The old man’s expression was flat, his voice devoid of much emotion.
No one in the Main Control Room responded. Kraus opened his mouth as if to speak, but ultimately remained silent.
The Guardian closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his cloudy pupils looked past the crowd, gazing at a place far deeper and more distant than the room itself.
"But I can still see outside."
Leaning against the copper wall, the weight that had been pressing down on Lu Yuan's heart eased slightly. He understood the meaning behind the Guardian's words.
The Guardian was locked to the Polymath Tower, but he was now tied to the entire tower's inscription system. Wherever that system reached, his perception followed.
The tower was connected to the city walls and the copper pillars underground, linked to every functioning inscription node in the city. Through this system, his eyes covered most of the Bronze City.
Lu Yuan recalled the Guardian's past actions.
On the night of the hyphae crisis in the North Ward, when the Bronze City suffered a large-scale eerie attack, the Guardian had released his power once above the inner city, suppressing the entire city. In that single moment, most of the ghouls on the ground were harvested indiscriminately.
From the beginning, the Guardian's power was designed for long-range, city-wide coverage. It was likely that the cost of using it before was too high. Now that he was locked within the tower, this ability might not be useless; in fact, being in the inner city might even strengthen his deterrent power.
Kraus's shoulders relaxed slightly. Compared to facing the Guardian as an out-of-control eerie entity, the price of simply being unable to leave the Polymath Tower was negligible. This was a much better outcome.
Margaret looked up from the probe's feedback and nodded to Kraus.
The meaning was clear: the Guardian's condition was indeed poor, but it had stabilized. There was no risk of another berserk episode in the short term.
Furthermore, the Polymath Tower's inscription system was continuously sustaining him, preventing his condition from deteriorating further for the time being.
Lake leaned against the copper wall with his arms crossed. When he heard the phrase "still see outside," his brow twitched, but he said nothing.
The Great Ascendant's silver-grey pupils moved from the extended tissue on the floor to the Guardian, then back to the tissue. The mechanical parts of his face clicked softly as they shifted.
What would a fifth-rank transcendent tied to an entire city's inscriptions mean to the Ascension Society? Most importantly, he didn't seem to have died.
The Great Ascendant's silver-grey eyes spun incessantly as they focused on that patch of tissue.
Adrian took a half-step forward, his hand resting on the holy emblem on his chest. His voice was low.
"Sir, the Church can provide a continuous supply of holy water and Sanity potions. Just say the word for whatever you need."
The Guardian did not respond. He didn't even lift his eyelids, but he didn't refuse either.
Adrian waited for two seconds, took this as tacit consent, and withdrew his gaze, stepping back to his original position.
Lu Yuan watched from the side, knowing full well that the Church's gesture wasn't entirely out of goodwill.
The Guardian being locked to the Polymath Tower meant a fifth-rank expert was now permanently stationed in the inner city. As a force that had just arrived in the Bronze City, the Church had to show some courtesy; they would be dealing with him a lot in the future.
At the edge of the crowd, the Blue Knight remained silent.
Her grey-blue eyes swept back and forth between the Guardian and the slowly pulsing tissue on the floor, finally stopping where the tissue bit into the cracks of the stone tiles.
In that instant, a tiny, subtle change flickered in the depths of her eyes, as if she had sensed something from the aura of that tissue.
She lowered her gaze again, her grey-blue cloak remaining perfectly still. Not a trace of that brief change remained.
With the Guardian's situation temporarily stabilized, Kraus turned to begin the cleanup.
Lu Yuan rested against the wall for a while longer, regaining a bit of strength. With his eyes half-open, he watched Kraus move about the Main Control Room.
Kraus's gaze swept around the room, taking inventory of everything.
The empty sarcophagus lay open in the center of the room. The inscriptions on the main control console were still faintly active, with lines of light slowly crawling along.
The puddle of greyish-black sludge on the floor was Kame. The eyes densely covering its surface were no longer moving; it seemed the last vestige of its vitality had dissipated.
Further away, wedged into the gaps between the copper pipes and the stone tiles, was the black solid mass covered in dull eyeballs—that was K.
Kraus stopped beside Kame's remains, squatting down. His gaze slowly scanned the area around the greyish-black sludge.
He then stood up, walked halfway around the remains, and circled the sarcophagus and the main control console for another look.
Lu Yuan watched him from the wall, wondering what he was looking for.
Kraus turned toward the main control console and spoke in a very low voice.
"Arthur, that black stone Kame was holding... did you see where it fell?"
Arthur was taken aback by the question.
He stood up from beside the Old Dean and walked quickly to the sludge, squatting down to scan the floor. His brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
"No," Arthur's voice turned somber. "He was clutching it the whole time during the harvesting. Later, when the Guardian expanded his domain... I couldn't see anything."
Kraus didn't respond, squatting down to look once more.
Only a small, dark shadow remained at the edge of the sludge; the stone itself was gone.
Lu Yuan listened from the wall. His mind was slow, but he pieced together the general outline: Kame had a stone in his hand, and now that he was dead, the stone was missing.
Kraus stood up, his expression grim. He turned to the Guardian by the wall and lowered his voice. "Sir, when you acted earlier, did you notice a black stone?"
The Guardian kept his eyes closed. The dark tissue beneath his feet was still slowly writhing, expanding and contracting.
Hearing Kraus's question, the old man simply shook his head.
Arthur stood where he was, his lips pressed tight. Lu Yuan could tell from his reaction that the stone was no small matter.
But there was no answer for now. During the time the Guardian had expanded his domain, the entire Main Control Room had been plunged into darkness. No one could see anything, and no one could say for sure what had happened in that darkness.
However, anyone capable of moving the stone in that darkness would either have to be the Guardian or something else entirely.
The living people in the room had all been blocked outside the protective door at the time; they couldn't get in and couldn't see. The Guardian had no reason to lie about a stone.
But if there had been a third party on the scene, that was even more impossible. How powerful would they have to be to bypass so many people and steal the so-called stone?
For the moment, there was no better way to handle it, so the matter had to be set aside for later discussion.
Arthur never left the main control console.
Lu Yuan leaned against the copper wall. The bit of strength he had regained wasn't enough to support him standing, so he simply sat where he was and watched.
Arthur's back was hunched over the bronze control surface. His ten fingers moved back and forth across the inscription circuit diagram, confirming them one by one. Occasionally, he would stop, press his fingertip onto a certain part of the circuit, and stare at the activity there.
The copper pipes surrounding the main control console, which had originally been flowing with ghostly blue light, were now darkening section by section.
Every time Arthur cut a circuit, the light within the pipe walls receded a bit, disappearing into the ends and never returning.
When the last flow of light vanished into the end, the humming of the inscriptions in the entire Main Control Room dropped significantly, fading into a nearly inaudible whisper.
Lu Yuan leaned against the wall. The line of grey-white text that had followed him the whole way finally sank away and did not reappear.
From the sinkhole plaza to the Guardian's domain, and then to the infusion just now, the message 【High-risk pollution source detected】 had flashed every few seconds, making his eyes ache.
Now, it was finally quiet.
Arthur straightened up from the panel and looked back at Kraus.
"The harvesting has stopped." Arthur cut the final circuit and stood tall. "Every circuit has been severed, and the source has been cut off as well." He gestured toward the ceiling, his gaze falling back to a corner of the panel where a set of light patterns was slowly sinking. His brow furrowed. "But the overflow above is also receding... it's as if the gap sealed itself."
Kraus stood by the wall, his gaze still fixed on where the black stone had been.
Hearing Arthur speak, he finally withdrew his gaze and looked at him. "Sealed?"
"I didn't seal it." Arthur turned his gaze toward the Guardian in the corner.
The Guardian leaned against the wall, his eyelids lifting just a crack.
The dark tissue beneath him rose and fell gently. He first frowned at Arthur, then turned his gaze toward the ceiling and nodded.
The gap in the Sea of Knowledge had been suppressed by the Guardian. Once he was tied to the Polymath Tower, the giant eyeball that had been blocking the gap at the top of the tower was no longer needed. The binding itself plugged the hole, so the eyeball had been retracted.
The river of light that had been surging wildly in the sky for most of the night had lost its source of overflow and would slowly recede to its original state.
Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, but before he could finish exhaling, he froze before the panel again.
He stayed in front of the console, staring down at a corner of the panel.
Lu Yuan followed his gaze. He couldn't understand the flow of those inscription circuits, but he could see Arthur's expression darkening bit by bit.
"What is it?" Kraus stepped closer.
Arthur's fingertip stopped on an inscription. He didn't look up. "I carved the locks for this set of circuits myself, one by one." His voice was very low. "But surprisingly, there is no obvious damage..."
He paused, his knuckle resting against that inscription.
"If that's the case... how did Kame bypass them?"
Arthur withdrew his hand from the panel and didn't speak immediately.
"I'll find a way to figure it out." This was half to Kraus and half to himself.
Kraus didn't respond, his gaze turning toward the puddle of greyish-black sludge.
Overhead, the river of light that had surged for most of the night slowly receded.
The Polymath Tower fell silent, at least on the surface.
Taking advantage of this quiet, Lu Yuan leaned against the copper wall and reached into the tool pouch at his waist, pulling out a small medicine bottle.
It was his last Sanity potion. He unscrewed the cap and downed it all. As the liquid entered his throat, a cool sensation spread from his heart, and the layer of grey covering his vision receded slightly.
【Sanity: +6... 27/140】
His condition had recovered slightly. Compared to the sluggishness of a moment ago, where he had to process every sentence twice to understand it, he felt a bit better now.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes again and focused his attention on the symbiotic link.
Deep in his left eye, the Key was quietly embedded in its place, with several ancient inscriptions floating on its teardrop-shaped silhouette. The smear of black was still there—the one he had picked up when he used his Authority to pull out the seeds. It had spread from the edges toward the center and had yet to recede.
The Knowledge Worm was curled in the hollow at the bottom of the Key, its entire body pressed against the surface. It specifically avoided the blackened area, its antennae always staying half an inch away from it.
The shimmer on its colorful body was so dim that the colors were almost indistinguishable, except for a tiny pulse in the center of its body that faintly echoed the remaining light of the Key. It was using the Key to recover from its injuries.
Previously, when the Knowledge Worm rested, it would huddle nearby; it had never pressed itself against the Key like this.
In its current state, it was truly severely injured, needing the support of the Key just to recover.
He could see how poor the Knowledge Worm's condition was. It was an entire size smaller than before it had entered the Guardian's body, and its surface was covered in several burn marks—the result of being scorched by the berserk pathways within that fifth-rank vessel.
Rate on N.U.
