My health recovery is incredibly fast.

"I would like to request that you allow Fritz to take my body back. If that is not possible, please try to take my brain with you."

These words left Xia Zuo somewhat bewildered.

"Hehehehe..." The little man with hair let out a series of hoarse laughs, "You've finally figured it out. The body you were born with is just a shell that will eventually decay. It's not too late to understand now."

Helmst held out his hands in front of him, palms facing upwards, and said with a devout expression:

"Yes, Your Excellency. I have thought it through. I will dedicate myself wholeheartedly to your great cause."

The little man with the hair stopped laughing and paced back and forth with his hands behind his back. Seeing the other party's submissive appearance, he hesitated instead.

"You wouldn't... be thinking of summoning the garrison mages, would you...?"

The spiky-haired figure said ominously, "Once the ritual begins, I'll have to stay here for now..."

Helms' expression froze, as if he had been hit where it hurt, or as if he hadn't considered that aspect.

He said somewhat flusteredly, "No, no, sir, please don't misunderstand. I sincerely want to pledge my allegiance to you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have offered you a level 1 painless ring-breathing worm."

“Hmm…” The little man with the hair took a few more steps, shook his head, and considered for a moment. “I need to see sincerity, Helms. You know the requirements of the ritual, and you know what you should do…”

Helmsten hesitated for a moment, then replied, "As you wish, Your Excellency."

He bent down and took a dagger from the drawer, unbuttoned his robe to reveal his chest, gripped the dagger with both hands, and pointed the sharp tip at his heart.

Xia Zuo was glad that he was in the Qi Cloud state; if he were in human form, his heart would be beating as fast as Helms's.

Helms was panting heavily, his chest heaving violently, his forehead covered in beads of sweat, and he was grimacing and his features were contorted.

"Remember your promise, Your Excellency!"

Helmster roared, straightened his arms, and then suddenly bent them.

"what!"

"puff!"

"Sizzle~~"

Blood gushed out, soaking the desk and staining the floor in front of it red.

"Hahaha, ahahaha, the blood has arrived, eternal life is here!" The hairy little man howled in the rain of blood. It swam upstream against the flow of blood, reaching Helms' body, pulling out the dagger stuck in his chest, and plunging it into the wound.

No more blood was flowing.

The blood spilled on the desk, the blood droplets splattered on the wall, and the blood seeping into the cracks in the floor seemed to be drawn together by an invisible force, converging on Helms's wound.

The figure beside the desk trembled slightly, its eyes rolling in its closed gaze, and its limbs twitching incessantly.

About five minutes later.

A line of blood emerged from Hemsworth's nostril, ran from the desk to the iron door, pulled the door open, then he picked up the dagger from the ground and plunged it back into the wound on his chest.

Finally, the blood trickled back into the nostril.

Xia Zuo... no longer knew how to describe the scene before him...

From an outsider's perspective, he felt that Hemsworth had fallen for the mysterious man's trick.

The mysterious figure had previously said that the person who was supposed to meet them would not arrive in Spreeer for another 15 days.

The mysterious person may have said this intentionally to put more pressure on Hemsworth and force him to participate in the current ritual.

The intention behind opening the door with the bloodline was clear: to let the guards here discover Hemsworth's body.

If the resident mage arrives and seals off the area, then conducts a thorough search of the entire Warriors' Guild as is customary, there's no guarantee they won't run into the mage's assistant or the resident mage himself, leading to a series of misunderstandings...

With this thought in mind, Xia Zuo slowly floated towards the door, and after repeatedly confirming that there was no movement at the desk, he left the Warriors' Guild.

He swiftly floated back to the hotel, locked the door, drew the curtains, and began rapidly flicking the secret communication ring with his right hand.

It took him a full two minutes to relay the entire incident to Dim without missing a single detail.

Xia Zuo spelled out the place names Helmst mentioned several times to make sure there were no errors before sending them out.

He took out his pocket watch and glanced at it.

0:40 PM.

I'll meditate until 5 o'clock first, then read Tim's reply.

Xia Zuo quickly washed up, prepared the appropriate dose of calming potion, and entered into deep meditation.

Chapter 35 The Aftermath of the Fall

5 points in the early hours.

Xia Zuo opened his eyes and immediately raised his left hand. The message on the secret communication ring was deeply moving:

[The target has fallen. What a tragedy. Keep an eye on the target. The anti-detection barrier can block the detection spells of the garrison mages. Several of the villages and towns you mentioned experienced plague outbreaks yesterday. I will speed things up and arrive within three days.]

A plague has broken out?

Xia Zuo suddenly sat up in bed.

Could it have been the coachman's doing?

Damn it, you bastard.

I should fucking chop him up in the city!

Xia Zuo slapped his forehead several times and let out a helpless sigh.

The timing was too tight during the day.

Helms stayed in the room all day without ever stepping out of the alchemy chamber.

If one chooses to chase after the coachman or notify the resident mage, one will not be able to witness the entire process of Hermster's fall from grace.

Just as Xia Zuo was blaming himself, the sound of orderly footsteps came from the street outside the window.

He pushed open a crack in the window and saw two squads of guards running forward, heading straight for the Warriors' Guild.

Xia Zuo lowered his head and read the information on the secret message ring again.

Dim explicitly stated that Beatrice's anti-detection barrier could block the detection spells of the garrison mages.

What are we waiting for? Let's continue to closely track Helmst's corpse within the Warriors' Guild.

Xia Zuo went into the washroom, took a shower, and thoroughly cleaned himself.

When I came out wearing new clothes, I also checked the potion in the Alchemy Stone of Life.

He had a premonition that he might only be able to rest for three or four hours a day for many consecutive days.

"Whoosh~" A cloud of air slipped out through the window crack and drifted toward the crowded Warriors' Guild.

Xia Zuo floated over the crowd and skimmed along the ceiling to the door of Helms' alchemy room.

Originally, there was only one resident mage in Sprill City. After the academy expanded its enrollment of students with affinity a few years ago, Beatrice placed two mage apprentices here to serve as assistants to the resident mage.

Xia Zuo vaguely remembered the mage assistant who came to the Warriors' Guild for an on-site inspection today. She was someone Anruer used to discuss skincare products with, and they were senior and junior classmates in the same department. Her name was Yani.

Yani is tall and slender, and the starry night robe accentuates her curves. Her smooth, long black hair is tied into a ponytail and hangs down her back.

Xia Zuo floated on the ceiling. Without even using his detection spell, he could tell that Yani had high wind resistance just by looking at the number of small blue lights.

A quick check with the detection technique confirmed it; the figure was indeed as high as 13%.

Generally speaking, a higher resistance to a particular element indicates proficiency in that element's spells.

Yanni's method of detecting the scene was neither by using the naked eye nor by personally entering the alchemy room.

She stretched out her right hand toward the open iron gate, closed her eyes, tilted her head back slightly, and exhaled a stream of air from her nose.

A stream of air, faintly shimmering with a bluish light, swirled in the alchemy room, drifting along the corners, edges, under desks, tops of cabinets, and many other hidden places. Every inch of floor, every drawer, and even the inside of the furnace was swept by the airflow.

About three minutes later, Yani took a deep breath, and the air flowed back into her nasal cavity.

A look of confusion appeared on Yanni's pretty face. Her delicate eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes trembled slightly beneath her eyelids.

She lowered her right hand, her hands clasped lightly inside her sleeves.

"Captain Nick."

Yanni opened her eyes and looked at the guard carrying a sword and shield beside her. "Take Hemsster's body to the morgue near the castle. He committed suicide. There was no one else at the scene, and no trace of magic."

Yani raised her hand and pointed to the dagger in the corpse's chest. "Don't touch that dagger when you're moving it. It's a bit strange; it absorbed the splattered blood."

Nick peered into the room, his gaze sweeping across the floor around the body. He nodded and said, "Yes, Your Excellency Yanni."

Several guards, led by Nick, entered the alchemy room, lifted Hemsworth's body onto a stretcher, and then spread out a white sheet to cover it.

Yanni entered the house, put the notebook on the desk into her alchemy pouch, and looked at the top of the storage cabinet with a puzzled expression.

Xia Zuo noticed Yani's actions.

After everyone left, he quietly floated onto the locker.

This is where he used to hide.

There was a thick layer of dust.

Xia Zuo's cloud-like form was shielded from the magical light by the anti-detection barrier, but as a cloud of energy, it still affected the surrounding things.

There was a faint curve in the dust in front of me, like the shape of a ball that had been sitting there for a while.

Xia Zuo now understood why Yani was confused.

She noticed something unusual about the scene.

But after Yanni contacted the garrison mage using a secret communication ring hidden in her sleeve, she may have received instructions from the mage before telling the guards that Hermster had committed suicide.

Xia Zuo reminded himself not to make the same mistake again.

He drifted out of the alchemy room, followed the large convoy transporting the corpses, and arrived at the castle district of Spreeer.

The group stopped in front of a building with gray walls covered in moss.

Nick knocked on the front door.

Wearing a white apron and a special mask, the coroner opened the door and led the group into the dark corridor behind him.

The corridor extends diagonally downwards, with densely packed cabinets filled with corpses on both sides.