Margaret held the Old Dean in one arm and hoisted Lu Yuan over her shoulder with the other, walking at a brisk pace.
Lu Yuan initially wanted to struggle and walk back on his own.
"Don't move," Margaret said without looking back. "By the time the carriage is hitched, the Old Dean might already be dead. I'm fast on my feet; I'll carry you back first."
Lu Yuan weighed his current condition and looked at Margaret. Finding no other choice, he allowed her to carry him.
With his Sanity suppressed at twenty-seven, he could barely stand, let alone be a match for Margaret. It was better to just rest quietly.
On the other side of her shoulder, the Old Dean was cradled in her arm, his head hanging limp and swaying slightly with her footsteps. Lu Yuan turned his head to take a look.
【Target Detected: Dean of the Polymath Tower (Sanity Damaged)】
【A human whose Sanity has been heavily damaged. Perhaps leaving this dangerous path is his true destiny.】
Lu Yuan understood the situation after reading the grey-white text. Even if the old man was saved, he would likely never be able to step onto the transcendent path again.
Stepping down, preserving his life, and peacefully spending his remaining years was already the best possible outcome.
But it was truly a helpless situation. Lu Yuan thought back to the first time he had met the Old Dean; so little time had passed since then...
Lu Yuan stared at the old man's closed eyes and remained silent for a moment.
Soon, a wave of dizziness surged up, making the streetscape before him tilt and heavy. Lu Yuan closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his temples. With his Sanity at twenty-seven, even reading the grey-white text made his head throb. It was best not to look at anything for now.
Margaret noticed his movement.
"Do you think the Dean can still be saved?"
"He can be saved," Lu Yuan said with his eyes closed, his voice sounding a bit faint. "But that's all—just saved."
"Mhm." Margaret didn't slow down. "I knew it the moment I saw him. He'll probably wake up, but he can forget about transcendent power. If he were to suffer another knowledge loss of control, his later years would be miserable." Her tone carried a hint of something indefinable. "But if we can save him, we will. Do you find it... tragic?"
Lu Yuan didn't answer that, but his thoughts drifted elsewhere. Margaret herself was also a person to be pitied.
Kraus had mentioned that the backlash from her pathway was too severe, and the number of times she could use her powers was limited. Consequently, she had retreated from the front lines to huddle in the Logistics Department and manage the accounts.
Yet during the battle at the abandoned workshop, when she had siphoned J, her face had been alight with fanaticism—a complete departure from the way she looked while yawning and urging people to move goods in the Logistics Department.
A person who enjoyed the slaughter from the bottom of her heart was now forced into a chair in logistics.
For a moment, Lu Yuan didn't know what to say.
"Still, he's better off than most," Margaret continued, as if not expecting an answer. "At least he's alive. The Polymath Tower headquarters will likely reserve a retirement position for him, allowing him to spend his final years tinkering with the things he loves. That's actually quite good."
Lu Yuan didn't respond, but he knew what lay beneath that "good." Once you stepped onto the transcendent path, there were only two roads: follow the Empire or go against it. Either way, it was a life lived with your head on the line.
For the Old Dean to be able to leave the stage with his life intact was considered a successful end in this circle.
Margaret suddenly changed the subject.
"Lu Yuan, aren't you considering leaving the Bronze City sooner?"
Lu Yuan was startled, not immediately realizing why she would ask such a thing.
He quickly went over the situation in his mind.
The Guardian's pathway loss of control had just been mostly suppressed by him, and he had gathered two fragments from the underground. Things on the Abyss's side didn't seem that urgent; although the Greater Ghoul was troublesome, it wasn't yet unstoppable.
As for the Grey Covenant, they had long since been uprooted, and the Man on the Wall actually owed him an unsettled balance.
Besides the Abyss beneath their feet, what other danger could there be in the Bronze City? He turned it over in his mind but couldn't find a second one.
Lu Yuan felt like his brain was struggling to function. As his mind wandered, the world before his eyes began to shift.
Dark red flesh seeped out from the stone slabs beneath his feet, throbbing rhythmically. Tiny red insects floated in the air, drifting into his nostrils and being exhaled with his next breath.
Lu Yuan blinked a few times, and the flesh and insects receded. The street was still the same street. With his Sanity this low, he was starting to see things he shouldn't—or perhaps it was just a hallucination.
"Do you realize," Margaret's voice pulled him back, "how incredible it is that you pulled the Guardian back from a pathway berserk state?"
Lu Yuan froze for a second, only then remembering that even the grey-white text had labeled his feat as a "miracle."
"Since the founding of the Empire," Margaret said, emphasizing every word, "there have only been four cases where a pathway berserk state of Rank 5 or above was reversed and stabilized. Yours is the fifth."
Lu Yuan immediately realized the gravity of the situation.
"No matter what method you used or what price you paid—even if it looks like you paid no price at all—the Empire will definitely find a way to extract the entire process from you."
Hearing Margaret's explanation, Lu Yuan's back stiffened slightly.
"Those present today weren't just our Nightwatchers." Margaret didn't stop, her tone turning grave. "There was the Archbishop of the Church, that person from the Ascension Society, and Hilde, who was sent by the center. They don't know exactly what happened inside, but seeing you in that state, they can more or less link you to it. The Nightwatchers will mediate for you, but on your end, hide as much as you can."
She paused briefly, her voice dropping lower.
"There was a huge element of luck in your success this time. If someone truly targets you and forces you to hand it over, your life won't be easy from then on."
Lu Yuan remained silent but began to evaluate the current situation.
He only now realized how reckless he had been. When he was saving the Guardian, his mind had been entirely focused on whether to take that ten-percent chance; he hadn't thought at all about what position he would be put in if he succeeded.
A person who could pull back a Rank 5 berserk state was a piece of meat everyone would want a bite of. If he had known, he should have at least worn an expression that said, "It had nothing to do with me; it's just that the Guardian himself was too strong."
However, the Nightwatchers wouldn't betray him. Even if they wanted to figure out how he did it, Kraus wouldn't hand him over recklessly. Lu Yuan trusted that much.
But there had been more than just Nightwatchers in that room: the Great Ascendant, people from the Polymath Tower, and Hilde.
When those parties entered the room, they saw the dying Guardian and him slumped against the wall. As long as they weren't fools, they knew Lu Yuan must have done something.
Thinking of this, Lu Yuan suddenly understood something else.
As soon as the treatment ended, he had been left by the copper wall. Kraus was busy arranging everything, and no one came to check on him.
At the time, he thought they were just prioritizing the Guardian, but looking back now, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
By leaving him in the corner, Kraus was clearly trying to shield him. The less anyone looked at the "hero" in the corner, the safer he would be.
Lu Yuan leaned against Margaret's shoulder and didn't speak again.
Margaret also fell silent, her pace quickening even more.
The outline of the Nightwatchers base in the outer city's East District soon emerged from behind a street corner.
Once inside the branch, Margaret didn't attend to Lu Yuan first.
Carrying the Old Dean, she turned into a side room. A thick-walled glass tank about half the height of a person was already prepared there. A circle of fine inscriptions was carved on the inner wall of the tank, which was partially filled with a pale green medicinal liquid.
She checked the old man's breathing and pulse, confirming that although he was in terrible shape, he hadn't slipped further toward death. With a flick of her wrist, a layer of water film supported the Old Dean as he was slowly lowered into the tank.
The pale green medicinal liquid reached the old man's chest. The inscriptions on the tank wall lit up, and a layer of tiny bubbles rose to the surface of the liquid.
Lu Yuan leaned against the doorframe and watched in silence.
It was the first time he had seen this method of nurturing a patient with medicinal liquid. It was likely intended to keep the Old Dean stable and prevent him from dying before the people from headquarters arrived.
After settling the Old Dean, Margaret turned back and hoisted Lu Yuan up again, bringing him into another room further inside.
Lu Yuan was stunned the moment he entered.
The entire wall was covered in shelves reaching from the floor to the ceiling, packed with jars and bottles. Liquids of various colors were sorted by shade, with at least a hundred different kinds. Every bottle had a label covered in writing.
In the center of the room was a long table, upon which lay uncollected mortars and measuring tools.
He hadn't expected the Nightwatchers to have such a substantial collection. Judging only by the herb supplies he'd seen before, Lu Yuan had always thought the Nightwatchers were quite poor.
"Surprised?" Margaret placed him in a chair by the long table and casually pulled a few bottles from the shelf to weigh them. "The Nightwatchers have always had their own customized potion stocks; it's just that they're rarely used."
She uncorked a bottle, took a sniff, and then plugged it back in.
"For injuries that are too troublesome, those of us who aren't professionals can't help much. My methods involve water—I can extract, but I can't concoct. At most, I can mix some emergency supplies for those below Rank 3. Anything higher, like if something happens to Kraus, we can only send word to headquarters and wait for someone. There are already few Knowledge transcendents who understand medicine, and those who specialize in herbs and potions are even rarer."
She paused and looked at Lu Yuan's face for a moment.
"You're one of them."
Lu Yuan's heart stirred, but he didn't respond. He understood the underlying meaning. The Nightwatchers were desperately short of such personnel, and his face would likely be remembered from now on.
But this suited his intentions perfectly. His Pharmacology and Medicinal Herbology were about to advance, and perhaps there would be new changes then.
"The stock in this room is for you to practice with in the future." Margaret set the bottles on the table, her tone serious. "Don't be in a hurry to celebrate; get your life back first. Sit still and don't move."
Lu Yuan leaned back against the chair as instructed.
Margaret pulled the copper box from her waist and opened the lid, revealing a dozen or so fine copper needles arranged inside.
She took out a few, and with a stroke of her finger, a pale blue water vapor wrapped around the needles. The faint copper-green light at the tips appeared hazy through the water film.
Her technique wasn't exactly delicate. She pressed the copper needles into Lu Yuan's neck, shoulder, and back. Each needle went in decisively, lacking the careful consideration a typical physician might show.
Rate on N.U.
