The Divine Hunter

Dark tomb.

The two witchers clenched their silver swords back-to-back, intently on their guard.

The flames were crumbling, shining out a few lingering blue shadows.

They kept flashing from mid-air, uttering short, hollow howls, then quickly disappearing into the shadows, ghostly and elusive.

The witcher tried his best to capture the cyan color, and the demon spirits flickered and appeared, but they appeared accompanied by the surging air and the whistling wind, and there were traces to follow.

After feeling it carefully for a moment, the bald man's eyes sank, he gestured with four fingers behind his back, and lightly touched his companion behind him - both hands clasped the alchemy bomb around his waist by coincidence.

"Bang, bang,"

A dull sound erupted, white phosphorous flashed, and a dazzling dust rose up in the tomb. Then, four blue-headed demon spirits emerged from the air. Their translucent bodies flickered erratically, but they were captured by the moon dust. Tightly bound, unable to hide.

Roy held Arrondette horizontally and jumped forward to approach the two demon spirits.

Then, centering on his left toe, he deflected his body and slashed out a heavy sword.

But lacking the suppression of the seal of Arden, the demon spirit showed extraordinary speed, and the translucent body fluttered back lightly to avoid the witcher's blade, and then took advantage of the gap between the opponent's exhaustion and left and right. Counterattack in a double-team situation!

The demon spirit fell to the ground like a meteor, and rushed to Roy from top to bottom. At the same time, its body was spinning like a spinning top. The lanterns and daggers in both hands turned into sharp serrations, constantly scraping the blade in the witcher's hand. With chaotic sparks, and a series of sour rubbing noises.

Roy only felt the tiger's mouth go numb, and the blade almost came out of his hand. He took advantage of the situation and quickly retreated. He nimbly took two consecutive steps toward the side, crossing with his companions behind him.

The bald man took over his opponent.

Roy took a deep breath, grabbed Gabriel with his left hand, and shot an arrow at the ghost wandering alone in the distance.

Ripples appeared in the space, his body turned into nothingness, and in the next second, he appeared strangely behind the lonely third demon spirit.

"Swish, swish, swish!" Arrondette, covered in sword oil, swiped several times in a row like lightning, slashing across the unsuspecting neck, chest, abdomen, and lower limbs of the demon spirit.

The latter screamed unwillingly and turned into smoke.

The witcher didn't have time to catch his breath, and another gust of wind was blowing in the dark corridor. He quickly deflected the blade to block it, and immediately felt a pain in his left shoulder - the sneak attacking demon directly pierced the seal of Kunn, and placed it on his shoulder. There was blood on it.

"Damn!" Roy struggled to swing away the demon spirit in front of him with a sword, glanced at the wound, and the wound rolled like a baby's mouth, and it hurt just looking at it.

But the long-term tempering between life and death made him calm down quickly. Instead of rushing forward recklessly, he skillfully used swordsmanship and seals to deal with it, grinding the last monster alive.

"Kill the demon spirit, experience +60, witcher LV5 (1060/3500)"

Lesso's battle also came to an end, and he was slowly returning his two swords to the sheath. The two demon spirits failed to cause him any damage, but his shortness of breath, physical strength and magic power consumed most of it.

"Little devil, how are you hurt?"

Roy put some marigold medicine on the wound on his own, and immediately felt a sharp sting and frowned, but after the pain, an extreme coolness spread quickly, and he moved his shoulders again. "Skin trauma, nothing serious."

"That's good..." Leto crouched down and started cleaning the battlefield.

"This is the fifth wave of demon spirit attacks we have encountered, and there is still no whereabouts of Cogrim."

"Come on," Dahan paused, looking at the dark corridor ahead, a look of sadness on his face, "We can only penetrate into this tomb safely by fighting side by side, but Cogrim walked here alone. The magic and physical energy are almost exhausted. Besides, according to the tomb composition we have seen before, there are a total of fifteen tombs in the tomb, and this is the eleventh...

"Let's rest for a while and refresh ourselves. Hopefully there won't be any big guys in the end."

...

The road that followed was unexpectedly calm, and the two did not encounter any demon spirits blocking the road.

The fifteenth burial chamber, twice the size of the previous burial chambers, contains four sarcophagi in the center, where the immediate blood relatives of the contemporary lord Ignacio Veliris are buried within two generations.

Strangely though, after a cursory look at it, the witcher didn't see any exposed bones, and Cogrim's body was still missing.

The two of them glanced at the coffins in the tomb.

"Could it be that Cogrim is lying in—inside?" Roy's voice was slightly hollow, and he couldn't think of any other possibility.

"You and I both understand that demon spirits have no hobby of collecting dead bodies. They can't deliberately put killed people into coffins."

"What's the matter?"

"Shh—" Leto gestured, "Listen carefully..."

"Hu-hu-"

"This is... the wind?"

Suddenly, a gust of cold wind blew through the corridor outside the tomb, and it sounded as if someone was whistling strangely in the shadows in the distance.

The fire in the tomb shook violently, and the shadows of the two witchers on the wall seemed to be pulled by an invisible big hand, suddenly growing and shortening.

A suffocating silence.

Roy couldn't help shrinking his neck, and subconsciously put a Quinn seal on himself.

"It's night outside?"

"I always feel that something is wrong, be careful..." Leto urged, "Check the tomb and don't move any coffins."

...

Leto was in charge of the coffins on the outer walls, while Roy inspected the four coffins in the central area.

Working on the first coffin, he found an anomaly.

It was a thin line across the gray-white surface of the coffin, very thin and shallow, and you would definitely miss it if you were not careful. Roy quickly determined that it was a sword mark, but the strength of the initiator was extremely small, or the strength had declined to the point where it was barely visible.

"John Villiers, 1206-1255, aged forty-nine, of tuberculosis. Son: Ignacio Villiers...Wife: Mary Villiers."

"It seems that this coffin is the father of the contemporary lord." Roy continued to browse.

"Mary Viriles, 1210-1259, at the age of forty-nine, died in childbirth..." This was the lord's mother.

"Florian Veliris, 1243-1257, at the age of fourteen, died of asphyxiation..." This was the son of the lord.

"All the parents and sons died, Ignatius is this bad retribution?"

Roy muttered.

There was no name on the last coffin, and no date of birth and death was recorded, only the words, "My poor child, didn't have time to look at the world, and fell asleep forever."

Whose child is the nameless coffin, and why is there no record at all?

Roy rubbed his temples and gradually forgot his fear, "I didn't have time to take a look at the world, which means that he died at birth? Could it be that he was the child of Mary Villiers, and Mary died in childbirth and even the child died. already?"

The more Roy thought about it, the more it made sense. He focused on checking the dates of several coffins, and then accidentally deduced another surprising fact.

"The lord's mother, Mary, died in childbirth in 1259, but the lord's father, John Sr., was gone in 1255. No doubt - Mary cheated, conceived someone else's child, and cuckolded Sr. John."

"It's a pity that she didn't survive, because she was too old and her body was too old, and she died of dystocia."

Roy was still pondering, but Leto had already checked the surroundings and found nothing.

"Did you find any clues?"

"Come quietly, I found an interesting situation."

...

After listening to Roy's story, Leto disagreed.

"The lord's wife's private life is rotten, and it's normal to have a little romance. But don't pay attention to these boring things!"

"I also found a clue!" Roy pointed out a few sword marks from the coffin, "Just around here, who did Cogrim fight with?"

Following the sword marks, the two found a path left by the human body crawling against the ground between the coffins, but after a long time, it almost disappeared. Only the witcher's paranormal perception can detect it.

This path leads all the way to the coffin of Marie Verrières.

"I have a hunch that Cogrim's body is inside..." Roy muttered to himself, and Leto gestured at him, and the two surrounded Mary's coffin.

Then, Leto slammed into the coffin board. With a sound of "Jong--", the coffin was opened, and the two of them bowed their bodies as if they were facing a formidable enemy. The French seal in his hand is ready to go, but after waiting for a while, there is no movement.

They glanced at it, and in the coffin lay a corpse alone. He was wearing a tattered black leather armor, and the exposed part was completely boned and could not be identified.

The clothes on the corpse were almost torn into strips of cloth, and the chest, abdomen and sleeves were full of holes, and it was obvious that they had been attacked intensively. Next to the body was a long sword.

It has a one-line sword grid, the sword body is slender, and the central sword ridge slightly bulges outwards, forming a triangular straight line with the sword blades on both sides.

It has been covered by dust for two years, and it is a little dusty and not so conspicuous.

Leto picked up the sword, held the hilt in one hand, held the tip of the sword slantingly in the other, tilted his head and observed along the ridge of the sword for a moment, then put it down and sighed.

"The steel sword that the old man is used to."

"Is he Cogrim?" Roy remained vigilant.

Lesso didn't answer, and silently picked up the pendant on the chest of the corpse, shaking it in front of his eyes, a delicate snake shape.

Then he picked up a shin bone of his lower leg and weighed it in his hand. "The bone density of a witcher is half higher than that of ordinary people, and it is much heavier. Even after two years, you can still recognize the difference."

"How did Cogrim die?"

"There are no obvious scars on the bones, I can't see it now..."

Lesso said that he took the whole corpse out of the coffin, and checked it carefully. From the cloth bag on his waist, he found a drawing of animal skin and a yellowed letter.

"Sincerely: Ivar Evil Eye, Master Witcher of the Viper School.

I have now found the blueprints that were said to have belonged to our school, but now I'm having a little trouble. On my way back to the castle, I spent the night in a small village in the countryside of Temeria, and the goddamn villagers took me as a scapegoat for kidnapping some beekeeper's kid. "

"They put me in the local lord's castle for interrogation, and they found and confiscated a blueprint. But don't worry, I'll get it back, they haven't found any other blueprints.

I cite the local legal system of Temeria, and demand that it be tried and judged instead of being dictated by the will of the sergeant. My request was accepted, and tomorrow I will enter the Sir's family crypt and purge it of evil spirits.

I don't expect any problems, maybe you have received this letter and I have returned to the castle. Let's light up the furnaces, Letho, Oaks, Serrit - I'm getting ready to forge!

Cogrim"

"Cogrim."

Lesuo murmured, and there was a hint of water in Amber's eyes. He took out a bottle of spirits from the space ring,

"Brother, I'll take you home... First toast to you..." With his rocky arms raised, the big man "gulugulu" drank half the bottle.

With his mouth full of alcohol, he sprinkled the remaining half of the bottle of wine in front of him.

For a while, in the quiet tomb, there was only the sound of "prickling" and spirits spilling over the bones.

Roy clenched the blueprint of the animal skin tightly, staring at the scene in front of him, with a trace of unspeakable sadness in his heart.

This is where most witchers end up - buried in a foreign land, turned into a handful of nameless bones, not even a tombstone.

The two stared at the remains side by side and observed a few minutes of silence.

Then, the boy's gaze swept across the empty coffin, suddenly, his pupils shrank and his back became cold.

Only Cogrim was in the coffin, so—

"Where did Mary's body go?"