Mystery: Big Alarm Clock Ghroth Path

Chapter 166: Bandit's Analysis
Roger looked at the bowl-shaped groove carefully for a while, and after making sure there was nothing wrong, he took out a knife and cut his right index finger.

Blood gushed out instantly. Roger pressed his thumb against the tip of his finger as he remembered, squeezed out three drops of blood, and let them fall into the bowl-shaped groove.

The bowl-shaped groove immediately emitted a faint blue-green light.

The lights intertwined and flickered for a while, and the bowl-shaped bulge suddenly retracted into the door. The sounds of mechanisms and gears turning were heard inside the door, and then the door split into two in the middle, retreating to the top and the floor respectively.

A road emitting flickering light from oil lamps appeared in front of Roger and Klein.

The latter looked at the former with an inquiring look and saw Roger slightly twitching the corner of his mouth.

"Welcome to Abraham's house."

Roger shook his fingers, which were no longer bleeding, and then took the lead and walked forward.

Klein and Bandit looked at each other and followed Roger.

The road now is a spiral staircase that spirals upward counterclockwise. The stone steps are a little slippery, but it does not affect walking.

"It is indeed very similar to the structure of my previous base..."

When Roger came here, he felt like he was back home.

He climbed the stairs without saying a word. It was not until Bandit was getting a little impatient and begging Klein to let him jump on his back that the two of them and the cat suddenly saw the light.

This is a stone vestibule with many tall candlesticks. Through the hollow windows on both sides of the roof, one can vaguely see the sky outside which has not yet darkened and the moss-covered mountain wall on one side.

This made Klein realize immediately that the spiral staircase should have been built inside the mountain and extended to a rarely visited slope on the back of the mountain. This revealed the entire building.

Many parts of this seem to reveal the methods of extraordinary people on the "apprentice" path.

“What a strange architectural form.”

Klein couldn't help but sigh.

Roger laughed when he heard this:
"You'll get used to it. This is our family style."

After passing through the vestibule, there is another tightly closed double door.

Unlike the previous one, this door clearly had a lock.

But the same thing is that it still has no place to insert the key.

Roger smiled and shook his head. He used "Benjamin's gloves" to enter the door and then turned the lock from the inside.

Klein has become somewhat accustomed to this design style.

After opening the door, a spacious space with extremely high ceilings and a structure like a church appeared in front of them.

At the very top stood the statue of Bethel Abraham wearing the duke's cloak of the Fourth Epoch, while below was a podium and numerous seats.

Compared to the lobby outside, the lighting here is much dimmer, seemingly due to the excessive pressure of maintaining the lights and the severe shortage of manpower.

"What is this place? A conference room?"

Klein was a little curious, and the scale of this base made him secretly shocked.

"Yes, the family meeting hall."

"It seems this is a settlement that has been passed down since the Fourth Epoch. You can tell from the number of seats and the carved patterns on the furniture."

Roger shook his head and sighed.

That was a time when Abraham's family was still prosperous, unlike the later period when it became dilapidated and depressed.

"There are two doors here. Which way do I go?"

Bandit suddenly spoke, pointing his tail at the two doors on either side of the conference room.

Roger pondered for a moment and said:

"Go left."

He could clearly see that the light on the left was brighter, which meant that although the surviving members of the Abraham family's residence no longer used this conference room for meetings, they would leave a light channel for themselves to illuminate the way out, and there was no need to light up unnecessary places.

So they are most likely entering and exiting through places with stronger light sources.

However, before Klein pushed open the door on the left, he, Roger, and Bandit all had a sudden thought.

An indescribable spiritual premonition came, and the two people and the cat all rolled to the side.

The next moment they did this, the vibration sounds of three metals colliding on the ground were heard!
Two armored soldiers, about two meters tall, were slowly straightening their backs.

One of them held a huge two-handed heavy sword, while the other held a sword and shield.

These three things just hit the ground and were avoided by Roger and the others.

These two armored soldiers obviously wanted to prevent them from entering the inner area!
"Roger, what is this?"

Klein was a little surprised. He had originally thought that Roger should know all the mechanisms in the Abraham family's base, but he didn't expect that the other party also looked so ignorant.

"I haven't seen it either. It might be something passed down from the Fourth Epoch..."

As expected, Roger shook his head frankly.

Just as he said just now, this station should be different from the one he was originally in, but a building that existed in the middle or even early Quaternary period.

It can be seen from many places that this is no longer a simple family residence, and even has many elements of a fortress.

Although Roger didn't know what the seals on the two steel guards were, judging from the way they retreated to the door on the left after launching a sneak attack, their purpose should be to prevent these "outsiders" from entering the inner area.

"Get out of my way. I am of the people of Abraham."

Roger was somewhat helpless and had to negotiate terms with the two suits of armor.

When he dodged the opponent's heavy sword attack just now, he had already used the "Shit Stirrer" ability to test the two suits of armor and wanted to control them.

But Roger discovered that although they possessed a small amount of spirituality, they had neither body, mind nor soul.

The abilities of "Troublemaker," "Singing," "Composer," and various abilities related to fate cannot be used on completely lifeless enemies.

The two suits of armor remained motionless and unresponsive upon hearing this, but they still held their swords and shields, looking at Roger and Klein with a wary attitude.

Seeing this, Roger took another tentative step forward, but immediately saw the heavy sword and armored soldier holding the two-handed sword across his chest, as if he was about to attack.

"..."

Roger remained calm, lowering his right arm and standing there motionless.

After a moment, a large amount of flesh and blood fell from his right hand, piling up to half a person's height.

This almost consumed most of the flesh and blood of the "hunter" he had previously absorbed and stored.

The pile of flesh and blood quickly changed its shape, and soon it grew eight legs and turned into a spider-like appearance.

Roger whistled, and the spider squatted down to gather strength, and the next moment it jumped to a high place.

He hooked his finger provocatively at the soldier holding the two-handed heavy sword, and conjured up the "Sword of Dawn" in his right hand.

His strength, agility, and skill with weapons were instantly enhanced.

The heavy sword soldier felt threatened and immediately held the sword in front of him and rushed towards Roger!

However, just as it was about to hit Roger, it suddenly found that Roger's figure disappeared in front of it.

The next moment, Roger fell from the sky behind it, and the "Sword of Dawn" slashed heavily on the back of the armor.

"when!"

There was a loud sound of metal collision. Not only did Roger fail to break the opponent's defense, but he was also shocked and took two steps back!
His pupils shrank slightly:

"What the hell, what's so hard?"

At this moment, Roger's body was still covered with a ball of sticky tissue that looked like spider silk and smelled bloody.

This was exactly the "spider web" dropped by the flesh and blood spider just now. At the critical moment, it formed something like a sling, pulling Roger up to avoid the attack and in turn giving the opponent a sneak attack.

However, this sneak attack seemed to be useless. Even the "Sword of Dawn", which was able to fight against Zatvin, could not break the opponent's defense at this moment!
This further illustrates the special nature of these armors.

On the other side, Klein and Bandit were also fighting with another sword and shield armor, and the fight between the two sides was extremely intense.

But overall, that armor has the advantage.

Seeing this, Roger once again controlled the flesh spider lying on the wall, making it throw out a large amount of flesh and blood threads, which directly wrapped around the heavy sword armor and forcibly dragged it away from the battlefield and to a higher place like the "hunter" who controlled Blaise Pascal before.

However, it was once again not what Roger wanted.

As the armor rose a little, a deep flame burned from its body.

The flames instantly melted the flesh and blood threads, helping the armor to escape and fall to the ground.

Even the flesh and blood spider seemed to have suffered collateral damage. Roger clearly heard some high-frequency mental fluctuations from it, and it looked extremely painful!
"In this case……"

Seeing this, Roger no longer held back.

His crystal clear blue eyes instantly became cloudy like frosted glass, and his whole body became much stiffer.

The next moment, Bandit and Klein simultaneously saw that the sword and shield armor they were fighting with actually flew towards the audience seats in the conference hall on its own.

There was a loud "bang" and a large amount of wood debris flew up from the audience seats. Before the sword and shield armor could get up, the heavy sword armor flew over and hit it!

The powerful kinetic energy once again rolled the sword, shield and armor backwards, smashing both rows of tables and chairs into pieces.

"Walk."

Roger's eyes and joints quickly returned to normal. He pulled Klein and Bandit, opened the double door on the left, and rushed behind it.

Just now, he used the "puppet" ability of the "little duck" to control the two lifeless armors and keep them away from the battlefield, thus finding a chance to escape.

"That seemed to be the last line of defense." What appeared in front of the two people and the cat was a library.

The oil lamps here were brighter than outside, and Roger could see several books scattered on the ground.

He tried to open one of the ancient books called "Introduction to Curse Studies" and found that the footers of two pages were folded up.

Roger keenly noticed that the creases on these two pages were not very deep and the marks looked very new!
"Klein, someone has read this book recently."

Roger spoke up.

“Yeah, this one too.”

Klein shook another book in his hand. The title of the book was "Chronology of the Solomon Empire".

Then, Klein couldn't help but sigh:

"I didn't expect that there would be such a book within the Abraham family... You know, I'm a university student who graduated from the history department, but most of the contents of this book are unheard of to me.

"As expected of a powerful family that has been passed down since the Fourth Epoch..."

Upon hearing this, Roger showed a hint of embarrassment at Klein's praise.

The two checked several books on the ground and found signs that they had been read recently.

Roger thought for a moment and asked again:
"Klein, can you divine who read these two books and find their location?"

Because the scale of this base was beyond Roger's imagination, if he continued to search like this, he would inevitably encounter some trouble.

Therefore, relying on divination becomes a more rational choice.

"It should be possible, but you have to give me some time alone and keep me safe during this time."

After Klein finished speaking, he looked up in the direction of the Abraham family meeting room.

At present, the two armors did not rush over, as if their protection duties would be terminated as soon as they left the conference hall.

But even so, Klein was still a little uneasy.

"it is good."

Roger hooked his finger, letting Bandit jump onto his shoulder. He then returned with it to the corridor connecting the conference hall and the library to guard Klein.

After Klein quickly divined and confirmed there was no danger, he took four steps backwards and arrived above the gray fog.

Because the Abraham family possessed an "apprentice" path that was also adept at divination, Klein couldn't guarantee whether there were any defense mechanisms in this family residence that would interfere with divination. Therefore, coming to the mysterious space above the gray fog was a better choice.

"Come to think of it, Roger mentioned before that the Abraham family's base has a defense mechanism that can confuse the coordinates of the spiritual world, but I can still come into this gray fog in the form of a soul. What does this mean..."

Klein thought for a while, but couldn't come up with any clear ideas. He could only take a deep breath and start dream divination based on the two books in his hands.

The blurry image rippled like water waves, and the chapter "Introduction to Curse Studies" appeared before Klein's eyes again.

This made him feel dazed, but soon a girl's voice drew Klein's attention.

"Sam, something important.

"The food in the family residence is only enough for us to eat for three days. We must consider a way out."

Sam?

Klein frowned slightly, somewhat confused about the current situation.

But the next moment, he saw "Introduction to Cursology" closed in the flickering candlelight.

A young man with the same deep blue eyes as Roger, long chestnut hair, and wearing a black cloak put down the book in his hand.

The boy had some freckles around his nose, but his facial features were otherwise very good looking.

"Wait a moment, Cecilia.

"If you're hungry, I can go out and find some more food..."

Following the gaze of the young Sam, a girl with short chestnut hair who was 80% similar to Sam's appeared in Klein's field of vision.

"Waiting for what?" Cecilia raised her eyebrows and asked.

"I have now established several hypotheses about the family curse..."

But before Sam could finish his words, Cecilia interrupted him.

"The problem we face now is survival, finding food, and going out to find the rest of Abraham's family, rather than studying a problem that our ancestors have not been able to figure out for thousands of years.

“Yes, you have indeed found a lot of ingredients during this period, but now that the weather is getting colder, food will only become harder to find.

"You don't think we can hide in here forever, do you? We have to get out and return to the outside world."

But Sam shook his head:

"You don't understand...there are no more members of Abraham's family."

"You've seen what happened to Grandpa, Father, Mother, Uncle, and Aunt. I suspect the blood moon in early July killed every member of the Abraham family. No Beyonder was spared.

"How long do you think a few of us, under 15, with no relatives or friends and no extraordinary abilities, can survive out there? We'll probably be captured by human traffickers before we even reach Constantinople.

"Right now, whether it's the seal that Grandpa gave us or the money, we don't have the ability to protect ourselves."

"Give me at least another half month to find a way to safely become an 'apprentice'. At the very least, I need to figure out a way to survive the 'blood moon'..."

The girl Cecilia was obviously very unhappy with Sam. She turned around angrily and left the library.

Sam sighed lightly and continued to read the "Introduction to Curse Studies" in his hand.

The image faded at this point. After a brief moment of thought, Klein picked up another copy of "Chronology of the Masters of the Solomon Empire" and entered a dream divination state.

This time, what caught his eyes was still the contents of the page, followed by Sam's whisper.

"The Four Emperors' War... The Ancestor is Missing?
“There are still many mysteries…”

The young man put the book down, obviously confused.

He rubbed his brows, then turned his head to look at Cecilia who was sleeping soundly in the other bed next to him.

There seemed to be two more figures on the other two beds not far away, but because the image was too blurry, Klein couldn't see clearly.

Sam and Cecilia are noticeably thinner than in the previous picture.

Sam looked up at the waning moon outside the window again and sighed slightly.

"Hold on until next Monday. If you still can't find a solution to the problem, take them to town first."

After saying that, he rubbed his rumbling stomach vigorously, turned over and lay down, resisting the feeling of hunger and falling asleep.

Klein's consciousness quickly returned to the gray fog, and he had basically understood the situation.

Cecilia and Sam are believed to be siblings, and appear to have survived the super blood moon event in early July along with two other younger children.

After that, Sam has been studying ways to solve the family curse, and he would go out to find some ingredients in the valley outside, while Cecilia was responsible for cooking and other things.

After that, the two had a disagreement. Cecilia wanted to go outside, but Sam thought it was too dangerous outside. The two sides probably quarreled several times, but in the end Sam was still shaken.

Judging by Sam's last words, he will lead his brothers and sisters out of the fortress on "next Monday."

But the problem now is that Klein can't be sure whether the current day will be the time Sam scheduled!
It would be fine if they were still in the fortress, but if they had left, it would greatly increase the difficulty for Roger to find them.

Klein thought for a moment, quickly left the gray fog, returned to the Abraham family's fortress, and called Roger over.

After he explained the situation to Roger and Bandit, Bandit suddenly asked:
"You said Sam saw a waning moon outside the window. What did the waning moon look like? What stars were around it?"

Roger smiled knowingly when he heard this, and it was obvious that he had understood the intention of Bandit's question.

He also looked at Klein, waiting for his answer.

Klein, who was a little confused by Bandit and Roger, found a quill and a piece of paper from the library and drew the situation in his dream with the visual images that still remained in his spiritual consciousness.

"Well, if Sam hadn't changed his mind, they'd still be in the fort."

At first glance, Bandit came to an immediate conclusion.

Roger also nodded in agreement with Bandit's statement.

"How did you figure that out?"

Klein was a little curious.

Although he also possesses the ability of astrology, his understanding and intuitive grasp of celestial phenomena are far inferior to those of Bandit, the "Astrologer", and Roger, the extraordinary person of the "Judgment Star" path.

"It's simple. Putting aside the extreme case of a 'blood moon', the moon's phases rotate every 29.5 days or so, so the state of the moon you've drawn only occurs 12 times a year.

"Considering what Roger said, the Abraham family's collective misfortune occurred in early July, then a similar moon phase has only appeared three times at most.

"Of course, considering the error in your drawing and what I just said, it's not enough to accurately determine the specific date. But if we combine it with the surrounding stars, it will be different."

Bandit jumped onto the table with pride, his tail held high:
"Because the distribution of stars on the celestial sphere changes seasonally, and you mentioned that in the last scene, Cecilia and the other two children had already gone to bed, but Sam still hadn't turned off the lights, this means it was bedtime, but not too late.

"A person cannot stay up late for a long time when hungry, so he probably reads between 9 and 11 pm... We can use the position of the stars and the moon at this time to infer the specific date.

"There's only one day like this in the entire year of 1349. It's this Wednesday!
"In other words, only three days have passed since we saw your dream divination scene!"

Klein's eyes widened after hearing Bandit's analysis, and his expression was filled with admiration that he couldn't hide.

"Don't be too surprised. This is the basic skill of an 'astrologer'."

The tabby cat licked its paw, looking like it said, "Don't make a fuss."

(End of this chapter)