Looking at Liang Lidong who seemed to be smiling, Ralph Coburn clenched his fists. He suppressed his anger and tried his best to appear calm as he said, "If that's the case, then I really have nothing to say … Joshua, for the sake of these lords, I'll write off the grudges between us. I didn't expect you to be so unlucky as to be able to get involved with a few important people!"
Joshua had already fainted. Seeing that he couldn't gain the upper hand with words, Ralph snorted and left with his subordinates.
The maid wanted to help her master back to the house, but after he fainted, he became abnormally heavy due to his unstable center of gravity. She couldn't carry a person who weighed more than 50 kilograms. Seeing this, Kail picked him up and carried him into the room, ignoring the pus all over his body and the acidic stench that assailed his nostrils.
Seeing the abscesses on the young master's body that had just recovered a little burst open, the greenish-yellow pus flowing out incessantly, tears streamed down the maid's cheeks.
As the Saintess, Emma used a healing spell on Joshua, but the effects weren't obvious. This was because she couldn't temporarily break the law of causality fixed on Joshua like Liang Lidong could. Even so, Joshua's vitality had improved significantly.
"If we don't cut off the source, it's useless no matter what we do." Liang Lidong leaned against the wall at the side. "This is a Legendary-type law of causality. Usually, only Legendary-level figures can remove this terrifying curse."
The other three couldn't help but gasp in shock. "How did these two offend Legendary-level figures? And why would Legendary-level figures take a small family seriously?" Kail asked in surprise.
"That doesn't make sense. Putting aside the status of Legendary-level figures, if the Tao family really went against them, they'd either treat it as an ant's provocation and be too lazy to respond, or they'd wipe out the small family with a wave of their hand. It'd be as simple as flattening an ant's nest. Why would they use the Legendary-type law of causality on a few insignificant figures?"
To this, Liang Lidong explained, "I don't think it's because of 'people'. I think it's the thing. Perhaps the Todd Family had accidentally picked up some ancient relic or something … In knight novels, ancient relics had great power. Picking them up could greatly increase one's strength, or even greatly benefit one's family. But in reality, almost all of the ancient relics are sealed or cursed. "
Hearing this, the maid suddenly cried out and said, "Three years ago. Our Todd family did indeed pick up something from outside. It was a bracelet. It was very beautiful, but the old masters of our family used magic to examine it. It was just an ordinary gemstone bracelet. Now that I think about it, the strange things that happened to our Todd family did start not long after that bracelet was picked up. "
Everyone was stunned. The other three turned to look at Liang Lidong, especially Emma. She became more and more suspicious of Liang Lidong.
Liang Lidong was just guessing based on his own intuition, but he didn't expect that he was right. He said, "Can you show us the jewelry?"
The maid nodded. She went to the basement, brought the bracelet up, and put it on the table. It was a very beautiful gemstone bracelet with strange patterns on both the outside and the inside. Emma watched for a while, then shook her head. Alice waited for a while. Alice shook her head after a while. Neither of them sensed the slightest magic wave from the bracelet.
Liang Lidong picked up the bracelet and looked at it carefully. He said, "This is an item from the Ancestral Dynasty, and it's also a burial item of a great noble."
"How do you know?" asked Emma curiously.
Liang Lidong ran his hand across the outside of the bracelet. "These patterns are the language of the Ancestral Kingdom. The outside says' To my beloved son, my tragic son, 'and the inside says the family's name,' The great family second only to the royal family, Cronin of the Green Wind. '"
Emma's eyes widened slightly. "You actually know the language of the Ancestral Kingdom?"
"A little." Liang Lidong put the bracelet on the table. "This bracelet is very valuable. The quality of the emerald alone is enough to sell for a high price. Also, it's an antique from the previous dynasty, so the price has to be several times higher. It should be sold for at least a hundred gold coins. "
"You're starving, but why didn't you sell the bracelet earlier?" Liang Lidong looked at the maid curiously. "Don't tell me you just forgot about it."
The maid said bitterly, "Young Master didn't allow it. He was very determined. Maybe the bracelet means something special to him."
"It means a lot. This bracelet is my mother's favorite. She always wears it." At this moment, Joshua woke up. He struggled to sit up and said, "Sir, I believe there's nothing wrong with the bracelet, or something would have happened to my mother."
"There's nothing wrong with the bracelet, but there's no guarantee that the place where it was dug out is fine." Liang Lidong sighed and said, "The people of the Ancestral Kingdom value death very much. Their tombs are all protected by powerful magic barriers and even curses. I believe that the funeral items of the sons of a great family second only to the royal family would have some special magic set up to prevent future generations from robbing the tombs. "
The room was very quiet. Alice quietly stood next to Kail, while Emma kept looking at Liang Lidong.
After a while, Joshua finally said, "It's a quarry. Our family's quarry dug out a strange coffin. There was only a body and this bracelet in it."
"I knew it." Liang Lidong chuckled coldly. "How dare you touch a dead person's belongings. I don't know if your Tao Family is too powerful or if you've underestimated the magical attainments of the Ancestral Kingdom. So, I'm making a loss by buying this quarry. There's a Legendary dead person in there. Who dares to go in there? "
There was a hint of shame in Joshua's eyes, or maybe it was because he was agitated.
Two more drops of greenish-yellow pus fell from his face. "We didn't know it was the tomb of the Cursed Kingdom. We thought it was just the tomb of ordinary people. Our family's miners threw the body in the coffin aside and found this bracelet. Not long after that, something happened to our family.
"In fact, we also vaguely guessed that the coffin might be the cause. We also asked the people of the Divine Hall of Light to go in and exorcise the evil. Although no one was sucked of blood after that, we were all infected with this terrible plague. It seemed to only target our family's bloodline. Even if outsiders accidentally came into contact with it, they would not be able to survive. Even if outsiders accidentally got infected, it would be very easy to cure. But we … "
Kail interrupted, "Teacher, so we just need to destroy the coffin or the body. That should be enough to break the curse, right? "
It was obvious that Kail was being kind again.
Liang Lidong nodded. "Theoretically, that's true."
At that moment, the maid suddenly knelt down and said agitatedly, "Sirs, please help Young Master. He's too pitiful. If we can't cure him, the legacy of our Tao Family will end. "
The other three members of the Bravest Party shifted their expectant gazes to Liang Lidong, waiting for his decision.
Originally, Liang Lidong wanted to refuse because he couldn't guarantee that if they were involved in this matter, they wouldn't encounter the same problem. However, at that moment, a system notification popped up in the quest system.
[Side quest: Help the Todd Family understand the permanent law of causality.]
This quest was purple, which meant that it was an elite quest. The difficulty of an elite quest wasn't too high. It was a far cry from an epic quest, and there was a legendary quest in between.
Since it was an elite quest, he could indeed help. After all, Liang Lidong was still in the middle of an epic quest. In comparison, the difficulty of an elite quest was a piece of cake.
Moreover, the character EXP that the elite quest gave was indeed not bad. There might be other unexpected rewards.
"Okay, let's go take a look at the quarry now." Liang Lidong nodded and agreed.
Kail laughed happily. For someone like him, he had long wanted to help the master and the maid after seeing how pitiful they were.
An hour later, the Todd Family's quarry … It should be renamed Beta's Quarry now, because the Tao Family's manor had changed its name. To some extent. Even without the side quest, Liang Lidong would have to get rid of the thing in the quarry. If he wants to earn back his money quickly, he has to start operating the quarry and sell the stone to the Church of the Goddess of Light, who is preparing to build a large temple. "
The quarry was underground. It was an underground stone mine.
Liang Lidong walked at the very front. Because he had True Sight, even without the illumination spell, he could clearly see the path in front of him.
The cave was filled with the smell of stone paint. It wasn't too pungent, but it wasn't pleasant.
The quarry had been dug very deep. They walked for more than ten minutes, but they still couldn't see the bottom. Alice seemed to be slightly claustrophobic. She walked behind Kail, tugging at her lover's sleeve tightly. Emma, on the other hand, was very calm. Instead, she looked left and right with great interest.
Emma was very knowledgeable, but her wealth of knowledge and experience usually came from the Prophecy illusion. If it didn't appear in the Prophecy illusion, she naturally wouldn't understand it. She had never seen an underground world like this in the illusion, so she was very curious.
The four of them walked for another ten minutes and finally found the coffin that Joshua had mentioned.
Finding the target would naturally make people happy, but the situation in front of them didn't make them happy at all.
There was a glowing coffin, and there were many black corpses next to it. Judging from the freshness of their clothes, they shouldn't have been dead for a few years. These people must be the missing people that Joshua had mentioned.
And next to these corpses, there was a skeleton.
The skeleton could move. It was holding the arm of a corpse and chewing it as if it were chewing on sugar cane. Now and then, it spat out some broken bones.
Hearing the voices of Liang Lidong and the others, it stood up unsteadily and "looked" at the four uninvited guests.
In the eye sockets of the skeleton, there were two white soul fires. They were brighter than all the skeleton soldiers that Liang Lidong had seen. They were even on par with the soul fires of the bone dragons.
"Who are you?" The air trembled slightly, and then it turned into the common language of the ancestral kingdom.
The other three couldn't understand the language, but Liang Lidong could.
He was a little surprised. This was a skeleton with intelligence. Undead creatures like this that had the ability to think and reason were generally very strong.
"I'm here to break the law of causality." Looking at the soul fire in the skeleton's eye sockets, Liang Lidong asked, "The weird curses of the Tao family must be your masterpiece, right?"
"It's me, but it's also not me." The skeleton walked over. There was not a trace of evil on it at all. "My name is Lincoln Cronin. I remember that I should've been killed by the enemy family's ambush, but I'm alive again. However, there's something wrong with my body. I can't help but want to eat some meat. After I eat the meat, it disappears, and I can only get very weak energy. "
He waved the arm of the corpse in his hand. "I know that eating these things is bothering you, but I'm really hungry. I'm sorry."
Alice squatted down and vomited. Most people couldn't stand a skeleton eating a corpse. Emma's face was pale, and Kail's was green.
Liang Lidong behaved normally. He wasn't interested in the skeleton's background. His attention was focused on something else. "Why do you say that the law of causality is yours, but not your doing?"
"It's related to me." The soul fire in the skeleton's eye sockets flickered. "But I didn't do it. It was my father. He set up a very powerful magic array for me, which will be activated a few hundred days after my death. If any thief dares to steal my funerary objects, it will release a strange energy that will attract the people nearby to the coffin to commit suicide. Then, the flesh and blood of the dead will be turned into spiritual energy, which will be absorbed by the coffin to wake me up when I'm already dead and turned into a skeleton. "
"What's with the sepsis?"
"If the array is broken, the remaining magic power will cast a spell that curses the grave robber's family to a horrible death." There was deep self-blame in the skeleton's voice. "Don't blame my father for this. He just wanted me to live more comfortably in the underground world."
"And I have been waiting here for brave people like you for almost two years. Fortunately, you came in time. Otherwise, after a period of time, after eating all these corpses, I would have gone berserk … Come, kill me. Use light magic at the end. That way, I will die faster and I won't be in so much pain."
"Kill you? Why do you want to die? "
Liang Lidong was somewhat speechless.
The skeleton, however, said, "I'm a dead man in the first place. It's normal for me to return to the Netherworld. I never intended to be resurrected. The world after death is wonderful. Living is a pain for me. "
"Then why don't you kill yourself?" Liang Lidong asked.