Lu Yuan understood what that was.
The seal of the Bronze City.
This city itself was a massive alchemical array, suppressing nearly all transcendent or other related powers.
The young man's body stopped twisting.
He stood in place, his eyes hollow.
Then he turned around as if being pulled by something and walked toward the door.
The black-robed figure followed behind him.
The picture began to shatter.
It grew increasingly blurry.
It grew increasingly dark.
Finally, it dissipated completely.
At the edge of his vision, the greyish-white text flickered again:
【Sanity: -5... 54/120】
Lu Yuan snapped his eyes open.
He was still standing in the room.
A layer of fine cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
"What happened?"
Raymond's voice came from the doorway.
"You were standing still for quite a while."
Lu Yuan remained silent for a few seconds.
He hesitated over whether to reveal what he had seen.
But those images were too blurry.
The face of the black-robed figure was unclear.
The specific form of that "object" was impossible to describe.
Speaking of it wouldn't serve as evidence anyway.
"I was sensing the residual aura," Lu Yuan shook his head. "But it's too faint; I couldn't see anything useful."
Raymond glanced at him but didn't press further.
After all, he was only a rank 1 Eerie Knowledge transcendent; being able to detect residual auras already proved that the path Lu Yuan had chosen was extremely powerful.
"Let's go," Raymond said. "Back to the outpost."
After a brief word with the butler, the two left the Baron's manor and returned to the inner city outpost by carriage.
Upon entering, they saw Karl and Helen speaking with two other people.
A man and a woman, both fresh faces.
The man was named Ryan, in his early thirties and quiet.
The woman was named Amy, about the same age as Helen, but with a much more lively personality.
Seeing Raymond enter, Amy stepped forward quickly, holding a slip of paper.
"Captain! We found something!"
Raymond took the paper and scanned it.
An address was written on it, followed by a sentence.
"The Hall of Knowledge awaits here."
"This was found in Philip's room," Ryan said quickly, stepping forward. "Hidden in a secret compartment in the desk."
"Could it be a trap?" Helen frowned. "Deliberately luring us there?"
"It's hard to say if it's a trap," Amy shook her head. "We didn't find this paper ourselves; Philip's father gave it to us."
"What do you mean?"
"That Merchant Association representative is much calmer than the other two families," Ryan continued, placing the paper on the table. "Immediately after his son went missing, he searched the boy's room and found this note."
"But he didn't make a scene; he waited for us to show up."
Raymond's eyes narrowed slightly.
"He kept a backup plan for himself."
"Exactly," Ryan nodded. "He said if the Nightwatchers couldn't find anything, he would investigate himself. This address is his only clue."
The group fell silent.
A merchant was indeed a merchant.
"Where is the address?" Raymond asked, spreading out a map of the Bronze City.
"The outer city," Amy pointed to a relatively remote location on the map. "An isolated house."
Raymond looked at the paper, then at the group.
"Report it first, then we go check it out."
After Amy stepped out for a moment, the six of them boarded two carriages and headed toward the outer city.
The further they went, the narrower the streets became and the more dilapidated the houses grew.
Finally, the carriages stopped at the end of a small alley.
An old house stood ahead of them.
It was a two-story wooden structure with mottled outer walls and windows covered in thick dust.
It looked as though it had been abandoned for a long time.
The six of them stepped out of the carriages and approached cautiously.
Lu Yuan walked in the middle of the team, his gaze scanning the surroundings.
This location was indeed remote.
There were almost no residents nearby; the closest house was over a hundred meters away.
If anything happened here, it would be difficult for anyone to notice.
"The door isn't locked."
Karl, walking at the front, reached out and pushed the door.
The door creaked open.
The interior was very dark, with only a few slivers of light filtering through the broken windows.
The air was thick with the smell of old mold.
The six of them continued deeper inside.
They crossed the foyer and entered a dim corridor.
At the end of the corridor was a half-open door.
A faint light leaked through the crack.
Raymond made a gesture, signaling the group to slow their pace.
He pressed himself against the wall as he approached the door, then suddenly kicked it open.
Inside was a spacious room.
Complex runes were drawn on the floor, spreading from the edges of the room to the center in intricate and eerie lines.
Strange patterns hung on the walls, looking like symbols used for some kind of ritual.
In the center of the room, at the very heart of the runes, lay a person.
A man.
His body was stiff, his posture distorted, and his skin had an unnatural luster—he looked like a piece of human-shaped wood.
But he certainly didn't look like a living person should.
Lu Yuan's pupils contracted violently.
At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text emerged:
【Target Detected: Unnamed (Woodenized)】
【A unique entity infected by a strange substance, causing a physical transformation; more accurately described as a source of pollution.】
An Eerie.
There was an Eerie here.
Inside the Bronze City.
A living Eerie.
"This is..." Helen's voice cut off abruptly.
She saw it too.
Everyone saw it.
The "person" lying on the floor was emitting an unsettling aura.
It was the aura of the Eerie.
Strong and unmistakable.
"Impossible," Karl's expression changed. "This is the Bronze City!"
Just then, a voice came from the corner of the room.
"My, you got here fast."
Two figures stepped out from the shadows.
One wore a dark grey coat, with a lean build and obvious signs of mechanical augmentation on his arms.
He was from the Ascension Society.
The other wore a black robe and stood slightly behind, his face obscured.
The man in grey looked at the black-robed figure, his tone tinged with mockery.
"You lost."
The black-robed figure said nothing.
"Hurry up and take it so we can leave," the man in grey urged.
Raymond had already drawn his blade.
"Nightwatchers on duty, you are suspected of..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
The man in grey moved.
He was startlingly fast.
Lu Yuan activated the Timekeeper on his chest almost instinctively.
The world became sluggish in that instant.
It wasn't that the outside world had slowed down—it was that he had become faster.
At the edge of his vision, the greyish-white text flickered:
【Sanity Consumption: -1... 53/120】
His enchanted revolver was already drawn.
The first shot was aimed at the grey-clothed man's leg.
He pulled the trigger, and the muzzle spat flame. The bullet slowly left the chamber, then seemed to sink into a swamp, drifting forward at a weirdly slow pace.
The second shot was aimed at the man's head.
Same trajectory, same slowly drifting bullet.
【Sanity Consumption: -1... 52/120】
Lu Yuan didn't stop.
He turned the muzzle toward the woodenized body on the floor.
The third shot... the sixth shot.
Six bullets suspended in the air, slowly drifting toward their respective targets.
【Sanity Consumption: -1... -1... -1... -1... 48/120】
Lu Yuan then ducked behind the end of the line.
He deactivated the Timekeeper.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Six gunshots exploded almost at the exact same moment.
Rate on N.U.
