The wolf-faction witchers who were observing the shapeshifter's transformation closely all looked interested.

It's not like they haven't encountered shapeshifters before, but not every shapeshifter would be able to demonstrate their abilities in front of them so unreservedly.

Yennefer even revealed the inquiring look that is unique to an experimenter.

At this time, Chapet already had the keen perception of a demon hunter and Geralt's memory. Yennefer's eyes made him understand something instantly. He shuddered violently and almost instinctively quickened his pace to enter the demon pit.

"Let's hurry up. Aren't there people who need to be rescued besides the evil spirits to be eliminated?"

Inside the quarantine area were abandoned tents, collapsed braziers, torn cloth, and smelly rotten meat.

There are no living people. It has been a long time since the last batch of patients were "isolated" here. Obviously, they could not survive until the new ruler of the Eternal Fire took office.

Shapet's eyes were full of compassion.

Although Geralt usually has a blank expression on his face, he is actually soft-hearted and sentimental in his heart. Combined with the kindness in the shapeshifter's nature and the Archon of Eternal Flame's belief in the sect, the shapeshifter is now being tortured by himself to the point of almost crying.

When Yennefer saw Shapet's expression, she showed another look of interest.

Shapet took out a simple map from his arms, looked around, and quickly led everyone across the "residential area".

"The Devil's Pit is built on the mountain. It was originally an abandoned mine." Shapet pointed to the locked wooden door blocking the way ahead and said, "The evil spirit is in the deepest part of the mine. The guards here used to hear whispers and screams coming from inside. Sometimes, it turned into quarrels and pleas for mercy - and all of these came from the same voice."

Shapet said in a deep voice.

Then, in front of everyone, he made a magic seal with his left hand, took a horse stance, and gathered his strength for a breath.

[Alder Seal]!

The telekinetic air cannon poured out from his left palm. The lock of the wooden door did not open, but the door panel and its four hinges were torn off the rock wall and flew into the cave.

Vesemir raised an eyebrow at this.

Eskar patted Geralt on the shoulder: "He imitated you very well."

Shapet took a deep breath, looked at the dark cave, grabbed the wolf head badge on his chest with his left hand, and lowered his head.

Everyone heard his prayer: "May the eternal fire guide me--"

Geralt's face grew more rigid.

…

Lambert laughed: "I'm starting to like this guy!"

He strode to the side of Shapet, fumbled for a while and took out a bottle of [Cat] from the alchemy backpack: "Want to try this, man? It's indispensable for exploring caves!"

Chapet took it in silence. Although he was able to simulate Geralt's armor and sword through transformation, the potion was still a little beyond his scope.

The other demon hunters also moved in unison. They each took out a potion, bit off the wax seal, tilted their heads back and drank it. Seven pairs of eyes suddenly began to glow in the darkness.

Yennefer made a soft "huh" sound and naturally put her arm around Geralt's.

The colors faded from his vision, while the lines and contours became clearer. Everything in the dark mine appeared before Lan.

"This is not a place to live at all." Vesemir, the oldest, expressed everyone's thoughts.

Everywhere I looked were discarded wood, ropes, mining tools, and many overturned braziers.

Around the braziers, there were many ripped sacks pressed on the ground with stones, which served as temporary shelters for people to lie down on. The bloodstains on them showed that the people on them were not in good health.

"This kind of thing is countless times more cruel than war." Eskar sighed.

Everyone was silent, and just followed Shapet, who clenched his fists, and continued to walk inside.

Soon the first door appeared in front of them, with a letter nailed on it. After who knows how many years, this thin piece of paper seemed to have a miraculous power to maintain its shape without being torn into pieces.

Lann stepped forward, took down the letter, and read it quietly.

Dear O:

If you see this letter, it means you found something I left near Novigrad. You are proven right, just this once, congratulations. I should have left with you. This seemingly simple commission has a hidden meaning. Sigh... It's like this again. Have we not suffered enough? 】

[I think I'm infected. Yes, I know how incredible this is - demon hunters don't get sick. But how can I explain my fever and delirium? I hope that my physique as a demon hunter is unusually poor, but if not, it's very serious...]

[I was worried that something might happen to me, so I marked the way with our badges so that you can find me when you come back...]

Generally speaking, 99% of the people who wrote this kind of letter and were found were already dead.

Lann took a quick look and said to the Wolf Clan: "The following is a recipe for a potion he made based on his condition. It seems to use chelidonium as the raw material. It also has his signature."

Lane whispered the name of the writer: "Reynard."

As the name uttered, Vesemir shuddered, his sudden heavy breathing audible to everyone in the cave.

"Know him?"

Vesemir shook his head. "No, but I heard his name mentioned by my mentor. He was already the backbone of the Wolf Clan before I was brought back by my mentor. I heard that his forging skills were very sophisticated, and he even participated in the establishment of Kaer Morhen Castle."

The Wolf Clan couldn't help but gasp. Participating in the establishment of Kaer Morhen? What kind of old monster would that be?

Lambert asked what everyone was thinking: "Is he really still alive?"

His eyes were focused on Lan.

"From what I saw with the Ancient Blood, he was 'almost' dead." Lann shook his head, "But this is exactly why I came here, isn't it? To use my power to give him a chance to live."

Everyone was silent.

In the end, it was Kaiyan who patted Vesemir on the shoulder and comforted him: "Don't worry! I was locked up for decades of experiments. Not only was my skin peeled off, but more drugs flowed out of my body than blood. In the end, I was possessed by a demon! Even so, wasn't I rescued by Lann in the end?"

"As long as your great senior is still alive, Lann will definitely be able to snatch him back from the hands of the god of death!"

It’s true, with Kaiyan’s personal experience, Vesemir was actually comforted.

Geralt studied the letter for a while, but had other doubts.

"This thing was nailed to the door so roughly, but it hasn't turned into ashes after such a long time. Is there something wrong?"

This statement has been widely recognized.

“Either, an enemy has set a trap for us,” Vesemir speculated, “or, that senior is using his power to give us outsiders some reminders within our capabilities.”

"If it's a reminder, then we should save this senior." Lambert said loudly, "And if it's a trick, which monster can defeat our team?"

The demon hunters and warlocks looked around, and they all sneered and continued to explore inside.

After carefully keeping the letter, Shapet took the lead and pushed open the dusty door.

Soon, smoke and the smell of decay poured out, and a cold wind blew in from the depths of the cave, accompanied by a painful, suppressed voice.

…

"No... help me..."

"Please... help me..."

Along with intermittent cries for help, torches on both sides of the mine spontaneously ignited without flame, dimly illuminating things in the depths of the darkness.

This dim light not only failed to dispel much fear, but instead cast out twisted shadows, enough to scare any team that rashly explored here back home.

Fortunately, everyone here is accustomed to big scenes.

"This voice... could it be that 'Raymond'?"

Ran and Kaiyan both perked up.

The cat-faction demon hunter who was once possessed by a demon and gained the gift of [Psychic] said with cold eyes: "No... I smell a familiar smell. This is a trick of the evil spirit!"

Lambert shrugged. "But it sounds quite sincere."

Even without torches, the demon hunter's flashing eyes were enough to illuminate everything in the mine. Soon, everyone found several wolf head marks carved on the ground. These were the instructions left in the letter by "Raymond" to guide his companions.

Chapet's eyes were filled with guilt as he saw more and more skeletons and corpses along the way. There was also a large amount of spurting blood on the rock wall.

Yennefer, who had some medical knowledge, commented: "This should be some kind of hemorrhagic fever. Judging from the amount of bleeding... the person who was bleeding should have died in the next second."

Shapet led the way in silence, following the wolf-head mark until they came to a shaky wall.

He fumbled around for a while and suddenly found another letter in the corner.

【profound:

I need to rest for a while, the priests still won't open the door. My body is losing strength, and I have no idea what has happened in the past few hours... or is it the past few days?

I was trapped in the darkness with nothing to do, and my mind started to wander. I remembered our previous training, and the times we took on commissions together, but suddenly... I actually forgot your name.

It's Osmar, isn't it? Or Omons, or Ormond... Wait, your name is Osmond, I remember now! But there was a moment just now...

I began to think that I might not be able to get out.

thunder.】

After reading the letter, the witchers looked up and saw a leaky wall in front of them. It was out of tune with the surrounding buildings and was obviously built temporarily to block something.

This letter floated out from the hole in the wall.

Lambert raised his hand, and the mental shock wave condensed by the [Alder Seal] shattered the crumbling wall, and rats poured out from it like a stream.

Behind was an even deeper passage. When everyone stepped into it, they saw bones, blood, dried mucus, and messy scratches all over the ground.

“These are the scratches of human fingernails. Many people.” Vesemir looked at the streaks of blood on the rock wall. “They tried desperately to get out.”

Everyone looked back and seemed to see the scene from a hundred years ago on the other side of the wall: a team of cold Eternal Fire guards, who looked at the patients inside with indifference and blocked their hope of survival with bricks one by one.

"This kind of wall can't stop a demon hunter, but Raymond's body is obviously in trouble. So he can only sit by the wall and desperately write letters to his companions and stuff them through the gaps, hoping that he can see it."

At this moment, a cry for help was heard from deep in the mine.

…

"No...save me...please..."

"Help……"

…

Kaiyan felt as if there were ants crawling on his neck, and the hand holding the sword began to itch more and more.

As we went further in, we began to see more signs of human habitation, but they were not good signs.

Prisons, fences, chains, laboratories...

There are even many cruel torture instruments.

Without exception, these things were stained with smelly blood.

"It seems that the priests of the Eternal Fire want to conduct research on the plague here." Eskar said in a deep voice, "It's just that the patients don't want to be used as materials so obediently, so they resisted and were suppressed afterwards."

Lambert looked at the torture instruments. There were several stained iron nails there. It was obvious that these were not used to inlay wooden boards, but to drill through flesh and blood.

“And the priests seem to have developed other hobbies besides research.”

Shapet became increasingly silent.

"Wait!" Lann suddenly yelled.

I don't know when a more terrifying "howling" cold wind started to blow around.

Kaiyan, who had a keen sense, had already unsheathed the cat-headed silver sword with a "swish" and was looking eagerly at the black shadows walking out of the darkness.

"It seems that the patients are particularly obsessed with this place."

They were half-dead people with rotten skin, half exposed muscles and bones, limping, and emitting bursts of gray-red death aura. They walked towards the witchers step by step.

It was not until this time that the badges on everyone's chest began to vibrate violently.

…

“Save…save me.”

…

"They weren't the ones talking," Lambert interjected.

“They are not monsters. They look like they are transformed from the corpses of patients.” Vesemir glanced at his apprentice. “They don’t look like they are possessed by evil spirits. Their actions are too consistent…”

"It doesn't seem to have its own mind, but rather it seems to be controlled by a unified brain."

"Anyway, we are very close to our goal, aren't we?" Lan pointed to where the monsters came out. "They all came out from the same place, no matter what gave birth to them or what they are guarding. I have a hunch - that is our goal."

Lan took the lead and stepped forward, raising his hand to stop the demon hunters who were eager to try.

"Let's save some time. There's no need to waste too much time on these monsters."

Having said this, Lan raised his left palm.