ragginovel Chapter 558: Revealed (Part )
Chapter 558: Revealed (Part )
Chapter 558: Revealed (Part )
After a burst of strong light, the figures of Dan, Sun Yixie, and Huang Donglai appeared under the chandelier.
At their feet, a young man was lying on his side in a coma.
The young man's build and clothing were exactly the same as the "Philibert" that Comyn had seen in his castle, but his face, or rather his head, was different from what it was then.
Of course, we all know that the one before our eyes is the real and complete Philibert Belmondo.
Although Philibert's original appearance could be described as young and handsome, there was still a clear gap compared to Andre's gorgeous face, so it was not difficult to distinguish them.
Here is a digression. Many people may think that the reason why Andre had such a handsome appearance when he first appeared (Chapter 9 of this volume) was related to his becoming a half-vampire, but this is not the case...
In fact, Andre was originally so handsome. Becoming a half-vampire only affected the color of his pupils and made his skin lose some blood color.
Otherwise, how do you think a stonemason's son hooked up with a noble lady?
If he had been less handsome, given Miss Maria's status back then, she would probably never have spoken to someone of his class, let alone taken the initiative to get to know him.
"Eh? What's going on?" Huang Donglai's first words after he appeared were, "Didn't you change your head? How come you even changed your location? Where is this?"
Sun Yixie went over and grabbed Dan's shoulder: "Hey, why is there someone missing? Where's Andre?"
Ladies and gentlemen, just from these two sentences and the expressions of these two people, those who are familiar with them should know that they are just playing dumb.
"Haha...let me answer these questions for you." Dan didn't say anything, but Hugo in the distance took over Sun Huang's words.
"Oh?" Hearing this, Huang Donglai immediately turned around and looked at Hugo from head to toe. He then said, "I see that you have a very impressive figure. I guess you must be the butler Hugo, right?"
"Exactly." Hugo was also an old hermaphrodite. Seeing the other party praising and criticizing his appearance, he immediately began to retort, "But when it comes to strange looks, I think the two of you are not much behind..." As he spoke, his eyes swept over Sun Huang and said, "You two... one is not afraid of Medusa, and the other is not afraid of vampires, right? Humph... Eastern demon hunters are indeed gifted."
This level of sarcasm is nothing but scratching an itch for Sun and Huang. The verbal abuse they usually exchange is much more vicious than this.
So, the next second, Huang Donglai demonstrated a more direct way: "Is this how you usually talk to your grandfathers?"
"Um..." But Hugo was a little confused by this, "What?"
Ladies and gentlemen, that's why crosstalk is not popular abroad. Foreigners don't really like ethical jokes.
If these three attacks were thrown at him, Hugo would suddenly dodge and fail to catch them, so naturally there would be no damage.
"Forget it, forget it. Just let you talk." Sun Yixie then added, "Let's just listen to what you are planning."
When Brother Sun said this, his hand was still on Dan's shoulder, as if he was ready to take Dan hostage at any time.
But Hugo was not panicked when he saw this. He just smiled and replied: "Looking at your attitude, I should have guessed part of it, right?" He glanced at Dan and said, "Yes, Dan lied to you, or... didn't tell you the truth about some things."
Hugo said, then walked slowly to a chair, sat down gracefully, and then said: "Of course, in order to better explain this, the first thing I want to explain is... what is the relationship between Dan and me."
"Regarding this point, I have already made a very safe guess." Sun Yixie interrupted immediately, "For example... from the very beginning, the main personality was not Dan, but you."
"Oh? Have you thought of this?" Hugo briefly showed a trace of surprise, but soon regained his composure, "That's fine, it will be easier for me to explain it this way..."
He paused, then continued, "Your guess is actually very close to the truth... The fact is, there have never been so-called 'two personalities', there has always been only 'me'.
"A century ago, when Maria came knocking on the castle gate with Andre's body, I was the one who opened the door for them.
"From the beginning, I intended to use this man and woman, and use their souls to complete the ritual to seize the power of this castle."
Hearing this, Huang Donglai interrupted again and said, "From what I hear... you are really just a 'steward', not the real 'master' here?"
Before he finished speaking, a gloomy look flashed across Hugo's face. It was obvious that this matter was a knot in his heart.
"The owner of this castle, my master..." Hugo paused for two seconds and continued, "He was indeed a great earl, a local hero... You should have heard of his name.
"But it has been many years since he was defeated 'for the last time', or 'failed to resurrect'...
"His struggle with witchers has continued from the Middle Ages to the present day, and each one has ended in his defeat.
“As one of the witnesses of all this, after all these years, I gradually realized that maybe he was not as great and excellent as I thought.
"If I could gain the favor of Chaos like him and master all the power hidden in this castle, I would be able to do better than him."
Hugo said, looking up at the "pentagram chandelier" above everyone's head, and then said: "The ceremony a hundred years ago was almost perfect. Once the ceremony succeeds, Andre's soul will be burned out instantly, and his body that has broken the boundary between life and death will become a hub that can be maintained forever in theory. At that time, I only need to occupy that body and I can easily control the power of the two worlds.
"Of course, there are other offerings for this ceremony, besides the ones I collected myself, the most important one is Maria...
"Her love for Andre, and the great grief and hatred she felt after learning the truth...will turn into an eternal curse, the most critical rivet on the hub."
At this point, anger rose in Hugo’s eyes again: “Unfortunately… the appearance of a Belmondo disrupted my plan.
"This group of demon hunters, who seemed to never die, had ruined my old master's business for generations, and that day, they finally whipped me on the head...
"What happened afterwards was roughly the same as what 'Dan' told you. After the ritual was destroyed, Maria, Andre, and I all fell into chaos, and the castle in the real world became a ruin.
"But about the part about me 'splitting myself in two', he obviously didn't tell the truth. It wasn't 'Butler Dan split off a dark personality Hugo', but 'Butler Hugo created a weak clone for himself'.
"The reason I created him is because I discovered that the weaker the existence, the easier it is to escape from that world, just like a fly can slip through a crack more easily than a beast...
Hugo pointed at Dan who was being held down by Sun Yixie. "However, as soon as this guy got out, he was cleansed by some kind of 'world rules' and couldn't even remember who he was. My connection with him was cut off... It wasn't until you accidentally restarted the ritual not long ago that I was able to regain control of him."
"So he was indeed the one who broke the mirror, and the information recorded on the parchment is indeed useful to us." Sun Yixie continued.
"That's right." Hugo continued, "But compared to 'breaking the mirror' and 'stealing the parchment', which are trivial matters, he persuaded Andre on my behalf when I was dealing with those rangers (I say dealing with them, but in fact I was sitting in front of the organ, using the keyboard to control the monsters and mechanisms in the castle to play RTS) and had no time to take care of other things..." He said, and then looked at Philibert on the ground, "... and asked him to help me get the final sacrifice, which is more critical."
At this moment, Roman suddenly thought of something and asked, "Wait... If even you can 'create a weak clone and throw it out of Chaos', then what about your master? Haven't you met him during the years you were sealed in? And... where is he now? Could he have escaped as well?"
"Heh..." Hugo sneered, "Good question." He paused, "But the answer is... I don't know either."
He looked at everyone, shrugged and said, "I have been sealed in the chaos for a century, but I have never found any trace of the master. I can only assume that he has disappeared.
"Of course, there is another possibility... that he gave up all his power and memories, turned his true body into that 'weak clone', and then escaped using a method similar to 'reincarnation'.
“But in that case, what’s the point even if he gets out?
"Unless someone brings him back here one day in the future when the power of this castle surges, there is a slight chance that he will wake up again and regain his memory and power."
"Then I don't understand again..." At this time, Huang Donglai said, "Since your plan to send your clone out to save yourself failed, how did you get out in the end?"
"This..." Hugo's tone changed slightly, "I want to ask you something..." Then he asked a very annoying question, "Did something major happen in your East in the winter of the year before last? At that time, more than ten forces that were powerful enough to stir up the heavens and the earth were suddenly released, so that many places outside of your Shenzhou were affected. The seal of this castle was also loosened at that time."
When he said this, no one else reacted, but Tyrael and Huang Donglai only pondered for a few seconds, then looked at Sun Yixie with squinted eyes.
“Why are you looking at me!” Sun Yixie naturally knew why they were looking at him, “Fuck you… I’m really fucked!” He got anxious and started cursing. After cursing, he glared at Hugo and yelled, “I will never reconcile with you! You must die today!”
His reaction even stunned Hugo, thinking, what's wrong? Did I step on your tail? Is it that serious?
"Heh..." However, Hugo quickly returned to his usual attitude and continued sarcastically, "I know you have a very powerful trident, but you don't think that alone... can pose any threat to me, right?"
As he spoke, he stood up and spread his hands. "At this moment, I have dealt with most of your fellow rangers. It is only a matter of time before they are all wiped out..." He swept his eyes over the crowd again. "The sacrifices I want are all here. What else do you have..."
“Don’t move!” Sun Yixie didn’t let him continue. Instead, he moved over and grabbed Dan’s neck, pretending to hold him hostage. “If you take another half step forward, I’ll strangle your clone to death.”
"Why? Do you think that if this clone dies, I will die too?" Hugo said with a smile, "Or do you think that without him, the ritual cannot proceed?"
He laughed louder and louder.
But this time, he did not explain anything further, because no matter how confident he was of victory, it was not appropriate to let the other party know any further details.
Of course, we can imply from the book that the message that Hugo no longer said is that he actually still had two "prophetic parchments" in his hands at this time.
These parchments are actually older than Hugo and even his master; they cannot be tampered with or destroyed by humans, and they can always be found.
Whenever an "outsider" comes to the castle, three such parchments will appear in the castle. The contents on the papers are different each time, but no matter how they change, the contents of the three papers will point to the "three rituals for resurrecting vampires" respectively.
The implementation methods and effects of these rituals are also very different. For example, some are "summoning resurrection", some are "transferring power", and there are even "resurrection across time and space" and "resurrection across species". To use a game analogy, it feels like there are dozens of types of rituals, but each time three will be randomly selected based on the players and NPCs coming to the city, and then after the conditions are met, they will point to the general sense of "good ending", "bad ending" and "hidden ending" respectively.
The ceremony Hugo performed a century ago was undoubtedly intended to "transfer power" to himself, but it was destroyed by Philibert's ancestors. Then, when Philibert entered the city, the ceremony Hugo wanted did not occur, so he modified the content of the ceremony on his own, performed a "head change", and tried to restart the last one, but it was obviously unsuccessful.
But today, these three pieces of parchment contained the "transferred power" he wanted, and the paper recording the ceremony was not seen by outsiders.
The only parchment seen by outsiders was the one seen by Dan and Sun Yixie, who had not yet been controlled by him. The ritual on it was similar to the one he wanted to perform, but not the same, which confused Sun Yixie and others.
Therefore, Hugo believed that no matter whether there was a difference in strength or information, he would crush the opponent.
He didn't care whether his weak clone Dan would be destroyed, and the other party didn't know what conditions were required for the ceremony he wanted to perform.
But...is Hugo's judgment really correct?
Did he really see through the "strength" of these two Central Plains people?
And...is the "information" before his eyes all as he saw it?
Crack——
It happened in the blink of an eye. At this moment, a whip sounded and exploded in the air!
Before Hugo could react, the young man lying on the ground and seemingly unconscious suddenly attacked and hit him on the head with the holy whip hidden under his body.
This was not the end. At the same time, "Dan", who was being held by Sun Yixie, suddenly turned into a state of nothingness, transformed into the appearance of Andre, and rushed towards Nancy...