The girl tilted her head and gave a somewhat helpless smile.
“It really is you, Uncle. Do you remember what I said before I came in?”
Lu Yuan remembered. She had said, “So it was you who was calling me all along.”
“I’ve actually been able to hear it since I was very young, even before I entered the Polymath Tower.”
The girl spoke casually.
“I always thought there was something wrong with my head. But after I entered the Polymath Tower and stumbled into this sea, I could hear it even more clearly.”
She smiled—the exact same smile she had shown earlier in the vortex, tilting her head and revealing a bit of her front teeth.
“I wasn’t captured and brought here; I walked in on my own. You saw it, didn’t you?”
Lu Yuan knew. When the heart split open, she had reached out her own hand.
“So, you should leave first. That barrier outside won’t hold much longer.”
The Knowledge Worm drifted to Lu Yuan’s side.
For the first time since it had been severed, the symbiotic link gave a faint, weak pulse. The Knowledge Worm’s body was still frozen, but away from the influence of the palace’s inscriptions, the frost was beginning to loosen.
Lu Yuan watched the girl standing within the blood-red ring.
Above was a blood-colored vault thousands of meters high, and all around were the remains of non-human entities.
Lu Yuan gritted his teeth.
“I can take you with me.”
“No need.” The girl shook her head, that same smile still on her face. “I don’t have anything to miss back there anyway. I’ll just stay here.”
The rotation of the five heads suddenly quickened for a fraction of a second. It was almost imperceptible, but Lu Yuan noticed.
Having received His answer, He was ready to see His guest out.
Lu Yuan’s left eye flowed.
At the very last moment, his Knowledge Seeker’s perception captured a lingering trace of the girl’s aura.
Greyish-white text silently recorded a line of information.
Just as Lu Yuan was about to speak—
The aura on the girl suddenly surged.
The mark on the back of her hand flared brilliantly.
A knowledge fragment erupted from her body, shooting into the distance along the half-dead inscription channel.
This wasn’t like the previous fragments that slowly merged before being transmitted.
This was one she had thrown out of her own accord—and it was the final one.
Lu Yuan’s consciousness was violently yanked from the palace by an expelling force.
On the way back, the shockwave from that fragment caught up to him.
【Sanity: -10... -10... 98/140】
At the other end of the barrier.
Lu Yuan’s body jerked violently as his consciousness flooded back into his physical form. A sharp pain shot through his left eye, his hands still hooked into the copper tabletop.
Meanwhile, in the sarcophagus room within the rotunda.
The impact of the final fragment tore through the inscription channel and slammed into the tome with immense force.
Calvin’s body jolted as if he had been shoved hard from behind. He looked as though he had been struck by lightning, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
Selena let out a muffled groan and collapsed to her knees. Her hand was still pressed firmly into the groove of the sarcophagus, but her fingers had turned completely bloodless.
The two of them lost consciousness one after the other.
But the floating bronze tome did not stop.
Runes poured down like a torrential rain, instantly filling the remaining blanks on the eighth page. It flipped. The ninth page. Filled. It flipped again.
The tenth page.
The final page.
The runes traced their final stroke.
The tome snapped shut.
Back in the rotunda, Lu Yuan’s fingers spasmed as they gripped the edges of the tabletop’s grooves.
The sharp edges of the copper grooves left deep indentations in his palms, and pale red blood seeped from between his fingers.
The warm liquid trickled down his hand and dripped onto the copper surface, but the pain served to confirm one thing to Lu Yuan.
He was back.
His ears were ringing incessantly, making him feel as if he had just been pulled from underwater. The sounds of the world seemed to come through a thick layer of insulation; someone was saying something, but the voice was muffled, reduced to intermittent static.
The edges of Lu Yuan’s vision were dark.
A dull ache persisted in his left eye, as if something had just been moving violently deep within the socket and the aftershocks had yet to fade.
The Knowledge Worm had shrunk back into his left eye when they were expelled together, but it had eaten so much in the Sea of Knowledge that its size had grown significantly. The moment it squeezed back in, a burst of swelling pain throbbed against the inner wall of his eye socket.
Fortunately, the symbiotic link was pulsing intermittently.
At the very least, the Knowledge Worm was still alive.
Lu Yuan took a few seconds to let his vision refocus.
The inscription circuit beneath his feet was dying out.
The light of the inscriptions dimmed circle by circle, moving from the center outward.
The pale blue patterns in the cracks of the stone slabs flickered out section by section, and the lines connecting the marker points sank into darkness.
The flow of the river of light above the vault plummeted. The dreamlike torrent weakened into a mere trickle before slowly returning to stillness.
The feedback from the inscription channel had completely vanished.
The weight that had been pressing down on everyone’s spirits lifted within seconds.
The ten Nightwatchers exhaled almost simultaneously.
The one closest to Lu Yuan swayed, caught by the person next to him. In the back row, someone dropped to one knee, clutching their temples with their teeth gritted so hard they clicked.
The Nightwatcher who had taken command while Lu Yuan’s consciousness was absent stood at the left marker point. His face was pale and his lips were parched, but he remained standing.
His gaze immediately snapped to Lu Yuan.
“Captain Lu! You’re back?!”
His voice was thick with relief and excitement.
Lu Yuan let go of the tabletop. His finger joints were so stiff he could barely straighten them. He flexed his wrists, revealing purplish-red bloodstains on his palms.
“Everyone is here.”
He didn’t answer the question directly, instead quickly scanning the room to count heads.
Ten people. They were all there; no one had fallen.
But they were all in poor condition. Several of the younger Nightwatchers were pale, their uniforms soaked with cold sweat. The one on the right had the worst nosebleed; blood had already reached his chin. He wiped it with his sleeve and sniffed hard.
“I’m fine.” Noticing Lu Yuan looking at him, he forced a grin. “It’s just a small injury, nothing to worry about.”
Lu Yuan didn’t correct him. His Knowledge Seeker’s perception had recovered slightly from the earlier chaos, and he could feel that this Nightwatcher’s mental state was worse than it appeared. However, now was not the time for such talk.
In the inner circle, the translucent barrier had completely dissipated.
From their position in the middle circle, they could see the fixing frames of the inner circle.
They were now completely empty.
The metal ring-shaped instruments were still there, but the people were gone. Some greyish-white powder remained in the depressions of the seats, looking like a thin layer of frost under the dim light of the rotunda’s runestones.
That was the residue from the disintegrated insect bodies.
Twenty-three students—not a single one had returned, and not even their names remained.
The gazes of several Nightwatchers also drifted over there. No one spoke, and the air grew heavy with a sense of grim weight.
The people from the Polymath Tower did not appear.
The door to the sarcophagus room remained closed. No mentors came out, no logistics personnel appeared—not a single person from the Polymath Tower came to facilitate a handover with the Nightwatchers.
Aside from the eleven of them, the only others in the rotunda were the Church personnel on the perimeter.
This silence was an attitude in itself.
Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze, having no intention of lingering. His mission was complete, and the actions of the Polymath Tower were now clear.
There was no reason to stay, and since there was still a ‘Him’ within the tower, Lu Yuan had no desire to see anyone from the Polymath Tower—at least not right now.
“We’re pulling out.”
The Church personnel were methodically dismantling their array on the perimeter.
The pale gold light of the blessing circles was being extinguished section by section. The nuns walked along the rings, stopping at each node to press their hands together and recite a low prayer, drawing the light of the nodes back into their palms.
The entire process was quiet and orderly, forming a sharp contrast to the battered Nightwatchers who were currently supporting one another.
The Church’s consumption was far less than that of the Nightwatchers. Their energy source came from blessing scrolls and holy light artifacts, and they were only responsible for the perimeter.
Lu Yuan glanced over but didn’t see Agnes.
Two nuns walked at the end of the cleanup crew, their pace slow as they spoke in low voices.
The younger one was frowning. “The leader’s decision this time... the scrolls were all used up. Not a single one left. Even that Archangel-level one.”
The older nun’s tone was calm. “The result was good. Everyone is safe, and the leader has never treated us unfairly.”
The younger nun shook her head, her steps slowing slightly. “I’m not questioning the leader. I just find it strange... more than half of those blessings were directed toward the Nightwatchers’ barrier zone.”
The older nun didn’t respond.
“And the order was given the very instant the barrier started to fluctuate,” the younger nun added. “The reaction was just too fast.”
The older nun glanced at her.
“Finish the cleanup. Don’t keep the others waiting.”
The younger nun said no more.
But her brow remained furrowed.
They began the ascent through the stone staircase.
The ten Nightwatchers supported one another as they climbed the layers of steps. Some had unsteady footing and had to be braced by the arms of their comrades, their other hand leaning against the coarse rock walls.
As they passed through the bronze gate, Lu Yuan looked back.
The river of light on the vault had completely gone out, and the entire rotunda was submerged in darkness, with only the faint, flickering blue light of the runestones remaining on the walls. The empty fixing frames stood in a silent circle in the shadows.
Lu Yuan turned his head back and continued walking.
On the entire path from the rotunda to the exit, they didn’t encounter a single person from the Polymath Tower. The corridors were empty, half the wall lamps were dark, and the runestones on the copper walls had lost the eerie blue luster they’d had when they arrived, looking as if they had been drained dry.
The Polymath Tower felt like a ‘dead place,’ worlds apart from the atmosphere when they first entered.
They stepped through the narrow door.
The night wind rushed in to meet them.
The late-night wind was freezing.
But after being cooped up in the underground rotunda for so long, this cold wind was actually refreshing.
Two carriages were waiting in the square.
As Lu Yuan walked, he looked at the Nightwatchers around him. He didn’t perform a formal inspection; he simply walked among them, patting shoulders and checking their faces. When he passed the Nightwatcher with the nosebleed, Lu Yuan paused for an extra second.
Greyish-white text quietly surfaced.
【Target Detected: Nightwatcher (Slightly damaged Sanity)】
【Status: Minor cracks in mental barrier; requires over 72 hours of rest.】
Lu Yuan’s expression shifted for a moment.
But he didn’t tell the man the specific result.
“Have you taken your Sanity-stabilizing potion yet?”
The man nodded. “I took it. I’ll be fine once I’ve rested a bit. It’s nothing, Captain Lu.”
He paused, then asked in return, “But are you alright? You suddenly stopped moving back there—you gave us all a real scare.”
“If something had actually happened to you, we wouldn’t have known how to explain it to Vice Director Kraus.”
Rate on N.U.
