Far away from the noisy inn, Henry’s ears finally found peace.
These soldiers were completely immersed in wine and meat, without any sense of crisis whatsoever.
Perhaps in their view, this was not a transport mission at all, but rather a sightseeing trip.
Henry felt that he would need to interrogate Pierre later when he had the chance, to make him reveal the true purpose of this operation.
The entire village seemed to have fallen into deathly silence, with the few households he passed by all having their doors wide open.
It appeared that the villagers of this village trusted each other completely.
Henry looked toward the church in the distance.
The villagers should all be at the church right now.
If it weren’t for having important matters to attend to, perhaps he would also go take a look at the church.
Following the clues Sherisa had given him, Henry walked straight toward the corner of the village.
Walking along a muddy path, Henry finally saw a wooden house.
On top of the house hung a conspicuous Blue Cowboy Hat.
By now, the sun had already set behind the mountains.
Night was approaching, and the surroundings seemed to become dim and unclear.
“Is anyone home? I’m coming in.”
Henry slowly pushed open the door, only hearing the wooden door creak as it responded, as if it would fall down with just a little force.
As soon as he stepped inside, he felt like he had stepped on something sticky and viscous.
At the same time, the air was filled with an indescribably pungent smell.
If it were someone else, they might not understand, but Henry, who had been frequently dealing with cultists recently, detected that this was the smell of blood.
Flies were buzzing around everywhere inside the house, and the surrounding environment was as terrible as a garbage dump.
Obviously, normal people would not live in a place like this.
Following the smell, he continued deeper into the room and stopped in front of a door.
He discovered that between this door and the adjacent door, there was a long trail of blood drag marks.
He forcefully pushed open the door in front of him!
Even though he had mentally prepared himself, Henry’s eyelids couldn’t help but twitch.
The scene before him was heart-stopping.
Countless skeletons lay on the floor of the room, along with several corpses that hadn’t completely decomposed yet. The rotting flesh on them had become a paradise for the flies’ frenzy — if you didn’t know better, you’d think someone had forgotten to put their meat in the refrigerator.
Henry noticed that in the corner of the room, there was a corpse with a completely disfigured face still wearing a Blue Cowboy Hat on its head.
It looked like that was the person he was looking for.
Only in his hand, he seemed to be tightly gripping something.
Henry pinched his nose and walked forward to retrieve it from his hand — it was actually a Record Water Crystal Ball!
This thing was generally beyond what ordinary people could afford; it was probably something given to these contact persons by the Noel Family, in case of emergency so that people could come to understand the information.
Henry pressed the button on the back of the crystal ball, and immediately, a scene appeared before Henry’s eyes.
The shaking footage was wrapped in static noise, like fragments leaked from an old-style video camera.
The breathing was heavy and urgent, appearing particularly jarring in the silence. The camera swept across moldy wall plaster, a creaking hanging lamp swaying overhead. Under the weak light, dark red stains meandered across the floor like dried blood traces.
“Damn it, there’s something wrong with the villagers in this village! Were the Noel Family’s contact persons before this eating shit? They couldn’t even investigate such obvious anomalies!”
The person in the footage was cursing with foul language!
It seemed they were very dissatisfied with the intelligence work done by the Noel Family.
Henry also noticed that the location in the footage was not this place.
“However, there’s a cowboy hat on this house. I can use magic to dye it blue. When other contact persons come later, they’ll naturally discover the clues here.”
At this point, the footage suddenly cut off.
Only then did Henry realize why there was such a conspicuous Blue Cowboy Hat outside the house.
‘Wait, the footage clearly wasn’t from this place.‘
He keenly sensed something was wrong.
The place where the person in the footage was located didn’t have that hanging lamp — wasn’t this the place he was in?
Then why would his corpse be here?
Just as Henry was thinking, the originally interrupted footage suddenly returned to normal.
The footage captured crookedly twisted paintings hanging on the wall, with the eyes of the figures in the paintings seemingly following the camera’s movement. The person ran to a door, frantically turning the handle, only to discover the door was locked tight.
“Damn it! Damn it! They found me! These lunatics, they killed all the outsiders and buried them in a room! And that church – there’s definitely some unspeakable secret inside! I get dizzy just approaching it!”
He slammed against the wooden door while looking back.
Bright torches appeared on the path in the distance.
Even through the footage, Henry could feel his frantic heartbeat at that moment.
Fortunately, he successfully broke through.
But what greeted his eyes was a dim and oppressive bedroom, with old furniture emitting a rotten smell, blood stains on the walls like monsters baring their fangs and claws.
This was the place where Henry was now!
The other party opened the door Henry was currently at, but was frightened and trembling by the horrifying scene before him.
“This… this is where they bury the corpses! These are all outsiders’ bodies! Damn it, they’re a group of damned cultists who sacrifice these people’s souls to demons!”
The person in the footage crawled and rolled to another room.
That was a somewhat messy room with a wardrobe placed inside.
He quickly walked to the window, only to see that horrifying scene outside.
Wooden house was completely surrounded by torches, with countless villagers surrounding the wooden house.
“After they finish praying, they need to find new sacrificial offerings, and that sacrificial offering is me.”
“I can’t escape anymore, I’m going to die here.”
“No, I have to survive…”
Without thinking, he hid in the wardrobe.
He lowered his breathing, leaving only a small gap to watch ahead.
Soon, villagers broke in.
Their faces were pale, and their eyes glowed red.
“Where’s that rat? He seems to know our secret.”
“Don’t worry, he can’t escape…”
The leader was wearing a black jacket, with a massive body, looking no different from a giant.
They briefly searched around, and after confirming no one was there, they turned to leave.
Just before leaving, the leader looked back once, meeting the gaze of the person in the footage.
Click.
The door was closed.
The man let out a light breath — his heart almost jumped out.
Just as he was about to push open the wardrobe door!
Suddenly, a pair of eyes appeared in the door crack, staring at him intently!
The man screamed out loud, and then the footage turned to static and disappeared.
After watching the recording, Henry roughly understood what was happening here.
So this wasn’t the man’s residence after all.
Then their hanging the Blue Cowboy Hat here was to…
Henry had just realized something when he wanted to leave the wooden house, but the wooden door was pushed open at that moment.
A woman wearing an apron was looking at Henry with confusion.
“This gentleman, why are you here?”
“Oh, I was passing by and wanted to ask the homeowner for some food.”
The other party obviously hadn’t seen Henry before and didn’t show any suspicion toward Henry.
The woman showed a strange smile on her face, then said:
“Alright, sir. Please wait here for a moment, I’ll prepare a delicious feast for you right away.”