"These dead bodies have disappeared, but judging from the fragments of clothing, they should all be mage apprentices."
Su Ming transformed the Godslayer back into a scimitar, picked up a blood-stained piece of cloth from the ground, and scrutinized it in front of his eyes. These are all ordinary burlap, while formal mages typically wear silk. Moreover, the blood on the cloth hasn't dried completely, indicating the slaughter took place not long ago.
On the other hand, it's good news because the apprentices' combat power is not very high. What they couldn't handle doesn't necessarily mean Su Ming couldn't handle it.
However, with the character of the Ancient One, she couldn't just watch her apprentices die so simply. Yet obviously, she was powerless to prevent it. Why is that?
Dr. Holloway shook his head and looked up at the bloodstained stairs leading upwards: "What next? This place is scarier than the witch's house I read about in fairy tales."
"You've come at a bad time. Actually, Master Gu Yi is still quite refreshing," Su Ming shrugged and dropped the cloth, cracking a cold joke.
A bald head does look refreshing, but this joke requires Holloway to meet the Ancient One to understand.
The Holy Temple was extremely quiet; there were no sounds of battle, but this kind of silence made one feel very uneasy.
If we go by the general style of horror movies, everyone would split up to search for survivors or clues. But Su Ming has always been a staunch opponent of splitting troops. Venturing separately in a situation like this is really not far from entering a grave.
The Holy Temple is a three-story building, with an additional basement floor. If you dig further down through the sewer, you'd reach Su Ming's old distillery from the prohibition era.
In the comics, the basement is a prison and boiler room, while the attic is Doctor Strange's living quarters. The middle floors are mostly guest rooms or display areas.
There are also a bunch of space-folding domains, passages to extraterrestrial planets, and plane rifts, all leading to unknown places.
The real structure is completely unknown, but what should be there shouldn't be missing.
Now is still the era of the Ancient One's rule, and Su Ming had never heard of the mage stationed at the New York Temple. The Ancient One would visit occasionally; most of the time, there was only a great mage and a bunch of magic apprentices here.
The original plan was to find the stationed mage and have them send him to Kama Taiji to see the Ancient One. After all, Su Ming had been their neighbor for many years. Unexpectedly, this is the current situation.
"Let's go up to the library on the second floor, it's the teleportation hub and reception room. Let's see if we can find clues...most importantly, stay close to me."
Su Ming still remembered that last time he was in the temple, he saw many teleportation gates like murals in the reception room. Maybe someone escaped to that side?
The doctor nodded, agreeing it was better for the two of them to act together. At least they wouldn't be driven mad by the overly quiet environment, imagining dangers around every corner.
They walked up the stairs, which were wooden and equally silent, but stepping on the blood above made a 'squish squish' water-stomping sound.
The space here was obviously expanded by magic. The inside of the building was much larger than it appeared from the outside. Yet the scenes in the reception room and the foyer were similar: a mess everywhere, covered in bloodstains, and equally devoid of bodies.
However, here Su Ming found a clue. He discovered that the magic items originally displayed here were still present, indicating that the intruders did not come to plunder magic items.
This greatly reduced the probability that the intruders were mages. As long as he wasn't dealing with inexplicable magic, Su Ming felt relatively confident.
The most conspicuous display case was shattered, and the Magic Floating Cloak lay beside it, covered by some broken glass and rotting wood.
Su Ming walked over and picked up the cloak.
This thing, like Su Ming's Godslayer, has a mind of its own. Though it behaves more docile than a weapon, it shouldn't be like this now—it limply hung from Su Ming's hand like a red bath towel.
"Cloak, cloak, you can't die, tell me, who killed the mages?"
The cloak was just a piece of cloth now, how could it answer him? Even in a normal state, it wouldn't speak.
Dr. Holloway squinted, a bit skeptical of Deathstroke's mental state. Talking to a cloak isn't something a sane person would do, right?
Should they continue to look for other clues?
He walked to Su Ming's side and said in a low voice, "It's breathed its last, my condolences."
Su Ming rolled his eyes, it never even had a breath, okay?
He just wanted to see what was going on with the Magic Floating Cloak, to tell it a joke and see if it reacted, but now he felt like a lunatic.
Su Ming waved his hand, signaling him to be on guard. He wanted to see what's wrong with the Magic Floating Cloak. In its current state, it seemed to have lost energy support, turning into an ordinary item.
Su Ming himself doesn't know magic, but repairing something to make it work again is merely a matter of trying every method he could think of.
Magic he doesn't have, but he does have plenty of energy-containing items on him.
First, he tried the Godslayer, which contained the divine power of the Fire God, the God of Forging, who created thousands of magic items. Magic cloaks and sheets alone probably number over a hundred, and since the Godslayer has a consciousness, they might communicate?
He transformed the Godslayer into a rod and rubbed it quickly with the cloak wrapped around, sparks of electric static appeared on the cloak.
There was no other reaction, even the murderous intent from the Godslayer was the same as before.
Alright, divine power doesn't seem to work, conscious communication ruled out, static electricity ruled out.
Then let's try X Metal, this DC World's primal matter, containing immense energy, maybe the massive energy can reboot it?
He took a bright spot from the Nightfall Greatsword, placed it on the cloak, and the metallic substance immediately melted, enveloping the cloak in a strong light.
The silver light appeared warm and bright, giving a much-needed sense of well-being in a world mixed with grey. But soon, the light faded away, and the X Metal returned to being a metallic granule, resting on the cloak.
Can't say it was useless, the X Metal repaired some of the cloak's frayed edges, and cleaned it up a lot.
But now it was still an ordinary cloak. Well, you owe me a laundry fee, Master Gu Yi.
He carefully put away the X Metal, this stuff is very precious, if he's right, even the Justice League wouldn't have a drop of it left.
Su Ming reached for his back pouch, intending to try the Black Lantern Battery next. This cloak is dead matter, maybe it would react to the Black Lantern?
But when he was rummaging through the bag, he first felt some small balls.
These were the gemstones Dr. Manhattan gave him back then, still without any known use even now. The only known information is that they are some kind of energy aggregate.
After long research without results, he simply kept them in his uniform pouch, together with the typically useless Black Lantern Battery.
However, finding them now might be some sort of fate.
He took one out, tossed it in his hand, looked at the cloak in his other hand, and pondered for a moment.
Then he brought his hands together.