How to become a sea witch

The so-called sea burial,? It is to put the body on a floating raft made of large fish bones and wood engraved with requiem lyrics, and then exile it to the surface of the sea, waiting for the storm or waves to swallow it.Finally, under the multiple decomposition of fish and microorganisms over a long period of time, it turned into a wisp of weak nutrients and returned to the sea.

In the original world, this was originally a funeral ceremony prevalent among pirates and sailors, but it was later absorbed by the Holy See of Light. Together with the most traditional burial and tree burial, it became the three most common funeral rituals for human and elf believers. Funeral manner.

When Bernice heard this, she was dazed for a few seconds, then remembered the places where the corpses were found in the previous materials, and quickly realized: "The places he chose are all related to these three funeral rites,? In the sea, ?In the forest, in the suburbs. He is dealing with these victims according to the etiquette of the Holy See."

"In other words, he is burying the person he has been longing to reshape." Thiago turned over the fishbone in his hand and looked indifferently, "Sea burial,? The all-seeing eye... It seems that A girl who means a lot to a collector is a believer in Augsig."

"However, I don't quite understand. Since he wants to reshape a human girl like the human girl in his memory so much, why does he have to kill these human beings again and again?" Bernice looked puzzled. To the girl's body.

She looked very calm, without any pain caused by being tortured, and seemed to be just sleeping,? But the surface of the skin had already shown an obviously strange purple red, and was slightly swollen.

"Maybe because they are not perfect substitutes for collectors." Thiago looked down at the girl for a moment, and quickly speculated.It seems that for him, it is not difficult to interpret the behavior of collectors, even a little inexplicably familiar.

"So, he will go to the next one?"

"That is for sure."

As he spoke, he threw the fish bone away, and the silver-blue divine power gushed out from his fingertips, turning into a crystal-like slender transparent chain and pulling the corpse over: "Let's see if there are any new clues. This is He used sea burial for the first time, and sank the other party to the bottom of the water just to be on the safe side. Next time, he might just throw them in the shallow sea area, and human society will soon find out. Until then, we have other things to do."

"it is good."

The burial of sea water and sand basically wiped out the detailed information originally carried on the corpse. After a rough inspection, Bernice could only see that the dress presented on this girl was indeed in line with the collector's usual methods.

But unlike the victim I saw in the police station just now, this girl's hair is naturally dark.So the collector only made changes to her hairstyle and eye color.

Thiago reached out and tried to press the girl's abdomen, and found that it was the same as the mutants that were attacked and killed by the samples before, and the pressing felt like pressing some empty mollusk.Pressing all the way from the abdomen to the throat, the slight foreign body sensation made him pause for a moment, and then condensed a pair of ice tweezers with sharp hooks in his hand.

Seeing his movements, Bernice cooperatively pinched the corpse's jaw and opened the mouth: "Is there something inside?"

"It should be." He said, and quickly took out a thin metal chain with rings from his throat.

A gleam of light floated on the blood-stained ring, and Bernice saw two letters that had been obviously artistically processed on it, like the initials of someone's name: "DK?"

Thiago carefully looked at the pattern on the ring for a while, and pointed out to Bernice where the pattern was abruptly broken: "Look here, there should be another ring that is a pair with this one, and the pattern can be pieced together. But There seems to be only one here."

"Would the other one be at the Collector's?"

"It's very possible. But it doesn't rule out the possibility that the ring belonged to the victim. Let's take it back first."

"Okay." Bernice nodded, and looked at the corpse on the ground again, "Then what about it?"

"I will send other sea tribes to transfer her to the offshore area. Maybe in a few hours, tomorrow morning at the latest, I think humans will find her. But before that, we have other things to do."

As soon as he finished speaking, the ice barrier that sealed the surroundings began to collapse and melt rapidly.The dark blue and nearly black sea water flooded from all directions, and the surging waves almost dyed the moonlight blue.

The time it takes to return to the monitoring center along the ocean current is much shorter than walking.As soon as she entered the hall, Bernice saw Gabriel who was already waiting there.

Seeing Tiago walking in with her, he seemed to be entertained by what the other party said unintentionally during the period. He lowered his head and smiled for her to open the door. Gabriel seemed to be completely used to it, and even asked Tiago After Yago saluted, he took the time to give Bernice a slight nod as a greeting.

Bernice froze for a moment, although she didn't understand why he would do this suddenly, she still nodded in a very polite way and imitated his example quickly.

"Get up." Thiago said to Gabriel, looking away from Bernice beside him, with a genuine and gentle expression between his brows and eyes, "Is Queen White okay?"

"Your Majesty, she is fine."

"That's good. Have you found out how that sample appeared?"

"It was at a wedding."

"Wedding?" Thiago repeated thoughtfully, while pinching the ring in his hand and turning it slightly half a circle between his fingers.The soft light rolled down on the metal ring, and streaks of bright light were burned into the eyes.

After a few seconds of silence, he asked again: "Because there is someone at the scene who happens to meet the collector's hunting preferences?"

"Yes, and a bride."

Soon, they were in the foyer, and Gabriel recounted the wedding incident in a small church in Southampton in full.

"From this point of view, the collector should be one of the guests who came to the wedding?" Bernice speculated, but immediately felt wrong, "But there is no reason for them to invite a demon. And if it is a demon disguised as a human , the White Queen will soon find out."

"We think so too, but just to be on the safe side, I brought back all the guest lists and basic recorded information on the wedding day." Gabriel said, taking the thick sheepskin that he had been holding in his hand all along. The paper is handed to Thiago.

He took it over, and at the same time handed the ring to the other party: "This is from the newly discovered victim we just found on the bottom of the sea. I have asked them to bring the body back to the offshore area? It will be hard for you to catch up with humans Find out that she previously identified her and see if the ring belonged to the victim or the collector."

"As ordered."

The list itself is not very long, but it is a bit troublesome to carefully read through the messy and cumbersome information records.In order to save time, Bernice offered to help watch it together, so that it would be faster.

Originally, she didn't have much hope for these lists. After all, according to common sense, when such a thing happened, Queen Bai and the others probably had already checked the guests on the wedding day, and there was no abnormality that has not been discovered until now. .

But she didn't expect that when she saw the fifth person, she unexpectedly saw a somewhat familiar name.

"Lambert Greer." Bernice muttered, suddenly recalling the strange man who came over to help her pay for two cones at the cultural festival and said that she had beautiful eyes.

Going on, there are some basic records about Lambert

"He is a resident of the small town of Fuspen on the edge of the northern border of the former Kingdom of Macedonia in the original world. After leaving the small town of Fusspen many years ago, he joined a troupe formed by creatures of various races. His identity has traveled to many places with the troupe, and he is also the only half-blood wizard in the troupe."

The word "hybrid" caught Bernice's attention. She quickly turned to the next page, and the peculiar ink smell of dragon's blood gradually spread to the tip of her nose.The bright light penetrates the thin paper in the hand, and the overly similar colors make those neat and compact black words look like rows of bee swarms suspended in the air, so alive that it seems that they will jump to the cypress in the next second. It danced on Nisi's palm.

According to information registration, Lambert's biological mother is a witch from the White Queen's camp in the underground kingdom, and his father is a well-known human nobleman in the small town of Fusspen.

And like most other creatures living on land, Lambert and his family are devout believers in the God of Light.The white steeple church called "Icefield Fireworks" located at the northernmost tip of Macedonia was fully funded by Lambert's ancestors and has been maintained year after year.Also because his mother was a witch from the underground world, Lambert showed a good talent for witchcraft when he was very young.

At the age of seven, Lambert's mother was killed by the Red Queen in a battle for royal power between the Red and White Queens.Since then, he has been learning witchcraft from the White Queen...

In short, this is a person with a clean record no matter how you look at it.Bernice went through his background information carefully several times, and found nothing that could be related to the collector.

Just as she was hesitating whether to give up and shift her attention to the next person, Thiago, who had read all the personnel information in her hand, looked up again and asked, "Did you find anything?"

"I don't know if it counts..." Bernice hesitated and took out a few pieces of parchment with Lambert's information and handed it to the other party, "I also met a guy named Lambert Gerry at the cultural festival just now. He paid for the cone for me, and mentioned my eyes."

"When you went to buy the cones?" Thiago quickly recalled.

"Yes." Bernice nodded, with obvious hesitation and confusion in her light green pupils, "So I'm wondering if they might be the same person."

Thiago flipped through the parchment in his hand at an astonishingly fast speed. He slid straight to the end after a few glances, and finally set his sights on the troupe at the beginning, his expression blank for a moment.

Soon, he suddenly smiled again, and the azure blue that had been stagnant until now turned into clear sea water and gradually floated away in his eyes: "The person you found is very important, Bernice. I think I know How did collectors find these victims."

"what?"

"follow me."

As he spoke, he got up and took Bernice to the office on the top floor of the monitoring center.

There is only this room on the entire top floor, and the side facing the sea has no wall, replaced by a huge transparent glass, which makes the already too wide space look even more empty.The unique cool smell belonging to the ocean pours in from the window with the wind in thick or light, bringing an indescribable desolation and tranquility.

This is an office in name, but it's actually more like a treasure house used to store all kinds of heavy books and ancient scrolls that can't get wet, as well as strange antique objects.

Even the ceiling above the head is a multi-layered space constructed by divine power. The spiral ice-stone stairs meander upwards. Layers of candlelight spreads out a layer of fine and bright halos on the steps and flows continuously, like the reflection of the waves on the sea. .

Bernice looked around the countless dark cabinets standing against the wall from bottom to top, and saw that the spines of many of them had been eroded by time, leaving mottled marks, and most of the remaining strange characters and symbols were beyond her scope. .

Reminiscent of the fact that mermaids would never choose such a material that cannot touch water as a writing material, coupled with the huge number of books in various languages ​​here, Bernice finds it difficult to imagine what kind of knowledge reserve can support a The living beings understand all these things.

When the line of sight was deflected, some things sealed in the prismarine vessel and placed in a separate corner caught Bernice's attention.

Those are some powder and granular crystals, most of which are cloudy and darker in color, like some kind of special gravel.There is also a crystal bottle containing something that is hard to tell whether it is solid or liquid, which looks extremely out of place with the other simple and elegant furnishings here.

Before she could figure out why these things appeared in the office, Tiago took out the investigation results sent by Gabriel from the bookshelf and put them aside, sat on the chair and crossed his fingers, and took the initiative to ask Bo Ni Silk explained: "Those are the pollutant samples that I have separated from the most polluted offshore areas before, one type in each bottle, and they are basically derived from various human activities."

His voice was not loud, and his tone was as gentle and clear as ever, but the sudden sound in the silence still shocked Bernice.

After blinking, Bernice turned her head and counted the number of those bottles carefully, a little surprised: "So many?"

"That's not all." Thiago replied calmly, "The pollutants I keep are a little troublesome to clean up."

"So you need to stay and study?"

"It's not research." Thiago smiled and shook his head, his voice was soft, with a kind of indifference, "I just want to test how much these things will affect me."

Bernice said blankly, as if she hadn't realized it: "But shouldn't these things be poisonous?"

"If it is poisonous...you can understand it in this way. After all, it will indeed cause the death or genetic deformity of many sea people." He nodded, his attitude was still calm, "but it is a pity that they are useless to me, so for now It seems that none of these things are so abnormal that they cannot be dealt with. After all, human beings cannot break away from the restrictions of the laws of nature, and all the vicious consequences they have caused will gradually return to themselves, and they deserve it.”

However, don't you think that knowing the dangers of those pollutants and doing experiments on yourself without any need, this behavior itself is quite abnormal...

For some reason, Bernice suddenly recalled what Ursula once said, the truly terrible thing is not the creatures who can only be cruel to others, but those who can be cruel to themselves.

Bernice looked at the other person with wide eyes, and once again had a faint feeling of "this fish looks very gentle, but there seems to be something wrong".

After a moment of silence, she finally couldn't help but ask, "Why... why did you do this?"

After thinking for half a second, Thiago immediately understood what she was asking, but instead of answering the other party directly, he tilted his head and smiled, his blue eyes looked as clear and pure as sea water under the sun: "I can think Are you asking this question out of concern for me?"

It was time to nod, Bernice knew very well.

But before she took any action, Thiago had already wiped away the smile marks on her lips, and replied indifferently: "I just thought of it, so I just tried to play, there is no reason."

This answer completely exceeded Bernice's expectations.She originally thought it was the selfless devotion to work as a sea god, but he said he was just trying to play.

For a moment, Bernice couldn't tell whether Mo was shocked by her reasoning, or Mo was shocked by his answer.

"Let's take a look at this." Without intending to linger on the topic of the experiment, Thiago opened the investigation report and retweeted it to Bernice, "I have been wondering before, what is the collector? How did you find these victims. After all, from the perspective of family background and social scope, there is no obvious overlap between them. Until you reminded me just now, it is related to the theater."

Indeed, although the age gap between these victims is very small, from students to young women who just graduated, their family backgrounds and regions are very different. It is difficult to guess where the collectors are based on the previous information. met them.

"So, these victims are all opera lovers?" Bernice flipped through some of the content, and saw that many words related to theater and opera performances were circled with pens.

"Not all. But what is certain is that they all participated in opera-related activities some time before their death." Tiago approached her and pointed out some of the less noticeable words to her, " Large-scale opera tours, theater volunteer activities, exhibitions on the history of opera development, etc.”

Bernice nodded, and then looked at the time when they participated in these activities, a little surprised: "This all happened a long time before they were killed."

"That's true. So when I asked Gabriel and the others to investigate the records of the victim's activities before his death, I didn't get any useful clues. Later, I suggested that they expand the scope of the time push back, and only then did they find these.

But because there are also other interference factors, such as Gothic culture and occult lovers, I have not been sure which reason caused them to become the target group of collectors. " Thiago said, leaning sideways on the railing next to her, his posture relaxed.

"So, the Collector met them in theaters and other places and confirmed the target. Before killing them, he spent a lot of time slowly approaching or even getting along with them?"

"That's right. Because for a collector, what he wants is a perfect substitute. This way of getting acquainted and becoming friends because of similar hobbies is very common, and it is not easy to arouse the suspicion of human society. Can gradually gain the trust of these victims.

In addition, although this method will take a long time, it is also because of this that it is unlikely that people will associate him with the deaths of these girls in the first place. "

"He's pretty good at planning." Bernice muttered, and then asked as if remembering something: "Is there a theater in this city?"

Thiago nodded: "Yes. Just near the block we visited just now, there is a public St. Clair Grand Theater. Before that, they would undertake performances by local or foreign troupes every year. Maybe you can find out if there is one named Lan Burt Greer's people."

After hearing this answer, her eyes lit up immediately: "Then let me go..."

"No." Thiago interrupted her rarely, with a firm attitude, "You can't go."

"But, don't you think this is a good opportunity?" Bernice eagerly explained to him, "You see, his hunting preference is human girls with black hair and green eyes. I already meet half of the criteria, only You need to pretend to be a human being and go to the theater for a while, maybe you can..."

"do not think so."

He interrupted the other party again, his tone more insistent than last time, and at the same time he straightened his body, stood on the steps and looked down at her slightly.

The candlelight stranded on his shoulders like a large flake of bright snowflakes, entangled on his hair of the same color, and the overly bright golden color was about to melt, but the expression on his face was a kind of almost indifferent disapproval.

"The matter of the collector is not that simple, Bernice. Those parasites were not created by demons, nor are they witchcraft. We haven't fully understood its source yet, and we don't know how many collectors still have. Such a parasite, I can't let you take the risk like this."

"But if I can find out the identity of the collector, it will be much easier to deal with later, won't it? If you look at it this way, it's worth taking a little risk..."

What's more, she is experienced and very good at such things as cheating and abducting. How could she give up such an excellent opportunity to be a professional counterpart and to clean herself up.

"I don't think so." Tiago corrected her calmly, watching her word by word, "at least for me, there is nothing worth taking your risk."

Bernice was stunned, and tried several times to say something but failed.

She found that the methods she used to deal with other creatures in the past were always ineffective on Tiago. This situation made her very disturbed, and she didn't know how to get along with him.

Obviously according to common sense, he should happily agree to his proposal.Risk, even if it happened, happened to her, and it had nothing to do with him.

and so……

Does this count as protection?

The words that were too unfamiliar penetrated into Bernice's mind, and she was almost startled. After struggling for a long time, she tried to give in and said, "Well, I won't approach him. But that theater is really worth investigating. Look, I can always go for this, right?"

Thiago stared at her silently, frowning slightly, looking unlikely to agree.

Bernice pursed her lips, and repeated several times silently, reluctant to give up the bait and catch fish, and finally struggled to speak: "Or, we, can we go together?"

After finishing speaking, she carefully observed the expression on the other party's face, and after finding that he seemed to be a little loose, she immediately continued to say: "Let's go together? If we stay together, then there won't be any problems, right?"

The stalemate was so long that it was almost solidified. Just when Bernice was about to give up and secretly planned to sneak to the theater by herself, Tiago suddenly sighed in compromise: "Let's go together tomorrow morning."

He really agreed?

This trick of killing each other is also very easy to use!

Bernice was stunned again for a moment, then nodded quickly: "No problem."

The author has something to say: suddenly appeared again! ! !