This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!

Chapter 71: Chapter 071: Message in Front of the Door

“I don’t know him, he might be from a different department,” Chen Ke said.

“Do they have an HCP department at the Administration Bureau? What does that do?” Parker, now fully convinced that Chen Ke was an agent of the Administration Bureau, shifted from the experienced demeanor he had initially presented in the building to more of a younger brother role.

“HCP… uh… yes… they are special… external combat… and intelligence search troops…” Chen Ke bluffed.

“Ah… Oh…” Parker frowned, cautiously looking towards Brother Discouraged.

“This church is big. I just went downstairs for a look. Those monsters are not easy to handle without the Holy Relics, so you’d better stay here until I find a way out, then I’ll come back for you immediately,” Chen Ke explained.

The cooling time for the teleportation gate in the corner still had 1 hour and several more minutes left. He decided to go check around the outer areas of the church to see if he could find any more information about Si’s consortium’s squad and then, when the time came, open a gate and take Parker out with him.

As for Brother Discouraged, he would ask him later, and if he wasn’t normal, he wouldn’t take him.

“Okay, but these swords… are they Holy Relics? Why don’t they turn into diamonds?” Parker curiously looked at the two swords on the chair.

Chen Ke suddenly became curious too. An investigator was unable to use Holy Relics because they lacked enough Spiritual Energy to summon the relics, which are in diamond form, but in the Great Void, the relics didn’t need summoning! The swords were tangible.

“Why don’t you try picking them up?” Chen Ke suggested.

Parker was curious too. He tried to grasp the handle of the Fan Hede straight sword, but something strange happened—when his fingers touched the handle, they went right through as if the sword didn’t exist for Parker.

Parker tried a few more times, but his hand just kept passing through the two swords, landing on the bench.

“It seems the physical state of the Holy Relics is relative…” Chen Ke mused silently.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on ƝονǤο.сօ

Investigators can’t use Holy Relics; we both know that clearly,” Parker said with a smile.

He nodded, picked up the Fan Hede straight sword, and left the Fire-igniting Broadsword; it wasn’t needed for now.

“Chen Ke, do you not feel it’s a bit cold here?” Parker suddenly asked.

“Cold?”

Chen Ke was startled, and indeed it was somewhat chilly, but he was not particularly sensitive to cold or heat; in other words, the current Chen Ke wasn’t bothered by states of “cold” or “heat.”

“It does feel unusually cold here,” Chen Ke admitted, picking up the Fire-igniting Broadsword. He found a crack in the ground, inserted the sword, and then lit the blade, making it like a bonfire.

“Ah! Much warmer,” Parker approached and his face baked red from the glow of the fire.

Was the temperature of the sword really that high? Chen Ke wondered why he hadn’t noticed before…

“It can only burn for so long; I don’t know for how long. Try to find something else to burn, I’m going to go out again and will be back soon,” Chen Ke said, taking the Fan Hede straight sword with him.

This time, he decided to first check under the staircase on the left side of the hall.

Returning to the hall.

The zombies and knights he had previously killed had turned into ash. It seemed like it would not be long before these creatures would return in some way. Would they resurrect if he completed the cycle in this area?

Chen Ke was unsure.

He was now standing at the top of the staircase on the left side of the hall near the mountain wall. It led to a corridor hanging on the external side of the mountain, and a chill breeze blew straight at him from the staircase entrance.

I don’t know how these people managed to construct such a corridor on the side of a cliff hundreds of meters high, in fact, the act of carving a church into the cliff face is astounding in itself.

Chen Ke carefully stepped on the stone steps as he descended slowly, and although they looked sturdy, who knows how old this church was? Chen Ke didn’t want to die from a fall.

Fortunately, the thing he worried about didn’t happen; the somewhat scorched stone corridor under his feet was still very firm, it seems the great fire that happened here was fierce, sparing even the top of the church, hundreds of meters above.

Looking over the stone railing down below, the kingdom’s streetscape became clearer, and now Chen Ke was close enough to the sharp tops of the ground buildings, their surfaces also charred.

What had caused this historic great fire?

Chen Ke couldn’t help but think of the famous Great Fire of London. In the mid-16th century, Europe was struck by the plague, and London was one of the hardest-hit areas. Within just a few months, the city’s population was reduced by one-tenth.

Royalty, politicians, merchants, and intellectuals all evacuated from London, leaving behind the more vulnerable middle class and poor people.

Then, in the early morning of 1666, a bakery in the city caught fire. The flames rapidly spread, using the wooden structures and corpses of plague victims.

Soon, London was engulfed in flames; the fire burned for three days and nights, destroying at least half of London and 300 hectares of land were reduced to ashes.

However, this accidental fire also indirectly cleansed the city of the plague, as millions of rats and diseased poor people were burnt alive in their homes and nests, turning the plague victims’ bodies into ashes.

Chen Ke couldn’t help but connect the Great Fire of London with the Fan Hede Kingdom. Had there once been an epidemic known as the “Dark Absolute Disease” here? Perhaps the priests from the Black Ring Sect had also attempted to use a great fire to thoroughly cleanse the disease?

It made sense, for at the top of the church situated on a towering cliff, there were traces of the inferno. If it had been just a wildfire, it would have been very difficult for the flames to spread to this height.

But if the fire had been set deliberately, it made sense.

But Chen Ke hadn’t come to a conclusion yet, because because obviously, this fire had engulfed everyone in the kingdom along with it.

People were turned to ashes; only a few survivors were left whole, dead over the long years, the kingdom’s skies filled with white ashes, like the silent wails of the dead.

Had the old King Fan Hede also been turned to ashes?

Chen Ke continued forward and at the end of the corridor, he found a tightly shut large door, carved with the image of a veiled goddess holding a lamp, and just below, there was a keyhole.

Did the medieval period have locks and keys?

Chen Ke frowned in confusion; he didn’t have a thorough understanding of this historical detail. In his impression, during the early European medieval Knight Era, doors were generally secured with bolts, and locks with metal keys appeared during the Renaissance.

He touched the door, which was surprisingly made of stone. This allowed him to feel the material, meaning this area wasn’t separated by an air wall and the scene behind the door was also part of the loop; clearly, a specific key was needed to open it.

This path was temporarily inaccessible; it seemed he needed to backtrack to the main hall and continue exploring by taking the stairs on the right.

As Chen Ke turned to leave, he saw another note left with a marker on the wall beside him.

“Miles, this way isn’t through. We’ll meet at the other end, you need to hurry.”

But this time, the note was somewhat unusual, because beneath the original text, there was another line of small words.

“Be careful, Miles.”

Judging by the shades, it was clear that these two lines of text were written at different times. The longer message was written first, and the shorter one later.

Chen Ke stroked his chin, his brow slightly furrowed, deriving some useful information from these two lines of text.