38: Chapter 38 Strange Formation

Nie Ning held up his torch and looked around, discovering that this was indeed a basement built of stone, with only one passage.

The entire space was about four meters wide and five meters long; the floor was very clean, and there were many unburned candles on the ground.

Smelling the lingering scent of blood in the air, Nie Ning looked beneath the stones.

Although obscured by fallen rubble, he could faintly make out what appeared to be a drawing.

Seeing this, Nie Ning kicked the stones away and then gave the ground a quick cleaning.

It was a circular black array, or rather, an array drawn in blood.

The bloodstains had already dried, and there were some charred objects in the center.

Combined with the surrounding candles, it had quite the air of a sacrificial ritual.

Although he didn't know much about runes, Nie Ning had previously flipped through relevant books and could barely make out the meaning of a few of them.

Among them, he could vaguely identify runes representing darkness and blood.

But upon closer inspection, it seemed that, influenced by some power, the runes were twisted and deformed, as if they didn't mean what he understood them to mean.

The remaining runes were the same; it was impossible to discern their meaning at all.

Seeing that he couldn't understand the meaning, Nie Ning didn't dwell on the array before him.

Scanning the basement, he called out to Borton above, then proceeded toward the only exit, wanting to see where the door to the basement was located.

But as he walked, Nie Ning discovered something wrong.

He had already walked hundreds of meters, yet he still hadn't reached the end of the tunnel; this was clearly beyond the scope of the villa.

And...

Nie Ning sensed a fluctuation of blood and energy behind him, spun around abruptly, and kicked Quis in the knee.

Facing Nie Ning's terrifying strength, Quis fell to his knees in pain, and was immediately grabbed by the throat by Nie Ning.

Nie Ning had originally thought Quis wanted to ambush him, but looking at Quis's bloodshot eyes, it seemed that wasn't the case.

Quis glared with wide eyes and began to struggle, his massive fist smashing toward Nie Ning's face.

Nie Ning didn't humor Quis; this guy had disliked him ever since they were at the agency.

He easily swatted away the incoming fist and followed up by slapping Quis twice, causing Quis's eyes to clear up.

"Wh... what happened?"

Quis asked while struggling and patting Nie Ning's hand.

Seeing that Quis had sobered up, Nie Ning released his grip and threw Quis to the ground.

"I should be the one asking what happened to you. Your eyes were red and you tried to attack me; I thought you were possessed by a ghost."

"I..."

Quis rubbed his neck and tried to recall, seemingly having fallen into a trance after seeing the array on the ground.

"That array must have a problem!"

As he spoke, Quis added somewhat guiltily, "It wasn't me who wanted to attack you."

Nie Ning didn't pay attention to Quis, but instead thought about that array.

With his current strength, his short-term memory almost never made mistakes.

But when he tried to recall the array, he found that he couldn't remember the runes on it at all.

Strange!

Very strange!

Since he couldn't figure it out, Nie Ning couldn't be bothered to keep thinking about it.

Anyway, when he went back, he would go find the Guard; it was better to let others handle this kind of thing.

"Let's keep going, and see where the end of this tunnel is first."

...

The two continued along the tunnel, and after walking about a kilometer, a glimmer of light appeared before them.

Nie Ning walked to the entrance, only to have his path blocked by several large stones.

Relying on their extraordinary physiques, the two quickly moved the stones aside. Upon exiting the passage, they discovered a stream in front of them, while behind them was the forest where the villa was located.

Furthermore, along the way, Nie Ning had noticed many footprints of the same size on the ground.

Clearly, someone had set up an array under the villa to lure Mrs. Terry's husband over to commit suicide.

Since they knew it was man-made, there was no need for the agency to be involved further; reporting it directly to the Guard Hall would naturally lead to others handling it.

Immediately, Nie Ning and Quis returned the way they came and informed Mrs. Terry of their findings.

"Thank you, I knew he wouldn't commit suicide, thank you..."

After learning the full story, Mrs. Terry, with teary eyes, held Nie Ning's hand and thanked him repeatedly in a choked voice.

"My condolences."

Nie Ning offered words of comfort, but his mind had already drifted elsewhere.

'It seems I need to dig up those bandit corpses and burn them when I get back; otherwise, it would be bad if someone came looking for them.'

Although those people deserved it, this was a society ruled by law, and killing people indiscriminately was bad behavior; he had to eliminate any possibility of being discovered from the root.

'Yes, right, that's it; once burned, it'll be fine.'

...

Afterward, the group returned to the villa area and brought in the Guard to reveal everything they had discovered in the forest.

Before leaving, Nie Ning didn't forget to inform them of the serious consequences caused by the array, so as to avoid anyone being affected by the array and doing bad things.

With this, the case was concluded, and Mrs. Terry brought out the promised reward.

5 gold coins!

Even though he viewed money as dirt, Nie Ning had to marvel at these people's generosity.

After all, he had only spent a little over three hours, yet the earnings had already caught up to the two Three-Colored Foxes he had captured previously.

But one had to know, there weren't many Three-Colored Foxes in the entire Wantai Forest; it was entirely relying on luck, and usually, there wasn't that much of a harvest.

...

On the carriage back, Borton stroked the gold coins in his hand, his face full of excitement.

"See? How easy; isn't the money here now?"

"It's not like you've never seen money before; is there a need to be so happy?"

Nie Ning was speechless at Borton.

The two had known each other for so long, and the transaction amounts far exceeded these five gold coins; just the darsya grass from last time was worth at least 10 gold coins.

"You don't know shit!"

Borton was immediately unhappy upon hearing this.

"This is the agency's first order; it's significant!"

Nie Ning couldn't be bothered to respond to Borton; at this moment, his thoughts returned to Mrs. Terry's husband.

Because he hadn't found the source of that strange malice; Mrs. Terry's husband seemed to have only been tainted by a trace of it.

If the array was excluded, that mysterious creature was very likely still lingering nearby!

However, this was just a hypothesis; it was also possible it was still related to the array.

After a little thought, Nie Ning decided to come back and check at night.

If Mrs. Terry's husband was truly possessed, it would be impossible for a normal person's weak physique to defeat him, but he could obtain another soul body similar to a Human-Faced Balloon.

As for the constant Malice Perception, that only proved the power of the Human-Faced Balloon.

As long as he was careful, there shouldn't be any major problems; after all, he hadn't had any accidents for such a long time, right? The only drawback was that it was a bit annoying.