"Each person gets one question? No problem, but Priest, isn’t it true that as long as it’s a question, even if someone accidentally says, ’Why is the weather so bad this year?’ it still counts as a question?"

"Yes, these spirits are controlled by other things, their intelligence is low and they only have instincts, so you must ask carefully."

Shard and the doctor covered their mouths, preparing themselves, then the priest poured ash from his unlit pipe onto the remains. After that, he swung his right arm, performing that memorable move Shard recalled (Chapter 440) —

A slap landed on the corpse’s face:

"Return!"

The corpse trembled like in convulsions, and after Shard and the doctor pulled the priest out of the pit, the corpse sat up, sand and mud continuously rolling off its body.

A barely noticeable green flame ignited in the eye sockets of the bones, but the corpse remained dumb, displaying a level of intelligence lower than Mia’s.

The priest coughed and took the lead in asking:

"Your soul is not free, do you know what controls you?"

The corpse, sitting at a ninety-degree angle, answered in a very flat voice:

"A book, held by spirits, plans our fate."

"It seems the detective was right, but I haven’t heard of such a relic."

The priest said to Shard and the doctor, paying special attention to use a declarative sentence, then signaled them to ask their questions.

The doctor was eager, so Shard let him go first. As expected, Dr. Schneider asked the topic both were very interested in:

"I’ve heard you had eight sons, did you have some special method?"

"No method, our family has always had many boys."

The corpse answered again, the doctor tried to interpret in a way understandable to ordinary people:

"So, it’s hereditary... but if such heredity spreads wider in the population and accumulates over generations, it will inevitably lead to gender imbalance. Therefore, such special family inheritance shouldn’t exist, otherwise, the gender ratio here would have been skewed long ago."

He also avoided ending with a question to prevent taking the last chance to ask.

Finally, it was Shard’s turn, he actually didn’t have many questions, but since he could ask, he still wanted to know about Edwards:

"What is your view on your lord, Pride Edwards, the third generation of the Edwards family?"

The corpse did not immediately answer, as if recalling:

"The lord was strictly taught by the previous generation when he was young, he was an excellent gentleman. He treated the townspeople well and was good to his family as well. However, three to four years before the incident in town, people often saw him at night secretly acting on the island. But this may just be a rumor, people have different legend stories about Lord Edwards’ family."

After speaking, he immediately lay back in the coffin without giving Shard a chance to satisfy his curiosity.

"Priest, really can’t use necromancy on him again?"

Shard couldn’t help but ask, the priest nodded:

"To be safe, we can’t perform necromancy on this soul again."

Similarly interested in this matter, the doctor then suggested:

"Aren’t his three brothers buried here too? Maybe the Ghoul Brothers coming after eleven will first attack his three brothers, so we might as well dig them up too—cough, cough—I mean, protect them as well. Three brothers means nine chances to ask questions."

"That’s quite a good suggestion, since time is still early, we can make more preparations."

Seeing the priest agree, the doctor then kicked the shovel up with his foot, and with Shard, each took one and headed to the other grave.

The corpses of the other three brothers were all in a similar state of decay, their deaths occurred within five years. Except for the shop owner who accidentally died in old age from a fall, the other three died of unknown diseases. But this should have nothing to do with that diviner, as for villagers living in the countryside, even a cold could be fatal.

With nine remaining chances to ask questions, Shard asked six times about the family’s impression of the Edwards family. The other three questions, the doctor curiously inquired if they missed their homeland after leaving, while the priest explored the corpses’ feelings of being controlled.

The doctor and priest’s questions didn’t concern Shard much; through seven inquiries, he learned about how ordinary town folk viewed the Edwards family a hundred years ago.

"Mysterious," "powerful background," "wealthy," were the deepest impressions of the entire family. As for the rumors among the townspeople, they suspected that "Edwards" was the surname passed down by a bastard of a Grand Noble from Tobesk City, otherwise it couldn’t explain how this family seemed never to lack money and always received various policy favors.

In the eyes of villagers with little exposure, the Edwards family was almost synonymous with omnipotence in the area. Yet the three generations of lords from the family were very approachable, never mentioning dirty words like "right of the first night," and even reduced local taxes to an imaginable minimum.

This was also the reason the town rapidly developed in the hundred years following the diviner’s arrival in Green Lake Town, until its decline. Furthermore, these townspeople were quite grateful to the Edwards family’s first three generations of lords, considering them true nobles.

Although this information didn’t hold much significance for the impending battle, it did fill in Shard’s knowledge gap regarding Green Lake Town’s history over the past century. After asking the questions, the three began setting traps and rituals under Priest Augustus’s guidance.

The goal was to capture the three brothers alive, so that through them, the priest could sense the location of the third part of the skull. Laplace Klein Howard couldn’t leave the island now; even though these remains were precious, he wouldn’t abandon his own affairs. Thus, as long as Priest Augustus could unexpectedly seize the third part of the skull, there would be no worry of a direct chase from the diviner.

Moreover, tomorrow marked the beginning of the Prophet’s Society’s divination ritual, and the diviners on the island had to deal with it, reducing the potential failure of Priest Augustus’s actions.

Their combined efforts swiftly completed the ritual and trap setting. After dealing with the graves, they carefully restored the graves and found suitable hiding spots nearby.

Under tonight’s starry sky, there were no clouds; the yellow moon, nearly full, illuminated the entire rural cemetery. The time reached Friday night at eleven thirteen, as the wind brushed past the tips of spring’s wild grass, the weeds hardly swayed before a slightly tattered mud-stained shoe stepped on them.

Three huddled figures emerged from the darkness, skillfully crossing fences and hedgerows into the cemetery. Compared to when Shard saw them weeks ago at the burning farm, the three brothers had changed considerably.

Most notably, instead of hanging a few rags to cover crucial areas, they now wore fitting shorts and short sleeves. Although still hunched in gait, they indeed walked solely on two feet now.

The three brothers appeared under the moonlight, and as expected, first headed to the grave of the former town’s general store owner. Their digging speed surpassed Shard and Dr. Schneider’s; within minutes, the buried, dilapidated wooden coffin resurfaced.

Two Ghoul Liches guarded above ground, and one lifted the coffin lid, jumping inside, bending down to grab the rotting corpse with nails longer than its palm.

Suddenly, eerie green light glimmered in the corpse’s eyes, and then it opened its arms to embrace the Ghoul, pulling it down together.

The Ghoul Lich transformed from the Edwards brothers, while low in intelligence, possessed undeniable strength. But when the corpse in the coffin touched its arm, some indescribable death-related power instantly rendered its body almost powerless.

With a "bang," the coffin lid closed again, trapping both corpse and Ghoul inside. The two brothers outside the grave sought to smash the decaying wooden coffin lid, but the moonlight illuminated it, unveiling an ancient Holy Emblem surrounded by elderflower’s glimmer, startling them to leap backward.

Their wisdom couldn’t comprehend what appeared on the coffin, but it didn’t hinder them from knowing it was extremely dangerous.

They instinctively retreated from the excavated grave, not ready for further action when the taller Ghoul on the east side stepped into a pit.

Countless ghostly hands alight with dark flames stretched from the pit, forcibly dragging it into the muddy ground, leaving only its head above. As with the past encounter, when those wraith hands touched its body, the Ghoul Lich’s powerful strength and spellcasting ability nearly entirely vanished.

Thus, only one brother remained. Hunched and hesitant to move frivolously, its mouth opened revealing red gums as it spun in circles seeking the unseen assailant.

When it finally looked beneath the moon, it saw three men standing in the moonlight.

The one on the left wielded a glowing silver greatsword, the one on the right carried a shovel on his shoulder, while the middle one puffed on a pipe, his robes billowing in the night breeze.

Tonight, the moon shined unusually bright, its muddied eyes only saw their silhouettes without discerning their features. But it knew for certain, they were enemies.