Mermaid Reef

Rainwater trickled down the rose windows of the church.

Accompanied by the sound of dripping water, the hidden runes on the church wall shimmered.

Andre, the leader of the gray cloak, stared at the wall for a few seconds.

"My lord is waiting for you." A member of the church wearing a tin helmet urged in a low voice.

Andre withdrew his gaze, and walked quickly to the bishop's study.

The passage is guarded by heavily armed knights at intervals.

The outfits of the knights are different from ordinary gray cloaks. They wear plate armor with runes carved, and there is an oval rose mark on the iron helmet.

The long swords and shields on their bodies were all specially made, shining with strange metallic light, and on the shields was the complete emblem of the church——the right hand holding the cross was stabbed bloody by the entangled rose vines.

The knights looked sideways at Andre.

Andre took off his gray cloak silently.

He is a man in his 40s, with blond hair that has turned to tan, multiple scars on his cheeks, but they are relatively shallow, and look more like wrinkles from a distance, and a pair of dark eyes that are larger than ordinary people are as sharp as an owl .

Andre's nickname is Gray Owl.

One of the leaders of the Gray Order.

The order has a long and unpronounceable ancient Roman name.

The outside world generally calls them the Gray Order, because of their long-hidden habits, the color of their clothes, and their nature of not being recognized by the Holy See.

Anyway, it has been shouted for so long, and even the members of the religious group claim to be so. After all, except for high-level scholars who specialize in studying ancient books, few people can read those ancient texts accurately.

In addition to the bishop and the elders, the Gray Order has five leaders.Andre's status is the lowest, he needs to run around the city to solve troubles, and his subordinates are some "executors", that is, those gray cloaks.

These knights are not under Andre's jurisdiction, and they don't show any respect to Andre. Even if it is a fly flying across the corridor, they will be inspected by them.

A hint of sarcasm flashed in Andre's eyes, but he quickly restrained himself.

He stood in front of a door made of stained glass with a pattern of a tree of knowledge, and knocked lightly.

"...It's hidden in this city, Your Excellency, I'm sure."

The bishop's voice came from the room.

"Venice is indeed in crisis, but we can solve it... Your Excellency? Hello? Come on! Go and see the lines outside!"

Andre pushed the door in, just in time to see the bishop angrily throwing the telephone receiver on the ivory-mounted telephone.

Andre bent down to salute, and then said in a stiff tone: "It should be that the rain is too heavy, which affects the communication."

Through the glass window of the study, you can see the cloudy sky.

Several statues of knights stood on the opposite roof, and the swords in the knights' hands pointed to the ground, forming a landscape of small waterfalls, coupled with the water column diverted from the dome and the pointed arched windows-the hundreds of The [-]-year-old building seems to be a decoration in the center of a large fountain pool, with hundreds of water outlets.

Streets and squares will soon become new waterways.

Such heavy rain is very rare.

Also very abnormal.

The summer in Venice is hot and dry, and the rain is generally concentrated in winter.

It's July now, first there was an inexplicable earthquake, and then there was a torrential rain, no matter how stupid people felt, something was wrong.

When Andre went out just now, he saw that the port pier was crowded with nobles who were about to leave.

Their luggage was piled higher than the hills, and the servants used their bodies to block the incoming wind and rain to provide services for their masters. On the other side, there were porters and boatmen trembling in the wind and rain without shelter.

"... Forget it, they will come back when everything is over."

Andre came back to realize that the bishop was talking about the big men who should have stayed in the Venice city hall to figure out what to do, but now they went to the port and the railway station.

"Have you found any trace of the Kraken?"

The bishop had protruding cheekbones on both sides of his cheeks and three deep forehead lines on his forehead. He was a tall, thin and mean old man.

When he stared at Andre sternly, the mean and difficult tone became more obvious: "It's already the third day."

"It's the twenty-eighth hour."

Andre corrected him coldly. He lowered his head and said, "The pupil of the rose saw the evil forces invade Venice in the evening three days ago, and the bell tower burned violently that night. Based on the monster form Hans saw, are you sure it is a legend? The Norwegian sea monster in the movie, I led people to search for the whole process at dawn the next day, until now, a total of 28 hours."

This stubborn temper was the main reason why the bishop hated Andre. He was too lazy to talk, and said indifferently: "You should know that we don't have much time. Now the heavy rain has brought great losses to Venice..."

The bishop stopped talking suddenly, and looked up at the roof suspiciously.

At the same time, Andre also hurried to the window, looking out vigilantly.

In the study room, only the sound of dense raindrops hitting the glass windows and the sound of water leaking in the corridor in the distance can be heard.

Andre felt a subtle unease again, as if something dangerous was approaching the church.

"My lord, how many times did the warning rune light up today?" Andre asked.

The bishop didn't care about Andre's etiquette anymore. He shook his head slowly and said, "Since three days ago, they have been abnormal. It's understandable. There are monsters entrenched in this city. As long as' The rose does not bleed', here is safe, not watched by the nameless."

Andre frowned deeply, obviously he had a different opinion.

The bishop said coldly: "What are you afraid of? If the monster really broke into this place, it would save us the trouble of looking for it."

"If the bishop is willing to remove half of the knights guarding your door and replace my subordinates to guard the intersection or the doors and windows of the church, I will be very grateful." Andre said blankly.

"You are too presumptuous, Gray Owl!"

The bishop's eyes were full of anger.

Andre said without hesitation: "Hans was blind in order to see the real body of the monster. He needs better care, but you ordered the knights of the order to interrogate him? Just because of that he died in the dungeon Lynd Brandon? The slushy guy?"

"Grey Owl, this is not something you should ask about!" The bishop narrowed his eyes dangerously and warned dissatisfiedly.

"I watched Hans grow up. He is like my son. The bishop chose him to use the pupil of the rose. Isn't it aimed at me?" Andre's tone also became fierce and angry, "If he is lucky No, what I saw was not a Kraken, but an evil god, and now he is dead!"

Jason, who was eavesdropping on the church roof, felt a tug on his arm.

Gemil flipped through the book next to him, pointing to the illustration of an octopus entwining a ship.

Well, the Kraken.

Jason: "..."

Playing guessing games with humans was very successful.

The conversation in the study continued.

"Hans has extraordinary talent, he should take more responsibility, I thought you knew this, he is paying for Venice..."

"Master Bishop, please look into my eyes and repeat! For Venice?"

There was a dead silence in the study, and Jason couldn't help wondering what Andre the Gray Owl had come up with to threaten the Bishop.

But this church is not like an ordinary building, the runes all over the bricks have an isolation effect.

Although for the evil god, it can be destroyed by waving his hand, but this will startle the ants.

The drama of the civil strife in the Gray Order has just begun!

——What can happen in three days?

There were differences of opinion within the church. The bishop believed that the "Norwegian sea monster" could be dealt with, but other senior officials opposed it.

Today, two elders left directly, took their subordinates, and boarded the ship at the port in the name of protecting the important figures of the city hall.

This is the acquiescence of the bishop.

In order to continue the worst plan made by the church.

Although Hans was still locked in the dungeon, the matter about him had caused several disputes among the upper echelons of the church.

Andre couldn't suppress his anger just because he heard that the bishop planned to use Hans as bait to deal with the Kraken.

"Grey Owl! I order you to take Hans and take a boat to the outer island of Venice. We have to choose a suitable location as a battlefield."

"Deal with a big octopus at sea? Is this the decision made by the Bishop and the higher-ups of the order?"

Andre's angry voice directly penetrated the wall, "We don't know the consequences of killing this monster. If it is the descendant of some evil god, or the product of the combination of two evil gods, the destruction of Venice will happen when we think The moment of victory! The evil god will wake up!"

on the roof.

Jason quickly covered Gemil's mouth with his "hand" to prevent Seagod from laughing at the phrase "product of union".

Gemil blinked, raised his hand to stroke those black vines, scraped the edges of his nails on the branches of those vines, and the ends of the softest tentacles.

Jason shuddered.

The runes on the church walls lit up again.

Andre slammed open the window, stepped on the vertical wall and climbed up with a balance that humans should never have, and reached the roof in a few seconds.

He stood in the rainstorm, drenched all over, his black eyes sharply scanning every suspicious place in the vicinity.

Jensen and Gemil huddled behind the small gothic steeple adorning the church on the right front of the roof.

Although the steeple is exposed to the wind on all sides, nothing can stop it, but there are black vines tied to the body hanging in the air, hidden in the shadow cast by the cross of the church, even Andre, the leader of the church with the name of Gray Owl, is very comfortable. It's hard to find them.

When human detectives investigate, it should be possible, right?

Jason thought, as long as there is a rope.

It's dark now, and it's raining so hard.

Gemil wanted to speak.

Jason insisted on covering his mouth with the vine.

——Jensen thinks that Gemil's voice is very special, and he will definitely be discovered by the members of the religious order.

Andre is carefully searching the roof.

Gaimil was bored waiting, he opened his mouth slightly, licked those vines lightly, and held the most curved and soft twigs at the end.

Jason's expression twisted for a moment.

The black vines trembled and wanted to break free, but the shadow behind Gemil immediately entangled them, holding them tightly.

Gemil turned his head sideways, biting the vine in his mouth, with a seductive smile on his crimson lips, but his expression was innocent.

——You said not to disturb the ants, and you should not move too, I will hold them down for you.

All the black vines "exploded" their thorns.

These dangerous sharp thorns can't harm the Seagod's incarnation at all.

Gemil stroked the spikes on the vines with his tongue, felt the trembling of the vines, narrowed his eyes happily, and further fixed these poor little things with his teeth, carefully not letting go of every vine, Not missing a single thorn.

The vines were forced to curl up.

Rolled up round and round.

This is Jason's stress response.

He can shrink the main body to only one percent, and can also quickly expand the body when ambushing.

When the end of a branch is stimulated, its side branches and main branches will be affected. It only takes ten seconds, and the entire main trunk will be "infected" quickly.

This acuity was originally an advantage for hunting.

Now it means that one of the sixteen main vines of Jensen's body has been "wasted", and one-sixteenth of his body is completely soft.

"We, will, fall..."

Jason gritted his teeth.

The shadow behind Gemil immediately took over the black vine that held them together, but was constantly twisting and crumbling at the moment, and moved them silently, hiding behind Andre.

Although he got nothing, Andre, who felt bad in his heart, did not give up. He took out a glass rose pendant, and then silently recited the rune spell.

"Snapped."

The rose is broken.

Andre's face changed drastically, and he whistled in his mouth to warn everyone in the church.

Gemil directly turned into a shadow, like a blanket, rolled up Jason and disappeared into the rain.

If you fail to eavesdrop and sneak, run first and then talk.

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The author has something to say:

The branches and tendrils of the basket snake tail can reach more than one meter when fully expanded

But it is only a few centimeters when curled up.

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The Norwegian sea monster, also known as the North Sea giant monster, that is, Kraken, Kraken

Because the author has written a supporting role with this name in other novels, SO let's use the name of the Norwegian Kraken

Legend has it that it haunts Iceland and Norway, and is the territory of the Nordic sea god Gemil