Annan blinked his eyes.
He hesitated to speak.
Twelve injuries were inflicted on the body with the blade slashing the back of the head. However, the magic examination still assessed the situation as a suicide.
How did he slash the back of his head with a blade? Did he toss it into the sky, then jump up to catch it?
That was too unreal.
This was second only to being shot in the back of the head with his hands and feet tied.
Could it be a suicide using a Rube Goldberg device [1]?
“The result of the magical examination should be correct.”
Longjing Tea pointed to the newspaper and explained, “Look… No one believed it at the time because this test result was too bizarre. Many wizards and ritualists came to verify the test result. Even the teacher of ‘Shield of Unfallen’ Justice, Gray Professor Seti, is there.”
Wait…
“Gray Professor Seti?” Annan raised his eyebrows and murmured in a low voice with some doubts.
Isn’t Seti’s title the “Bone Healer”?
Or did this happen before Master Seti became Bone Healer?
It can be more than just a hunch.
Maybe I’m overthinking…
Hearing “Professor Gray” being mentioned, Annan immediately thought of “Professor Wolf”.
Speaking of which, Professor Wolf was expelled from the family and changed his name to “Professor Wolf” shortly after this event, right?
Was he trying to ride the wave of popularity of “Gray Professor” Seti?
Such a thought popped into Annan’s mind immediately.
He became a little cautious.
“Wait a minute, let me take a look.”
“Alright.” Longjing Tea responded and handed the newspaper to Annan. Annan spread the old newspapers on the table and carefully checked the old records.
Dove on the side also laid the cat’s head on Annan’s arm and read the newspaper together intently.
Chocolate also put its head on Annan’s shoulder in a similar manner, pretending to read the newspaper with blank eyes. Its pupils did not move from left to right according to the lines.
[TN: Chocolate is possessing the human form for now.]
“Huh?“
After screening it twice, Annan was a little surprised.
The newspapers did not mention “Frederick Melvin” at all.
Instead, the news only mentioned Justice receiving a somewhat mysterious mission. A big shot nominated him to enter Cinder Barren to find a curse vessel.
This mission was actually quite strange.
Cinder Barren was uninhabited at that time. The lava rampaged the land not long ago, making it a barren land.
In other words, there was no danger in searching for treasure at that place. Of course, the lava might have buried the item. However, the difficulty should have been digging it out in the first place.
Hence, there was no reason to recruit [Shield of Unfallen] for this mission.
“Shield of Unfallen”, as a young Gold Rank Transcender, was also the proud disciple of “Professor Gray”. He was exceptionally skilled in bodyguard and security operations with an abnormally resilient physique. He could even resist the Flame Demon’s lava attack with his body alone, making him a formidable individual capable of swimming in lava.
His typical mission was subjugation against underground monsters or a bodyguard mission on some bigshots.
He could protect innocent people from serious injuries with his own body alone.
“…Occult Bond Envoy?” Annan murmured.
Fortunately, the transcenders in the underground world did not stay in the dark. The newspapers published the information clearly.
—[Shield of Unfallen], Justice, was the Gold Profession advanced from the Silver Rank Profession “Occult Bond Envoy”.
Annan had encountered this profession as early as the “Nightmare: Gallery” saga.
“Occult Bond Envoy” could transfer energy to each other within the visible range. The user could extract a target’s vitality and use it to heal another person; or extract the mana pool of many wizards and concentrate them on one wizard.
It was a profession with high utility value.
Such a transcender was welcome in any country and force. As generals, they could “concentrate everyone’s strength into one”.
On the other hand, the profession offered a lot of practical value, making them treated as tools.
Moreover, difficulty became way more challenging for this profession to advance to Gold Rank.
The blissful life made it difficult to have a persistent and pure “ascension desire” for a breakthrough and rise to a higher level.
However, the “Shield of Unfallen” did it.
Given his Gold Rank, he was like a guardian deity walking in the world.
He could transfer the injuries that others had suffered to himself; or transfer the attack that was about to fall on his teammates to himself in advance.
Then, he could draw the enemy or nature’s power to heal himself quickly.
Whether the heart was pierced, the limbs were torn, the skin was peeled off, or the spine was pulled out, Justice would not die as long as he kept breathing.
Justice was like a human shield.
Justice’s followers would not be harmed if he stood his ground. Even if the people around were flooded by bullet text, covered by the rain of flames, had their hearts stabbed by an assassin, their throats cut off, and their brains smashed.
Simply put, as long as Justice wanted to protect that person, any transcender below Gold Rank could not kill it. The only exception would be if the target were taken away from Justice’s vision.
Justice was a protector who gave off a strong sense of security.
Whether it was protecting militia against monsters, fighting against natural disasters, or escorting people into dangerous areas, the team members were given the buff “to freeze their health point value” as long as they stood together with Justice.
“Huh?” Annan frowned slightly.
This doesn’t seem right.
If Justice is so tenacious…
How could he be knocked to the floor by a simple backstab? Why were there such apparent injuries?
“It seems like there are many flaws in this information,” said Dove softly.
Her cat’s head moved slightly on Annan’s arm, and she raised her head to look at Annan, “Your Highness, are you here to purify this nightmare?”
“En.” Annan nodded in deep thought.
If the mission was to search for an item, then it might be possible that he tagged along with Frederick, the Idol wizard, for the mission. Even though Idol Wizard could not find the item as fast as Prophet Wizard, the difficulty should still be easy.
As long as he “could find this item in the future”, a Prophet Wizard could immediately get a fruitful result. On the flip side, divination would remain useless if he was incapable of finding the item.
However, the situation was different for an Idol Wizard.
They had unique means to locate the source from an outcome. Even if the item was hidden hundreds of meters underground, they could search it out, provided they were adequate in their mastery.
From this point of view, Frederick might have approached Justice after Justice took on the mission.
Then, the chances of pre-arranging traps for murder did not seem to be that high either.
In fact, Frederick had yet to reach the Gold Rank back then.
Frederick only advanced to Gold Rank after he was expelled from the family.
At that time, he was just an Idol Wizard of Silver Rank… and Justice was a meat shield profession at Gold Rank.
It was even possible that Frederick did all the work for damage output, pulling more sweat than Justice.
It made no sense for Frederick to be the murderer.
“However, Justice was murdered. This is indeed a fact, and it was a perfect murder. No one has discovered what Frederick has done for so many years. Frederick even exchanged for power with the Tragedy Writer through a ritual.”
Longjing Tea concluded, “There is no way to collect information outside the nightmare.
“Does this nightmare have any clues? For example, where can we get the key or something? We may have to go into the nightmare to collect more information.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
Annan shook his head helplessly, “Nefatari and I came here just to find the ‘key’.
“Since the truth has not been made public for so many years, even Justice’s death at the hands of Professor Wolf is a secret. The key is probably not found yet.
“In other words… If Professor Wolf doesn’t purify this nightmare, there is a high probability that we will purify a brand new nightmare that no one has purified.”
In other words, the group had to start by finding the “key”.
“You can already skip the first step.” A deep voice came from the room.
Annan felt Dove’s(serval) hair standing upright in his arms. Delicious Wind Goose immediately opened his eyes, casting his sharp and bright gaze over it. Longjing Tea frowned slightly, took a deep breath, and was ready to use the Edict spell anytime.
However, they suddenly reacted at this moment.
Why does this voice seem familiar?
“Wait.” Annan stopped the players.
Annan was a little surprised, looking at the standing mirror in the room.
Or perhaps, looking at the person walking out of the standing mirror.
“Your Excellency Benjamin?”