I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 150 Peat Swamp

The next morning, the landlady brought out a pot of oatmeal porridge with lots of molasses in it.

Next to the porridge was a plate of golden-brown fried salted fish, with two slices of toasted dark bread underneath.

When Edmund came down, he changed into the old coat that Captain Field had lent him.

He transformed from a prospective priest at the seminary into a northern mountain dweller.

He sat down at the long table, warmed his hands in front of the fireplace for a while, and then picked up the bowl.

"How are you doing today?" Richard sat down opposite him.

Edmund took a sip of the oatmeal porridge and found it a bit bland, so he stirred in the honey.

"When I wash up in the morning, I do a self-check in front of the mirror."

"Did you see anything?"

"I saw an Edmund Wycliffe who was a little paler than usual." He took his second sip of porridge. "That's all."

Richard smiled and didn't ask any more questions.

Maggie was the last to come downstairs, and she had added a scarf over her cloak, which was wrapped three times around her chin.

"Will the place we're going to today be even colder?"

"A swamp," Captain Field said without looking up. "Wet and cold."

"..." Maggie tightened her scarf again, tucking her whole body into her collar, leaving only half of her face exposed.

During the meal, Captain Field briefly explained today's route.

"Ten miles to the north, there is a small peat swamp."

He drew a line on the table with a fork:

"The archaeological team searched the area two years ago and unearthed eleven Bronze Age 'swamp mummies,' all of which were sent to museums in the capital."

"Mummy? Aren't those only found in the Black Earth River Valley?" Theodore paused, his fork poking at the ground.

"Mummy is a term I use to make it easier for you to understand. Locals call it pickled corpse. If I were to explain the specific process, you probably wouldn't be able to eat."

"The acidity of peat can preserve a corpse for thousands of years," Mr. Hutton added from the side. "Skin, hair, internal organs—everything can be preserved."

"Thousands of years?" The boy from the horse farm almost dropped the salted fish onto the table.

"The oldest one is carbon-dated to 1,800 years ago."

"That swamp was the 'water burial ground' of the Druid priests during the Bronze Age."

Every summer and winter solstice, they would push living people into the swamp as an offering to some unknown being beneath the water.

"Is it one of the alien gods recorded in the register?" The young priest frowned and looked at Mr. Hutton.

"The name has long been lost to history," the old man shook his head.

"Druids basically do not keep written records; their lineage is passed down orally."

After the Romans arrived, the entire priesthood was wiped out, leaving very few stories behind.

Richard then finished the last bit of porridge in his bowl.

"Sir, the swamp we're going to today..."

He recalled what he had read in the book:

"So many people died after being pushed into the water; these should be blood spots."

"Sacrifice itself is performed repeatedly, and that is the scar of sacrifice."

"Wouldn't having these two weaknesses combined be far more dangerous than having only one?"

Captain Field smiled, but it was a cold smile.

"Williams, that's a very good question."

"The area we visited today is officially called the 'Sacrifice Site'."

"Yesterday at the Highlands Summer Lodge, the Bewitching Lamp was only the lowest level; the Falling Fire, a low-level evil artifact, was already the limit."

"The worst thing in the peat swamp today will be an ordinary swamp corpse, which is considered thick-skinned among the lowest-level evil creatures."

"The middle tier includes Coal-Soaked Walkers and lower-level evil creatures."

"If we're unlucky..." Captain Field's gaze swept across the faces of the new recruits, "we'll encounter the 'Swamp Mother'."

"What is that?" Theodore swallowed hard.

"A special product of a pregnant woman being sacrificed," Mr. Hutton chimed in from the side. "Although it's also a low-level evil entity, it's extremely troublesome."

"...So today..."

"Don't touch it." Sarah clattered the shotgun parts back together.

"If it surfaces today, the captain and I will handle it; the four of you don't need to infiltrate."

Richard listened to this and silently made plans in his mind.

Since blood spots and sacrificial scars can combine.

If a place is a bloodstain, a sacrificial scar, a drowning line, and a place where stars hang low...

What kind of place would it be if all four were stacked together?

Could there be a piece of land where four things are sitting on it at the same time?

Tribal warfare and repeated bloodshed, repeated sacrifices by the local shaman class, and numerous shipwrecks along the coastal shipping routes, all while it itself is situated atop a solitary mountain several thousand meters high...

Richard picked up the ginger tea and took a sip, suppressing the thought.

Thinking about it now is pointless.

"Williams," Mr. Hutton suddenly spoke.

Richard looked up.

"What were you thinking about just now?" The old man's gaze was very peaceful.

Richard hesitated for a moment.

"I'm thinking... can the weaknesses be combined in multiple ways?"

"If blood spots and sacrificial scars can be combined, then can the lines of drowning and the places where stars hang down also be combined?"

What would it be like if all four were combined?

Mr. Hutton sighed.

"Williams," the old man said, "I asked my own mentor the same question when I was young."

"How did your supervisor respond?"

"He didn't answer." Mr. Hutton picked up his teacup.

"He told me to write this question down, seal it in an envelope, and open it after I turn thirty."

"Did you dismantle it later?"

Mr. Hutton took a sip of tea.

"It was taken apart. Inside was the question I wrote back then, and my advisor later added a line at the bottom."

"What was added?"

"Child, ask again when you have become a master."

Richard understood.

"I'm not even a minor expert," Mr. Hutton chuckled self-deprecatingly. "So, I can't answer that question for you right now."

"But..." the old man's voice became more serious, "If one day you really reach that position, you will know the answer yourself."

"Before that," Mr. Hutton gently placed his teacup back on the table, "you only need to remember one thing."

"Those kinds of places are always blank on the map, and some blank spaces are because people who went there never came back."

"I see."

"After breakfast, we'll depart in half an hour." Captain Field slapped the table, changing the subject.

As the carriage left the village, the sky began to lighten.

The driver got a bigger cart today, and a tarpaulin was added to the cargo bed.

The tarpaulin was soaked in oil, so rain and snow wouldn't seep in.

The road north was more difficult to travel than the road to the Highlands Summer Lodge we took yesterday.

The first half still had wheel tracks, while the second half was all dirt ridges trampled by livestock.

The carriage bounced violently on the dirt embankment, and sometimes the wheels would get stuck in a ditch, forcing the driver to get off and lead the horse out.

After about an hour and a half, the driver stopped at the top of a small hill.

"We can't go any further. There's a swamp ahead, and the carriage will get stuck."

Six people got off the bus.

As soon as Richard stepped onto the ground, he felt the wetness beneath his feet.

The entire land was soaked in moisture, which kept climbing up, from the calves to the knees, and then to the waist.

What lay in view was a large expanse of grayish-brown depression covered with a thin layer of ice.

In the distance, in the center of the swamp, stands a rock.

There is a depression at the top of the rock. From this angle, the shape is not very clear, but you can see a pool of dark water in the depression.

The water did not freeze.

Richard scanned the area with his spiritual vision, but the thing underwater was so deep that he couldn't see the bottom at a glance.

"You felt it?" Captain Field walked over to him.

He turned around and faced the four newcomers.

"Listen carefully, I'm going to go over today's schedule again."

"Sarah and I will go down first."

"After we clear out the most dangerous batch, we'll leave a few ordinary swamp corpses for you to practice on."

"While we were clearing the area, the four of you were standing on the top of the slope."

"Look carefully with your spiritual vision."

"In our line of work, watching how experienced masters do their jobs is more useful than trying to learn on your own."

Edmund nodded: "Yes."

Sarah pulled the shotgun out of its barrel and assembled it.

"Walk."

The two hunters walked down the slope, and in the process, they had already dived into the shallows.

Richard, Edmund, Maggie, and Theodore stood at the top of the hill.

Sarah walked ahead, with Captain Field half a step behind her.

Under spiritual vision, Sarah's microcirculation was very stable and deep, with the water flowing in the same direction.

Captain Field's microcirculation was burning hot and fierce, surging and churning with every beat.

"Is that what the Hunter looks like after deactivating its energy-saving mode?" Richard asked Maggie in a low voice.

"Yes." Maggie nodded. "My brother is the same way."

"And what about Ms. Sarah's?"

Maggie glanced at it and squinted.

"She may have inherited the tradition of lunar hunting, and although she is still a practitioner, she has already taken on the minor art of lunar phases."

"Lunar phase?"

"The waxing and waning of the moon will affect her condition," the freckled girl replied vaguely.