The four hired workers were all rough men in their thirties or forties. No matter from which angle they were viewed, they did not meet the normal standards of the vampires in selecting prey.
If the beautiful young girl and the handsome boy were compared to high-quality "fillet tenderloin", they could only be regarded as low-quality "offal" at best.
Assuming that a vampire really chose them as prey, Jia Lan could only speculate that the vampire might be extremely hungry or have an abnormal taste preference...
Jia Lan pointed out to Clark and others by comparing his slightly sharp canine teeth with the width of the wound on the corpse: "This spacing is obviously not left by a small vampire like a vampire bat. It is really puzzling!"
He was also confused because this spacing just matched the canine spacing of human vampires, but besides the vampires, what other vampires have human characteristics?
However, the existence of vampires can indeed reasonably explain the horror legends circulating in the Doom Castle and the strange deaths of the residents.
The only doubt is why there have been mysterious disappearances of victims in the history of the Doom Castle.
You should know that although the dhampirs belong to the undead system, they do not eat corpses.
Even if the victim is attacked by the dhampirs, the corpse will not disappear without a trace.
Although there is a folk legend of "vampires eating people", it is only because people lack understanding of dhampirs and confuse the "undead system" vampires, the "dead system" ghouls and the "dark system" werewolves.
Although the "undead system" and the "dead system" belong to the category of "dead spirits" rather than "living spirits", the two are completely different and cannot be confused.
Faced with many doubts, Jia Lan could not make a judgment for a while, and could only ask the mercenary who found the employee's body: "How long have the four hired workers been dead?"
The mercenary recalled and replied: "No more than six hours, we found them about half an hour before dawn."
Hearing this, Jia Lan squatted down to study the corpse carefully, and suddenly gently pulled the hair of one of the employees, and pulled out a lot of hair, causing the employee to have a large bald spot on his head!
Clark and the others felt a chill, but then realized that in such cold weather, a body that had died no more than six hours earlier could not rot, and hair should not fall off so easily!
Jia Lan seemed to have noticed something, but did not say it, just nodded thoughtfully: "Can you get holy water or invite a priest?"
President Clark and Captain Kenmet looked at each other and frowned: "Kolan City is the territory of Komo University and the only city without the Church of Light. Although there are a few priests of light active in Kolan City, it should be difficult to find them in a short time."
Jia Lan seemed to have expected it and nodded.
In the pre-civilization era, although the religious beliefs of the Kingdom of Zirago were quite free and did not prohibit the spread of certain religions, religious forces had almost never appeared in Kolan Castle.
This situation is not limited to Kolan Castle. In almost all areas where the arcane is prevalent, religious beliefs are relatively weak.
After all, most mages are non-believers hated by religious people. Although the arcane and religion are not in opposition, the two sides are not harmonious.
"Then, we can only take a more cruel approach..." Jia Lan looked at the four corpses with some embarrassment and ordered: "Go find a wild hawthorn tree that is more than ten years old, and bring back three hard branches that are about the thickness of a little finger and at least one foot long."
President Clark asked with interest: "Can a ten-year-old hawthorn branch kill a vampire?"
Jia Lan shrugged: "I don't know, I just heard about it, I'm not a priest... But I have to try, and I can't destroy the body. I can't think of any other way."
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
After all, the four hired workers are innocent. After the matter is over, their bodies need to be returned to their relatives for burial.
Wild hawthorn trees are easy to find, and soon a mercenary brought back a large bundle of branches.
Jia Lan selected three branches of suitable thickness and sharpened them with the combat dagger given by Old Jimmy, then asked Div to turn the body of one of the employees over and face down, and said to the people on the side: "Press the body to the ground!"
Although President Clark and others felt that the scene was weird, Captain Kenmet still stepped forward to help.
The two held the shoulders of the corpse respectively. After Jia Lan fumbled around the back of the neck of the corpse for a while, he gently inserted the wild hawthorn branch from the connection between the skull and the spine!
"Ah..."
A shrill scream suddenly came from the mouth of the stiff corpse.
The harsh sound waves frightened everyone.
Captains Div and Kenmet, who were in charge of holding down the corpse, were almost frightened to the point of urinating!
Because they only symbolically held down the corpse without exerting any force... Who would have thought that the corpse would struggle?
They thought it was just part of Jia Lan's "autopsy ceremony".
However, when Jia Lan stabbed the wild hawthorn branch into the back of the corpse's head, the employee's body suddenly burst out with great force and leaned back, almost knocking the two over.
Fortunately, the two were strong and reacted quickly, and immediately pressed the body back to the ground.
The employee's body trembled violently for a while, and then returned to a stiff state.
After receiving Jia Lan's signal, the two sweated profusely and carefully released the shoulders of the corpse.
This sweat was not from fatigue, but from fear.
When Jia Lan looked at the second corpse, he reminded everyone: "Uh, by the way, when you suppress the corpses, it is best not to put your hands on their shoulders, just press the back of the neck or the spine to avoid being bitten by them, which is contagious..."
Dave was frightened when he heard this, and Captain Kenmet was pale, thinking, could you have said this earlier?
After dealing with the other two corpses, Jia Lan clapped his hands easily and nodded, "Now you can send these three corpses to a closed space for 'isolation', send someone to guard them, and deal with them after the matter is over!"
President Clark was horrified: "Are they still not dead?" That was a foot-long hard branch inserted into the back of their heads!
"By the way, why only deal with three corpses? What about the remaining one?" President Clark pointed at the remaining corpse and asked with some concern.
Jia Lan looked at the hired worker's body whose hair he had plucked out, and smiled, "Of course we have to leave one behind to lead the way for us!"
Throughout the day, the warehouse area of ??Doom Castle was filled with a strange atmosphere, which became stronger as time went by, and reached its peak when the afterglow of the sunset dissipated and darkness enveloped the earth, making people suffocate.
The body left behind to "lead the way" brought great psychological pressure to the mercenaries.
It was parked behind the castle that served as a warehouse, under several tall ancient trees, and it kept changing throughout the day.
In the first six hours, the hair of the corpse began to fall off, making the hired worker who had thick brown hair in life become a bald man after death.
Six hours later, the ears of the corpse began to grow, gradually turning into a pair of wings like bat wings, wrinkled and curled together.
After another six hours, the skin on the head of the corpse began to fester and fall off, revealing scarlet muscles. Tentacles like meat strips grew from the top of the head, entangled together and hanging behind the head, looking like some kind of trendy hairstyle, but they kept wriggling, like the tongue of some monster.
In the last six hours, the head of the corpse began to swell, sharp fangs protruded from the lips, and even began to tremble slightly. The "tongues" were like earthworms, probing around the head, as if groping for something.
The whole process of change was presented to the eyes of the mercenaries responsible for monitoring the corpse.
Seeing a person's head slowly transform into a terrifying monster, the psychological impact on the mercenaries was too great. Even experienced old mercenaries could not bear such a terrible and disgusting scene, and had to frequently change personnel for monitoring.
Compared with the swollen head, the body of the corpse shrank and shrank, as if the head had sucked the nutrients of the entire corpse dry.
The last shift of surveillance sentry was personally in charge of Jia Lan and Captain Kenmet.
In addition to the two of them, there were seven other senior mercenaries from the Golden Two-Headed Dragon Mercenary Group. They would form a temporary adventure team to track the corpse that "led the way" for them, to find the monster's lair, and completely destroy them.
Originally, President Clark also planned to go, but a large-scale riot suddenly broke out in the city of Colan, so he had to rush back to the Mercenary Guild to take charge and cooperate with the city guards to suppress the rebellious gangsters and hooligans.
The strength of this adventure team is very strong. Captain Kenmet sent almost all the elite members of the Golden Two-Headed Dragon.
A gold-level thief, a gold-level archer, plus Captain Kenmet, a gold-level greatsword master, and five other high-level mercenaries who are also high-level silver combat professionals.
In the words of Captain Kenmet, with such a team configuration, the combat power is almost enough to clear a dragon's nest.
But at this moment, they seem a little nervous, because the enemies they need to face are not the monsters and monsters that they will encounter in normal missions, but "ghosts" that only exist in legends!
