novelThe Suspect
| ← Ch.679 | Ch.681 → |
Inside Nature's Residence.
Seeing that Iristine and the sorcerers were coming back again, Martha said in a sharp tone, "I've nothing else to say. If you don't believe it, go to report to Her Royal Highness and the Elder. They will decide. But before this, please stay away from me as far as you can. The stink from your mind disgusts me!"
Felipe and Jurisian looked rather peaceful and relaxed, as if the sharp words never came into their ears. Instead, they turned to look at Iristine.
Iristine took a deep breath and got up the courage. She said to her, feeling displeased, "Ms. Martha, the sorcerers believe that you're still a suspect, so they need to search the treehouse and the tree bags..."
"What? They think I'm a suspect?!" Martha cut Iristine off and questioned in the sharp tone. Her fury was brewing.
Those elves who viewed her as their instructor also felt very offended and angry.
Iristine hurriedly added, "Mother has agreed."
Martha could not believe her ears, and she took a step backwards out of astonishment. The elves beside were also shocked: How could Her Royal Highness support those unreasonable human beings!?
After telling Martha this, Iristine finally felt a bit more relaxed and her expression had become more fluent, "Ms. Martha, I hope you can understand this. The elvish tree is what we elves rely on and every one of us wants to find out why it is polluted to fix it. In this process, we make mistakes. If anyone's wronged, I apologize here. But the investigation will keep going. If there are always elves refusing investigation, it'll be impossible to make much progress."
She had put all the blame on the royal elf family and on herself, without mentioning one single word about sorcerers and human beings. Although her tone was soft, she showed great determination as a leader.
What had been going on recently had taught her the more precious lesson.
The other elves started nodding. No matter what, the elvish tree was their top priority. Although they were very unhappy about this, stopping this investigation was destroying the future of the elf race! They should make some concessions as long as no elves were wronged by those bloody human beings.
However, when they looked at the sorcerers, they became even more furious, as if they had put all the blame on those human beings.
The dark green skin of Martha's face made it hard to tell the look on her face. After a minute, when everyone thought that she had accepted the searching, she suddenly said.
"I don't allow this! Her Royal Highness must have been fooled by those filthy human sorcerers!"
"This is an attack against my dignity and mind. I will resist it with my life!"
Her attitude was to the elves' great surprise, which also made them feel suspicious. If she was indeed innocent, after the searching was done and nothing was found, a protest in front of Her Royal Highness, the Elder, and the princess would be totally reasonable. But now it was not at all a good chance to show her temper, unless...
"Ms. Martha, if you're concerned that the sorcerers might make fake proof against you, we can be there all the time. Our power gifted by nature is of no inferior to magic." said a female elf, trying to persuade Martha.
Another male elf nodded, "Even if they somehow have some fake proof, showing your innocence and righteousness is not difficult at all. This is about the pollution of the elvish tree, so we can see if the black spots on the elvish tree will disappear or not."
Heidi took a glance at Annick and then nodded to Jurisian. They had made sure that Martha was hiding something, and it was just too obvious.
Facing the persuasion, Martha's attitude softened a bit. She said coldly to them, "Go ahead. If you find nothing, remember that I won't accept your apology. I just hope that you can leave the forest in shame on your own."
Felipe walked in the tree house at a leisure pace with his hands in pockets. Step by step, he stepped onto the transparent stairs made of air and walked directly onto the tree. The elves hurriedly followed in fear that he would make any fake proof against Martha.
Jurisian, Heidi, and Annick followed Iristine and Martha. They behaved themselves as they did not want to further piss off the elves.
The treehouse wasn't big, but it was very organized and clean, and the house was filled with the pleasant scent of trees and flowers. Apart from books, some musical instruments, and some paintings, there were only some small decorations made of some dried flower petals, strange-shaped stones and leaves.
Under the instruction of Jurisian, Annick and the rest of the sorcerers started searching every corner of the two treehouses. Among them, Alferris was the most motivated one, which kept running back and forth among the elves. Its eyes were shining like gems as it was remembering everything shining in this place. From time to time, its little paws from time to time picked up some shining items and were reluctant to put them down.
At this time, Felipe picked up a notebook and started leafing through it.
"These are notes on music and dance. Can you read it?" said Martha sarcastically.
Hearing the word "music" in elf language, Felipe's right hand slightly twitched a bit and then he talked back at her coldly, "Take it easy. My art talent isn't as bad as you think."
"Oh is that right? Are you good at using a dead body's femur as your clarinet or its ribs as heptachord?" said Martha bitterly, knowing that Felipe was a necromancer.
Felipe went on reading the notes, completely ignoring the words.
After a while, the sorcerers had all done with their searching, but nothing was found.
Felipe looked up, and his sick-looking face was totally expressionless, "Ms. Martha, I'd like to ask one question: Why did you put these comments beside each of the pictures recording Dance of Revenge? All of the comments are about nature's abhorrence and human's sins. They look like some special rites or ritual language to me."
The rest of the sorcerers' eyes lit up. But soon they started slightly frowning. It seemed that the finding was too easy.
Martha explained gloomily, "To explain the essentials of each movement. What do they have to do with rites?"
"If they're only about some essentials, as a dancer like you, there's no need to write down so much. You're turning them into lectures and vows." said Felipe coldly.
When the elf standing beside Martha was about to explain, Felipe took out a book, "This is the special rite for summoning demons. You all can take a look at it to see if they are the same."
Iristine took a glance at the book and saw the book name: Viken's Special Summoning Ritual.
"I knew it. You're all prepared." Martha looked away and sneered.
The other elves took over the book in confusion and started reading.
Soon after they just started, Martha suddenly took a step backward and came to the edge of the tree house. Then she threw her wood staff into the air and the staff quickly grew into a dark-green monster about two meters tall.
At this time, black waves of insects were summoned by her and they were now surging toward the sorcerers.
This was the level seven divine power of Druids, called Boundless Insects, which consisted of countless insects that could cause itch, paralysis, and trance. Once a sorcerer was trapped by the bugs, his or her casting would all be disrupted, even including those spells that had been imprinted in his or her soul. Thus it was a Druid's great weapon against casters.
The rest of the elves were totally shocked by this unexpected fight, but the sorcerers were well-prepared.
Alferris never viewed itself as a frog, so it disliked those bugs very much. It looked up and released its angry roaring, and the power in the roaring made the insects in the air flinched a little.
Then, a strong magnetic field covered the tree house and distorted everything in it.
Under the power of the strong magnetic field, the magic bugs were pulled away as they were still forms of matter.
Martha jumped backward into the air and the trees around her had all come to life. Those treants were a few meters tall and they had encircled the treehouse from all directions.
"You filthy sorcerers are framing me! I'll go to see Mr. Ferragond!" Martha said aloud purposefully.
Felipe's hands were still in his pockets, but black miasma was aggregating around him like waves.
As soon as the dark-green monster formed by Martha's staff touched the miasma waves, it instantly lost the gloss on its skin. And the treants had all become very weak as if all their strength had been taken away.
Dying Waves, the seventh circle necromancy range spell!
The black miasma did not affect the sorcerers at all as if it had its own intelligence, which showed Felipe's great control of this seventh circle spell. For most senior-rank sorcerers who cast the spell, they could not make the miasma tell the difference between allies and enemies.
Heidi said to Annick through the telepathic bond, "Use the rite. We can't let her go!"
Heidi could not afford a rite like that a second time. But Annick was quite affluent, so she made him one.
......
Inside Town of the Anonymous.
In the show there was a very powerful source of electricity, and the electric arcs visible to naked eyes emitted by it were formidably dangerous which were also making this terrifying buzzing noise.
Mason started losing his vision, and he realized that he had reached his limit. All he was left was his willpower.
At this time, warm and soft sunlight cast on him which relaxed him immediately. And within a second, the electric arcs had all gone.
"Who is it... ?" asked Mason in a hoarse voice.
The soft and friendly voice came, "I'm Atlant from the Congress of Magic. I am here. No one can hurt you."
Mason finally fully relaxed and turned back to his human look in sheer feebleness.
After an hour, in the air above Town of the Anonymous, Atlant said to Lankshear, Selinda, and Lodell, "It has been confirmed that Mattwe and the several senior-rank elves were all involved in this. They were trying to use the town and a great number of senior-ranks to summon the real devil of abhorrence. But the projection of the devil exploded them all. We don't know who's behind it."
"It was Ferragond's proposal to block the town." said Lankshear gloomily.
Selinda nodded, "Those elves were from Nature's Abhorrence. They knew Mattwe well."
Lodell was still in shock, "So was it Ferragond? But he did this for what?"
"He's the leader of Nature's Abhorrence. Maybe that's the reason! Anyways, I have to go back to Nature's Residence right now no matter if he's suspicious or not. Please take care of this place." said Lankshear anxiously.
Atlant had closed his eyes, "I'm also heading back. We can't leave Jurisian and the rest of them in danger."
The elf queen was trying her best to stop the elvish tree from being further polluted. Although she would be okay fighting against common elves, when facing Ferragond, "Nature's Avenger", her power would be badly restrained.
"We'll stay here and safeguard the gap until the Elder and Mr. Evans come back." nodded Lodell.
Neither he nor Selinda were elves, so they would like to stay away from the internal conflict among the elves.
......
Felipe lifted his right hand. Then suddenly a spectre appeared behind Martha's back. The spectre was transparent but covered in a black robe. It kept going back and forth between the main material world and the World of Souls and was using all kinds of necromancy spells to prevent Martha from running away.
This was a new summoning spell put forward by the Hand of Paleness after many years of study on the World of Souls. The caster could summon a spectre like a voidwalker which was able to go back and forth between the two spaces. Such a spectre was thus very hard to kill and very powerful.
Martha was unprepared for this and was trapped by this senior-rank spectre. Meanwhile, there was now a ruby in Jurisian's hand which made Alferris's eyes light up. The ruby shot out a bright ray at Martha so fast before anyone could do anything.
The ray directly hit Martha and removed her defense shield.
Annick quickly used the gestures to prepare the rite for summoning the demiplane, while Heidi was patiently waiting for the chance to join the fight. She saw that Felipe lifted his right hand again.
But this time, Felipe's right wrist suddenly snapped! The broken hand rocketed into the air and grabbed Martha's face.
Then the creepy veins grew out of the broken hand and trapped Martha inside.
When Martha was about to launch her desperate strike, the furious voice arrived, "You damned human beings! How dare you start a fight in Nature's Residence?"
"Your Excellency Mr. Ferragond, I am framed by them! They said I summoned a devil!"
| ← Ch. 679 | Ch. 681 → |