Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

"The man had left his hometown a long time ago, but his return still brought great joy to those old friends and family who had learned of the great deeds he had accomplished."

"Clearly, they were the ones who banished that noble but unfortunate fellow."

Shard continued to comment as Mr. Asmon changed his posture, shifting from supporting his knee with his right hand to his left hand:

"People celebrated the return of an old friend and yearned to hear tales of his travels. So the demon granted their wish, harvesting all their souls during the celebration."

Shard took a sip from the wooden mug without offering any comment this time.

"The demon then returned to the man's home and met the man's family, who hadn't attended the celebration of his return. The first person the demon encountered was the man's wife, whose hair had already turned gray, and directly took her soul."

"Because it had fulfilled her wish of 'hoping for her husband's return.'"

Shard said softly, with a strange smile becoming more apparent on Mr. Asmon's face:

"Yes, indeed."

He drew out his words:

"The demon then found the man's eldest daughter and youngest son, who had long reached adulthood, the former now living here with her fifteen-year-old son. The demon politely asked the thirty-year-old woman: What is your wish? The woman, having witnessed her mother being devoured by the demon, said: I wish to protect my son."

"She was devoured by the demon."

Shard sighed softly.

"Then the demon politely asked the man in his thirties: What is your wish? Knowing his inevitable fate, the man summoned the same courage as his sister: I wish to protect my nephew."

"And so he was also devoured by the demon."

Shard sighed once more.

Mr. Asmon slightly bowed his head, his entire face shrouded in shadow:

"Finally, the demon asked the thirteen-year-old boy, the grandson of the man who had no wishes, the only survivor in the entire region: Child, what is your wish?"

"This is unfair; he has already been protected by his family's love and should not be asked for a wish."

Shard pointed out, with Mr. Asmon nodding:

"Yes, because of the family's wishes, he still had one chance. As long as the boy remained silent at that moment, the demon would honor its agreement with the man and woman, leave, and not touch the boy's soul."

Shard shook his head helplessly, folding the newspaper in front of him:

"Hearing you say this, he surely spoke up, didn't he?"

"Yes."

Sean Asmon lowered his voice slightly:

"The boy said: I've heard of my grandfather's story; I know you are not him; you are the evil fiend that was taken away."

Shard tilted his head, looking at the demonologist who was telling the story, who then provided the ending to this tale:

"'Now that everyone has been taken by you, it is my turn to stand up bravely like my grandfather. My wish is to accompany you through my life, just like my grandfather did.'"

Shard slightly adjusted his position, moving slightly to sit more comfortably on the chair:

"The same ending, is this a cycle?"

"Yes, because the demon promised to fulfill the wishes of the man and the woman. So it hid within the mortal soul once again, and the boy packed his belongings, leaving along the path his grandfather walked."

Mr. Asmon finally straightened his posture, finishing the last sip of barley wine.

"This story is truly disturbing, but I suppose it's not over yet, is it?"

Shard inquired, Mr. Asmon's peculiar smile unchanged, while Shard's peripheral vision caught sight of Mr. Benhart descending the stairs:

"Then next time, let's continue the boy's story; hopefully, the story won't end with the boy's death and the demon taking over his descendants' souls again."

Shard stood up, extending his hand to shake with Mr. Asmon, who also bent forward to stand:

"No, Mr. Watson. This story is far more extraordinary than you imagine."

Mr. Sean Asmon remained on the first floor, while Shard, with a new story in mind, headed towards the stairs to meet Mr. Benhart.

"Is that your friend?"

The Vampire Kind slightly raised its head.

"A friend met at Coldwater Port in Draleon, just an ordinary person."

The handshake earlier was to confirm this point.

Mr. Benhart nodded and did not ask further:

"Come upstairs with me. Wilson's emotions are somewhat collapsing; he almost got killed. The Pantanal Voodoo Society has mastered a unique method to deal with the Vampire Kind."

Although his tone was nonchalant, Shard could sense the anger in this gentleman.

The shabby inn naturally wouldn't have any luxurious rooms, even though Mr. Benhart claimed this was the best room in the entire inn. In Shard's view, it was only slightly better than a room in a true slum where dozens of people slept together.

Just as Mr. Benhart said, due to excessive fright, Mr. Wilson, who had messy light brown hair, was becoming somewhat hysterical. Shard and Mr. Benhart soothed him for a while before he calmed down enough to recount what happened in the morning.

The course of events was roughly similar to what Shard and the others had speculated. The Pantanal Voodoo Society heard Mr. Wilson was going to sell that Relic Weapon to a very influential member of the same clan locally, so they attacked Mr. Wilson first.

Strangers who broke into his house half an hour earlier than Shard and the others were High Ring Sorcerers, and the Three Rings Mr. Wilson was no match. If he hadn't foreseen the threat of death from a divination for his fortune the previous night, and thus prepared the Arcane Technique [Blood-Colored Doppelganger] in advance, he might have been truly dead.

"I must leave here immediately! Yes, leave immediately, go to Velindale. It's too frightening, too frightening!"

This gentleman seemed to be scared by something, and this kind of terror was clearly abnormal. He kept muttering to himself, sometimes pacing around the narrow room, sometimes pointing in terror at the two visitors, expressing his inner fear.

"Obviously, besides the threat of death, he probably saw something else in the divination."

Mr. Benhart said helplessly, though he had a level as high as the Seventh Ring, he wasn't proficient in healing this kind of mental illness. It's not a problem caused by the influence of relics; it's purely a trauma from witnessing something terrifying.

"I can give it a try."

Shard thought for a moment and said, taking out his Moonstone Ring, gently kissed it, and aimed it at the somewhat crazy man:

"Muddle!"

The Arcane Technique [Muddle], obtained from a trade with the first Librarian Miss Orland in the Valley of Dead Silence. The essence of the Arcane Technique is to use the trait of yellow moonlight to turn normal people into madmen and madmen into normal people, but in Shard's hands, the most common use is to confuse those summoned entities with low wisdom.

And at this moment, the yellow moonlight excellently played its role of "Guidance". Mr. Wilson gradually calmed down in the yellow moonlight. Mr. Benhart pulled over a chair for him to sit down, and the latter covered his face with his hands, only after a while did he make a sound as if waking from a dream:

"Oh, this is really... too horrifying."

"What exactly happened, what did you see?"

Mr. Benhart hurriedly asked this rare Diviner from the same clan, who breathed heavily, removed his hands from his face, and had an inexplicable exhausted expression on his face:

"Horrible earthquakes, unprecedented blizzards sweeping half of the Old Continent... the disaster is coming."

Ever since first meeting Shard in Huntington City, Mr. Benhart had a premonition that something big was about to happen locally. Now getting confirmation personally, he instead felt relieved, a sense of ease like waiting for the other shoe to drop, with an inopportune smile on his face:

"It's finally coming, ahem, I mean, what disaster, what did you prophesy? Are you sure you interpreted it correctly?"

Mr. Wilson shook his head slightly, looking down at the floor:

"After my doppelganger was killed, I divined about that Trap Seed the High Ring Sorcerer from the Pantanal Voodoo Society left in my corpse, wanting to know who he really was. Even though I have no confidence in revenge, I at least want to know who my mortal enemy is."

"Trap Seed" should refer to the blood-colored vine encountered by Shard and Mr. Benhart when they examined the corpse.

Under the gaze of Shard and Mr. Benhart, the man suddenly shivered:

"My divination was too successful. It was as if the God of Fate glanced at me during that divination. I have never had such a smooth divination... it was like chopping down a tree with a rusty axe with a single swing; or like a clumsy clockmaker, muddling through to make a perfect pendulum clock."

"This shows your Divination Arts have greatly enhanced, from now on, you can claim to be a rather gifted Diviner."

Shard said admiringly.

Luviya once said that once a similar divination is made, it implies a significant improvement in Divination Arts. The purple-eyed girl could only have a similar feeling every time The Chosen One formally appeared.

"Yes, yes, I did indeed gain new Spirit Runes and Power, but I also saw... deep in the Great Swamp, the Evil Object roaring for millennia in the Subspace Sealing, the filth and terrifying priest in the ancient temple, the Wrath of Nature and the ensuing great cataclysm!"

He suddenly shouted loudly:

"This is a sign! This is the first step! The snowstorm of the entire winter is the first alarm bell for the Material World, but no one knows why this death knell is ringing."

Mr. Wilson's emotions became agitated again, his eyes bulging as if they were about to pop out:

"I saw the Angel with white wings flying over the lake, I saw the tentacle-like vines that writhed ten thousand years ago returning to the Material World, I saw the Sage holding a book, standing and laughing at the top of the Lighthouse, I also saw the weeping purple-eyed Female Diviner watching all this heading towards destruction!"