Absolutely not to be burned at the stake

"This...this..."

The uninjured guard finally reacted and pointed at the miner rolling and howling on the ground, saying, "Someone... tie him up first."

Under the command of the guards, several miners rushed forward and finally tied up the miner who was rolling and howling on the ground.

However, the miner, now bound, screamed even more desperately, causing everyone's faces to grow increasingly pale.

Finally, a piece of glass cloth was used to stuff the person's mouth, and only then did they quiet down.

Looking at the miners' twisted and crazed faces, the miners' leader was filled with terror. He knew what was going on with his men.

This miner was among the first to be bitten, and he himself had also been bitten on the leg, and was now experiencing intense itching as well.

Seeing the guard with burlap wrapped around his calf, he followed as if he had found his pillar of support: "Sir... what should we do? We have to think of something... otherwise..."

The guard's face was ashen; how could he not know why the miner had gone mad?

"The holy water will come tomorrow morning." At this moment, although he was nervous, he could only say this, as if he was encouraging himself.

The town of Shadows was extremely quiet in the dead of night.

Especially on such a late autumn night, with not a single light, everyone is soundly asleep in their own beds, and no one would be out wandering around in the middle of the night.

Only... a faint, almost imperceptible shadow wandered quietly through the streets.

Curious, it walked through a narrow alley, stood in front of someone's window and looked inside, then floated to the door of another house, and even peered into the dog hole in the yard.

The dog in the yard was so frightened that it whimpered and huddled in a corner, trembling uncontrollably...

Seeing the dog's terrified expression, Shadow suddenly trembled all over, as if he were laughing silently.

After teasing the dog for a moment, the shadow quietly drifted away, then floated into the main street, finally pausing briefly in front of the dark iron cross in the town square.

It circled the iron cross twice, and even seemed to climb it, mimicking the posture of someone burned at the stake, hanging there for a while...

Then it slipped down silently and wandered off in another direction.

After wandering around the town for a while, as we passed the church, the shadow seemed to be attracted by the huge building in front of it and quietly stopped.

The deputy captain of the guard, Tevis, lay on his warm bed, suddenly turned over, pulled the blanket tighter around him, and slept very comfortably.

Without noticing, a shadow silently drifted past the window.

In a lavishly decorated bedroom, Captain Patton was fast asleep, snoring, with a naked woman in his arms.

Only on two large trees not far from the church entrance, two members of the night guard, wrapped tightly in thick animal skins, huddled in the branches of the trees, barely resisting the chill, unwilling to move.

One of them was fast asleep, completely covered by a thick animal hide.

The other one was also yawning, forcing open his heavy eyelids, and staring at the church.

During these few days of duty, the guards have come up with a solution: the second half of the night is just too tiring after the shift change at midnight.

Anyway, nobody comes to the church, so the two of them take turns sleeping, each getting three prayer hours' worth of sleep, which is just enough to last until dawn...

Inside the church, Li Wei, who had exhausted himself practicing "cleansing magic" in the first half of the night, was also sleeping soundly.

Under normal circumstances, he would sleep until around six in the morning before waking up.

But... suddenly, Li Wei's eyes snapped open.

"Um?"

Li Wei frowned slightly, turned to look out the window, and saw only darkness, making him feel somewhat confused.

Why did I wake up at this time?

But the holy emblem between his brows was now emanating a subtle coolness, as if reminding him of something...

Li Wei took a deep breath, steadied himself, shook off the confusion in his mind, and focused his attention.

As the person in charge of the Sacred Heart Cathedral, he sensed with a slight effort that the cathedral was quite quiet and there was nothing unusual.

Since the problem wasn't with the church...

Li Wei got out of bed quietly, walked to the window, and felt the chill coming from outside, so he couldn't help but shrink his neck slightly.

Then he took out his night vision goggles and slowly scanned the outside through the crack in the window.

"Um?"

A little further away, on those two large trees, two guards were on duty as always...

only...

Li Wei's brows suddenly furrowed!

In the night vision goggles' field of vision, there weren't just two ordinary shadows, but three...

Two are quite visible through the night vision goggles, while the other is somewhat blurry...

On the big tree outside the church, a guard member yawned, tightened the animal skin wrapped around his body, glanced at the empty church, and cursed under his breath.

"Damn it, if I'd known, I should have gone to guard the mines... at least I wouldn't have to freeze at night and could get a good night's sleep..."

The strange shadow seemed to have drifted over here at that moment, glanced at the church in front of it from a distance, and did not approach; then it seemed to have discovered something.

It floated over lightly, curiously looking up at the guards perched in the tree branches, seemingly somewhat interested...

Then, it approached the big tree and quietly and slowly climbed up.

"So sleepy..."

The guard, barely able to keep his eyes open for the night watch, looked up, his mouth agape, and yawned...

He had just opened his mouth when he suddenly felt something in his mouth, as if a slippery, semi-soft object had been stuffed into his mouth and then pushed down his throat.

It suffocated him instantly...

The guard tried to struggle in terror, but found that he was suddenly bound tightly by something, unable to move his hands or feet.

No matter how much he struggled, it was all in vain...

He struggled to twist his neck and turn his eyes, trying to see clearly what had been stuffed into his mouth and what had bound him.

But I can't see anything...

As dawn broke, the guards stationed at the mine stood at the mine gate, bowing and waiting in the direction of Shadow Town.

There was nothing they could do. In the few hours before dawn, two of the four miners who were bitten by the mine rats in the first batch had already fallen ill, or rather, gone mad.

The remaining miners were extremely nervous, and three members of the guard had also been bitten...

Everyone was waiting for Vice-Captain Tevez to come and bring holy water to save their lives.

Meanwhile, Tyvis was standing in the courtyard of the guard's camp, examining a corpse with a grim expression.

"There were no obvious external injuries, and it didn't look like poisoning... His eyes were bulging, and his face was contorted, making it seem like he suffocated to death."

After checking for a while, Tyvis stood up and looked up at Barton, who had a similarly gloomy expression.

"Suffocated? How could it be suffocated?"

Barton frowned, his mind racing, trying to think of a spell that could suffocate someone without alerting anyone nearby.

He racked his brains but couldn't figure out what kind of magic it was.

Frustrated, Barton scratched his head and looked at his pale-faced subordinate beside him: "You son of a bitch, didn't you hear a single sound?"

The young team member shook his head, trembling, "No, I didn't hear anything."

Barton's face grew increasingly ferocious. He looked down at the corpse on the ground, gritted his teeth, and glared at the crowd, saying in a cold voice, "No one is allowed to spread what happened today."

"Yes." Seeing the captain's icy expression, the guards all fell silent.

"Tyvis...you go and keep an eye on the mine. Tell those damn miners to speed things up and clear the collapsed tunnel as soon as possible," Barton said sternly to Tyvis.

"Yes, Captain!"