章 92: Xio's Encounter
After leaving Darkwill's herb store, Ebner went to the Harvest Church in South Borough again. He asked Bishop Utravsky about the progress of Dr. Leonardo's incident, but all he got was the result of the doctor's still unknown whereabouts.
"There's no need to be in such a rush, child. The elite of the Holy Cathedral, the Forsaken One, still needs a few days to arrive in Backlund. Before that, it's not suitable for the Church's personnel to expose too much. After all, from the intelligence of many aspects, perhaps the Loen military is also involved in this matter," Bishop Utravsky explained with a smile.
As a bishop of Earth Mother, don't you think you've said too much to a heretic like me? Don't you think I'm an outsider now?
Ebner grumbled to himself, but on the surface, he was intrigued by an unfamiliar term. "The Forsaken?" Whether it was in the original novel or in his experience since his transmigration, he had never heard the term before.
"The Forsaken are the Mother Goddess's loyal guards in the mortal world, similar to the Nighthawks of the Church of Evernight and the Mandated Punishers of the Church of Storms," Bishop Utravsky explained.
Ebner immediately understood. He compared the Nighthawks who had appeared the most in his mind and guessed that the so-called elite "Barrens" should be a special official team similar to the Red Gloves.
Since there was no news, for the time being, Ebner didn't delay in the Harvest Church. He took the subway to the rented house in East Borough.
He had arranged to meet Xio here when they parted yesterday.
Ebner rested in his room for about half an hour before there was a knock on the door. He opened the door and saw Xio with her messy hair.
Ebner looked at her shoulder-length yellow hair, which was obviously very clean, and deliberately ruffled until it was messy. He smiled and teased, "Why didn't you take care of it? Must you do this?"
Xio glanced at him and replied, "There's no need… I've already set up my own jurisdiction in the East Borough. It's actually very inconvenient to dress up too well."
The Sheriff's powers were always linked to they "jurisdiction." The more familiar a place was, the more effective it was. Once it exceeded the range, one could only rely on Beyonder powers.
Ebner knew this very well, so he didn't continue on the topic. Instead, he turned around and walked to the center of the house, holding a ritual that had been prepared there. He used it to construct a wall of spirituality to seal the entire room.
From Xio's words yesterday, he could guess how troublesome the matter she encountered in East Chester was. And his own situation involved too many secrets. Under such circumstances, he naturally had to build a safe environment for them to converse.
Xio quietly watched Ebner finish the ritual before saying, "Actually, the day after you left, I settled down with my mother and brother, but when I returned to Storn to purchase the steam locomotive ticket, I happened to encounter Mr. Vernal."
"Vernal?" Ebner recalled who Xio was referring to and asked, "Mr. Vernal on the White Agate?"
"That's right, it's him." Xio nodded and continued, "At that time, he, his wife, Katrina, and their two daughters were hunted down…"
"So you were embroiled in a very terrifying incident?" Ebner knew very well that with Xio's sense of justice, she definitely wouldn't stand idly by when a child was being hunted down. Otherwise, she wouldn't have become the famous Arbiter of East Borough who stood up for the poor before learning of the "acting method."
"Yes… It was on the outskirts of the city. Their family was pursued by a monster formed from white fog. Their son, Lott, was devoured by the smoke because he ran a little slower. He disappeared without a trace… And the smoke gave me a very bad feeling. It's as though I can't control my powers just by looking at it." Even though it had been a few days, Xio still felt frightened when she recalled the smoke.
She was definitely not a timid girl, but this "fear" seemed to originate from her soul.
"White smoke…" Although Ebner couldn't recall something he had confirmed back in Sefirah Castle, he still deduced based on the clues he had. "I remember Mr. Vernal once said that he was an archaeologist. He returned to East Chester this time because his student dug up an ancient ruin in the Hornacis mountain range… Did his student bring that smoke out from the ruins?"
"Your guess is very correct… It's precisely because Mr. Vernal's student was originally an ordinary person that even though he was contaminated by the very high-level smoke, his means were still very limited. I was able to help them temporarily escape the assault of the smoke monsters." Xio hesitated for a moment before finally saying, "Of course, it's also thanks to the thing that the dragon I encountered in my dream left on me…"
She hesitated not because she wanted to hide it, but because the matter had already been resolved and she did not want to say it out loud to make her friends worry.
"What is it?" Ebner asked with a frown. He even felt that it was more troublesome than the white mist.
"I don't know." Xio shook her head and continued her story. "Although I managed to escape calamity with Vernal and his family, for the time being, I was surrounded by the fog in a village. Due to the lack of means and something on me, the smoke monster couldn't deal with me. However, I didn't have the ability to break out with a few ordinary people… Therefore, I had no choice but to consume the potion ahead of time and advance to Sheriff, hoping to rely on my new Beyonder powers to sense the weak point of the smoke seal…"
"It looks like you didn't get your wish," Ebner said with certainty. After all, the smoke was dug out from the Fourth Epoch ruins. How could a mere Sequence 8 sense its weakness?
Xio was already accustomed to Ebner's powers of "reasoning". She could immediately "understand" matters without any clues, much less give him so many details. Therefore, she wasn't surprised by his "prophecy." She nodded and said,
"We were saved by a powerful lady."
"Lady? An official Beyonder?" Ebner asked after some thought.
"I'm not sure. That lady… She's just as irascible and repulsive as your Solomon gold coin." Xio frowned when she said this, as though she couldn't accept such aesthetic taste just from recalling it.
"Asymmetrical as my gold coin?" Ebner instantly raised his opinion of the lady who had saved Xio. If she was really a remnant of the Solomon Empire, she was at least a powerful demigod.
"Yes! That lady is very beautiful herself. She's… very tall, but she's wearing a long dress that's split into two. One side is complicated, the other is simple. The other side is filled with many colors, while the other side is pure black. The boots on her feet are the same. One of the front ends is pointed and curled, while the other is similar to the current popular round-headed boots. They seem to belong to two people…" Xio described with an awkward expression.
This was really the style of the Solomon Empire… Could it be that this lady was also dug out from the ruins by Vernal's students?
While Ebner was deep in thought, Xio continued, "After the lady retracted all the fog into a bottle, she came to me and used some unknown method to take a ball of light from my forehead… I don't know what it is, but my intuition tells me that it's something the ancient dragon left on me."
"Perhaps… the ancient dragon wanted to borrow your hand to pass something to this lady…" Ebner had seen many tools and had some experience. He had some understanding of the methods of some big shots.
"You guessed it again… That lady said she wouldn't let me hand over the item for nothing… Therefore, she gave me the potion formula for Sequence 7 Interrogator. By the way, I'll need Detective Stanton's help to appraise it." As Xio spoke, she took out a piece of goatskin parchment with different colors and styles. On it were written in ancient Hermes and dragon characters.
This must be the late stages of obsessive-compulsive disorder… Ebner felt that this style alone wouldn't be fake. Who would make such a crazy fake?
After grumbling in his heart, Ebner thought for a moment and asked again, "Did you ask Mr. Vernal what's buried in the ruins of the ruins dug out by the Hornacis mountain range?"
"Of course, but Mr. Vernal actually doesn't know much… He only heard a name when he was being pursued by the white fog."
"That name is…"
"Tamara!"
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