After reading it, Kraus folded the note, placed it back in the box, and closed the lid.
Their final retreat had been completely sealed shut by the handwritten decree, and reinforcements were out of the question.
No wonder no more of the Holy Armored Army had been deployed despite several rounds of requests, and the same went for the Imperial Iron Guard. This potion was the final bargaining chip the Empire had tossed them.
Kraus recognized this item; it was a potion made specifically for fifth-rank transcendents.
If consumed by a peak fourth-rank transcendent, it could allow them to step directly into the fifth-rank, but at the cost of locking away any future path of advancement. If consumed by a fifth-rank transcendent, it could significantly extend their lifespan and stabilize their condition.
What Kraus had wanted to exchange for earlier was something very similar to this.
But the Bronze City branch was simply too poor.
Compared to the wealthy territories of the Empire, the Nightwatchers branch earned a pitifully small amount of points each year. Even after saving for so many years, they hadn't accumulated much.
This bottle in front of him was not even the exact one he had originally wanted.
If the Guardian took it in his current state, the pressure on the Bronze City would indeed be drastically reduced. But what if he drank it himself...
Kraus suddenly made up his mind.
He did not deliver the potion directly to the Guardian but instead tucked it into his robes. The Guardian's body could still hold out for now.
Giving a final nod to the Pathfinder, he turned and strode back toward the branch.
Behind him, the main tower of the Polymath Tower stood silently in the night, the faint light of the few remaining rings of inscriptions on its surface flickering dim and bright. Clearly, it would not last much longer either.
By the time Kraus rushed back to the branch, Lu Yuan was already in the main hall writing and drawing, looking as though he had been waiting for a long time.
Seeing the look on Kraus's face, Lu Yuan said nothing, simply pulling a folded piece of paper from his robes and handing it over.
Kraus took it, glanced at it, and kept walking toward the main hall, reading as he went.
There were not many words on the paper, and Lu Yuan's handwriting was somewhat scribbled, detailing only two things.
First, they had to redouble their efforts to maintain the seed's growing environment. He didn't know how Kraus had cared for the seed before, but it was changing very rapidly now, so they should provide as much nourishment as possible.
Second, that seed was extremely important and had to be preserved. It carried something that even he couldn't quite explain, but was definitely useful.
Beneath the second point, Lu Yuan had specifically added a line: Hope can indeed bring hope.
That was all Lu Yuan had written.
By this time, Kraus had reached the door of the meeting room. He tucked the note into his robes and glanced sideways at Lu Yuan.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure,” Lu Yuan replied simply.
Kraus asked no further questions and pushed open the door to the main hall. It was already packed with people.
Count Helmut sat at one end of the long table, his face dark and grim.
Following him was not his usual attendant, but another man. The Count had arrived even faster than Kraus had expected; the incident at the city wall had clearly reached his ears.
Sitting along both sides of the long table were nobles of various ranks, as well as merchant leaders.
Viscounts and barons of all kinds almost filled the entire meeting hall. A few had clearly been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, their clothes somewhat disheveled, their faces displaying a panic rarely seen on ordinary days.
Clearly, these noble lords also understood that if anything truly went wrong with the Bronze City, none of them would escape. There might have been hope if they had fled earlier, but now it was too late.
Recalling the handwritten decree, Kraus walked straight to the table and sat down.
Glock briefly went over the latest battle situation.
The ghouls on the ground were still spreading. All rank 4 combatants had been deployed, and new sinkholes were continuing to emerge.
The dark red flesh on that section of the inner city wall was still spreading. The Great Ascendant's side had provided a countermeasure, but it could only barely delay it.
The remaining residents of the outer city had been forcibly gathered near the branch. Relying on the supplies prepared in advance, they could barely hold out for a while.
Kraus did not say a single word after listening. However, the minor nobles below could no longer sit still.
“The city walls are already being contaminated! What are we still defending?” A baron's face flushed red, his voice booming, all his usual noble poise completely gone. “I still have three manors in the outer city, everything is invested there! If this city falls...”
“How much are your manors even worth?” a nearby viscount interrupted, his voice even shriller. “The inscriptions on the city wall are about to go out. Once the city defenses are gone and those ghouls underground really swarm out, forget your three manors—even you will die here.”
The baron grew even more restless and turned to look at the Nightwatchers. “Then what are you Nightwatchers even doing? If I remember correctly, didn't the Count hand over the City Hall to your control long ago? With such a massive matter as the Abyss underground, how did you maintain it on ordinary days?”
Several viscounts joined in as well, and the meeting hall instantly erupted into a noisy squabble. Several men were red-faced and thick-necked, on the verge of coming to blows.
“Enough,” Kraus suddenly spoke. His voice was not loud, yet the main hall abruptly fell silent, and all the minor nobles shut their mouths.
Kraus paid no attention to their shouting. He pulled the parchment scroll from his robes, unfurled it, and placed it on the long table.
“An imperial decree, arrived tonight. See for yourselves.”
The nobles' gazes slowly drifted toward the table as they craned their necks to stare at the moderately sized handwriting on the parchment.
By decision of the Center, evacuation is forbidden. Defend the Bronze City to the death.
As everyone finished reading, a dead silence fell over the main hall. The barons and viscounts who had been shouting just moments ago kept their mouths open for a long time, unable to utter a single word.
Count Helmut stared at the handwritten decree for a long time. His expression did not change much, though his already grim face darkened even further.
“I have seen the situation at the Bronze City wall with my own eyes,” the Count said in a low voice. “Whatever you need from my side, Kraus, just say it. After the meeting is dismissed, I will follow your arrangements.”
Kraus nodded. The Count stood up and, without lingering any longer, turned and walked out. The minor nobles exchanged glances. A few wanted to chase after him to demand an explanation, but they were forced back by a single word from the man behind the Count, their steps halting right where they stood.
The crowd dispersed quickly, and soon only Kraus, Lu Yuan, and Glock were left in the main hall.
Kraus sat behind the table, his fingers lightly tapping on the surface. Clearly, he was also caught in a dilemma, or rather, in hesitation.
Just then, a dull, booming sound echoed from outside the window. It came from the south, in the direction of the city wall.
Immediately after, another muffled boom resounded from the south. Before anyone could speak, the doors of the meeting hall were slammed open.
A Nightwatcher rushed in, drenched in sweat.
“The copper wall! The seal behind the copper wall in the pipe network layer is initially judged to have completely failed! The brothers can't hold out anymore! Vice Director Kraus, we await your orders!”
Kraus's tapping finger suddenly froze. Glock, who had been about to leave and hadn't even reached the door, spun around and rushed back.
Silence fell over the hall for an instant. Kraus's brow knit tightly, and the first thought that popped into his mind was the Man on the Wall.
But the Guardian was still there, and he was now capable of taking action, which should at least keep the Man on the Wall in check. So what exactly was the situation now?
“Let's go!” Kraus stood up and strode out.
Rewinding to twenty minutes ago.
Following Selena's antics, the manpower the Nightwatchers had deployed at the pipe network layer had visibly increased. It had grown from the original four to seven, barely making up a squad, led by a rank 3 Grand Captain.
Their temporary stronghold had already retreated another five meters.
Staring at the twisting inscriptions that were constantly spreading before him, the Grand Captain waved his hand, signaling the defensive line to move back a bit further.
One Nightwatcher turned to look at him. “Captain, we've already reported the matter. But constantly retreating like this isn't a solution either. Any further down and we'll connect to other channels. If something happens then, we'll have an even harder time stopping it.”
The Grand Captain looked at the inscriptions before him and remained silent.
His transcendent pathway was constantly warning him. His five senses were screaming, telling him that something was waking up deep within that pitch-black channel and urging him to leave as soon as possible. But he was a Nightwatchers captain; he could not leave.
“Has the expansion speed we just recorded increased again?” His voice was very gentle, completely mismatched with his fierce appearance.
A Nightwatcher responsible for recording immediately stepped forward. “Yes, Captain. According to my calculations, its spreading speed is accelerating abnormally. If this continues, it is initially estimated that it will spread about a hundred meters in a single day.”
“Is there any way to stop it?”
“Mithril seems to be the only way. But our stock is limited.”
“Keep throwing it,” the Grand Captain said. “No matter what, we cannot let these inscriptions spread. At the same time, find a way to destroy this channel. Hack away at the surrounding walls as much as possible and see how fast it spreads on other materials.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Nightwatchers immediately took their orders and began hacking at the walls. At the same time, bottles of mithril were thrown one after another into the channel covered in eerie inscriptions.
The effect was far from ideal. The mithril, which was capable of burning spirituality, flared up suddenly upon touching the inscriptions as if it had met fuel. But in the next instant, that bit of light extinguished at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if forcefully smothered by something.
Watching this scene, the Grand Captain got a general idea of what was happening. It was highly likely that something had gone wrong with the seal inside.
“Notify the branch and ask Kraus to come over. Hurry, move!”
Just as that Nightwatcher left, deep in the darkness, the massive copper wall had already become unrecognizable.
The originally precisely arranged inscriptions were in complete disarray. A large number of spinning, twisting eerie inscriptions were embedded in the middle, forcefully disrupting the conduction of the inscriptions. Rings of wildly spinning eerie inscriptions were rapidly expanding outward along the wall.
On the copper surface, which had once been as pristine as new, one bulging outline after another rose, continuously surging from the inside out. In the gaps between the rising and falling bulges, fine cracks split open across the copper surface, and a faint, golden light seeped out from within.
As the bulges pushed higher and higher, the copper surface finally could not hold out any longer and cracked over a large area, the fissures spreading all the way from the bottom to the top.
Deep within the cracks, a golden light tinged with dark tones shone through.
A massive crown slowly emerged from the rift. The golden crown was about a person's height and as wide as seven or eight people standing side by side. Seven sharp points formed a ring, and each point was embedded with a glazed eyeball.
The patterns on the copper wall suddenly halted. The spinning inscriptions seemed to have seen something, spinning even more frantically.
Right after, the eyes on the crown lit up one by one, either opening or blinking at the surroundings.
They opened in order from the first to the sixth, with only the one right in the center remaining tightly shut.
Rate on N.U.
