old dream

Chapter 188 "Valeria on Trial"

In the thick darkness, Colin walked silently in his overcoat.

Most of the only kerosene street lamps in the small Dino Sokovi square have been vandalized.The remaining intact ones can no longer be lit, because no street lamp workers dare to come to this area to add fuel for the time being.

According to the report of the Jackdaw Hunting Group, the ritual coordinates set by the Ball Brotherhood in this area will expire on November [-], which is tomorrow's day.

So there is a high probability that their attack will be launched today.

For some large-scale rituals, it is difficult to focus on specific goals only through personal intentions.Therefore, it is necessary to specially set the coordinates in the "intent unit" as an important part of the ceremony preparation.

Colin breathed out a mouthful of white mist.Because the cold year is approaching, the temperature begins to drop rapidly in November.The last round of cold years left ten years ago, so this climate somewhat reminded him of the days when he just came to Stade.

It happened to be winter when I first came here, and I only felt cold all over my body.In the next few years, the winter began to get warmer, not only because of the climate, but also because there were more and more people around me.

The orbital cycle of the female moon lasts nearly 21 years, and its two seasons, winter and summer, happen to bring ten cold years and ten hot years to the satellite.

Now is the end of the hot year, so the wet and eager Stade in the memory of this decade may soon become another strange look.

And as the heat is pulled away from here, it seems that something between people also disappears.

The female moon is obviously incomplete.Colin glanced around in the shadows, only the windows of the nearby mansions were lit, like the only lights in the wilderness, attracting the attention of something.

Capello's shooters are the protectors behind the windows of the unknown darkness, but tonight the shooters have fallen prey to the fraternity.

The Lantern Girl was not there, only Colin was waiting silently.

After nearly an hour of silence, rhythmic gunshots suddenly sounded from the southwest of the small square.

"Bang!", "Bang!", "Bang!".

It fires every second, like beating on the drumbeat of a person's heartbeat.

Colin opened his eyes, and the Shuttle Demon emerged quietly.It was a pre-arranged signal, so he immediately started to move.

It had to be quick, otherwise the person who fired the warning shot might die.

Colin had to rely on ordinary people to complete the reconnaissance.Because extraordinary people cannot use differentiated flora for detection, the spiritual elements in their own body may trigger a reaction.

So Ke Lin distributed more than a dozen detection devices to Capello's "soldiers" in different directions, telling them to send out a signal as agreed once they saw the reagent in the glass vessel change color.

But these gunmen didn't know what the discoloration of these reagents meant.

The vajra technique has been activated, and the crystal map in the body seems to be creaking.After the frequency adjustment, the phantom of the Shuttle Demon flashed away, throwing Colin's body like a cannonball.

At the last moment, Colin also stepped hard on its hand, absorbing all the thrust.

In this way, Colin was able to leap again and again in midair.The square in the community is not big, so he arrived at the position where the gunfire sounded almost in the blink of an eye.

The Capello gunman who fired the gun held the detection device in his left hand and held a lantern on his finger.Almost defenseless, he stood on the balcony and shot into the sky.

Colin was still in mid-air when he sensed the dazed Transcendent on the roof behind the gunman.

The lurker didn't immediately realize that the gunshot was a signal, because there was no reason why he would be exposed.When he recovered, he realized that he had to kill the shooter, but it was too late, because just as he raised his right hand——

"Boom—"

A violent crash sounded.

The gunman was signaling, but was startled by the sudden loud noise behind him.He looked back to the roof, and found that a large cloud of smoke and dust had risen there, as if a shell had fallen here, but no fire had been ignited.

The smoke and dust billowed, and a vague figure leaped out. The shooter thought he was confused, after all, this was the fourth floor.

Then, he carefully shone the lantern on the roof, only to find that there was an extra corpse there at some point.

…………

The infiltrator is just a sub-moon-level wizard, and has no connection to the so-called sanctuary.

Colin raised his head and dripped the long-lost pheromone into his eyes.The excitants in the blood began to soar, and the pupils dilated to the extreme.

The fraternity was cutting into the community from the southwest corner of the small square, and at this moment, Colin, who had gained night vision, had found other targets.

The Lingsu supercharging further strengthened the Vajra Technique, and after confirming the effect a few days ago, he began to use his body more aggressively.

Since you are not afraid of breaking your leg bones, you can get excellent mobility.

The opponent's hands were scattered, and there were six more people.Because of the sudden attrition, they sharply stopped their advance and tried to hide in the darkness again.

But in cooperation with Shuttle Magic Sky, Colin has already approached one of them in an instant.

A young and immature Anhe man.

A spirit body appeared in front of him, it was an elf envoy.But at this distance, Ke Lin can already image instantly.

Even faster than imagined, because the opponent is driving a low-level devil.

With the hearth running, the absolute potential difference between the devils began to manifest.The shuttle demon's limbs pierced through the chest of the low-level devil without hindrance, tearing apart, and emerald green flames splashed like blood.

The elf envoy's expression changed from calm to panic, and then froze in the next moment.The thorns made of knots have pierced his throat.

Before he died, the elf envoy recognized this technique of controlling the devil perfectly, and a gurgling sound came from his wounded throat:

"The mystery of the hearth, how is it possible—"

He asked hoarsely with bloody vocal cords:

"—Are you Horst? Or Heinrich?!"

The shuttle demon disappeared out of thin air, and Colin let his body fall to the bottom of the building.

In just one encounter, two wizards died almost without any resistance.The remaining four became a little flustered because of this. They were too far apart to communicate effectively. Faced with this situation, they didn't know whether to continue tonight's action.

It was the leader who miscalculated the power of the five hands at the extraordinary level.

The lampkeepers in Stadt had been severely weakened, but it was unexpected that Marizio could find such a powerful wizard besides the terrifying lamp girl.

Or, someone just thought of it at this time:

This was originally a temptation by Bohr, and they were pawns thrown out at will.

…………

This is Colin's second confrontation with the extraordinary organization.Compared to the scattered northern organization that had been improvised for only a few months, the "Bohr Brotherhood" was definitely a more formidable opponent.

According to the clues provided by Marizio, the Boer Brotherhood existed before the conquest of Senal, and they fought for the expansion interests of Ankh.In the most glorious period, it even left its shadow in the fall of the Second Empire.Being able to survive to this day shows that it is very mature as an extraordinary organization.

After the attack two days ago, Colin realized the exquisite coordination among the members of these organizations at the extraordinary level.

The transfer of power through the so-called "sanctuary", and the public front provided by the unity of the organization.And maybe, this is still just the tip of the iceberg.

Colin had asked Giovanni beforehand today what the possibility of the large-scale ceremony marked at this location might be.

After hearing Colin's description, Giovanni made a positive judgment almost without thinking:

"The theater ceremony 'Valeria on trial.' Or, as this ceremony is more famously called."

"Death of the Lamp Bearer."

He wiped his gun and said:
"Since the Brotherhood wants to deal with Lantern Girl, there is no other possibility except this one."

"Valeria on Trial" is an instant-death technique specifically for Lantern girls.

Theater rituals, that is, when the target image is too sophisticated and complex, it cannot be fully expressed only through abstract symbols, so it has to use real events to achieve resonance.

In fact, before the emergence of the sophisticated symbol system in modern times, most of the ancient rituals belonged to "theater rituals".

In other words, most ancient rituals have a performance component, imitating and recreating a meaningful moment.

The theater ceremony "Valeria on Trial" is a reappearance of the event "Virgin holding the lamp died in the persecution of the Senate of Nale".

By repeating the history to trigger the resonance of the mirror, distorting the facts, and achieving the result of "death of the lamp girl".

"If the Lantern Girl can be killed so easily. Why hasn't anyone used this ritual before?"

After hearing Giovanni's explanation, Colin still asked in puzzlement.

"Because the instant death technique has only two outcomes."

Giovanni said indifferently, as if even if Stade's lighting system was about to collapse, it would be difficult to cause any disturbance in his heart:
"Success and failure correspond to life and death respectively. There is no intermediate state. Either the target is dead, or there is no effect. But it is almost impossible for ordinary spellcasters to achieve the first kind. You know," Valeria died Persecuted by the Senate" is just a literary fiction that only appeared after the new era, and the real fate of the virgin with a lamp has long been intentionally concealed. Therefore, this is a very weak magic string, which is barely tenable. What's more The lamp girl in the past was favored by two gods."

The lights of the Sindhi coast, and the ancestor god Valeria.

But what will happen if the lamp girl falls into weakness due to dereliction of duty?

The possibility of the magic string taking effect will be increased by tens or hundreds of times.

Tonight, none of the Brotherhood's assassins connected to the sanctuary.This may be the lesson after facing Hilpert face-to-face last time, and he no longer chooses to confront head-on.At the same time, the targets to be hunted tonight are indeed just ordinary people.

Their goal is to clean up the gang members arranged by the Capello family in this community.Ordinary people have no defense against supernatural means.So this approach may indeed cause serious damage to Capello.

And deliberately pointing the theater ceremony "Valeria on trial" here is just a means to prevent the lamp girl from coming to support.

Of course, if Deng Nu really ended up saving these "soldiers", it would be a complete surprise.

Flying through the air again, Colin has locked the positions of the remaining four.Perhaps these wizards are used to the protection of the sanctuary, so they were extremely unbearable in this duel.

Organizations can make the collective strong, but make the individual very vulnerable.

Two of them were still wearing vintage Naleur garb, so the ceremony was a bit of a show indeed.According to the original script, the presiding judge they played was about to sentence Valeria to death.

It's a pity that what is waiting for this classical court is not the current lamp girl who lost her asylum, but Ke Lin who controls the Urju devil.

Too funny.

Someone has realized that the situation tonight is not right, and immediately gave up his position in charge and began to consider evacuating.

And under the blessing of the supercharged Lingsu, Ke Lin's speed far surpassed them.Not to mention better night vision.So in the next few minutes, there was a one-sided killing situation.

Soon, the last wizard also lost the power to resist. The enemy in the dark was so cruel that he even felt psychologically broken and begged uglyly.

"I'll keep your head carefully," said Colin.

"So that it can tell me everything."

Pulling out the thorn from the opponent's chest, it seems to have started to rot in the next instant.Ke Lin discarded it casually, and an unknown stain appeared on the ground, which slowly disappeared.

Colin wiped his bloodied fingers, waiting for the redstone to congeal.

The damaged street lamp became his best cover.At this time, the community began to have some disturbances, but the people standing in the light source couldn't see clearly what was going on in the dark.

The strongest opponent tonight is Chi Xing.I don't know if the last failure really made the elite of the Boer Brotherhood lose, or it was just a trial.

In the assessment report of the Jackdaw Hunting Group, their strength doesn't seem to have dropped too much.

After injecting the inhibitor, Colin put away the brass syringe.Kneeling down on one knee, he pulled out the dagger at his waist, ready to take off the enemy's head.

"Bang!", "Bang!", "Bang!".

But at this moment, there were regular gunshots from another direction.

Colin frowned. Is there another group of people here?

Gunshots sounded from a mansion in front of the side, almost less than 100 meters away.It was dangerously close, but I didn't realize it.

He decisively dropped the corpse in his hand.Restart the vajra, and the hearth in the deep consciousness begins to work.

"Bam—"

The stone slab under his feet shattered with his exertion, and the surrounding area of ​​vision was suddenly blurred, and Colin's body had already leaped out.

Exciter levels in the blood are fading, and night vision is weakening.But a figure can still be seen vaguely.The other party heard the gunshots and immediately prepared to evacuate.

After the previous battle, the spiritual essence in the hearth has been reduced by half.Ke Lin began to use the abundance of life to supplement.

He didn't notice traces of Lingsu from the opponent, so he couldn't judge what strength he was in, a somewhat terrifying opponent.

Colin appeared behind the figure almost instantly, still holding the dagger tightly in his hand.

The supercharging of the spirit element started an infinite loop, and the power density in the crystal map began to climb to a terrifying level.

Just when this blow was about to be issued, the figure in front of him seemed to sense something, he staggered, turned around and called out in a panic:
"Colin? It's me!"

Hearing the familiar voice, Colin stopped the attack suddenly, and the dagger hovered in midair.

That was the voice of Uncle's student, Heine.

(End of this chapter)