Chapter 248 The Truth
Church, Father Bernardo's room.

In the small room, Charlotte and Bernardo stood face to face. Charlotte did not respond to Bernardo's greeting, but just looked at him without saying a word. They were as silent as two wax figures looking at each other.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Bernardo asked.

Seeing that Charlotte did not answer, Bernardo walked to the table near the window with his crutches, filled the pewter teapot with water, threw tea leaves into the pot, and boiled it on the induction cooker.

It was not until the hum of tea brewing that Charlotte finally broke the silence and said, "First of all, my condolences to you, Father Bernardo."

Charlotte leaned on her cane and took off her hat with the hand in her pocket. She saluted the other party with a standard hat-off salute, "I am deeply sorry for Eric's death."

"There is nothing to regret. He just saw God before us. Sooner or later, we will be like him." Father Bernardo replied in an old voice. After that, he closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross in front of the silver cross on the chest of his robe.

Charlotte's delicate eyebrows drooped slightly, and she spoke softly amid the singing: "You are also the first religious mixed-blood I know, Father."

"That's probably because you, Charlotte, have been so absorbed in the study of alchemy that you rarely go out. In fact, because it was born out of the Knights Templar, many members of the Solomon's Temple believe in the church."

"Perhaps," said Charlotte. "As you said, I have been studying alchemy since I was a child, so I know nothing about doctrine. I have a few doubts about doctrine. I wonder if you can help me answer them?"

"Please go ahead." Father Bernardo nodded.

"You just said that Eric saw God before us. Can people who do bad things also see God?"

"Each of us has sinned, the sins are greater or lesser. In God's eyes, all people have sinned. There are only better sinners and worse sinners, not good people and bad people. Sin does not determine whether we should go to heaven or hell. It is the Lord's judgment that determines whether we should go to heaven or hell."

"So, what determines whether we go to heaven or hell does not depend on whether we are good people or have done good deeds, but only on the Lord's one-sided words?"

Father Bernardo said: "The Lord can make the most fair judgment."

"So..." Charlotte raised her eyebrows slightly, and suddenly paused, saying in a deep voice, "Do you think you can go to heaven?"

The temperature rose, and the water in the tin kettle made a gurgling sound. Father Bernardo sighed slowly and answered as before: "The Lord can make the most fair judgment."

Charlotte nodded thoughtfully, took a step forward, and walked to the window of the room. The sunlight shone on her slightly childish face, and she stood at a different position from Bernardo.

"Speaking of which, I suddenly remembered something very interesting."

Charlotte said, "Wasn't the girl from Valentine's family attacked by Deadpool a few days ago? I was actually there. I saw with my own eyes that Deadpool crawled out of the bridge hole by the river, so I jumped into the bridge hole while the crowd was rioting and took a look. Then I found that someone had dug a hole in the wall of the bridge hole. Can you guess where the hole led to in the end?"

The room suddenly fell silent, as if the air was frozen by something. Then, Father Bernardo slowly stood up.

He was originally standing, but when you look at him you would subconsciously think he was standing up. Because the large church robe with a silver cross printed on it was stretched tight against his body, and the muscle lines under the robe were highlighted. Even the wrinkles on his bark-like face were smoothed out in an instant.

Clearly he was an old and frail man just now, but now his face is glowing and he exudes unprecedented vitality, just like a middle-aged man in his prime.

Although she had prepared herself mentally in advance, Charlotte was still stunned after seeing the huge change in the priest. She subconsciously protected her cane in front of her, took a step back and said:
"You are actually conducting human alchemy experiments?"

"I didn't expect that an experiment could escape from the laboratory. I have reinforced the walls of the laboratory. Logically, their strength should not be enough to destroy the walls reinforced with alchemical metals. By the time I found a hole in the wall, the experiment had already escaped."

Bernardo stared at Charlotte's calm eyes and said coldly, "I thought I had sealed the hole in time. I didn't expect that I was still a step too late, and you discovered that the hole ultimately led to the basement of the church."

"In fact, you really blocked it in time. I was not there that day, and it was a day later when I went to investigate the bridge hole. When I went to investigate, the hole had been blocked. Originally, I only had a little suspicion about you. I didn't expect that I could trick you out with just a lie."

Charlotte shrugged. Facing Bernardo's fierce look, she remained as calm as at the beginning. "And even if the cave is not sealed, I don't know which direction it leads to. I am a road idiot and have no sense of direction at all."

Bernardo was stunned when he heard Charlotte's words, and then he suddenly laughed.

"Little kid from the Gottingen family, you are indeed very smart, and you are worthy of being the genius of this generation of the Gottingen family. Even I was fooled by you." Bernardo said, "But you have a common problem among geniuses, that is, you are too conceited. You actually dared to come to me alone."

"Human body transformation is a taboo in alchemy. There's no way you don't know that." Charlotte said in a deep voice.

"Taboo?" Bernardo sneered, "Little kid from the Gottingen family, this is no longer the medieval era where people had to take off their hats and salute before dueling with swords. You should understand that as long as your fist is big enough, there are no taboos."

The water in the tin kettle finally boiled, and a sharp whistling sound swirled in the room. However, the sound of the boiling water was drowned out by countless sharp whistling sounds the next moment, as if a gust of wind swept through in an instant, and everything in sight was flying.

Amid the rustling sound of her robes, Charlotte squinted her eyes and saw countless thin blades flying towards her. Her muscle memory allowed her to dodge quickly, her petite figure blurring and then clearing up again, and she dodged the sudden attack. The blades were embedded in the wall.

"Sword Control?... No, it's Yin Flow?"

The effect of Word Spirit Sword Control is that the user can precisely manipulate all metal objects in the alchemical field, creating an effect similar to "controlling metal objects with the mind". Although Bernardo attacked him with a metal blade just now, the metal cane in Charlotte's hand was not affected by the effect of Word Spirit. Moreover, the metal blade embedded in the wall did not chase her back.

After ruling out the high-risk Word Spirit Sword Control, the only other thing Charlotte knew that could use a thin blade to attack the enemy was the Word Spirit with serial number 41, Yin Flow.

In fact, Yin Flow does not have the effect of controlling metal objects. The effect of Yin Flow itself is just to allow the releaser to control the direction of wind in a large range, and to construct a very thin but strong airflow channel at will. The actual lethality is not high.

In medieval Europe, the assassins discovered other ways to use Yin Flow besides directly controlling airflow. As long as they developed some aerodynamic micro blades and put them into the airflow channel generated by Yin Flow, according to the principles of physics, these blades accelerated to incredible speeds could produce amazing lethality.

"Yes, it's Yin Flow." Bernardo said, "I know your Word Spirit is Jun Yan. Although Jun Yan is far superior to Yin Flow in terms of sequence and lethality. But before using Jun Yan, you need to meditate and chant for a long time, and you won't have the opportunity to use it in a skirmish."

Bernardo was right. From the beginning of the battle, he did not give Charlotte a chance to chant the Word of God. He seemed to have hidden all the thin blades on his cane. Although in Charlotte's eyes, which had been ignited with golden pupils, the flying speed of these blades was much slower. However, the narrow room also restricted Charlotte's movements.

I have to escape first... this thought emerged in Charlotte's mind.

Bernardo was blocking the door, and the only way out seemed to be the glass window of the room. So when Charlotte landed on her next position, she tiptoed, turned around lightly, and then suddenly released like a tight spring, and shot directly to the window.

But Bernardo seemed to have predicted Charlotte's behavior long ago. A whistling sound of cutting the air was heard, and a new round of sharp blades slid towards the window like a flying butterfly.

But the blade missed, because Charlotte did not appear at the window. Instead, she stepped on the wall on tiptoe just before reaching the window, and completed the three movements of rotation, turn, and chop in one smooth motion. The alchemical staff pointed straight at Bernardo.

She was just pretending to escape through the window, but actually she was planning to break through Bernardo from the front!
Charlotte's moves were extremely fast, and everything happened in just a second. She had just silently counted the time between the blades ejected from Bernardo's cane. At such a close distance, she could hit the opponent head-on before the second round of blades ejected.

The fact was just as she thought. Before Bernardo could defend himself, she hit him accurately. But the slight numbing feeling in her hand made her suddenly stunned. It was as if she had not hit Bernardo, but a bulletproof steel plate.

Before she realized what was happening, the cyclone brought by the Yin Liu blew her away. The thin blade seemed to have consciousness and cut her delicate skin all over, but accurately avoided all the vital parts.

"What are you doing..." Charlotte covered her wounds and leaned against the wall. Blood was flowing from the skin on her face that was cut by the blade. She looked like a heroic female assassin.

"Are you surprised? I was hit head-on by you, but I was unharmed." Bernardo said, "It's okay to tell you, because I have more than one Word Spirit."

"More than one Word Spirit?" Charlotte's golden eyes suddenly widened.

"This is the mystery of human alchemy. You old-fashioned families won't understand it."

Bernardo slowly approached Charlotte and said, "Don't worry, I won't kill you right away. My alchemy is still missing a key container. I had already chosen a container, but now there is obviously a more suitable choice. Making the heir of the noble Gottingen family into a container is a gift from the Lord to me."

Container? Charlotte bit her lip, keenly catching the word.

Bernardo half-knelt down, stretched out his hand, and prepared to touch Charlotte's face. However, just as his fingers were about to touch, a loud "bang" suddenly came from the dome, and black fog, accompanied by countless flying ashes and broken wood, instantly fell to the ground.

Although he didn't know what was happening, Bernardo subconsciously took a step back as a conditioned reflex. The bright silver blade that emerged from the black fog almost brushed past his nose.

The strike failed, and the bright silver blade immediately retracted into the black mist. It was only then that Bernardo realized what he had just experienced, and cold sweat subconsciously broke out on his back.

Although he had not removed his Word Spirit Immortal defense just now, the fear of brushing past the gates of hell made him believe that at that moment, if he had moved a little slower, the sharp blade that stretched out from the black mist would have accurately cut his throat, sent the tip of the blade into his neck, and cut off all his life. That knife definitely had such power!

The incident happened so quickly that Bernardo was completely caught off guard. He never thought that besides Charlotte, there was someone hiding in his room.

People from Kassel Academy? Or ambushes hidden here by the Gottingen family?

Although he had no idea who the newcomer was, Bernardo did not hesitate at all. Having just experienced a life-or-death situation, he immediately activated the Yin Flow and pressed the mechanism in the cane.

In an instant, the powerful airflow pushed countless sharp blades as thin as cicada wings, and they flew towards the black shadow with a "swoosh" sound.

But before the blades could hit him, a dark golden light appeared in the black fog, and then a very strong airflow suddenly appeared in front of him.

The air currents came towards him, pushing the blades he had shot out in the opposite direction. The strong winds surged and collided in the air, and the flying ash and broken wood formed a natural smoke screen between the two of them.

Yanling·yinliu!
As the owner of Yinliu, Bernardo was naturally very familiar with the effect of this Word Spirit. The moment the airflow surged, he realized that the other party actually had the same Word Spirit as him! Although his control of the Word Spirit was still a little immature, it was enough to interfere with the flight trajectory of those blades.

The cutting tools trembled in the disturbed airflow channel. With a series of metal collision sounds, the cutting tools that lost the support of the airflow fell to the ground one after another.

Bernardo covered his mouth and nose, and waved his sleeves to fan away the smoke in front of him. After several seconds, the smoke dissipated to a level where he could see clearly. Along with the smoke, the black fog and Charlotte, who was lying on the ground, disappeared.

……

(End of this chapter)