The bone ring on Kraus's left ring finger emitted a dim green shimmer. A bone-colored material slowly extended along his finger, but it did not form into a short-blade or longsword. Instead, it narrowed as it reached the tip of his index finger, finally condensing into an extremely fine bone needle, barely thicker than a sewing needle.
Kraus stepped forward and crouched in front of the Guardian.
The Guardian’s gaze shifted from the insect on Lu Yuan's finger to the bone needle in Kraus's hand.
He did not dodge. Another black eyeball bulged beneath the skin on the side of his neck, rolled once, and then retracted.
Kraus did not hesitate. He pressed the bone needle against a spot two finger-widths above the Guardian's collarbone. With a slight dip of his wrist, he made a very shallow incision.
The cut was small, less than a finger-length. Black blood seeped out—viscous and flowing much slower than normal blood, its surface mixed with extremely fine, granular fragments.
Lu Yuan leaned in to identify them. The fragments were irregularly shaped, a mix of rounded and jagged bits tumbling within the black blood. A line of grey-white text jumped out at the edge of his vision.
【Micro-eerie residues detected.】
Eyeball fragments. The Guardian's blood was mixed with shards of eyeballs; the eerie mutation had already penetrated down to the hematological level.
Kraus retracted the bone needle, the bone-colored material receding along his fingertip until it condensed back into the bone ring on his ring finger.
He stood up and retreated two steps toward the corridor.
Lu Yuan brought the Knowledge Worm on his right fingertip to the edge of the incision.
The moment the worm's antennae touched the black blood, it jerked back. A wave of intense resistance surged through the symbiotic link, and the colored shimmer on its body flickered erratically.
Lu Yuan tightened the symbiotic link, pushing the thought "I won't abandon you" through once more.
The worm stiffened for two seconds. Its antennae extended again, probing into the cut. It touched the tissue beneath the skin, paused for a moment, and then the entire worm burrowed inside.
The symbiotic link suddenly became viscous. The perception sent back was filled with heavy resistance as the worm crawled extremely slowly beneath the Guardian's skin.
It was completely different from the ease with which it had entered Kraus's body. This time, every millimeter of progress was a battle against the instinctive rejection of a Rank 5 body toward a foreign invader.
Lu Yuan picked up the bottle of prepared medicinal fluid. In the shadows, the grey-purple liquid emitted a faint, warm orange luster.
He aimed the mouth of the bottle at the incision and tilted it slowly. The medicinal fluid seeped beneath the skin along the cut.
The warm orange shimmer flared for a split second upon contact with the black blood before being swallowed. The medicine was in.
Kraus retreated further down the corridor, leaning against the stone wall while keeping his gaze fixed on them.
Margaret retreated to the corner of the corridor, her hand resting on her copper box, holding her breath.
Only Lu Yuan and the Guardian remained in the Main Control Room. The infusion officially began.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes, sinking his entire consciousness into the symbiotic link.
The Knowledge Worm crawled slowly beneath the Guardian's skin. The perception returned through the symbiotic link was heavy and sluggish; every inch forward required overcoming the Rank 5 body's instinctive rejection.
The worm's method of movement was entirely different from when it was inside Kraus. It no longer moved in a straight line but instead crawled carefully along certain residual patterns, being pushed back by the rejection force if it deviated even slightly.
Those residual patterns were very dim in the perception of the symbiotic link—fragmented and scattered in the gaps between muscle and bone, extending from the surface toward the depths of the torso.
Lu Yuan identified them after a few seconds, realizing they were the remnants of the Guardian's Knowledge Pathway foundations.
As a Rank 5 eerie transcendent at the end of his path, the pathway itself had been almost entirely eroded by eerie mutation. However, the traces of the foundation remained—dim signposts scattered among flesh filled with eyeballs.
The Knowledge Worm swam along these signposts, its antennae probing the dim patterns to find the way. It bypassed areas densely packed with eyeballs and stopped at breaks in the patterns to wait for the medicinal fluid to permeate through before continuing.
Though the speed was slow, the direction remained stable.
Lu Yuan maintained the output of the symbiotic link, his attention fully concentrated on the worm's trajectory.
The Main Control Room fell silent, save for the Guardian's intermittent breathing and the extremely faint humming of inscriptions from the distant corridor.
Suddenly, the Guardian spoke.
"Knowledge Worm?"
The Guardian's voice was raspy, his tone carrying a sense of confirmation.
Lu Yuan's consciousness was mostly pulled out of the symbiotic link. He opened his eyes and looked at the Guardian.
The old man leaned halfway against the wall, the sliver of pupil within his sunken eye sockets staring at his own chest—at the spot where the Knowledge Worm was traveling within him.
The Guardian had not said "knowledge-derived insect."
When Kraus saw the worm, his first reaction was "a colored knowledge-derived insect."
When Nine saw the worm, she said "a knowledge-derived insect that wasn't locked in that tower."
Two Rank 4 transcendents from different factions had seen the same thing and given it the same incorrect name. But the Guardian called it a "Knowledge Worm."
Lu Yuan remained silent for two seconds before finally nodding.
The Guardian's gaze shifted from his chest to Lu Yuan's face.
Pitch-black aura surged around him for a moment. Several black eyeballs sank simultaneously into the depths of the shadows, and the constant ripples of eerie mutation emanating from the old man briefly stabilized.
"Are you Forbidden Lore?"
Lu Yuan's back stiffened.
From the moment he arrived in this world until now, he had experienced countless battles, probes, and scrutinies, yet no one had ever recognized his pathway.
Within the Nightwatchers, they only knew he was a Rank 2 Knowledge transcendent; those with more detail knew he was an eerie transcendent. Kraus had never pried into his specific pathway, and the existence of Specialized Research was hidden under the guise of the "Knowledge Worm."
The words "Forbidden Lore" had never been uttered by another person.
The Guardian watched his expression and gave a raspy chuckle. The sound was soft, blending with the faint noise of the surging black aura.
"It is fine," the old man said, his lips moving slightly. "I only know of this pathway by a stroke of luck."
He paused for a few seconds, his breathing becoming heavier. Speaking itself was draining the energy he used to suppress the eerie mutation.
"When I was young, I met someone who walked this path. This worm of yours—the Knowledge Worm—I heard of it from him." His voice trailed off at the end, carrying something Lu Yuan couldn't quite place—a mix of nostalgia and regret.
The Guardian did not elaborate on that person.
He closed his eyes, his body sliding down slightly against the wall as the rise and fall of his chest slowed.
However, Lu Yuan noticed something else: within the symbiotic link, the resistance to the Knowledge Worm's movement was decreasing.
Previously, every inch the worm advanced, it was shoved by the rejection force of the Rank 5 body. Now, the strength of that rejection force had dropped by about thirty percent, and the worm's movement speed significantly increased.
The Guardian was actively suppressing the eerie mutation fluctuations within his body to clear a path for the Knowledge Worm.
When he had agreed to let Lu Yuan try earlier, his attitude had been so calm it bordered on dismissive—what could a Rank 2 Knowledge transcendent do for a Rank 5 eerie transcendent at death's door? He was just letting him try.
Now, he was beginning to cooperate in earnest.
The Guardian opened his eyes, the focus of his pupils falling back onto Lu Yuan.
The remaining eyeballs within the black aura all shifted to one side. The old man looked at him with his own eyes; there was something new in his cloudy pupils—not quite expectation, but certainly different from before. The intervals between his words shortened as well.
"Continue."
Lu Yuan closed his eyes again, pressing his consciousness back into the symbiotic link.
The Knowledge Worm was indeed moving much faster. With the Guardian actively suppressing the eerie mutation, the eyeballs that had previously blocked the gaps sank into deeper tissue layers, nearly doubling the width of the channel before the worm.
The medicinal fluid followed slowly behind the worm, its grey-purple luster pulsing in the perception of the symbiotic link.
The Guardian spoke again.
His voice was even softer now, as if he were recounting something important.
Lu Yuan listened while maintaining the symbiotic link to guide the worm.
These were the most words he had heard the old man speak since they met.
"Hundreds of years ago, the Forbidden Lore pathway was not so scarce. Those who walked this path... were quite numerous."
The old man's breathing hitched between sentences. The black aura surged for a moment before settling back down.
"But most people changed their direction midway. Later... I am not entirely sure what happened, but the pathway nearly vanished."
Lu Yuan did not interrupt.
Within the symbiotic link, the worm was accelerating along a relatively intact section of the pathway foundation, its antennae tracing the flow of the patterns. The medicinal fluid was being steadily drawn into the second main channel.
The Guardian sat with his eyes closed, his white hair hanging over his shoulders, the black aura enveloping his body. His breathing was shallower now, and the frequency of the eyeballs bulging beneath his skin was slower than before.
"How long have you been in the Bronze City?" Lu Yuan asked during a gap in the symbiotic link's demands.
"About... five or six hundred years."
Lu Yuan's fingers twitched for a split second.
Five or six hundred years?! Kraus had mentioned that the Guardian had been in the Bronze City longer than himself, but he hadn't given a specific number.
Five or six hundred years ago, the inscription system of the Bronze City likely didn't have as many layers of repairs and reinforcements as it did now. The inscriptions on the city walls might have even been in their original form.
The Guardian's voice dropped a bit further, the intervals between his words growing longer. In the silence between each sentence, the faint humming of him suppressing the eerie mutation could be heard.
"After reaching Rank 5 and becoming a Guardian, as long as the eerie mutation within the body does not fluctuate violently, one can theoretically live for nearly a thousand years. I am considered one of the long-lived ones. Most comrades who reached Rank 5... generally only had about a hundred years."
"Because they were unwilling. They wanted to climb higher, unwilling to be bound to a single city for a lifetime. And so, they died."
The Guardian's tone held a touch of peace.
"I have undergone a deep binding with the Bronze City. As long as the Bronze City is not destroyed, I will not die—provided the pathway does not go out of control."
Lu Yuan recalled the words Kraus had spoken that night.
Those who didn't go out of control were called Guardians; those who did were called Eerie.
The inscriptions of the Bronze City were what restricted the Guardian.
The price of deep binding was being shackled to a city, using the city's entire inscription system to suppress the possibility of the pathway losing control.
In exchange, one gained a lifespan of nearly a thousand years and a relationship Lu Yuan was only now truly beginning to understand: the Guardian watched over the city, and the city watched over him.
"Everything changes after Rank 6," the Guardian's voice came intermittently through the surging black aura. "Current human restrictions are essentially useless against Rank 6. Trying to bind a Rank 6 with a city is impossible. Binding oneself to a city and having the weight of an entire city pressed upon you are two entirely different concepts."
He coughed, and pitch-black eyeballs began to emerge from the corners of his mouth.
Rate on N.U.
