Ryan had only taken a few steps inside when he suddenly felt something was off.
He paused slightly.
The next second, footsteps suddenly echoed behind him, moving quickly.
There was more than one person.
Ryan's heart sank instantly. He spun around.
Three men stepped out of the fog. They wore filthy, worn coats, and one of them even held a short wooden club, his breath reeking of alcohol.
They had clearly been trailing him for some time.
“Don't run.”
The man in the lead grinned.
His teeth were yellowed.
“We're just borrowing some money for medicine.”
Ryan instinctively took a step back, his chest tightening instantly.
Getting mugged at night in the East End was a common occurrence, especially for a young man like him who had enough money to buy medicine and was walking home alone.
In their eyes, he was the perfect target.
Behind him, figures slowly blocked the mouth of the alley. Four men in total.
Ryan's expression turned grim; there was no escape.
One of them, a short man, began to close in.
“Hurry up.”
“Hand over the money.”
“Don't make us get rough.”
Ryan's fingers slowly clenched into fists.
The twenty-eight pence and the bottle of laudanum in his pocket weighed heavily on his mind.
He couldn't lose this money. If he did, he wouldn't survive until next month.
But the problem was—his current body couldn't fight at all.
Lung disease, starvation, and chronic malnutrition.
Forget four men—even a single healthy adult could easily overpower him.
The man with the club was already losing his patience.
“Damn it, are you deaf?”
He took a step forward, pointing the wooden club directly at Ryan.
“Turn out your pockets.”
Ryan took another step back.
His sole stepped into a puddle, and icy water immediately rushed into his cracked shoe.
His mind raced.
What should he do?
What should he do?
Just then, a carriage suddenly passed by the distant street corner.
The glow of a gas lamp briefly pierced through the thick fog and into the alley.
Ryan's pupils shrank.
Light.
He suddenly remembered the white light that had pierced his mind last night.
And that sensation of his consciousness burning.
The Lantern.
Ryan's heart began to pound wildly.
An extremely dangerous idea popped into his head.
He didn't know if it would work, or even what would happen, but he had no other choice now.
“Fuck, he's still backing away!”
The man in front lunged forward.
Ryan spun around.
He bolted directly toward the light at the street corner.
“Catch him!”
A chaotic din of footsteps immediately erupted behind him.
Ryan's lungs felt like they were about to burst, and every step he took sent a stabbing pain through his chest.
Cold air rushed into his lungs, and a metallic taste of blood rose in his throat.
But he didn't dare stop.
Finally, he burst out of the alleyway.
The light from the gas lamp fell upon his face.
At that moment, a loud buzz echoed in Ryan's head, as if something had been forcibly lit.
The light before his eyes grew blindingly bright.
No.
It wasn't that the light had grown brighter.
It was that what he “saw” had changed.
A faint white halo appeared around the gas lamp, resembling burning ash or floating dust.
Ryan's breath caught instantly.
At the same time, the men behind him caught up.
“Damn it, you still want to run—”
One of them looked up at Ryan.
His voice abruptly cut off.
Because Ryan had also looked up.
Beneath the gas lamp, Ryan's bloodshot eyes suddenly took on an extremely unnatural pale gold color.
It wasn't that they were glowing, but rather as if something deep within his eyeballs had been illuminated.
In the next second, the expressions on the thugs' faces froze simultaneously.
They suddenly felt as if their heads had been violently stabbed.
An indescribable, burning sensation surged into their consciousness.
“Ah—!”
The man in the lead suddenly shrieked, clutching his eyes as he fell to his knees.
It was as if a massive white sun had appeared before him.
Light.
Endless, infinite light.
The light carried no warmth, yet it sliced through his brain like a frenzy of knives.
He began to hear a bell—a piercing tolling of a bell.
“The Glory has no mercy...”
“The shadow must be stripped away...”
Intermittent voices began to echo in his mind, and the others immediately fell into chaos.
“What is this?!”
“My head—”
“Ah!!”
One of them even began to claw at his own face frantically, as if something were crawling beneath his skin.
They had no idea what was happening.
They only felt as though a clump of burning iron had been shoved into their brains.
Ryan wasn't doing well either. He felt as if his temples were about to split open.
His vision blurred, and that familiar tolling of the bell rang in his ears once more.
But it was much weaker than last night.
He knew he couldn't keep looking. If he did, he would probably be the first to go mad.
Ryan immediately lowered his gaze, turned, and ran.
Behind him, complete chaos had broken out.
Some were screaming, some were vomiting, and others were fleeing in the opposite direction like madmen.
The pedestrians on the street were all startled, and the shouts of a patrolling officer could be heard in the distance.
“What's going on over there?!”
Ryan didn't dare stop.
He clutched his chest tightly, rushing into another alleyway.
His lungs burned fiercely, and his vision swam with darkness.
Only when the figures behind him were completely out of sight did he suddenly collapse against a wall.
Cough!
He spat a mouthful of blood directly onto the ground.
Ryan gasped for air, his entire body trembling.
Cold sweat poured down his forehead.
In that split second just now...
He truly felt as if something inside his brain had been “opened.”
Not an illusion.
Absolutely not.
Ryan stood there for a long time, recovering.
Only when the suffocating, bursting pain in his chest subsided slightly did he stand up again.
His legs were still somewhat weak.
The scene from moments ago kept replaying in his mind.
The expressions on those thugs' faces as they screamed.
And that eerie, unreal “light” beneath the gas lamp.
As Ryan walked back, he couldn't help but smile bitterly.
Other transmigrators got systems.
He transmigrated only to nearly die of sickness first, and now he was starting to develop mental pollution.
Fucking fair, indeed.
The night wind in the East End grew colder.
The police on the street had begun blowing their whistles.
In the distance, the faint sounds of chaos from earlier could still be heard.
Ryan didn't dare linger.
He quickened his pace and returned to St. Blaise Street.
The old tenement building was as quiet as ever, with only a faint light shining from a room on the second floor.
The stairwell was thick with the smell of mold and cheap coal smoke.
The wooden stairs creaked softly under his feet.
Ryan dragged his exhausted body back to his attic room.
He pushed the door open.
Closed it.
Locked it.
Only when he heard the click of the lock did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The room was just as dilapidated as it had been this morning.
The yellowed, peeling wallpaper, the drafty window frame, the cold, narrow cot.
The kerosene lamp on the table was nearly out of fuel, and the faint scent of ink still lingered in the air.
Ryan stood by the door in a daze for a moment before slowly taking off his coat.
As soon as he took it off, he smelled a strong odor of sweat and damp fog.
The back of his shirt was completely soaked; he had sweated too much while running earlier.
He looked down and saw a trace of blood on his cuff.
He didn't know if he had coughed it up or if he had rubbed against it earlier.
Ryan sighed and began to clean up.
The water in the wooden basin was already freezing cold, but he still soaked his towel and slowly wiped his face.
The icy water jolted his mind, clearing it slightly.
Rate on N.U.
