Just then, the silver metal whistle hanging from Alvin's waist vibrated gently without warning. It wasn't blown by anyone; rather, it produced an extremely subtle hum entirely on its own.
Alvin's expression shifted drastically. He immediately reached out to press down on the metal whistle, but it was already too late.
On the other side of the hall, among the seven stone pillars that had remained motionless, a layer of grayish-white stone skin suddenly peeled away from the one closest to the entrance. Fragments rained down, revealing its true material underneath. It wasn't stone, but bronze.
It was a bronze pillar over ten meters tall. Dense rows of text were carved across its surface, while at the very top was a sentence in Ancient Kingdom Tongue written larger than the rest.
Matthew looked up, his breath catching. This time, he recognized nearly all of it.
“If you can read this text, it means the final bell...”
His voice cut off abruptly because the second half of the sentence was completely severed by a massive fissure.
The fissure ran through the entire bronze pillar, yet it had not entirely destroyed the line of text.
Matthew raised his lantern, moving it slowly along the crack. Finally, the remaining text revealed itself bit by bit.
He read in a low voice, “'If you can read this text, it means the final bell has still not tolled. Latecomers, please leave immediately. Do not seek the royal palace. Do not seek the throne. Do not seek... the King.'”
As the last word fell, the hall sank into dead silence.
There was no wealth, no legacy, no royal treasures.
From start to finish, the entire inscription repeated the same single command: leave.
...
Ryan's grip on his hilt tightened. “What on earth were they afraid of?”
No one answered. Alvin walked over to the bronze pillar, reaching out to gently brush away the dust on its surface.
More characters came into view. This time, it was no longer a warning, but... a list of names.
Dense lines of names covered fully half of the bronze pillar. Each name was accompanied by a corresponding position—Imperial Guard, clerks, craftsmen, priests, and... Bellkeepers.
Matthew quickly found the name from earlier among them: Arian.
Behind his name was a simple line carved: Seventh Bell Hall Duty Officer.
Matthew felt a sudden stir in his mind. Seventh Bell Hall, not Seventh Storage Room. Could it be... that the number on the badge was related to the Bellkeeper's assigned duty area?
...
Alvin had already ordered men to begin rubbing the inscriptions. Just then, Matthew noticed a subtle detail.
The list was not ordered by rank or status, but by sequence. The names at the top held the highest positions, while the further down it went, the more ordinary the roles became.
At the very bottom, the final name had no position, only a single standalone title: Witness.
Yet the name itself had been intentionally abraded away. It didn't look like natural weathering, but rather like someone had scraped it off piece by piece at a later time.
...
“Why?” Matthew muttered under his breath.
Beside him, Alvin looked up. “Why what?”
Matthew pointed at that spot. “All the other names are intact, except this one. It was deliberately destroyed.”
Alvin stepped closer to inspect it, his expression gradually growing solemn. The abrasion marks were very fresh—at least much newer than six hundred years of weathering.
In other words, after the destruction of the First Royal Capital, someone else had come here and specifically erased this name.
...
While everyone was studying the inscriptions, the Gold Rank knight on guard duty suddenly spoke up. “Investigator. I hear footsteps.”
Everyone whipped around instantly. It wasn't coming from the Fourth Archway, but from the entrance of the hall.
From there came slow, steady footsteps. “Clack. Clack. Clack.” The rhythm was even, sounding as if someone were walking over step by step.
Ryan tightened his grip on his longsword as lantern light was directed toward the entrance.
At the edge of the light, a figure appeared, clad in battered bronze armor and holding a halberd in hand. His movements were slow, yet without a single stumble.
Even stranger was that there was no rust on his armor, as though it had just been polished yesterday.
Alvin raised his right hand, and everyone immediately fell into combat formation.
Yet at that moment, Matthew noticed something anomalous. The figure... showed no hostility.
He neither charged nor raised his weapon, but walked straight into the center of the hall.
Then, under everyone's watchful eyes, he slowly turned around to face the Fourth Archway, dropped to one knee, gripped the halberd with both hands, and lowered his head.
It was as though... even today, he was still fulfilling his duty from six hundred years ago: guarding.
No one in the hall attacked. The guard clad in bronze armor remained in that kneeling posture on one knee, his halberd resting slanted before him and his head slightly bowed, as if awaiting someone who had long failed to arrive.
Time seemed to have stood still upon him for six hundred years.
...
Ryan lowered his voice. “Is he... still alive?”
No one answered. Alvin slowly raised his left hand, signaling everyone not to approach. Then, he picked up a small pebble from the ground and tossed it gently toward the guard.
The pebble landed beside the armor with a light clack. The guard gave no reaction, remaining motionless in his original posture.
...
Alvin did not let his guard down. He waited for an entire minute, slowly approaching only after confirming there were no anomalies.
Matthew followed as well. As the distance closed, the two finally saw the guard's appearance clearly.
The armor was preserved exceptionally well. Engraved on the breastplate was an ancient emblem—not a royal crest, but an inverted bronze bell.
Beneath the helmet, flesh and blood were long gone, leaving only a skeleton gleaming with a grayish-white sheen.
The bones were intact, bearing no signs of struggle or combat. It was as if he had simply knelt down, and at that precise moment, his life had quietly come to an end.
...
Matthew slowly squatted down, his gaze falling upon the guard's hands. Those palms, reduced to bone, still firmly gripped the halberd.
Between the finger bones, tiny cracks could even be seen. That was not weathering; rather, it looked like marks left behind by excessive force exerted right before death.
Up until his final moment, he had not let go.
...
Alvin moved around to the guard's side and suddenly stopped. “Over here.”
Everyone followed his gaze. Hanging at the guard's waist was a bronze token that had turned black, engraved with Ancient Kingdom Tongue.
Matthew gently wiped away the dust and read slowly, “Seventh Bell Hall Duty Officer, Leon.”
Not Arian, but another name.
Alvin noted it down immediately. This was the second Bellkeeper they had discovered.
...
Just then, Matthew's gaze happened to fall upon the tip of the halberd, where a small piece of yellowed parchment hung.
The parchment was secured by a bronze ring, which was why it had been preserved until now.
He didn't touch it rashly, instead observing carefully. The ink on the parchment had faded significantly, but it remained legible.
It wasn't an order, nor a last letter, but looked more like a handover log.
At the very top was a line of text: Handover Protocol for the Seventh Bell Hall.
Below it were merely three short points. First: Inspect the seal on the bell body daily.
Second: If the bell tolls on its own, seal the Bell Hall immediately.
Reading up to this point, everyone's expressions turned grave.
Matthew continued reading downward. The handwriting of the third item was noticeably messier, as if written under extreme haste, with even the final few strokes showing clear trembling.
He slowly read out the last sentence, “Third: If the seal fails... do not wait for orders. Immediately seal off all paths leading to the royal palace.”
After he finished, the hall was quiet enough that only the faint sound of the burning lanterns could be heard.
Alvin slowly raised his head, looking past the Fourth Archway into the unseeable area beyond the black line.
He finally understood. The First Royal Capital had left behind so many warnings not to protect some treasure, but to prevent anyone from going to the royal palace.
And this implied that inside the royal palace, something that even the entire kingdom couldn't handle was likely sealed away.
Alvin carefully put the parchment into a sealed wooden box, then looked at everyone. “Up to this point, the greatest gain today isn't this log.”
He slowly raised his hand, pointing at the Fourth Archway. “It's that we've confirmed one thing.”
Everyone's gazes converged there once more. The black line still lay quietly across the passage, unmoved and unvanishing, like a naturally existing boundary.
Alvin said in a deep voice, “We always believed this place was the Seventh Bell Hall. Looking at it now, it isn't.”
As he spoke, he lightly tapped the floor of the hall with his scabbard. “This place is merely the antechamber. Or rather... a waiting area.”
Ryan frowned. “What do you mean?”
Alvin didn't explain right away. Instead, he walked up to the Fourth Archway and raised his lantern high. The lantern light crossed the black line, briefly illuminating a small area behind it.
Only then did everyone realize that behind the ancient bell, there was vaguely another row of massive stone pillars, along with a corridor stretching further ahead. That area was far broader than they had imagined.
Matthew said softly, “The Bell Hall... is further inside.”
Alvin nodded. “Indeed. This black line is more like a boundary gate. The true Seventh Bell Hall lies beyond the boundary gate.”
...
Just then, Matthew suddenly noticed something. The kneeling Bellkeeper's body wasn't facing the ancient bell, but... further deep inside.
His halberd wasn't meant to defend against outside explorers either. The tip was constantly pointing deep into the Bell Hall, as though that was the true direction requiring vigilance.
Matthew's pupils contracted slightly. If the guard wasn't guarding against outsiders, then... what he was guarding against was inside.
...
“Investigator,” Matthew spoke slowly.
Alvin turned his head. “What is it?”
Matthew didn't answer, simply walking over to the Bellkeeper's side. He reached out and gently adjusted the lantern's angle.
The lantern light slanted onto the floor, gradually revealing a line of scratches almost entirely covered in dust.
Those weren't footprints, but drag marks left by the halberd pulled across the stone floor. The marks were deep, stretching all the way from inside the Fourth Archway to this spot, finally stopping where the Bellkeeper knelt.
Alvin slowly squatted down and followed the scratches with his eyes all the way across. He suddenly said in a low voice, “He wasn't always kneeling here.”
Everyone was startled.
Alvin continued, “He... backed out all the way from inside.”
The air instantly froze. Everyone looked along the drag marks past the black line, a scene involuntarily emerging in their minds.
Six hundred years ago, on a certain day, a sudden catastrophe struck the Seventh Bell Hall. A Bellkeeper dragged his halberd, retreating while staring intently into the depths of the Bell Hall.
He hadn't turned to flee, but remained facing his enemy, stepping back through the boundary gate step by step. Finally, he knelt down in the center of the hall, his life coming to an end.
And his final posture remained frozen at that exact moment forever.
...
While everyone was silent, Matthew suddenly felt a slight ripple rise in his spiritual sea again. It wasn't danger, but felt more like... some kind of resonance.
He instinctively looked up toward the ancient bell. He couldn't tell if it was an illusion, but the previously dim patterns on the bell body seemed to... flash brightly for a split second.
At the same time, from deep within the hall, an ancient whisper echoed, as if spanning six hundred years of time. The voice was intermittent, like wind blowing through tattered pages, with only a few words barely discernible.
“Not... a seal...”
After a brief pause, a second line came through. “It's... guarding the gate...”
As the words fell, the entire ruins dissolved into dead silence once more.
After that ancient voice vanished, the hall returned to quiet, as though everything just now had never happened.
Ryan was the first to break the silence. “Did you... hear that?”
A Silver Rank Class holder shook his head blankly. “Hear what?”
Another also frowned. “There was only the sound of wind just now.”
Alvin didn't answer, instead looking toward Matthew. Matthew nodded gently. Both understood that not everyone had heard it.
...
Alvin didn't press further. He merely wrote a line silently in his logbook: Anomalous mental-level information transmission exists within the ruins.
Then, he added a sentence beside it: Not perceptible to all explorers.
After writing, he closed the logbook without mentioning the voice again. As an investigator, he knew one thing: unverified information could not be treated as fact, even if it had truly occurred.
...
Just then, Matthew suddenly squatted down. His gaze fell upon the spot where the Bellkeeper was kneeling, where there was an extremely shallow groove. It didn't look like wear from time, but rather like the trace left behind by an object placed there for a long time.
It was about the width of an adult palm, forming a regular hexagon. But now, it was completely empty.
“Something was originally placed here,” Matthew said softly.
Alvin immediately walked over. The two observed it carefully. The edges of the groove were very smooth, indicating that the item had been fixed here for a long time, and had existed even before the Bellkeeper knelt down.
Ryan also leaned in to look. “Could it be a badge?”
Matthew shook his head. “Too big. And too deep.”
He gestured the size with his hand. It looked more like a heavy metal plaque, or... a special key.
...
Alvin stood up and slowly looked around the entire hall. From entering the ruins until now, they had discovered many clues.
The Seventh Bell Hall, the Bellkeepers, the warning inscriptions, the ancient bronze bell, and the black line that could not be crossed directly.
Yet the truly important thing had never appeared. All the clues seemed to point toward a core object, but that item was already gone.
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