"After receiving the report from the townspeople, the Holy Inquisitor was full of doubts about this local feudal lord with ancient blood.

In order not to startle the snake, the members of the investigation team began to secretly investigate the situation of the Earl's family, they collected fragmented information, and then connected the clues one by one.

As the number of whistleblowers continues to grow, the details of the matter continue to be refined, like a puzzle that is gradually completed.

A terrifying, appalling story is becoming a picture that is gradually becoming clearer.

It all started with the last earl's illness.

Everyone in the town knew that their rightful lord, Lord Brandon Hagosolis VII, was in poor health and had been seriously ill ever since.

His body often twitched uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth, his eyes bulging out, and he looked quite terrible every time he was sick.

As he grew, the terrible illness did not abate, but intensified, increasing in frequency and severity.

In his 30s, Earl Brandon couldn't get out of bed three or four times a week, and he lived in fear and despair, feeling that his young life could end at any moment.

Over the years, in order to cure the stubborn diseases on his body, the Count has spent a lot of money, and he has tried all kinds of methods.

He brought in many famous doctors from the big cities, and he also asked for help from the Templars, and even invited shamanic priests from the steppes, and the great druids of the jungle tribes, and he held one farcical religious ceremony after another, and ate a basket of all kinds of strange medicines and remedies, but it didn't work at all.

The Count lost hope, and he silently endured the torment of his illness, watching himself grow haggard in the mirror, awaiting the almost inevitable end of death.

Until one day, the town of Fog Pine came to the town of a few strange strangers, they were islanders from the tropical countries of the far south.

These people don't have white skin like us Varstads, they don't have eyes and hair of different colors like we do.

These strangers have dark and shiny skin, stiff and curly hair, a sunken nose, broad lips, almond-colored eyes, colorful and exaggerated costumes made of animal feathers, and ornaments made of animal bones around their necks.

These tropics from the far south brought with them a number of handicrafts of exquisite workmanship, and their goods were especially favored by our local wealthy class, who exchanged them for gold and silver, and soon established themselves in the town of Foggy Pine.

And the other specialty they brought was not a tangible commodity, but a spiritual commodity—

A peculiar religion.

To be precise, it was a special faith that originated in the southern tropical island nation called the Soskaya Voodoo cult.

This religion is completely different from the local Templar Church in our continent of Ulassis.

They did not worship the glorious gods of the Templar, but of the unspeakable, ugly and terrible gods of darkness, and did not shy away from talking about the bloodlust and cruelty of these evil gods.

Voodoo cultists do not seek light and order in the traditional sense, they seek something more practical, absolute power—something mysterious that comes from the stars.

In Voodoo teachings, equivalent exchange is at the heart of the teachings, similar to our native alchemists, who exchange tribute and sacrifice for what they want with the so-called evil gods.

One of the most attractive abilities is the ability to reshape the body and bring the dead back to life

— and that's what Earl Brandon has been searching for all his life.

So the Count held a feast in his castle, and cordially invited and received the dark-skinned strangers, who were honored as guests, and exchanged his vast wealth for the power of the Soskaya Cult.

I don't know what method was used, but half a year later, he really succeeded.

Count Brandon became less and less frequent, and he was glad to find that he could at last walk around as a healthy man, and even run and dance with the girls he liked.

After tasting the sweetness, the Count revered those strangers as gods, and he no longer had any doubts, and plunged headlong into the arms of the Voodoo cult, and there was no turning back.

What happened in the castle after that, for various reasons, it is difficult for the outside world to know.

The investigation team wanted to know what method the Count had used to cure the disease, but to no avail, and they could only extract bits and pieces of information from the mouths of the informers.

Since Count Brandon began to convert to paganism, his skin has gradually become pale and fragile, his teeth have become extremely sharp, and he has developed the habit of going out by day and night.

He dismissed most of his servants and soldiers, leaving only the dozens of most faithful domestic slaves to serve by his side.

From that time on, the gates of the Count's castle were locked, the drawbridge over the moat was never lowered, and the Count kept the door closed, and no one knew what he and the domestic slaves were doing in it.

And it was at this point in time when the Earl disappeared that there were successive incidents of missing and dead townspeople in Fog Pine Town, which was too coincidental not to make people think of it, and it was believed that there must be some connection between the two things.

Finally, after a long interrogation and evidence collection, it was almost certain that the Count himself had nothing to do with the incident, and the Holy Inquisitor, who led the investigation team, made up his mind to initiate coercive measures.

He didn't need conclusive evidence of the Count's crimes, but the mere fact of betraying the Templar faith and converting to a pagan religion was enough to condemn him for treason.

As expected, Count Brandon refused to open the castle gates, and did not respond to the shouts of the people outside the castle, as if he had stored a large amount of supplies in the castle, and did not need to go out at all, and did not worry about food and water at all.

A week later, the Templar hierarchy approved the use of force to carry out the arrest.

The Inquisitors and Templars quickly gathered the nearby Church forces, numbering in the thousands, armed with torches and various farm tools and weapons, to surround the Count's castle and begin an assault.

Although there were only a few dozen cronies left in the castle around the earl, these people were all dead soldiers who were willing to do their best for the earl, and they fought tenaciously and never stopped.

It took a night for the improvised church to storm the fortified walls, and half the time to storm the inner fortresses, during which hundreds of lives were lost, and dozens of recalcitrant counts' slaves were killed, and none of them surrendered.

On the corpses of these slaves, people found ornaments and marks of the Soskaya Voodoo cult, and it is believed that these people have completely renounced their sacred faith, converted to evil gods, and become unclean heretics, which explains why they are so fearless of death and so mad.

Eventually, the Templars arrested the Count himself in the basement of the fortress, and found the bones of more than two dozen missing persons in a vault deeper underground.

This is the end of a series of questions.

The serial kidnapping and murder case that has tormented the residents of Wusong Town for more than a year has finally come to an end, and the murderer turned out to be the legitimate feudal lord of the townspeople

—Brandon Hagosolis VII.