Just as the storm of thoughts in Klein’s mind was about to reach a deeper level of fear, a warm palm, bearing the light calluses characteristic of a knight, gently rested on his shoulder.
"Are you all right?"
Ophelia’s voice was low, yet it possessed an unquestionable piercing quality, like a sharp blade precisely cutting through the viscous song that still echoed in his mind.
Klein’s tense shoulders relaxed slightly as he turned his head to meet those golden eyes reflecting the blood-red moonlight.
Deep within her pupils, there was no sign of being mesmerized by that sinister song, only pure, unadulterated concern.
"Nothing..."
Klein shook his head, only realizing his voice was somewhat dry as he spoke.
He took a deep breath, once again forcibly dispelling the noise in his mind.
He moved his gaze from Ophelia’s face to her left arm, which was corrupted by the power of sea monsters.
Though it was hidden by her sleeve, he could still feel that power becoming more restless than usual under the blood moon.
"If anything, the person who should be worried about is you, isn't it?"
Hearing this, Ophelia’s body gave an extremely subtle pause.
In the next moment, her left hand, which had been hanging at her side, instinctively curled back and hid in her own shadow.
This movement was so natural yet so abrupt.
She herself did not even immediately understand the subconscious action.
Why hide it? Before Klein, the secret of this arm had long since ceased to be a secret.
Perhaps... she did not want him to be distracted.
Or perhaps, she simply did not want him to see the struggle that might show on her face as she wrestled with that power.
This thought flashed by and was immediately suppressed by her powerful knightly will.
Now was not the time for such thoughts.
"Business first." Ophelia said succinctly, her golden eyes turning back toward the window, filled with a cold intensity.
Klein understood her meaning, so he stopped looking up at that eerie blood moon and instead focused all his attention on the manic, restless sea before them.
The source of the song was in the sea.
The blood moon might be abnormal, but it was out of reach; to solve the current predicament, they had to start with the song on the sea’s surface.
Klein took a deep breath, his mental strength highly concentrated. He did not immediately begin his investigation but instead took an object out of the alchemical pocket at his waist.
It was a meticulously polished sea-blue magic stone, no larger than a thumb, with a surface as smooth as a mirror, yet engraved with layers of complex magic circles nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye, shimmering with a dreamlike luster under the moonlight.
He flicked his finger.
The magic stone traced a faint arc of light through the air, landing silently on the floor in the center of the room.
There was no violent magic fluctuation, nor any dazzling light effects.
There was only a low hum, like an ancient bronze bell being struck gently by an invisible hammer, echoing deep within everyone’s soul.
With the magic stone as the center, a transparent force field composed of pure arcane energy instantly expanded, covering the entire room like an inverted glass bowl.
The ripples at the edge of the force field even caused a slight distortion in the air before completely vanishing, as if nothing had happened.
Only after completing this did Klein close his eyes.
His magic, like an invisible tide, crossed the windowsill, passed through the thin defensive barrier, and spread silently toward the vast surface of the sea.
His magic became an extension of his perception, turning into countless fine probes that dove beneath the waves churning with ominous crimson light.
Standing beside him, Ophelia moved almost at the same time.
She did not have Klein’s complex preparations.
She simply pressed her right hand back onto the hilt of her sword, and golden battle qi surged from within her, yet it did not release outward to form an imposing aura; instead, in an extremely restrained manner, it followed her perception and probed in the same direction.
A knight’s battle qi was far more sensitive and direct at sensing life force than a mage’s magic perception.
Inside the room, a strange silence fell for a moment.
Only the morbid sound of the waves outside and the pervasive, sinister song served as constant reminders that they were in the center of a massive whirlpool.
Nelisa did not speak.
She stood quietly behind her guards, watching Klein complete his series of arrangements with fluid grace.
From the moment he took out that magic stone, her gaze never wavered.
She saw the defense magic circle that had been activated in an instant.
This was a precaution against her.
This realization, however, stirred no waves in her heart; instead, a sense of surprise bordering on admiration rose within her.
While an amateur watches for excitement, a professional looks for skill.
Nelisa might know nothing of alchemical theory, but as the president of the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce, her eyes had long been sharpened by countless rare treasures.
To engrave a complete, high-strength defense magic circle onto such a tiny magic stone and achieve an instantaneous cast was not a skill an ordinary alchemist could master.
It required a divine understanding of magic structures, as well as a nearly fastidious mastery of materials science and rune lore. More importantly, it required that terrifyingly stable mental strength.
The defensive ripple her three guards were currently maintaining was also an array, but it relied on three people and three runic plates as anchors, activated through long-trained coordination.
Yet the man before her had accomplished all of this with ease, using only himself and a single stone.
In Nelisa’s deep eyes, a very faint glimmer of deep blue light quietly lit up. That light seemed to have substance as it swept over the invisible barrier Klein had set up.
An invisible barrier. Stable energy structure. Perfectly closed magic circuits. Node strength... quite respectable.
She instantly reached a conclusion in her mind. Although it was not so strong as to be immovable, breaking it would require at least one full-strength attack from her.
This was already an astonishing evaluation. A rare talent, Nelisa silently labeled Klein in her heart.
However... her gaze moved past Klein’s shoulder, falling on the tall figure with the blonde high ponytail beside him.
Ophelia.
The former Sword of the Empire.
The legendary knight who had suppressed the sea monster chaos of the west coast single-handedly.
Was this bit of alchemical talent truly enough to make the empire’s sharpest blade willingly restrain her edge and remain in an obscure, rural territory?
Looking at Ophelia’s back, Nelisa fell into deeper contemplation.
There must be a story here that she did not know.
At this moment, a silent contest unfolded within the room.
Ophelia’s perception spread silently like gold dropped into water.
Her battle qi condensed into countless invisible golden threads, piercing into the chaotic crimson ocean below with a precision and dominance that far exceeded magic perception.
As the top knight of the empire, her ability to capture life force was an innate talent and a finely honed skill.
Her battle qi could easily distinguish the terror of a single fish, the swaying of a strand of seaweed, or even the faint life vibration of a shell closing in the sand.
Yet now, a rare trace of confusion appeared in her golden eyes.
Her perception network covered the vast sea area below, touching thousands of lives.
But the feedback she received was so eerie it made her skin crawl.
There was no source.
There was not a single, exceptionally powerful life form that could be identified as the mastermind.
And every living thing... was sick.
Whether it was the giant fish gliding in the deep sea or the tiny organisms clinging to the reefs, their life force displayed a homogenized, high-frequency trembling.
It was not fear, but a frenzied, forcibly synchronized excitement, like a collective nightmare sweeping through the entire marine ecosystem.
They were all singing. With their lives and their souls, they were harmonizing with that viscous and sinister song.
Ophelia’s brow furrowed slightly.
This feeling was like trying to find which specific bubble rose first in a pot of boiling water; it was a futile effort.
She subconsciously glanced at Klein beside her.
The man’s eyes were still tightly closed, his long eyelashes casting a shallow shadow under the blood-red moonlight.
Unlike the direct piercing of Ophelia’s battle qi, Klein’s method of investigation was much gentler and much more difficult.
His magic, those invisible tentacles, were instantly torn and crushed by a violent, chaotic, and malicious tide the moment they probed the sea surface, turning into the purest magic dust.
That feeling was like throwing a handful of exquisite sand art into roaring lava, leaving not a single trace.
The sea itself had become a massive, hostile magic whirlpool.
Any external perception would be ruthlessly shredded and swallowed.
Klein’s brow furrowed tighter and tighter.
He did not try to use even more massive magic to resist, as that would only drain his mental strength faster and be meaningless. He decisively abandoned that foolish approach.
Low syllables, sounding like wind and flowing water, escaped his lips. It was an ancient, nearly forgotten elemental language.
His magic was no longer a foreign object being forced in; instead, he began trying to synchronize with the water elements and wind elements within this sea.
He did not ask the elements what they saw, but instead felt their own state and their emotions.
One second. He felt the wailing of the elements.
Two seconds. He touched the fear of the elements.
Ten seconds. Klein’s body suddenly stiffened, and his closed eyelids trembled violently as if he were seeing something extremely horrific beneath them.
Found it.
It was not that the wind and water pointed out the anomaly to him, but rather that through his resonance with the elements, he perceived an elemental vacuum zone.
An absolute, deathly void!
Just a few nautical miles off the coast of the harbor, there was an area.
The water and wind elements there were so thin they were nearly non-existent.
It was as if an invisible, giant mouth were frantically devouring all energy in the surroundings.
No... it wasn't devouring. Klein carefully felt the flow of the elements, and a chill rose from his heart.
The elements there were not being devoured; they were being... annihilated.
A bizarre phenomenon he had never seen before.
Klein snapped his eyes open, a trace of fatigue flashing in his gaze, but it was replaced by a look of realization.
He did not speak immediately, but first turned to Ophelia and gave her an extremely slight nod.
With a single exchange of glances, Ophelia immediately understood that he had discovered something.
She withdrew her battle qi perception, her golden eyes returning to their usual sharpness and calm.
Having done this, Klein turned around, prepared to do one last thing before setting out.
He cast his gaze straight toward Nelisa at the other end of the room.
"Lady Nelisa."
His voice was somewhat raspy, but his words were clear, carrying an unquestionable sense of pressure.
"I believe now is the best time to share information."
He did not ask if she knew anything, but directly stated a fact—you must know something.
The air became somewhat delicate at this moment, and the temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
The professional, perfectly measured smile on Nelisa’s face stiffened slightly.
Her gaze did not meet Klein’s, but drifted over his shoulder toward the sinister blood moon outside the window.
In those deep eyes, the crimson moon’s reflection intertwined with a deep blue light, appearing dark and ambiguous.
Only the sound of waves crashing against the shore and that seemingly never-ending song remained in the room.
Time seemed to stretch out.
Behind Nelisa, her three guards instinctively pressed their hands against the runic plates at their waists, the defensive ripples around them undulating more noticeably as a tense atmosphere of facing a great enemy filled the air.
Finally, Nelisa withdrew her gaze.
She looked back at Klein, that impeccable smile once again hanging on her face, though this time it was less composed and carried a trace of an indefinable meaning.
"I apologize."
She shook her head gently.
"I have nothing I can tell you."
These few words were light, yet they were like a massive stone that caused the atmosphere in the room to sink to rock bottom instantly.
Klein’s gaze turned several degrees colder.
Ophelia’s right hand tightened on her sword hilt, a trace of faint golden battle qi wrapping around the crossguard, emitting a subtle hum.
Nelisa seemed not to notice the explosive tension. She tucked a stray strand of black hair behind her ear and added in a more sincere tone: "What I mean is, even if I know some ancient legends regarding the blood moon, that fragmented information may not necessarily be related to the current situation. Interfering with the judgment of two experts using unverified guesses would be an irresponsible act."
She paused, her tone shifting as her smile became more brilliant and more distant.
"However, if you two decide to set out to investigate that abnormal sea area, the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce is willing to provide the fastest ship and all necessary logistical support. After all, our goals are aligned, are they not?"
Klein did not speak again, but his deep eyes appeared increasingly cold under the light of the blood moon.
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