The moment Glock rushed out of the Polymath Tower's corridor, his hand was already pressed against the communication crystal in his inner pocket.
Lu Yuan’s voice still echoed in his mind, every word carrying a severity he had never heard from the young man before. The main tower of the Polymath Tower had been sealed, and everyone inside had lost consciousness.
The communication crystal lit up. The moment the signal connected, Glock wasted no time with pleasantries and reported the situation immediately.
On the other end was Lake.
Lake hung up after hearing only three sentences over the communication crystal.
Something major had happened.
Kraus, the Count, Adrian, Arthur, the Great Ascendant... the main tower of the Polymath Tower held the core of Bronze City’s current high-level combat power.
If this group were wiped out, Bronze City would effectively be hollowed out on a transcendent level. Kraus absolutely could not be allowed to fall; he was the axis of the entire operation. If he went down, no one could take over the subsequent tasks.
But it was useless for Lake to rush there himself. He was only rank 4. Whatever could take down every transcendent above rank 4 was not something he could handle at his level.
However, there was one person who could.
Lake sprinted through the streets in the darkness, heading toward the clock tower.
But by the time he arrived, the ground floor of the clock tower was already empty.
Traces of dissipated pitch-black aura remained on the stone benches, the shadows a layer deeper than normal. The bobbing black eyeballs had already left with their master.
He felt it.
Something was churning in the direction of the Polymath Tower.
The underlying tone of the fluctuation was unfamiliar—heavy, deep, and vast, pressing directly down over the entire city. The inscriptions in the clock tower trembled in response. For a moment, the pitch-black aura between the cracks in the walls was drawn by the distant power before returning to calm.
Lake hadn't arrived yet.
The Guardian stood up. The pitch-black aura expanded outward in a ring, and black eyeballs floated up from the depths of the shadows, following the old man’s hunched figure as he moved out of the clock tower.
The night in Bronze City was heavier than in any other imperial city. The moonlight reflecting off the copper walls was sliced into fragments by the clouds, scattering across the flagstone pavement.
The Guardian moved slowly along the main street of the inner city. He didn't walk fast, his strides small, like an elderly man taking a stroll.
Yet, his speed of movement was incredibly fast. With every section of the street he passed, minute cracks appeared on the stone bricks, spreading half a step to either side from beneath his feet before slowly closing back up after he had passed.
The pitch-black aura trailed a faint wake behind him.
Halfway there, he stopped and looked up toward the Polymath Tower. The Sea of Knowledge diversion channel hanging in the sky was surging abnormally.
The river of light, which had been pulsing slowly, suddenly accelerated. A massive amount of dreamlike river water spilled from the channel, penetrating the night sky above the tower and pouring down.
The Sea of Knowledge was pouring in.
The Guardian’s cloudy gaze rested on the out-of-control river of light for a few seconds. Every black eyeball within the pitch-black aura turned toward the Polymath Tower, their pupils fixing in place.
But he couldn't see through it. The main tower of the Polymath Tower was shrouded in something that cut off all internal information. He could feel the existence of that barrier—heavy and cold, pressing everything down tightly. From the outside, one could only see the Sea of Knowledge pouring in, not what was happening inside.
The Guardian withdrew his gaze, his figure flickering continuously as he moved.
Before he had even walked two streets, someone appeared on the road ahead.
A man in a deep grey overcoat with dark green satin piping on the cuffs.
A young man in his mid-twenties stood in the middle of the dark street, his posture composed, hands hanging naturally at his sides. He showed no intent to attack, but he didn't seem inclined to make way either.
He stood directly in the Guardian’s path, as if he had been waiting there in advance.
The Guardian’s footsteps halted. The pitch-black aura surged around him, and the floating black eyeballs turned in unison to face forward.
The person before him posed a slight threat to him.
The young man looked at the old man radiating an eerie aura and raised an eyebrow, seemingly discovering that his intelligence was slightly off.
The Guardian looked at the young man and remained silent for a moment.
“Are you from the Empire?”
His gaze fell upon a badge pinned to the young man’s chest. He couldn't mistake its background color.
That color represented specific departments within the imperial system. No more than three departments in the Empire were permitted to wear that background. As for which specific department it was, it couldn't be determined by the color alone.
The young man looked at the Guardian and smiled.
“My Lord, please do not interfere in this matter.”
His voice wasn't loud, and his speech wasn't fast; every word was clear and steady.
“Please continue to reserve your strength. There will be a time when you are needed later.”
After a brief pause, he added,
“Rest assured. Nothing will go wrong.”
The Guardian watched him. The pitch-black aura surged, and several black eyeballs floated up from the shadows, lingering on the young man’s face for two seconds.
“Why should I believe you?”
The young man seemed to have anticipated this question.
He reached into his overcoat and pulled out two items, handing them over: a handwritten decree and a medal. The paper of the decree was very special, its edges gilded with extremely fine silver thread, and the patterns on the medal glinted with a metallic luster under the moonlight.
“This is our plan. Aside from you, no third party knows of it.”
“The Empire has long had a contingency for this. I came here specifically to prevent any accidents.”
He looked into the Guardian’s eyes, his tone calm and unhurried.
“So, I must ask you to also intercept the other brothers who are preparing to head to the Polymath Tower.”
The Guardian took the handwritten decree and the medal, looking down at them for several seconds.
The old man’s cloudy gaze moved from the contents of the decree to the patterns on the medal, then back to the decree. Every black eyeball in the pitch-black aura slowly sank, disappearing into the deeper shadows.
Silence lasted for several heartbeats.
Then, the Guardian handed the handwritten decree and the medal back, turned around, and walked slowly back the way he had come.
His hunched back receded into the night, the pitch-black aura gradually retracting, and the trail behind him slowly faded.
The young man stood in place, watching the old man leave. He breathed a sigh of relief, and the smile returned to his face.
After all, the aura on the Guardian was significantly stronger than what was recorded in the files; he truly wouldn't have been a match if they had fought.
Lake was rushing from another street toward the clock tower.
He ran into the Guardian at an intersection. The old man was walking back, his hunched figure trailing a short shadow in the moonlight.
Lake saw that the Guardian was heading the wrong way—he was actually going back.
He was about to speak.
The Guardian waved a hand.
“Someone is already handling it. There is no need to worry.”
Lake watched the old man’s back recede. He stood at the intersection, stunned for two seconds. He didn't know who the “someone” the Guardian mentioned was, but there was no hesitation in the old man’s voice. That kind of certainty wasn't something that could be faked by just anyone.
The weight on his heart slowly lifted.
Inside the main tower of the Polymath Tower, hurried footsteps echoed from the spiral staircase, rushing up floor by floor, the sound bouncing repeatedly off the tower’s inner walls.
Kraus was the first to burst onto the tower top.
His face looked terrible. The aftereffects of being thrown out of The Man on the Wall’s domain hadn't fully faded; his lips were pale, and fine beads of cold sweat stood on his temples. But his pace didn't slacken. Bracing himself against the stone wall, he rounded the final curve and stepped onto the platform.
He saw Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan stood alone by the circular platform, facing the skull. He was deathly pale, his breathing visibly heavy, and his forehead was covered in a thin layer of sweat.
The skull sat quietly in the indentation of the large ring, its grey-white bone surface clean and pale, its two eye sockets hollow and silent. The dark roots that had previously occupied the sockets were gone, and even the remaining traces had been wiped clean.
On the other side of the platform, the Great Ascendant’s metal skeleton lay slumped on the stone surface. The silver-grey pupils had completely extinguished, two metal spheres embedded in the smooth face. Traces of root erosion remained on the surface of the metal skeleton, and dried black residue could still be seen in the gaps of the joints.
Kraus’s gaze swept rapidly between these three things: Lu Yuan, the skull, and the Great Ascendant.
“What’s the situation?”
He walked to Lu Yuan’s side, his voice lowered, but unable to hide the urgency within.
Lu Yuan turned his head to look at him.
“The Man on the Wall has awakened.”
After a brief moment to organize his words, he continued.
“The seed has been cleared. The Great Ascendant seems to have suffered retaliation from The Man on the Wall.”
Kraus didn't immediately press for more details. His gaze moved from Lu Yuan’s face to the skull, then to the Great Ascendant’s metal skeleton, his mind racing.
What had he seen in the domain? A parasitized Man on the Wall, radiating an ominous aura and suppressing everyone. Then the ominous aura suddenly vanished, the Man on the Wall’s main body also disappeared, and when He reappeared, He threw them all out.
The seed was cleared, so the parasite on the Man on the Wall was removed, which matched what he had seen in the domain. As for the Great Ascendant being retaliated against—the Man on the Wall taking action against an accomplice after recovering—that also made sense.
As for how Lu Yuan had managed to awaken the Man on the Wall, Kraus suppressed that question for now.
Footsteps followed one after another. Arthur was the second to arrive, with the Dean close behind, and Adrian and Agnes last.
The moment they stepped onto the tower top, they all saw the metal skeleton collapsed at the edge of the circular platform.
Arthur’s footsteps faltered visibly. His gaze shifted from the skull to the Great Ascendant on the ground, his eyes narrowing.
A rank 4 full-body mechanical modification transcendent of the Ascension Society, lying on the ground, pupils extinguished, motionless.
“The Great Ascendant is dead?” Arthur’s voice carried an irrepressible shock.
The Dean stood at the top of the stairs, his grey-white hair clinging to his temples. He stared at the metal skeleton for several seconds. A rank 4, the pride of the Ascension Society’s technological achievements, had just collapsed like this on the top of the Polymath Tower?
Adrian walked over to the Great Ascendant’s metal skeleton and stopped, crouching down to take a look.
The old priest’s expression was a fraction more solemn than usual. He reached out and pressed the chest area of the metal skeleton, feeling it for a few seconds.
“The drive core’s housing is empty.” Adrian stood up, his gaze turning to Lu Yuan. “His consciousness has been wiped clean.”
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