The Master of the Strange Realm

He walked with his head down, grasping the wonderful feeling of the moment just now. The alley was not long, and he soon walked out from the other end. As soon as he stepped out of the alley, he felt a dark in front of his eyes. He immediately suspected that the nearby lamppost was broken, but then he immediately remembered that it was only noon.

"Solar eclipse?"

Of course it was not a solar eclipse. As he walked out of the alley completely, the deserted and dim streets came into view. Rotting corpses were piled up on the street, and most of the shops on both sides sealed their doors and windows with crooked and old wooden boards. Only half of the steam pipe was left on the wall, dripping sewage, and the weird-shaped creepers next to the pipe almost covered the entire wall.

There were spider webs everywhere in the corners, and spiders as big as Jenkins' fists made rustling sounds when crawling. The ground was bumpy, and sewage and blood accumulated in the pits, reflecting bright yellow light.

Looking up to the east where the street extends, there is a five-way intersection not far away. The five-story tower facing the street has no trace of paint at all, exposing the uneven brick and stone wall.

Behind the tower is the dim night sky and the huge yellow moon. The moon is so big that it seems to be about to fall to the ground. The bright yellow moon emits a dark light, illuminating all the terrible things in front of it, and also illuminating the cat standing on Jenkins' shoulder in confusion.

"..."

Jenkins looked at everything in front of him speechlessly, raised his hand and flicked his finger, and the ice particles that had just condensed in the moist air were bounced out at a very high speed. It went straight through the colorful spider on the wall next to it, and the green liquid and the strong stench immediately exploded in all directions.

"Is it an illusion..."

He couldn't judge everything in front of him, so he stepped on the puddles and walked to the other side of the street, found a relatively clean place to sit down, and then projected to Rune.

Everything went smoothly. After appearing in the living room of the manor, the window was filled with the sunny early spring scenery, and the city of Loon in the distance was shining brightly in the sun. The maids who happened to be cleaning the floor came in and saw Jenkins standing there, and immediately bowed to him.

Nothing in Loon had changed, it was normal here.

Returning to Nolan again, the dim and decayed street scene and the huge bright yellow moon in the sky had not changed. Chocolate stood aside and kicked away a spider that had no external injuries but was dead, and then rubbed Jenkins' hand affectionately.

"So, what's going on?"

The yellow moon should have disappeared in the ancient era, and the city of Nolan should not have decayed like this. Jenkins looked at the street scene for a long time without saying a word, and it was not until he heard a beast-like roar behind him that he came back to his senses.

Turning around, a humanoid creature that was difficult to describe staggered from the other side of the street. It was at least twice as tall as Jenkins, extremely thin and all black skin. The body was wrapped in tattered black gauze, and some of the clothes had even merged with the skin.

The body was very tall but the head was small, the left hand was drooping unnaturally, and the right hand held a rusty scimitar. While walking towards Jenkins, he made a beast-like intimidating sound. When he was five steps away from Jenkins, he made an obvious retreat, then suddenly rushed forward, and smashed the scimitar in his hand with great force on Jenkins' head.

Clang~

The white holy sword was raised above his head and collided with the rusty black scimitar. Jenkins' hands holding the scimitar shook violently, and the weapon almost slipped out of his hand. The opponent's strength was really amazing.

As if he was shocked by Jenkins' block, the opponent's movement paused for a second, and Jenkins immediately raised the sword upwards, causing the scimitar to bounce up. Then he retreated his right leg to lower his center of gravity, and stabbed forward with both hands holding the sword.

This blow did not pierce the opponent's skin, but pushed it backwards and fell. Jenkins took a deep breath, recalling the shallow swordsmanship he learned in Miss Befanna's fighting class. He still held the sword with both hands, straightened up and twisted his waist, and used his feet to rotate his body 180 degrees on the spot. After reaching the peak of strength, he slashed downwards with force.

With a loud bang, his sword split half of the body of the opponent who fell to the ground, and even left a deep mark on the ground.

The thing on the ground, who was not sure whether it was a human, was killed by this heavy blow. But the way it "died" was not to ask the sky to borrow five hundred years, but to lie there and twitch, and disappeared into coal-like ashes.

"What is going on? Where is this? What was that monster just now?"

Jenkins watched the corpse disappear, and tilted his head to look in the direction it came from, but still couldn't find any clues. He stood there and thought about it, and summoned the unicorn.

The little beast came to his side smoothly, but was also frightened by this terrible scene. It trembled and bent its legs to let Jenkins step on it, but when it flapped its wings to take off, it looked at the sky in confusion, and paced back and forth on the ground impatiently, but it just couldn't fly.

"What's wrong?"

Jenkins asked in confusion, but just like he didn't understand cat language, he also didn't understand unicorn language. After trying several times, he had no choice but to let the unicorn go back first, and then used his sword to carve a clear sword mark on the wall of the building next to it as a mark, and then walked forward along the street with the curious cat.

Judging from the urban planning and the vaguely visible shop signs, this is still Nolan, but it looks much dilapidated and decayed. Under the yellow moonlight, the whole city was eerily quiet. Jenkins walked forward from this street until he reached the corner without encountering any more accidents. When he left the confines of this street, the sun's light suddenly shone down from above his head, and at the same time, the noisy city sounds entered his ears.

In just an instant, the dilapidated and dim city once again transformed into Nolan, the most famous seaport city on the west coast. Jenkins, who was holding a sword, stood behind the mailbox on the corner of the street. When he saw this, he immediately put away the sword, and then looked around to see where there was any sewage on the ground or the yellow moon above his head.

Everything that happened just now seemed to be an illusion, and when Jenkins re-walked the route in and out of the decaying city, he never encountered similar phenomena again.

The wall that had been deeply scratched by his sword was now the side wall of a tobacco shop that was in operation. There is also a smaller display window next to it, used to display expensive ceramic snuff bottles with enamel hooking technology.

Of course, there are no sword marks here.

PS: It’s been 3K per chapter for three consecutive days, has anyone noticed...

Chapter 1292 Chapter 1271 The Mad Poet and Disaster (2)

"Chocolate, you also saw what happened just now, right?"

After wandering around for a long time but unable to enter the dilapidated Nolan again, Jenkins muttered to himself uncertainly, but unexpectedly the cat nodded.

"By the way, you seem to be intelligent enough to understand what I'm saying."

He patted his head and then rubbed the cat's little head.

"Since Chocolat also saw the old city just now, the possibility of hallucination is further reduced. But what exactly is it?"

While there was still time before lunch, Jenkins visited the old elf who lived in the center of the city and Miss Audrey who lived in the dense fog on the outskirts of the city, and told them what he had just encountered.

But neither the elf's experience nor Miss Audrey's divination could give Jenkins a definite answer. Miss Audrey suffered some injuries during the divination. Out of caution, Jenkins did not allow her to continue divination.

"I will handle this matter myself, and I have to be more careful when walking around the city recently."

He warned the elves and soothsayers respectively, and then returned to Loen in a depressed mood.

The girls all came back on time for lunch, and Jenkins told them what he had discovered in the morning about Miss Capet and what he had seen of the decaying city under the yellow moon.

Among the clues left by Miss Bronyance, Miss Cape's name was indeed found, and when Alexia asked, Jenkins replied that he would return to Nolan to deal with the matter. The princess and her teacher They were all visibly relieved.

As for what happened in the city, Alexia didn't know what happened to Jenkins, but since he couldn't reproduce that scene no matter how many times he repeated it, it meant that it was a low-probability event.

"Be careful when you return to Nolan these days."

Alexia said with some worry, in her opinion, as long as Jenkins encounters something in Nolan, it will definitely not be a trivial matter.

She had gained a lot today. When she was looking for old books in the private library of the Stuart royal family, she accidentally discovered some books that had long been listed as contraband by the Orthodox Church. In those books, she found records about the mad poet, and now she and Jenkins both want to know where the poet got that weird machine.

"In this prayer book full of crazy ravings, the fourth section of the third chapter describes the ending of the mad poet... Of course, this can only be considered in detail, and it may really be the madman's fantasy. "

What Alexia is holding is the original in the library, which is also a manuscript. According to her judgment, the ink is made of animal blood, but because too many years have passed, she does not know what kind of animal blood it is.

This book is a mixture of the author's own imagination and crazy stories copied from other crazy books. There is even a short paragraph from A-09-1-7300 "Necronomicon", but this does not make this book generate any value.

In the passage Alexia pointed out, Jenkins read The Death of the Mad Poet from the illegible letters and the upside-down narrative timeline.

The story is very cliché. A mad poet who plays the flute to lure village children to commit suicide meets a similar outsider one day. The outsider's name is not included in the story, but the mad poet uses some crazy methods to deal with him.

Later, the mad poet was killed by the outsider, and his body was hung on the flagpole in the village by the angry villagers for seven days. In these seven days, locusts, heavy rains, fires, plagues and other disasters took turns. After seven days, the villagers who couldn't bear it abandoned the bodies of their relatives and fled their homes where they had lived for generations with the help of the outsider. .

Only the body of the mad poet was left hanging on the flagpole, and the black crows circling around quietly watching everything.

"It's indeed crazy... Are there any other records? I'm actually more concerned about the story of the mad poet before he died, that is, the story of him getting that machine."

Jenkins asked.

"That happened in the fifteenth century, thousands of years ago now. It took me three days to find clues about him. Do you still expect me to find what you want in another three days?" Do you know all the information?”

Alexia asked half angrily, Jenkins apologized quickly, and also understood that such things should not be rushed.

Dolores was busy with the throne and the Ministry of Finance, while Alexia had a lot of information to read, which made Jenkins, the only one who had nothing to do, feel like he was eating free rice. In the afternoon, Dolores mentioned that she had invited Jenkins to give a speech on finance, and the time had been confirmed, so Jenkins had something to do.

But the manuscript was finished in an hour and a half, and he was once again in a situation where he had nothing to do.

"Go to Nolan again, maybe you can encounter the morning thing again."

So he walked out of his closet again at three o'clock in the afternoon, holding the cat and leaning against the window to look out. There was no one outside the window, and Miss Silver Flute next door was lying in the bedroom. So he planned to go to the professor again to see and wanted to talk about the slate.

The professor had no class today, and the only thing he had to do was to write a paper at home. After Jenkins knocked on the door for the third time today, he looked very busy, so Jenkins apologized for interrupting him and did not go in.

"I recently met a friend who is a gifter. She has done a very deep study of similar strange antiquities and is also proficient in ancient knowledge. She may have a deep understanding of the meaning of the Moon of Flowing Fire you mentioned last time. Maybe you can go and ask her for advice, but remember to disguise your identity. She is an unregistered gifter."

The nickname of this friend introduced by the professor is Miss Magic. There is no accident that there is a duplicate name. This is the lady Jenkins knows.

He thought about it and thought that it was okay now, so he followed the professor's instructions and went to where Miss Magic might be. Because the professor and Miss Magic got along very well in studying the history of elves, Miss Magic gave the professor her contact information.

That was a more convenient contact method than the fake address Jenkins knew, because the professor knew that she could be found in a building in the city every weekday afternoon.

It was in the remote and quiet wealthy area in the east of the city. Jenkins looked up at the five-story building and hesitated to think whether it should be called a tower.

The buildings nearby were sparse. After turning from the path over there, there was a large distance between the scattered buildings. This place was close to the suburbs.

Someone answered the door soon after knocking. As expected, it was a strange face. This was Miss Magic's disguise. Jenkins had seen her real face before.

"What's the matter, guest?"

"Guest?"

Jenkins hesitated for a moment, suspecting that he had gone to the wrong place. The woman inside the door immediately knew that the other party was not her customer, and then saw the cat on his shoulder that looked very alert.

"Oh, it's Mr. Candle, please come in, I thought it was the guest who made an appointment last week."

"Is this your shop?"

Jenkins followed the woman in and saw all kinds of strange things scattered on the first floor, such as broken crystal balls, smeared fortune-telling cards, and feathers of unknown birds.

Looking up, you can see the roof of this five-story building. All floors except the first floor are connected by circular corridors.

It is very dark here, the curtains are all drawn, and the light comes from the crystal chandelier hanging from the roof and flush with the third floor. I don't know what kind of candles Miss Magic used, the light they emit is dim blue.

"Yes, I provide some occult consultation and services here, this is my main business."

"Isn't your main business the detective agency in the city?"

Jenkins complained in his heart, and then followed her into the office on the first floor. Compared with the mysterious decoration in the lobby outside, this place is much more normal.

"I won't ask how you found it, anyway, you people have always been powerful. But I'm not always here. I will open the door from 3 to 5 pm from Monday to Saturday. After all, things are rare and valuable...Okay, let's talk about business, Mr. Candle, why do you, a busy person like you, find me?"

She sat behind the large desk, and Jenkins sat in the comfortable soft chair diagonally opposite the desk.

"I'm not a busy person. I've been very free recently. As for finding you, it's for this."

He said, reaching behind his back, paused for three seconds, and took out a book-sized slate.

Miss Magic tilted her head slightly, and didn't see where it was taken out from.

"This is carved from ordinary stone, but judging from the patterns on the surface, it doesn't seem that simple. I have asked someone to translate these cat claw-like marks on it, which mean [poem] and [disaster]."

"Oh? Why do I seem to have heard of something similar?"

Miss Magic muttered, and then took the heavy stone from Jenkins. She didn't wear gloves, but directly rubbed the five ring-shaped indentations with her fingertips.

"So this is it."

"You know?"

"Of course I know."

The woman answered confidently, and then saw the deep suspicion on Jenkins' face.

In fact, it's not Jenkins's fault for being suspicious. After all, even the Sage Church couldn't be sure what it was, and knowledgeable people like Alexia and Miss Audrey couldn't identify it. And Miss Magic was able to give the answer just by looking at it and touching it, so he had reason not to believe it.

"This is the Disaster Poem. I bet you won't find anyone who knows more about it than me on the entire West Coast. This involves a secret of my sect. Except for those who believe in the Lord like me, you can probably only try your luck in the temple library of Beldiran - if you can get in."

"Well... so what is this?"

Jenkins asked hesitantly.

Miss Magic didn't answer directly, but shook her head first, then twisted her fingers at Jenkins:

"We are friends, so I can give you a very favorable price."

Chapter 1293 Chapter 1272 Poets and Poems

Miss Magic didn't ask Jenkins for money, but talked about the Pirate King again. She has already started to prepare, but she is not sure how many people she can gather now, so she must ensure that she has reliable helpers.

So, if Jenkins can promise now that he will show up at that time, then she can tell Jenkins what the Disaster Poem is immediately.

"Of course, if you can find your 'friends', I can even reveal some secrets that cannot be told."

She should be referring to the believers of lies like "Mr. Candle".

If Jenkins really found those people, he would certainly be willing to do so, but it was all lies.

"You don't seem to have much grudge in your heart to cooperate with people like us."

He said sarcastically.

"Why should you have grudges? Your gods don't know evil gods, and you have never killed innocent people or done evil things. You are just spreading lies, aren't you?"

Jenkins pretended to hesitate for a while, and then promised to participate in Miss Magic's "Pirate King Femmeshu Crusade". Miss Magic kept her promise. After coughing, she asked a question:

"Do you know the mad poet Cavendish?"

"If you are talking about the famous mad poet in the 15th era, I know...but is his name Cavendish? I don't know."

"That's him. The Disaster Poem is related to him. Mr. Candle, I don't know how much you know about the madman who lived nearly ten thousand years ago, but there is one fact you must first understand. The mad poet Cavendish and I share the same beliefs."

Jenkins really didn't expect this. He adjusted his sitting posture and prepared to listen to a wonderful story.