Miss Louisa, who was looking down and flipping through the material with the dim light in her hand, seemed completely oblivious to the situation behind her, but behind the man with the short knife, the figure of Doctor Schneider, who should have left the room, appeared:
"Is it because we came too fast? You are too easily fooled."
The rumbling thunder finally exploded at this moment.
In the study, which had returned to darkness after the lightning, Doctor Schneider grabbed the wrist of the man holding the knife, while Miss Louisa, who had been looking down, suddenly turned around and, with a fist blazing with fire, punched the attacker in the abdomen, just as she had attacked the merman that appeared due to the relic's loss of control that night.
With a muffled sound, flames splattered, and the stranger's left hand blocked Miss Louisa's right hand. Then, with an incredible movement, he jumped up on the spot, broke free from the doctor's control, and then clung to the ceiling like a gecko.
After a simple assessment of the current situation, the figure had no intention of fighting the two of them. He quickly left the illuminated area of the gas lamp above the desk, then immediately darted out of the study and plunged into the thin silver mist filling the corridor. This narrow, confined terrain was most suitable for Xia De's illusion.
Xia De also stood in the silver mist, watching the figure that had darted in first run around for a while, then cautiously stop. It was a medium-built, yellow-haired man with an eye patch over his left eye. He stood in the silver mist, holding a knife in his right hand, cautiously awaiting the illusion user's attack.
But Xia De was very self-aware and had no desire to engage in close combat with a Ring術士 whose level was certainly higher than his. Seeing the man with the knife stop, he dispersed the silver mist, and Miss Louisa, who had already prepared, rushed over with a huge Destiny Ring floating behind her.
A glowing rope descended from above, looping around the man's neck. But he merely swiped upwards with his knife, and surprisingly, cut the rope. And before Miss Louisa could make her next move, the man flicked the tip of his knife, causing the eye patch over his left eye to slip off.
Behind the eye patch, a terrifying blue eyeball spun wildly, causing Miss Louisa to instinctively step back. She warned loudly:
"relic! Demonic Eye!"
That eye seemed to be out of the man's control, spinning wildly in its socket, with large patches of white constantly appearing in the eye socket. Seeing Miss Louisa retreat with her eyes closed, the man with the knife immediately turned to look at Xia De.
Xia De, unprepared, met the gaze of those eyes. The azure blue eyes were different from Doctor Schneider's blue eyes. The madness revealed in that terrifying eye was like the frenzy of the last survivor before the world's impending doom.
The lightning outside the window flashed again at this moment, the white light illuminating the two people looking at each other, and also allowing Xia De to clearly see the middle-aged face of the other party. His weathered appearance probably held many stories.
And Xia De, who met the Demonic Eye's gaze... felt nothing.
"What?"
The man with the knife froze for a moment, and it was this small mistake that allowed Doctor Schneider to press the back of his head from behind. The doctor's voice was unusually soft amidst the sound of raindrops hitting the window, and the palm of his hand pressing on the back of the enemy's head glowed black:
"Sleep."
The man with the knife struggled to look at Xia De, his normal right eye repeatedly opening and closing, reminding the Outsider of his classmates in math class back home. He finally fell asleep, but when he was held by the doctor, his left eye remained open, the blue eyeball spinning wildly in its socket. The Demonic Eye seemed completely separate from his body.
The sound of the rain covered the brief struggle in the corridor. The doctor deftly laid the man on the corridor floor, pulling up his clothes to cover his face, mainly to conceal the constantly moving Demonic Eye.
He looked up at the two of them:
"Writer, Detective, give me twenty minutes. I'll go into his dream and take a look."
When they were out on a mission, the doctor had instructed them not to call each other by name.
"Does it take that long?"
Xia De asked, bending down to pick up the short knife from the man's hand. Unfortunately, although the short knife was well-made, it was just an ordinary weapon.
"This is a Ring術士, so of course it takes longer. If smoke starts coming out of me, it means his ability to manipulate dreams is stronger than mine. Remember to wake me up."
Saying that, the doctor pressed both hands on the covered head, and his whole body remained motionless in a bent posture, like a perfect wax figure.
Regardless of how Miss Louisa evaluated this scene, Xia De certainly felt that this appearance was very strange.
Doctor Schneider had deduced that the murderer had not left after checking the windowsill and finding that part of the surface was not wet. Xia De, on the other hand, had found new bloodstains after approaching the windowsill.
The man with the knife might have heard them talking upstairs and knew that one of them could see bloodstains. But he certainly didn't expect that even if his shoes were thrown out the window and his knife was washed in the rain, the bloodstains on his clothes from killing, which were invisible to the naked eye, could still be seen.
One must know that Xia De could even detect bloodstains from a hundred years ago, let alone fresh blood.
Therefore, Xia De's rash departure from the door and the doctor's careless follow-up, which led to Miss Louisa being attacked, happened later. This was not a result of the three of them cooperating tacitly, but rather, as they walked, the doctor wrote in the air with a glowing finger, simply outlining this plan.
And the most important part of the plan was that Xia De, the weakest, would not be "killed on sight." Now it seemed their luck was quite good.
"If I'm not mistaken, this factory owner, Mr. Pang Dun, must have embezzled the money that Mercury Blood entrusted him with, which is why he brought such disaster upon himself tonight."
Seeing the doctor successfully enter the dream, Miss Louisa, now relaxed, stood beside Xia De and whispered, the sound of her shoes on the floor almost completely inaudible.
The sound of the rain outside the window lessened a bit; the most dangerous part of the downpour was over.
"I guessed the same. Otherwise, those expensive silverwares and jewelry cannot be explained. Moreover, Mr. Pang Dun was checking accounts before he died, which is suspicious in itself. It's likely the murderer forced him to take out all the account books for verification. It's just unexpected that an ordinary person would dare to embezzle the pounds of a Ring術士 organization..."
Xia De sighed softly, then felt that this matter was not so incredible after all:
"greed always leads people to act irrationally."
"That makes a lot of sense. Therefore, Ring術士 should maintain their caution even more. Oh, Xia De, do you still have a water bottle on you? About this big."
Miss Louisa gestured again.
"Of course."
He handed her the bottle. The Golden-haired girl shook it and found it was full, then handed the bottle back to Xia De:
"Take that eye out and put it in the bottle."
"What? Take?"
Xia De asked as he looked down, then brought his right hand together, making an inelegant downward grabbing motion:
"Like this?"
"Yes, insert your fingers into the eye socket and pull out the eyeball."
Miss Louisa also followed, making a downward grabbing motion with her right hand, her five fingers together. She patiently explained to Xia De:
"That eye is a Demonic Eye, a type of special relic. It looks like the Demonic Eye is not fully integrated with his body, so I speculate it can be easily pulled out. The eye's effect doesn't seem to work on you, which is why I'm having you do it."
"Alright then."
Xia De crouched down amidst the sound of raindrops hitting the glass, lifted the cloth covering the man's head, and once again saw the blue eyeball in the man's left eye socket spinning wildly.
To learn Miracle, he had done more than one incredible thing in this world. Therefore, although he still had an internal barrier, he reached into the left eye socket and then "pulled" out the left eye. This action was even simpler than him turning on the gas lamp at home.
The eyeball was extremely slippery. After taking it out, Xia De immediately dropped it into the bottle. The blue Demonic Eye continued to spin rapidly after entering the water, but after only a dozen seconds, it became still. The pupil in the eyeball lost its expression, as if it had "died."
"Eyes can also be relics?"
He finally asked, standing up and plugging the bottle, then handing it to Miss Louisa. The latter shook the bottle vigorously, and only after seeing the eye inside truly motionless did she relax, handing the bottle back to Xia De and telling him to hold it for now.
"If fish scales can be relics, why can't eyes?"
Miss Louisa retorted, then smiled:
"Speaking of which, since I promised to be your teacher, I naturally have to take responsibility. Now I'll tell you about the Knowledge of Demonic Eyes. First, the minimum danger rating for all Demonic Eyes is Secret Keeper Level (Level 3), because Demonic Eyes need to be implanted into the human body, which makes them extremely prone to losing control. Although I don't know the function of this eyeball, it's probably Secret Keeper Level. The doctor will be able to get detailed information in a moment."
"This is a Secret Keeper Level relic?"
Xia De hadn't forgotten how valuable the last Secret Keeper Level relic he came into contact with, the Undead Remains, was.
"Demonic Eye-type relics are rare relics that can be directly transplanted into a Ring術士 and almost directly enhance a Ring術士. Most Demonic Eyes have strong side effects, but correspondingly, they are also very powerful. However, the transplantation of Demonic Eyes is not like universal steam engine parts that can be arbitrarily plugged and unplugged. It requires complex and precise surgical procedures."
Xia De looked at the lying man:
"I imagine the one who performed the surgery on him was certainly not a good doctor."
Miss Louisa shook her head. Although she was talking to Xia De, her eyes constantly watched both ends of the corridor and the corpse lying in the room, preventing other unexpected events from occurring:
"Not everyone can use a Demonic Eye. There's also a concept of adaptability involved. Serex Higher Medical College, one of the Three Great Arcane Academies, published several good papers a few years ago discussing the relationship between Demonic Eye adaptability and Ring術士. This man probably has low adaptability to this eye, and forcing its use is what caused the eye itself to seem like it's out of his body's control."
The Golden-haired girl, very unladylike, lifted her leg and kicked the lying man. Of course, the force was light, to avoid disturbing the doctor who was in a dream:
"After the doctor extracts enough information, we'll just kill him here. This kind of person is truly terrible..."
Xia De understood her thoughts and strongly supported this approach. He sniffed the damp air, then looked up at the corridor window; there were no pedestrians in the rainy night:
"Of course, a killer must be prepared to be killed. We can't interfere with the financial dispute between Mercury Blood and the Pang Dun family, but the maid killed downstairs was innocent after all."