Winter goes to spring, and everything recovers.

It has been a month since the trial meeting ended.

Freshly picked flowers are sold along the streets by girls selling freshly picked flowers in their crisp and childish voices, and shops baking sweets with bright and dazzling signs sell bread with raspberry pulp in the market.

Every resident, shop, and street in Silver Ring City is filled with warm and bright colors.

There is only one exception.

Third Inquisition.

Everyone here has a depressed and depressed expression on their faces, and even the shadows cast by the buildings are a little darker than before.

The staff of the inquisition, who wanted to go out on errands, had to take off their black robes embroidered with red crosses and change into civilian clothes. Otherwise, they will be stared at, ridiculed and even beaten by the people of Silver Ring City. They know that they are wrong, and they never refute and fight back.

A place of judgment where evil heretics are dressed up as arraignators, a place of sin that hides filth and slanders against sages, what face, what justification, claims to be the sword of the Father, the shield of believers?!

Sixty-four years old this year, Bauer Sr. is a handyman at the Third Inquisition, and is mainly responsible for cleaning and maintaining the goods. The old man didn't talk much, but he was dutiful, and he had enough seniority to be trusted, and he had the keys to all the rooms in the Inquisition. Naturally, some of the more private and taboo rooms are not listed.

At five o'clock in the morning, it was not yet dawn. Not unlike usual, the elder Ball began on the top floor of the courtroom, floor by floor, and carried out the duties of his job.

The Third Inquisition is built in a rather strange way, and is probably the only place in the Silver Ring that is larger underground than the above-ground part.

The above-ground part includes three floors of office, training, warehouse, and archives, while the underground part is much larger, and even the old Bauer, who has worked here for nearly 20 years, has only been to the four underground floors at the deepest.

After cleaning the reception room, guard room, and interrogation room on the first basement floor, the old man looked at the stairs leading to the second basement floor, took out the thick cloth coat he had with him, and put it on his body. If he wants to go all the way underground, not only does the temperature drop, but there is a deeper level of cold, which makes him feel every time, shivering from his bones.

In the prisons and corridors on the second and third basement floors, listening to the incessant moans and murmurs, and looking at the inhuman-shaped prisoners in the dark, Old Bauer waved his broom, intending to return to the warm ground as soon as possible with a few symbolic pulls.

Cleaning to the end of the third basement floor, the old man put away the work equipment in his hand, and was about to turn back when he caught a glimpse of something strange out of the corner of his eye.

The third basement floor leads to the fourth basement floor, and the steel gate, which is always closed, opens......

Half an hour later, the old deacon, who was in charge of the underground prison, hurried to the scene, followed by Old Bauer, an assistant deacon, and two guards.

The old deacon bent down and carefully examined the ring lock of the iron door.

The iron door adopts the working principle of multiple mechanisms, and three lock cylinders embedded in the iron door are linked together by lead rods and iron grooves. The key must be inserted by three deacons at the same time and twisted to be opened.

But now, there was no trace of the key inserted, and the iron lock popped open on its own as if it had come to life.

Pushing open the heavy iron door, the old deacon beckoned, motioning for everyone to follow him.

Old Bauer flinched.

Ten years ago, he had entered the fourth basement floor once, and he knew exactly what was stored inside.

Since that glance, he has been sick for more than half a month with nightmares every night.

Just as he was about to say no, the push from the guard behind him forced him to take a step forward.

As soon as I entered the room on the fourth basement floor, the smell of sour and rotten smell ran down everyone's nose and into everyone's brain.

The old deacon, not surprised, took two lumps of lint from his sleeve, stuffed them into his nose, and asked the people to light the torches.

As soon as the fire was raised, the two guards, who had never been here, screamed like wives who saw mice.

The huge underground hall, with its four walls and eight pillars, is made of ground stone into a flat surface, and on it is like a star in the night sky, inlaid with countless human heads, including men, women, old people and children. The dark grey vaulted ceiling is painted with death-themed motifs and punctuated by leg bones, tibia and ulna alignments. Between the gaps in the skulls on the walls, the foot bones and metacarpal bones are used as embellishments to fill them. In the far reaches of the room, there were steel cages hanging from high ceilings, in which the whole dried corpse and the entire skeleton were locked.

This is the "Record Room" where the Third Inquisition has hunted xenos since its inception (some people in the Inquisition like to call this place the "Trophy Room"). The general practice is to cut off the head of the hunted target, dispose of it, and then classify and place it according to the ability of the different species and the age of capture.

Old Bauer took out the cross from his chest, held it in his arms, closed his eyes, and kept chanting: "Heavenly Father is above, drive away evil!

Ignoring the fears and uneasiness of the others, the old deacon, with his assistant deacon, began to examine each one by one to see if there was anything unusual.

"'Strength' xenos, checked, nothing is missing. ”

"The 'chariot' is a different species, it has been checked, and there is no lack of it. ”

As the sorting and inspection were completed one by one, the old deacon's brow furrowed deeper and deeper.

Most of the xenos in this room are the ones that have been hunted recently, and if you can't find them here, you may have to go deeper, which will make things even more troublesome.

Thankfully, his worries didn't last long.

The assistant deacon soon noticed something unusual.

"Sun Xenomorph, here, one less!"

Hearing this, the old deacon walked quickly to the wall, and there was indeed one missing from the list of hideous-looking and creepy heads.

A semicircular hole appeared in the wall, and the head that had been placed there disappeared.

"Find me! Find me the guy that's missing!"

The assistant deacon walked up to the pale, trembling guards, took the thick notebook from their hands, and turned the pages by the light of the torches.

Time passed slowly, and the sound of paper turning was extremely harsh in this dull and terrifying space.

Finally, a page was picked out, and a line of small letters appeared in front of me.

The old deacon squinted his eyes and carefully discerned the font on it.

"Hunting time: January 19, 1170 calendar. Hunting Locations: South of Fort Watch, Raven Forest. Hunting target: Marcos Byrne. Heterogeneous classification: Sun V......."

The assistant deacon stretched out his head, glanced at it, pointed to the small line below, and said to his superior, "There is another line of notes here." ”

The old deacon moved the record book closer in the direction of the firelight, and read it word by word: "This person is the bearer of the Sutherland Relic." ”