The office fell silent once again.
The old man had completely lost all ability to resist, leaving only the middle-aged doctor still standing there.
He slowly wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stared intently at Ryan. The fear in his eyes gradually faded, ultimately turning into a near-insane ferocity.
“Do you really think... you've won for sure?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he violently tore open his white lab coat.
His chest was densely carved with bright red ritual patterns. Many spots had not even fully healed yet, with blood continuously oozing from his skin. Yet, the droplets of blood did not fall; instead, they flowed slowly along the patterns like tiny, living serpents.
A dense Grail aspect suddenly diffused outward.
The scent of blood in the office instantly grew several times stronger.
The bloodstains on the floor, the residual stains in the corners, and even the blood droplets left on the desk from the earlier battle all began to slowly squirm, converging toward his body.
His muscles swelled rapidly, blue veins bulging one by one. His entire frame shot up by several inches, his breathing low and heavy like a wild beast.
Boom!
In the next instant, he had already charged in front of Ryan.
This punch was even faster than before.
Ryan had barely sidestepped when his shoulder was still struck heavily.
A dull impact echoed as he was sent flying backward, slamming heavily against the wall, causing several fine cracks to spiderweb across the brickwork behind him.
A burning, searing pain shot through his shoulder.
The middle-aged doctor gave him no room to breathe at all, snatching a nearby scalpel and lunging forward.
A cold gleam flashed.
The blade grazed Ryan's neck, leaving a deep gash on the wall.
Immediately after, a solid wood desk was flipped directly by him and hurled violently over.
Wood splinters flew everywhere.
Violent crashing sounds echoed continuously throughout the office.
The two fought all the way from the wall to the window, and then from the window back to the vicinity of the burning desk.
The flames flickered constantly, stretching their shadows long and short.
Ryan never truly retaliated.
He merely dodged and blocked continuously.
His hospital gown had already been slashed in several places, his cuffs were charred black, and the blood from his shoulder slowly dripped down his arm.
Yet, the middle-aged doctor grew more excited as the fight went on.
“Lantern?”
“Nothing more than this!”
“The one dying today is you!”
Another punch was thrown.
Ryan raised his arm to block it head-on. His body swayed slightly, but he suddenly smiled.
The smile was very light, and very calm.
An inexplicable unease suddenly rose in the middle-aged doctor's heart.
“What are you laughing at?”
Ryan slowly lowered the hand guarding his chest.
His left eye behind the lens was now as bright as a miniature sun.
The silver patterns carved on the frame lit up completely one after another. The surrounding burning flames, the light emitted by the gas lamps, and the winter sunlight shining in from the window all seemed to be drawn by some pull, slowly converging toward his left eye.
The light in the office grew brighter and brighter, increasingly blinding.
Ryan gently rotated his shoulder and then looked toward the middle-aged doctor.
His voice remained calm.
“I haven't made a move yet,” he said, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up. “I was waiting for The Glory to charge.”
“I was waiting. But what were you waiting for?”
The middle-aged doctor's pupils contracted sharply.
Almost at the exact same time, Ryan raised his left hand, making no fancy movements.
A beam of The Glory, condensed to the absolute limit, instantly erupted.
It was as thin as a white silk thread, yet so fast that evasion was utterly impossible.
Sst—
The entire office seemed to fall silent for a fraction of a second.
The middle-aged doctor froze in place.
At the center of his brow, an extremely tiny hole had appeared.
Before the madness on his face could even fade, his eyes gradually lost focus.
Only after a few seconds passed did his body slowly topple backward.
Thud.
The corpse crashed heavily to the floor.
The Grail aspect was still operating on instinct, attempting to repair this body.
But without the guidance of consciousness, the flesh merely squirmed slightly a few times before finally settling back into silence.
Ryan slowly walked over to the corpse.
He squatted down and reached out, pressing his hand against the man's forehead.
The Glory in his left eye lit up once more.
A moment later, a faint glow of spirituality slowly rose from deep within the corpse, landing in his palm.
As that glow merged into his mind, many unfamiliar memory fragments rapidly flashed by.
Hidden strongholds, contact lists, ritual sites, and the even larger shadow looming behind East Port.
Ryan slowly opened his eyes, the glow in his palm gradually fading.
He pushed up his glasses, looking at the several bodies collapsed in various states of disarray across the office. The smile on his face finally faded.
The peripheral cultists in this hospital had, as of now, been completely cleaned out.
After leaving the office, Ryan did not linger.
The entire floor was still quiet, but no doubt someone would discover it before long. But what of it? The police at the port still couldn't spare any extra manpower anyway.
Putting it out of his mind, he returned to his ward and closed the door behind him.
The recent battle had caused the wound on his forehead to ooze a bit of blood, leaving a faint, dark red smudge along the edge of the clean white bandage. Other than that, almost no abnormality could be seen on him.
Before long, the nurse wheeled the medicine cart in as usual.
Seeing that Ryan's forehead was bleeding again, she couldn't help but frown.
“Didn't I tell you to rest properly? How did you split the wound open again?”
Ryan smiled.
“I might have bumped it while turning over in my sleep.”
The nurse was skeptical, but she didn't ask further questions. She merely disassembled the bandage with practiced ease, cleaned the wound again, replaced it with fresh gauze, and wrapped it carefully once more.
“If you keep moving around, you'll have to get stitches all over again.”
“I understand.”
Ryan nodded in response. Watching the nurse leave, the smile on his face slowly vanished.
Outside the window, it began to snow again.
At first, it was just fine grains of snow, but it quickly turned into large flakes. They drifted slowly down from the ash-gray sky, gradually blanketing the hospital courtyard, the streets, and the rooftops.
London had truly entered winter.
Ryan leaned back against the hospital bed, quietly gazing out the window.
His left eye occasionally flashed with a faint glow of The Glory.
After absorbing the residual spirituality of those cultists, the scattered memories in his mind had gradually been organized.
The hospital was merely a node. Or rather, this place was only responsible for an extremely small portion of the entire ritual network.
Those semi-transformed, corpses, and ghouls were merely materials prepared to keep a certain large-scale ritual operating normally.
The true core remained in East Port.
Ryan slowly closed his eyes, the incomplete ritual diagram surfacing in his mind.
Countless grayish-white and crimson lines interwoven into a massive network, where the hospital, port warehouses, docks, riverbanks, and many more locations hidden in the corners of the East End were merely nodes on this web.
All paths ultimately converged on a single place: the port, where a truly massive ritual lay.
Ryan thought of what Chris had said about giving him an opportunity, and he suddenly felt an ominous premonition.
At this thought, Ryan let out a soft breath. It seemed things were far from over.
In the afternoon, the hospital delivered a simple lunch.
A warm potato stew, two slices of black bread, and a bowl of thick soup.
Ryan ate quickly. For him right now, recovering his body was more important than anything.
By evening, the sky outside grew darker and darker.
Yet the snow never stopped.
The nurse came to check on him once more, and after confirming his condition was stable, she left the ward.
Rate on N.U.
