Chapter 135: The Baron’s Portrait

Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Five
The Baron’s Portrait

“There is something wrong there.”

Klein pointed toward the step separating the sitting hall from the dining room and spoke in a grave, cautious voice.

He had seen in the Nighthawks’ internal materials that if something similar appeared in one’s intuition, it often meant that the target position concealed something evil and filthy. If one did not possess sufficient confidence, it was best not to try touching it. Otherwise, it would be very easy to lose one’s life. Sometimes, even a single glance could bring irreversible harm.

Dunn followed his gaze. With his similarly high intuition, he immediately discovered the problem. He turned toward Klein and instructed steadily, “Divine whether exploring that place will go smoothly.”

Before entering the castle, the Captain did not ask me to divine. He was fairly confident then… This means he thinks the hidden thing might be even more dangerous than the wraith…

Klein nodded soundlessly. He put away his revolver and handed his cane to Frye beside him.

Then he removed the citrine pendant hidden inside his sleeve cuff, held the silver chain with his left hand, and considered a fitting divination statement.

In an instant, his eyes darkened, and invisible wind circled around him.

“Exploring the castle’s hidden location will go smoothly.

“Exploring the castle’s hidden location will go smoothly.

“…”

After seven silent repetitions, Klein’s eyes returned to normal. He saw the citrine pendant rotating clockwise.

Although the range was small, it was indeed rotating clockwise.

That meant the exploration would go smoothly.

Having become a true Seer, Klein immediately nodded to Dunn and Frye.

“The danger is within a solvable range—or there is none.”

Dunn pinned the Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem to his left breast, reached up to press down his silk hat, and quickly walked toward the step, searching skillfully for the mechanism.

Having picked up the iron glove, Frye returned the cane to Klein. Then he held his revolver and vigilantly watched the surroundings, as though afraid some enemy might suddenly appear.

I am still not professional enough… at least not in the field of being a Nighthawk…

Klein roused himself, drew his revolver again, and helped keep watch.

Several minutes later, Dunn Smith, half-crouching, pressed something unknown. The position of the step immediately gave off a heavy grinding sound.

The floor there split open, revealing stairs leading downward. A cold, filthy feeling surged out and spread, almost condensing into something solid.

Dunn glanced down, removed Sealed Artifact 3-0782 from his chest, and directly tossed it into the hidden doorway.

After bouncing with clang, clang, clang sounds several times, the Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem came to rest somewhere unknown.

If there are necromantic creatures inside, they will definitely pick up 3-0782 and throw it back out… That would be interesting…

Klein stared at the descending stairs and waited patiently.

The lingering chill and filth soon melted away like ice and snow meeting sunlight. Warmth and purity enveloped the hidden doorway’s entrance.

“Klein, the two of us will go down. Frye will stay where he is and prevent other enemies from damaging the mechanism.”

Dunn made the decision with abundant experience.

“All right.”

This time, Klein did not shrink back. He took two steps forward and arrived beside Dunn, while Frye lightly nodded without relaxing his guard.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Dunn took the lead down the stairs, his footsteps echoing quietly.

He had not prepared a lantern, torch, or anything of the sort, because to Beyonders of the Sleepless Sequence, darkness was no obstacle. It was a blessing.

In this environment, their vision was unaffected.

After descending a few steps, Dunn suddenly turned back and looked toward Klein.

“I forgot you do not have dark vision. I am used to not preparing illumination.”

“…Captain, you do not need to mind. I have spirit vision.”

Klein discovered that he was not even surprised.

The Captain who was that cool just now truly was not his normal state.

In his spirit vision, the darkness ahead was filled with gray haze. Although everything was extremely blurry, it was enough for him to barely see the stairs.

Mm. The Captain is quite healthy, and his mental state is good too…

Klein carefully extended a foot and descended slowly.

This stairway was not long. After slanting downward for fourteen or fifteen steps, they reached the floor.

Sealed Artifact 3-0782 lay there, radiating warmth, spreading purity, and shining with faint light.

With the help of that glow, Klein saw much more clearly. He looked around and discovered that this was a basement of modest size. The original chill had disappeared, but dampness remained.

At the center of the basement stood a black coffin. Its iron nails were dark red.

The coffin lid had been pushed open a crack, allowing them to see a skeleton lying inside—a headless skeleton.

Dunn first glanced around, then bent down to retrieve the Mutated Sun Sacred Emblem.

“Captain, this coffin—mm, its purpose was to prevent the dead within from turning into a zombie or wraith…”

Klein examined the dark-red iron nails on the black coffin and their arrangement. Relying on his reasonably good mysticism knowledge, he identified it as an ancient ritual—a ritual to prevent corpse transformation.

At the same time, he muttered inwardly:

But under normal circumstances, who would go out of their way to guard against their own kin turning into a corpse? Uh, the people who helped bury him might not necessarily have been family… Mm. Placing the coffin in a basement instead of a tomb means they were afraid of it being discovered…

At that moment, Dunn, wearing Sealed Artifact 3-0782 again, moved closer to the coffin and examined it carefully for a while.

“The deceased should have died from poisoning.”

“Then the person who poisoned and murdered him used ritual magic to guard against him transforming and seeking revenge… This should have happened thirteen or fourteen hundred years ago, right? Yet in the end, he still became a wraith. That willpower is simply astonishing!”

Klein also walked up to the coffin.

“Where is his head? That ritual does not require decapitation.”

Dunn thought for a moment and said, “I have a guess. This wraith did not always exist. It only appeared recently. From the town to the castle, it is only fifteen minutes on foot. Mischievous children in every generation must have often come here. But before this incident, there were no rumors of a wraith in the castle.”

Klein nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Captain, you mean someone recently came here, opened the coffin, and took away the deceased’s head?”

“Mm. That ritual prevented the corpse from transforming, but it also locked the resentment inside the coffin and preserved it in a disguised way. Once the coffin was opened and the ritual removed, that resentment quickly used the iron glove itself to transform into a wraith…

“The person who opened the coffin did not leave a corpse. They were not an ordinary person… And why would they take the deceased’s head?”

Dunn gazed at the white bones inside the coffin and said, “For resentment to remain for so long, aside from the ritual’s influence, the deceased himself should also be a factor. He may have been a Beyonder in life, or he may have belonged to the second generation or closer of at least a mid-Sequence Beyonder. Mm, I mean under the older definition of mid-Sequence: Sequence 6 or Sequence 5.

“And a corpse like this always has certain special qualities. His head might—might be useful in certain rituals or particular situations.”

At this point, Dunn paused.

“What I just said was only speculation, but part of it can be verified. Later, we will split up in town to investigate whether anyone went to the castle as a child and was injured there. Mm, if that person is still alive, it will prove that the wraith truly only appeared recently.”

“A logical line of reasoning,” Klein praised. Then he searched the basement again but discovered no other objects.

He attempted to use ritual magic to draw the appearance of the “guest” who had once entered the basement, but because at least more than a month had passed, and because the wraith had lingered here for so long and affected the environment, he failed to obtain any useful result.

After that, he took Frye’s place, allowing this specialist in the domain of corpses to come down and conduct a deeper examination.

Fifteen minutes later, as the sun was about to vanish beneath the horizon, Dunn and Frye returned to the castle hall along the stairs.

The former groped around and closed the hidden doorway, while the latter described concisely, “It was indeed poisoning. The marks on the neck appeared within the last three months.”

In other words, the possibility that someone came here recently is very high…

Klein nodded thoughtfully.

Next, the three Nighthawks hurried back to Lamud Town before dark and booked two rooms at the inn. The member holding Sealed Artifact 3-0782 needed to carry that dangerous item to an uninhabited area outside town for a walk, with rotation every two hours, so only two rooms were necessary.

After a simple dinner, Klein, Dunn, and Frye immediately split up and headed to different parts of town, questioning residents who had lived here for a long time.

In scenes like this, a police badge was especially useful.

…

“Officer, why are you asking about this? I remember that when I was young, I often went to that abandoned castle… Injured? Of course. How could a child avoid falls and scratches? I remember—mm—I was cut by a sharp stone on the castle’s outer wall…”

A soft-haired, yellow-haired man in his forties looked at Klein in puzzlement and answered honestly.

This was the fourteenth person Klein had questioned. Among them, two clearly remembered being injured at the castle when they were young.

The Captain’s deduction is correct…

Klein made his judgment, put away his identification, and smiled.

“Thank you for your cooperation. I have no further questions.”

Without his cane, he was about to leave when the yellow-haired middle-aged man’s eyes shifted, and he said, “Officer, are you interested in that castle? My family has a portrait of the castle’s first baron. My grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather—uh, anyway, it was a very long time ago—took an oil painting from the castle. It supposedly showed the first Baron Lamud.

“Do you want it? This is a genuine antique!”

If it were a genuine antique, your family would have sold it long ago… This fellow is rather bold, daring to cheat even a police officer. Should I draw my gun later and scare him?

Klein grumbled inwardly. Since taking a look cost nothing, he said, “Who knows whether it is truly an antique? I trust my own eyes and judgment.

“Bring it out and let me see.”

The yellow-haired middle-aged man immediately piled on a smile, returned inside, and rummaged around for a while.

After some time, he came out holding an oil painting.

Klein casually swept his gaze across the portrait and saw that this so-called first baron wore a white curled wig. His features were gentle, his skin bronze, and an indescribable vicissitude hid in his eyes.

This… He looks like Mr. Azik!

Klein’s eyes abruptly widened. Subconsciously, he looked toward the right earlobe of the so-called first baron.

Then he saw an inconspicuous black mole nearby.

It was in exactly the same position as the mole on Instructor Azik’s ear.