absurd deduction game.

The four strategists, convinced they had stumbled upon a great secret, hurriedly slipped away.

Perhaps the teleportation offerings were still cooling down, for they did not vanish into thin air, but instead cautiously followed each other, turning back every few steps as they trod the path leading from the cemetery to Yolikef town.

Carlos remained standing in the same spot, watching them leave with a very strange expression, without moving even after the four figures disappeared from sight.

After a long while, he lowered his emerald green eyes.

“Those people are quite honest; they didn’t do any of that double-dealing thing, and they’ve already gone back to town.”

He seemed to be muttering to himself, but the next second, Yiqing's hem appeared behind him.

The Green Ghost swooped down and asked, "There's not much time left, is there?" It had been mentioned before that the cemetery anomaly could only last for an hour, and would return to normal by 1 a.m., after which it would be too late to find any clues.

"Well, so let's leave these people for now." Carlos said, snapping his fingers slightly.

At the same time, in the town of Yolikev, a small, weightless, and inconspicuous paper figure floated up behind the blonde woman who had run back frantically in the latter half of the journey and was still in shock. Having received the instruction not to monitor her anymore, the paper figure slightly loosened its grip on the blonde woman's clothes and was instantly blown away by the wind.

It quickly turned into powder in mid-air, disappearing like a wisp of smoke without leaving any trace.

The magician and the demon walked back to the main entrance.

At this moment, Zeng Lai, who had been left to guard the gate, was staring at the watchdog that had bumped into him while he was working.

The dog had probably given up completely, or perhaps it had finally realized that the people outside meant no harm and hadn't hurt it at all, so it reluctantly became a little friendlier, lying on the ground through the fence and wagging its tail perfunctorily at Zeng Lai.

"Good dog, good dog," Zeng Lai muttered perfunctorily.

He seemed to be playing well with the dog, but in reality, he had been mentally distracted for a while.

From the moment he witnessed Yu Xing devour all the monsters in the cemetery from the perspective of a VIP audience member, Zeng Lai's already quite solid worldview as a Deducer was shattered once again. Zeng Lai couldn't describe the impact of this shocking power on him. Before this, he had always thought that the Deducers at the top of the system were only a few times stronger than him.

He felt that Ren Yi was so amazing that there was a world of difference between him and Ren Yi, who was a top student and Ren Yi was a poor student.

A True-level Deducer? As a researcher, Zeng Lai was well-informed. He knew which big shots had advanced to the True-level and often got matched with them in the same instance, witnessing their actions.

But no one has ever been like Yu Xing.

Because the deducer's degree of alienation is limited.

A personality alienation degree exceeding 20% ​​will have a negative impact on the diviner. The higher the alienation degree, the more bizarre the diviner's abilities will become, and their mental state will gradually move closer to that of a ghost.

In other words, the alienation level of those top-ranked predictors is between 50% and 60%, even though they have various methods to resist pollution and preserve their humanity.

Even so, their abilities were not as monstrous as Yu Xing had just displayed.

Oh, that seems a bit impolite to his friend.

Zeng Lai reflected for a second, but couldn't find a more fitting adjective. In short, his heart was still pounding like a raging drum.

He felt that Yu Xing was very rational and as smart as Ren Yi. Although "rationality" might be his friend's bias, Yu Xing was completely human in their daily interactions, which was a fact.

Therefore, Zeng Lai, who worked at the research institute, found it even more puzzling.

If Ren Yi were to transform into a crimson aura that covered half the sky and devoured all the monsters in sight, could he still return to his original form? Certainly not.

But Yu Xing is different. Those tentacles can extend and retract freely. As long as they are retracted, Yu Xing will still be a harmless young man.

...The good young man knocked on the iron gate, startling Zeng Lai, who was squatting there, reaching out to pet the dog and lost in thought, and almost getting bitten by the guard dog.

Yu Xing was in a very good mood after eating until she was half full.

His stomach and tongue were soothed, and the burning hunger and anxiety that had been consuming his soul subsided considerably. Now, even if someone placed the carotid artery under his teeth, he could still pick and choose, deciding whether or not to bite based on his mood.

So he relaxed and stretched out the branches, saying in a friendly tone, "You've taken a fancy to this dog? Unfortunately, it seems to be cemetery property. You'll have to apply to the church if you want it."

As he spoke, the big dog was right at Yu Xing's feet, but it didn't dare to show its teeth. Its body tilted to one side, and it died.

Installed.

"..." Zeng Lai looked at the big dog's tightly closed eyes and its rapidly heaving belly, thinking that no one would want such a useless dog. But then he thought that it had been scared to death by the gravedigger, the carrion raven, and Yu Xing in succession. This dog seemed pretty awesome.

Of course, he still wasn't interested.

Zeng Lai propped herself up on her knees and stood up. Just then, Carlos and Yi Qing returned. The latter briefly explained what had just happened, and Zeng Lai suddenly understood.

He certainly saw the figures of those strategists fleeing for their lives at the gate, but knowing that Carlos was in charge of the matter, he didn't get involved.

Who would have thought there was a big dog hole on the side of the cemetery?
Speaking of the dog hole, Zeng Lai glanced at the big dog again.

"..." Oh no, could he please stop staring at this damn dog?

Carlos chuckled. "Now that the captain has cleared the cemetery, let's go in too."

There are only ten minutes left until one o'clock.

Zeng Lai nodded, took a running start, and climbed over the cemetery wall, nimbly vaulting over it. Yi Qing silently passed through the wall, while Carlos's figure blurred—

He stood there, and somehow he turned into a thin wooden board.

The next instant, the wooden plank fell to the ground and quickly merged with the soil. In this moment of attention-grabbing, Carlos himself appeared on the other side of the gate, placing his arm on the cherub statue by the door.

Yu Xing praised, "You're becoming more and more like a magician."

A magician who has already reached the level of a true master: "...Indeed, I have plenty of strength and tricks up my sleeve."

This time, the three people and the ghost headed straight for the gravedigger's hut.

Carlos had previously instructed Yu Xing not to destroy the hut no matter how chaotic things became during the meal. In fact, Yu Xing was much better at controlling details. The entire cemetery remained unchanged, and not even many tombstones fell over.

After all, his tentacles can switch between reality and illusion.

Everything was as complete as when they first met. As they reached the door of the cottage, Yu Xing bent down and picked up the lantern that Old Edgar the monster had dropped after his death.

[Reverence for Death: A lantern from the spirit of the gravedigger, requiring only some corpse oil to light. When equipped, it increases affinity with undead monsters and reduces the probability of being attacked by them, but the wearer will slowly become undead until becoming a new skeleton spirit.] This is an item with decent functionality in the monster-infested town of Yorikef, but it has serious side effects and seems to have the potential to be converted into a sacrifice after the dungeon ends.

Yu Xing patted it and found that it was no longer lit, probably because it was lacking corpse oil.

He handed the lamp to Carlos without interest—after all, only core offerings, title buffs, and items were still useful in Yin-Yang City, and ordinary offerings were no longer of concern to him. He could take it out and give it to a few unofficial members of the Broken Mirror faction—such as Zhang Yu and Zeng Ranran.

Carlos took the lantern and vanished in an instant.

He stepped forward, placed his white-gloved hand on the old wooden door of the gravedigger's hut, and pushed it open forcefully.

The door hinges emitted a dry, harsh groan, like the sigh of a dying man, resisting invisibly.

A complex odor hits you first, not just a simple stench, but a more unsettling mixture—a heavy, sweet, stale grease, a pungent, acrid smell of dried herbs, a cold, earthy stench, and a deeper, more nauseating, eerie scent, like burnt feathers mixed with some kind of rust and ozone.

All of this was enveloped in a cold, damp air, pressing heavily on the intruder's lungs.

“Look.” Carlos went in first, gesturing for everyone to observe carefully.

The interior of the cabin was so cramped it was suffocating.

What clue has Carlos been talking about for so long?

Yu Xing used his own tree branch to look.

The only light source here comes from the kerosene lamp on the central wooden table. The glass cover is covered with a thick layer of greasy grime, making the dim, sickly light inside seem listless. Instead of dispelling the darkness, it casts thick, swaying shadows on the walls, making everything appear bizarre and surreal.

Large patches of plaster have peeled off the rough rock walls, revealing dark stones that seem to be permeated with endless moisture.

The walls themselves were almost entirely covered: one layer of stains and ash accumulated over the years, belonging to the deceased gravedigger; another layer of more recent, more unsettling smears…

Twisted symbols and non-Euclidean geometric patterns, painted with a dark red pigment—which was not ink but a purplish-black like putrid blood when dried—intertwined and overlapped wildly, some even appearing to be carved directly into the stone wall, exuding a blasphemous urgency.

"This is...?" Zeng Lai asked in surprise, "Traces of evil magic? Man-made?"

“That’s right,” Carlos said. “It’s best not to touch it.”

They continued to look around.

A simple wooden bed was pressed against the inner wall, the thin mattress shiny and black, barely maintaining the concavity of a human shape, and one could still smell a trace of the old man's body odor and the smell of ointment.

But the original quilt on the bed was roughly pulled to the corner, revealing a badly worn bed board with a few black raven feathers scattered on it, which did not belong to the gravedigger. The down at the base of the feathers was stained with the same dark red stains.

At the center of the room was the wooden table and the huge, crooked wooden frame against the wall.

On the shelf were some glass jars collected by the gravedigger. The investigator's pamphlet mentioned that one of Old Edgar's great hobbies was to put all sorts of strange things in the glass jars... This hobby had not been noticed by anyone until three months ago, but after the incident in town, the church ordered Old Edgar to throw those things away, but now they had inexplicably reappeared in the house.

Yi Qingpiao stepped forward and carefully examined the items in the jar. She saw strange plant roots and indescribable small biological organs soaking inside. She couldn't tell what they were, but they could most likely be used as some kind of ritual material.

There was also a pile of scattered tools at the bottom of the shelf, such as rusty scissors and chipped shovels.

Several long-extinguished black candles dripped onto the shelf, the solidified wax tears resembling a bizarre sculpture.

A small clump of ash... like the residue left after some kind of special paper burned, was scattered among the jars. Next to it was a rough earthenware bowl, the bottom of which was covered with a thick layer of black, greasy residue. A small, suspiciously pale, twisted fiber was embedded in the edge, like a lamp wick, or something else entirely.

“It has the same scent as the gravedigger we just encountered,” Yi Qing said.

On the table, the gravedigger's bald quill pen and the dried-up ink bottle were pushed aside.

Instead, there was a deeply indented inverted pentagram pattern crudely carved with a sharp object in the center of the table, with traces of candle wax and dark red spots remaining at each corner of the pattern.

Several rough, yellowed sheets of paper were scattered around the pattern. They not only featured the same frenzied red symbols as those on the wall, but also many more complex annotations and diagrams. The handwriting was completely different, exuding a kind of calm madness.

“Someone performed a sacrificial ritual here!” Zeng Lai confirmed at a glance, and then suddenly realized, “It’s not a coincidence that Old Edgar merged with the carrion raven to form a new monster; it was because someone did it on purpose, so… it was a cultist?”

I heard that the cultists didn't have a strong presence in the first phase of the mission; it was as if they weren't involved much in the Yorikef mystery. But now, the cultists' secret schemes have finally been exposed.

The compacted muddy ground was uneven and pitted.

Besides haystacks, dirt, and raven feathers scattered everywhere, larger, dragged marks could be seen in some of the darkest corners, as if something heavy had been pulled from there toward the doorway.

In the air, beneath the cold, earthy smell, there seemed to be a faint, almost inaudible humming echo, like the lingering tremors of some great evil force after it had departed, stimulating the skin and making one's scalp tingle.

“That’s right. I had already investigated and found out that the Cult had been eyeing Old Edgar for a long time. As the guardians of the cemetery, the Cult had always hoped to turn Old Edgar into one of their own so that they could more easily steal the corpse.”

Carlos casually revealed the hidden information: "Even old Edgar's love of glass jars was influenced by Tantric Buddhism. However, he truly revered death and did not agree with any desecration of corpses. The Tantric practitioners who approached him disguised as friends were afraid of causing a stir and being discovered by the church, so they could only continue to send people to keep an eye on him and look for another opportunity."

Then, the opportunity arose.

In the town of Yolikef, where incidents are frequent, it's not really a big deal that an elderly gravedigger was devoured by a horde of monsters while on duty, is it? He was just unlucky, as unfortunate as the other dead in town... That's what most people would think.

But Carlos won't.

Since he already knew about the cult's scheme, he would naturally guess that old Edgar's death was related to the cult. The cultists had almost completely looted the cemetery during the few days before a new gravedigger took office. That's why the gravestone was filled with carrion ravens that had merged with the gravedigger's spirit.

This is not finished.

Clearly, the cultists also targeted old Edgar, using his remains in a sacrificial ritual to summon some evil entity that transformed the poor gravedigger into a monster.

“The gravedigger’s hut wasn’t like this before midnight and after 1 a.m. It looked perfectly normal, clearly disturbed. That’s why the investigators and church personnel who investigated the gravedigger’s death didn’t find any traces of ritual,” Carlos said.

This hut is not merely a filthy dwelling of the dead; due to the lingering influence of some evil force, it has become a distorted superposition field, a wound forcibly torn open and roughly stitched up, only revealed to the public at specific times.

The traces of Edgar's life, the gravedigger, are like ghosts, painfully intertwined with the vivid imprint of the blasphemous rituals performed by the cultists. The dim yellow light of the kerosene lamp on the table seems to be coldly illuminating everything, like an indifferent eye belonging to another world.

“This is it.” Carlos took out a slowly beating heart from the kerosene lamp; it looked like a raven’s.

"This is the core of the ritual array. It was destroyed long ago, but it has been resurrected at this special moment." Just like the remains of the tomb keeper.

This will become the key for them to continue their investigation along the line of esoteric Buddhism. (End of Chapter)