Chapter: Chapter 161
If Leticia were to ask where there might be clues, she would suggest a place, a place she hadn’t been to, but would absolutely not forget.
“Although I have no blood relation to that person, I somehow feel it’s not that simple,” Leticia said, standing before the overgrown gate, holding an umbrella, her expression somewhat complex.
This was the former residence of that sinner. After she sent people to end all life here that one night, it had remained in this desolate state.
No matter how good the weather was outside, upon entering the grounds of the manor, the weather would immediately change.
It would be a constant drizzle, and when it landed on a person, it would induce a strange chill.
However, protected by the sunshade gifted by Flora, Leticia felt no discomfort at all.
Once again, she thanked Flora; her gifts were truly useful.
Her brown boots stepped onto the muddy path, leaving behind a trail of small, cute footprints.
This place had been deserted for too long, and coupled with the perpetual drizzle, it had become an extremely unsuitable place for habitation.
Leticia came here because she felt this place definitely held secrets.
The connection between Mo Zili and that sinner was obvious. When she was abandoned, only that sinner had been defeated in battle and retreated from the陣地 in a sorry state.
It was normal to accidentally drop an infant at such a time, wasn’t it?
Even if she wasn’t Mo Zili’s father, being brought along in the army meant that Mo Zili and that sinner were definitely not unrelated.
And now, Leticia could say she had no clues at all. The only clue she could find was this place.
“I hope it won’t disappoint me,” Leticia said as she walked through the dark red path, arriving at the decayed wooden door.
Then, she frowned her exquisite eyebrows.
The door had been opened, and it had been opened by force.
“Someone’s been here?” Leticia muttered to herself, a hint of confusion in her voice.
She put away her umbrella and stepped into the dim interior.
With a casual snap of her fingers, orbs of soft light flew from her fingertips, illuminating the entire room brightly.
Ruined. This was Leticia’s first impression of this place.
Dense cobwebs, and raindrops blowing in through the broken windows had corroded the wooden floor into blackness. Leticia barely dared to step too hard, fearing that the wooden planks would break under her weight.
“Have they already left? It seems I’m a step too late.” There was no other person’s aura in the entire house. Leticia felt that the person who had come here before her had already left.
Perhaps she was too late.
But since she had come, she had to take a good look around, to see how that sinner had lived during their lifetime.
The first floor had nothing much to see; it was just a normal living room, kitchen, dining room, and so on. After a tour, Leticia found nothing noteworthy.
The second floor was the living area. Leticia first visited the study, and it was here that she became completely certain that someone had been here before.
There were three clear sets of footprints on the dusty ground, all leading to the opened bookshelf. It was obvious that several books were missing from the bookshelf.
Clearly, someone had been here before Leticia and had taken a few books.
As for which books, Leticia had no idea.
She was hardly omniscient or omnipotent. When faced with such a situation, she could only rack her brilliant little brain to think.
However, a brilliant little brain was not an invincible one. Without any clues, how could she guess?
“But, when I inventoried the items here before, I should have recorded the names of the books here, right?” Leticia murmured to herself.
Although she despised that sinner and didn’t confiscate these items for the national treasury, instead leaving them all here, someone should have recorded various items here before.
As long as she checked the archive room and compared which books were missing, it would be fine.
“Are these the remaining books?” Leticia noted the names of the remaining books in her mind, then lightly moved her fingers, using magic to open the desk drawers.
The drawers contained ordinary items, most of which had rotted beyond recognition. Leticia even saw a large, halved cockroach corpse lying in a drawer.
It seemed the person who came here last time was startled by this large cockroach, otherwise, how could this cockroach have died so miserably?
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, it’s good I was farsighted.” Leticia closed the drawer again, planning to look elsewhere.
Then, as she turned around, she saw a palm-sized spider slowly falling from the ceiling little by little.
The spider was clearly trying to control its descent, but the thin thread on its backside seemed unable to hold it back at all.
What the hell is this thing?!
Leticia hated bugs the most!
Instinctively, she threw a fireball, cremating the spider. Leticia, with lingering fear, cast a flame shield on herself so that she wouldn’t have to worry about any more bugs getting close to her.
Leaving the study, Leticia toured the second floor and found that the person who came before her had also wandered around aimlessly, but not many items in the rooms were missing.
Perhaps those few books were the most important things.
“I’ll go back and see which books are missing. This place really makes me not want to stay for another moment,” Leticia sighed. She had found a few clues, but she didn’t know if they could guide her to uncover the truth hidden in the layers of mist.
Just as she was about to leave, the entire house began to tremble slightly.
“An earthquake?” Leticia quickly flew out of the house through the window, which had long lost its glass.
She could feel that it wasn’t the house shaking, but the ground beneath the house shaking.
How could the already decaying house structure withstand such a destructive force? The moment Leticia flew out of the house, it completed its mission after years of erosion and turned into ruins with a rumbling sound.
“What is that…” But beneath the ruins, a powerful force began to emerge. Leticia frowned. What was this?
A hidden boss?
Wait, why were those two people rushing out of the ruins?
“Stop!” Leticia instinctively stretched out her hand and squeezed hard in the direction those two people were fleeing.
A giant fiery hand appeared out of thin air, blocking their escape route.
But the next moment, the fiery hand was shattered, and the two people completely disappeared into the drizzling rain.
Leticia also wanted to pursue them, but a giant monster that emerged from underground blocked her path.
In fact, the monster’s strength wasn’t very strong, and it didn’t take Leticia much time to deal with it.
With a few casual spells thrown out, Leticia successfully knocked the monster to the ground, where it could only whimper.
Although the monster was defeated, the tracks of those two people were gone, which made Leticia rather unhappy. Those two people definitely had important clues on them. Letting them escape like this was too frustrating.
“Your Majesty!” Several attendants waiting outside the manor hurriedly came to Leticia’s side.
They had actually wanted to help Leticia deal with the monster, but before they could even enter their attack range, Leticia had already dealt with the monster.
The Demon King’s combat strength was as formidable as ever.
“Did you see those two people who ran away?” Leticia waved her hand, and a giant fiery sword descended from the sky, burning the rolling monster on the ground into ashes.
This thing looked too disgusting, and Leticia didn’t want it to stay in this world for even another moment.
Several attendants shook their heads. They rushed in after the house collapsed, taking less than half a minute. However, they truly did not see the two people His Majesty mentioned.
This wasn’t due to their poor eyesight. Being Leticia’s attendants, they were considered top-tier in the demon realm in all aspects.
And if even they couldn’t find them, it could only mean one thing: the concealment abilities of those two people were indeed remarkable.
“Heh, it seems this place truly hides some secrets, otherwise so many people wouldn’t have come here,” Leticia snorted. “Send people to clear the ruins here quickly. Within three days, I want to see results.”
“Yes!”
“Let’s go back. I need to go to the archive room to check the records.” Leticia didn’t linger in this place. The house was gone, and there was nothing useful left anyway.
As for the place where the monster emerged, it was probably severely damaged by now.
The most pressing matter was to find those two escaped individuals. Regardless of anything else, they had definitely released this monster.
If they were found, many questions could be answered.
As for whether they could be found, well, that was indeed a problem.
After all, in the blink of an eye, Leticia lost her lock on their aura. In fact, before that, she could only lock onto them using her mental power.
Visually, she could vaguely see two dark shadows. She had no idea of their age, build, or appearance, basically meaning no clues at all.
And who were these two people? It was obvious. They were Bai Ling and Mo Zili, whom she had brought out of the academy yesterday.
“She saw us.” Pulling Mo Zili and running to a relatively hidden spot, Bai Ling finally stopped.
The distance was too close just now, and the two of them were wearing black robes exclusively for suspicious individuals, which was almost like writing “I am a bad guy” on their faces.
Leticia’s attention was clearly drawn, and Bai Ling also felt the mental lock from the Demon King.
If she hadn’t created distance in time and Leticia hadn’t been held back by the monster for a few seconds, Bai Ling would likely have been caught by Leticia by now.
If she were truly locked onto by Leticia’s aura, even Bai Ling would find it difficult to escape.
Fortunately, the monster they accidentally awakened attracted Leticia’s attention and also blocked Leticia’s line of sight. Although it only lasted for three or four rounds under Leticia’s control, it was enough for Bai Ling to escape with Mo Zili.
“Ha, sorry, I didn’t expect something like this to happen,” Mo Zili said, leaning against the wall and panting heavily.
She had only lightly touched the black gemstone on the table out of curiosity, and she didn’t expect that gemstone to shatter and release such a large monster.
With that chaotic scene, if Bai Ling hadn’t acted quickly to pull Mo Zili into her arms, Mo Zili would have likely been crushed into “Mo Zili sauce” by the suddenly appearing monster.
Seeing that the underground chamber was about to be breached by the monster, Bai Ling cut a passage with her sword, and brought Mo Zili out. It was at that time they ran into Leticia.
And then, they ran all the way here.
“That place is definitely not right,” Bai Ling said, without blaming Mo Zili. She didn’t think Mo Zili did it intentionally. If she hadn’t been there, Mo Zili would have already been done for.
A person who intentionally sought death?
Bai Ling didn’t think Mo Zili was that foolish.
Besides, not being able to control one’s hands was something everyone experienced. For example, when Bai Ling played games, wouldn’t she also be unable to resist pressing those colorful buttons and getting herself and Leticia killed?
Although Leticia would always scold Bai Ling fiercely after they were killed each time, when the next button appeared, Bai Ling would still press it, getting herself and Leticia killed again.
In games, she could revive infinitely. In reality, she possessed almost invincible strength. Therefore, she felt it was fine to do so.
As long as she could protect the people around her, and as long as she didn’t encounter opponents at Leticia’s level or higher, she was somewhat confident that she could eliminate the opponent before they could harm the people she wanted to protect.
“It’s just, why did you know there would be a passage to the underground?” Bai Ling was curious about this question.
After entering the manor, Mo Zili seemed to be in a trance. She first led Bai Ling to the study and opened the desk drawer.
Then, the large cockroach in the desk was chopped in half by Bai Ling with a frown.
Mo Zili took a key from the drawer and then led Bai Ling back to the first floor, opening a hidden door in a very concealed corner that led to the basement.
Unlike the desolate and decaying above-ground structures, the underground passage was unusually clean. There was no dust, and the oil lamps on both sides of the road were burning quietly.
The orange light illuminated the path ahead, and Bai Ling and Mo Zili thus walked into the underground chamber where the black gemstone was placed.
There were quite a few paper documents scattered in the underground chamber. Just as Bai Ling was about to look at them, Mo Zili touched the black gemstone.
The monster appeared, and Bai Ling only had time to stuff the paper she had just picked up into her pocket. The rest were likely turned into confetti by now.
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling of being guided. Something is guiding me to that place,” Mo Zili replied softly.
