Whispering Poems.

Chapter 353 The Big Event - The Shadow of Cold Water Harbor

After serving the dishes, the servants left one after another, leaving only the middle-aged head maid and two older maids standing by.Leiziya signaled to Xia De that it is safe to talk here, and the two of them ate, and then they talked about the morning's affairs.

"The Scarlet Esotericism seems to have infiltrated Coldwater Harbor long ago, and even the establishment of the city is related to them. Those murlocs and cultists have always existed in the shadow of Coldwater Harbor, but no one has discovered this. I think they appeared first. I am afraid that those mermaid statues are the ones they spread out."

This is Xia De's conclusion based on the clues he found in the morning.

"But what exactly are they trying to do?"

Princess Rezia asked in confusion. She only took a small amount of food, probably because she was not used to eating too much at noon:

"The sea return ceremony can basically confirm the steps. So what is the purpose of the ceremony itself? The last sentence of the nursery rhyme involves sacrifice, which is very disturbing."

She didn't say the word "evil god" in front of the servant, but Xia De understood her meaning, and said while manipulating the knife and fork unskillfully:
"This time is different from that in Tobesk. The church missed once half a month ago in Tobesk, and there will be no accident this time anyway. All we can do now is wait for the news, and you The problem."

Shad said very cautiously:

"The captain who played cards with me said that as long as the red ocean appears, you will be prevented from entering it. After the ceremony is over, the curse will naturally disappear. Then it means that when the red ocean appears, there is a high probability that you will be mentally affected. Influenced, unconsciously walked into the sea."

The so-called "sacrifice" should not be the selection of individual individuals, but all the people infected with the curse will eventually appear in the Red Sea, staggering on the beach, and then step into the ocean together.This kind of scene makes one's scalp tingle just thinking about it.

Leaving Coldwater Harbor was the first plan to be ruled out. Once this type of curse left the ceremony site, the curse might explode immediately.As for suppressing curse-type relics, Leiziya already has sage-level ruby ​​earrings and a Yves Saint Laurent ring bought at the coastal lighthouse.

After asking for help from the Zarath Academy of Letters, the academy was also able to lend some relics against the curse.And Xia De thinks that the safest solution is to let him stay by Leizia's side when the Red Sea appears.

Although he is only a second-ring warlock who can't do anything, if the curse itself is really related to the power of God, then Xia De's presence will make it easy to solve many things that ordinary people cannot do.

"So the difficulty we are facing now is that we don't know how the progress of the ceremony will be after the pirate ship is driven away by you, and when will the red ocean appear again."

Rezia briefly summed it up, while Xia De frowned slightly:

"It will definitely be resolved in a week. I have a very good fortune-teller friend. She predicted that among the male ring magicians who encountered pirates with us, one of them will leave for Tobesk in a week. At that time, the curse The problem must have been solved.”

It rained all day in Lengshuigang. Because of what happened in the morning, Xia De did not leave Sophia's mansion this afternoon in order to avoid the limelight, but waited for news here.

Xia De's moonlight attracted the attention of the Church of Peace. Although the other party was called the "Church of Peace", its full name was actually the "Church of War and Peace". In theory, it was the most powerful church among the Five Gods.The murloc stronghold on that ancient street is probably a thing of the past.

Leiziya entertained Xia De well in the mansion, and after dinner, took him to spend the afternoon in the study.

She has a lot of official documents to deal with, and most of the adult princesses and princes of the Cavendish family will be assigned some government work by the king.This is also the reason why the outside world generally believes that when the king is old in decades, there will be big problems in the struggle for the throne.

The study in Sophia's mansion is about the same size as the study of Larus III that Shad saw in the Yodel Palace.The walls of the empty room are covered with bookshelves, and a desk is placed in the center of the room, and there is a sofa set for guests at the door.

This is the preference of the current king, who likes empty rooms.

Rezia dealt with the matter in hand, while Xia De was allowed to choose books at random from the bookshelf to read.The dazzling array of books are mostly related to politics, economy and history. Shade finally chose the semi-official publication "The Secret History of Cavendish".

This is a narrative literature describing the origin and history of the Cavendish family, through which one can effectively understand the development and prosperity of Delarion.

Of course, Xia De still has a lot of things left this week. He "wasted" this afternoon reading by Leiziya's side, mainly to inquire about the follow-up news related to the Scarlet Esoteric Cult.

Their actions this morning were not tracked down by the church, but the cultists who used the ancient streets of Nancheng District as their base were in bad luck.One of the ring magicians, Mr. Jude, was killed by Shade, and only one of the remaining four ring magicians escaped successfully.

Most of the humanoid fish-headed creatures that fled from the ancient street were caught by the Church.According to the information the princess got, there were at least [-] transformed targets on that street.And, conceivably, there are more in Coldwater Harbor.

Some of these monsters with strong self-healing ability in water can switch between human appearance and murloc appearance, but most of the human appearances are extremely ugly.After the operation in the morning, the Church of the Five Gods directly cooperated with Lengshui Port officials to launch a large-scale search of the entire city.

But this is not Tobesk, which is controlled by a large number of troops and police. Searching in this free port is indeed useful, but it is hard to say how much it will be useful.

The Church linked those murloc monsters, the Scarlet Esoteric Cult, the Return of the Sea Ritual, and the Curse of the Mermaid, and officially named this event "The Shadow Over Cold Water Harbor in 1853".This represents the cult that has infiltrated the city's shadows and has remained hidden since the port's founding.

After a gun battle with the murlocs in the rain, the Church of Peace successfully occupied Kesham Lane and Jude's Mansion.

Through the captives captured and the documents left in Mr. Jude's safe, the Church has more information about the "Sea Return" ceremony.With a powerful intelligence network and a strong ability to search for information, he has a comprehensive understanding of what the cultists hiding in the city are going to do.

Therefore, before dinner that evening, Xia De and Rezia obtained a total of three important pieces of information through the information from the "informed person" installed by the royal family in the church.

First of all, the specific number of ring warlocks who encountered the "fishbone pirate ship" at sea with them on Monday night has been determined, a total of 13 people.In addition to "John Watson" and "Miss Princess", two of the other 11 people have been found by the church.Through the descriptions of these sensible people, the church further learned what happened on the ship, and knew the clothes of the ring warlocks who participated in the auction that day.

But those two male warlocks should not be the second chosen ones, because the church is still actively looking for the remaining unidentified people with unreasonable "enthusiasm", and is actively investigating the sudden appearance in Coldwater Harbor from Monday Ring Warlocks, they do this because they want to exclude competitors.

Secondly, the ancient text of the "Sea Return" ceremony was found from the library of the Holy See, which created the church. This ceremony is not the god-calling ceremony that Shad was worried about.

"I knew it, how could I be summoning the evil god wherever I went."

This was Xia De's opinion when he sat at the desk and listened to Leizia read the letter.With a relaxed smile on his face, Her Highness the Princess glanced at him with emerald green eyes, and said decisively:
"Even if it's not the worst case, if this ritual is successful, the consequences will be no less than the appearance of the evil god."

At the beginning of the Sixth Era, when Lengshuigang was not Lengshuigang, the influence of the Orthodox Church did not reach here. At that time, there were three different cult beliefs in the local area, namely [God of the Drowned in the Deep Sea] [Lord of the Scarlet Spiral] ] and [Furious Storm].

The three gods are all inextricably linked to the ocean. While the believers are fighting each other, the common culture also infiltrates each other, allowing the cultists in Binhai to develop very similar customs and even very similar extraordinary abilities.Strictly speaking, the "Sea Return Ceremony" is a ritual that all believers of the three evil gods can use, but the specific corresponding steps are subtly different.

The function of this ceremony is to wake up the power left by the gods in the deep sea by sacrificing mortals contaminated with the power of the gods after the arrival of the red ocean, thereby summoning the tide to submerge the city, turning the cold water port from a seaport into an underwater city.

The Scarlet Esoteric Cult was not a temporary idea, they have been planning for this purpose for many years.The evidence is that while the four main steps of the ritual correspond to nursery rhymes, there are numerous other nuances that take decades to prepare.

The murlocs hiding in the shadow of Lengshui Harbor have been making plans, but it just happened to be the final step this summer.

This is a veritable large-scale ceremony, which is hard to see in the material world.The reason why the Scarlet Esoteric Cult wants to hold the ceremony is because since the establishment of Coldwater Port, they have transformed and developed too many fish-like creatures on land.

They need a new habitat, but while gaining power, the murlocs are bound by the ancient contract signed by their ancestors and gods, and cannot leave the cold water port where their ancestors lived.Therefore, it was decided to call upon the power left by the gods in the deep sea, and let the sea flood the city, so that the terrifying murlocs could occupy and live here forever.

"The good news is that this incident is only related to the ancient local cult belief Scarlet Esotericism, and has nothing to do with the other two ancient beliefs, so this time the church will deal with only those who have developed and hidden in Coldwater Harbor for nearly a thousand years. murloc population."

Leiziya said, seeing that Xia De was a little puzzled and wanted to ask questions, she explained to the outsider who only had a career as a moon ring warlock:

"Only the secret religion of the guardian of the terrifying murloc population [Scarlet Spiral Lord] has the tradition of transforming family members through rituals and magic.

Most of the believers of the evil god [God of the Drowned in the Deep Sea] are human ring warlocks who manipulate the undead 'floating corpses of the drowned'. The followers of the evil god [Furious Storm] have nothing to do with marine life populations.Therefore, only the murlocs would want to submerge Coldwater Harbor by the sea, and we don't have to worry about this incident being related to other sects. "

(End of this chapter)