under the tree, where the rotten human hand emerging from the snow had grasped the shovel. Wearing a black hat and ragged blue overalls with a hunched body and a height of two and a half meters, a corpse climbed out of the snow and mud.