Chapter 340 Klaus's Speculation

Klaus didn't let everyone leave together.

"Bohr, Glock, seal off the scene and search the workshop."

The two men accepted the order and led the Night's Watchmen back to the outer perimeter.

The remaining people escorted the surviving members of the Grey Pact towards the branch.

9's body and head were separated and placed in two cocoons, dragged at the back by Rek's swarm of insects. J and Q were wrapped in insect bodies and carried away, half-dragging and half-lifting. The seed and the wooden figure were carried by Lu Yuan himself, while the ring's head was still in the hands of the attendant.

No one spoke on the street.

The guardian did not follow. After the battle, the old man's hunched figure disappeared alone in another direction into the night, and no one stopped him.

Adrian walked in the middle of the group, glanced at 9 who was wrapped in a cocoon, and walked over there.

He crouched down, placing his right hand on 9's severed torso. His palm glowed faintly, a light so gentle it was almost imperceptible. But 9's mouth, which had stopped opening and closing, moved again, and the bodily fluids seeping from the cut congealed.

"To survive even with its head severed, the Glass Water's extraordinary vitality is truly remarkable." Adrian stood up and dusted off his hands. "However, it won't last much longer if we delay any longer. Let's apply a blessing to it, so it doesn't die on the way."

Lu Yuan looked at him. The archbishop giving a blessing to a fourth-tier bizarre transcendent being from the Gray Pact Society to prolong his life was an abnormal scene that would not be normal anywhere.

But no one objected; the living are more valuable than the dead, and everyone knew that.

It was still dark when we returned to the branch.

Margaret has completely returned to her usual self.

The pale blue film of water had faded, and her face was still a little flushed, but her expression had returned to its usual tired look. Her eyelids were drooping, and her steps had slowed down. She was completely different from the woman on the battlefield who had been full of fanaticism and shouting "You're so weak!" while having blood drawn.

She led her men to imprison the three Grey Pact prisoners, separating 9's body and head into two separate cells, and J and Q into their own. The three were separated by an entire corridor, so they could not hear each other.

There are special inscription locks here. Although they have limited restrictions on fourth-tier transcendents, the Gray Pact Society is not in good condition right now, so they are sufficient.

Two watchmen were stationed at the entrance of each room, and a thin layer of Rek's swarming insects was laid on the corridor floor as a living alarm.

After arranging all this, Margaret walked out of the corridor and wiped her hands.

Lu Yuan couldn't help but glance at her a couple more times.

Margaret noticed his gaze, paused for a moment, and then smiled sheepishly.

"What are you looking at?"

She tilted her head, her tone languid.

"Remember to do some work next time you come to get your medicine."

As she spoke, she made a grasping motion in the air with her right hand, the gesture of her five fingers coming together conveying a sense of wanting to crush you.

Lu Yuan smiled somewhat awkwardly.

"This time, I really can't afford to offend them."

Margaret didn't say anything more, yawned, and slowly walked towards the supply room.

The two hooded figures nodded to Klaus, then quickly left. Clearly, they had other things to do.

The attendant placed the ring's head into an inscribed, sealed iron box, indicating he was taking it with him, then silently withdrew from the branch. His mission was complete; it was time to return and report. Besides, the place where the Earl was now was rather stuffy—who could blame him when he wasn't around?

Archbishop Adrian, on the other hand, was not in a hurry at all.

Instead of leaving, he wandered around the branch, looking here and there. He peeked into the door of the logistics warehouse and then stood by the window at the end of the corridor for a while, his kind face always bearing that faint smile.

Even more so, they went to see what hope was there.

"What a wonderful aroma, it's just a pity..."

The archbishop looked at the hope before him and shook his head.

Lu Yuan could tell that the archbishop wasn't planning to leave until he had finished asking about the whereabouts of the seeds.

Klaus stood at one end of the table.

Lu Yuan stood to his side.

"Alright, have you thought it through along the way? Go ahead and ask."

Klaus's gaze fell on Lu Yuan's face, and he smiled as he spoke.

Lu Yuan sorted out his thoughts.

"Was it decided before the war that the Gray Contract Society would leave survivors?"

"It's settled."

Why?

Klaus didn't answer directly, but instead asked a question.

Why do you think they don't leave?

Lu Yuan remained silent for a few seconds. A group of fourth-tier assassins, skilled in assassination, were loitering in a city hostile to them, doing nothing. He had considered this question on the battlefield, and now that Klaus had brought it up again, the answer was obvious.

"They can't leave?"

Klaus neither responded nor denied it.

Lu Yuan continued to think. The Wall People and the Gray Contract Society cooperated, allowing them to carry out missions in Bronze City. However, at a certain point, the Gray Contract Society realized that they were also part of the plan. They wanted to escape, but they couldn't, because having taken something from the Wall People, they would be subject to certain restrictions.

"Those on the wall need them to stay here."

Klaus finally spoke, uttering only two words.

"Offerings".

Lu Yuan thought of the ceremony in the underground hall, where five wooden figures knelt around the seed in worship. The Gray Contract Society thought they were presiding over the ceremony, but the person presiding over the ceremony might also be part of the ceremony.

"So you're keeping them alive? Are you worried that killing them would also be part of the ritual?"

"Well, unless someone in the Gray Pact is stupid, they wouldn't dare to cause me trouble in the street. But since it happened, this matter is quite intriguing. If it was an order from someone on the wall, then it's easier to explain."

Klaus walked to the window, put his hands behind his back, and looked outside. The sea of ​​knowledge above the Tower of Learning radiated a soft glow.

"If we succeed, it's a fight to the death; if we fail, any normal person would seek revenge, right?"

"Moreover, a living Gray Contract Master is at the fourth rank, and can be exchanged for quite a bit by handing them over to the Empire." Klaus's voice was flat. "A dead one can't be exchanged for anything."

"Should I quit?"

"The Earl needs to be deterred."

Klaus spoke succinctly: what Jie had done at the Earl's mansion had directly crossed the Earl's bottom line. The servant had come with orders, one of which was to kill Jie.

"This can be considered her paying the price for what she did."

Lu Yuan did not press further.

"When did you start having doubts about the Tower of Knowledge?"

Klaus's lips twitched slightly.

"One of the reasons for this meeting of the Grey Covenant was that at the Tower of Learning, when He rescued K, He confirmed it."

He glanced at Lu Yuan.

"As for the vice dean..."

Klaus's tone softened.

"He was indeed dishonest. Go back and interrogate him properly. The death of a vice dean is nothing."

Klaus stopped there.

Lu Yuan did not leave.

He placed the coat covering the wooden figure on the table, lifted a corner, and the bark texture of the surface gleamed with a dark luster under the light, the kneeling posture frozen there stiffly.

"I sensed its lingering presence on the battlefield."

Klaus's gaze fell on the wooden figure, and he remained silent.

Lu Yuan recounted everything he had seen. The man drank the dark green potion, his body mutated, turned to wood, and finally became a kneeling construct. Then, without pausing, the wooden figure connected to another location.

"A world made entirely of trees. The ground is the tree roots, the sky is the tree canopy, and there are no visible boundaries."

He paused for a moment.

"Something is moving deep inside. It's huge, so huge that the whole world makes way for it as it moves. My senses are bounced back as soon as they touch its outline, and I can't even hold my gaze for a second longer."

Klaus remained silent for a moment.

"Is there something wrong with your perception?"

"Um."

"Then we'll have to let someone at the fifth rank see it."

Klaus straightened up from the wall.

"Walk."

The night had not yet faded.

The two men passed through the back door of the branch office and walked along the narrow alleys of the inner city towards the clock tower.

There were no pedestrians on the road, only the inscriptions glowing faintly at the seams of the wall corners.

Lu Yuan sensed something was amiss when he was still a hundred paces away from the bell tower.

Last time I came, the guardian's aura steadily suppressed the area around the bell tower, dense and not dissipating. Now, the dark aura seeps out from the cracks in the bell tower's stones, intermittent and impossible to suppress.

However, the seepage was limited to within three steps of the outer wall of the clock tower.

Lu Yuan noticed the reason. The stone walls of the bell tower were inlaid with rings of inscriptions. Unlike the inscriptions in other parts of Bronze City, these engravings were deeper, the patterns were denser, and they shone with a very faint dark golden luster.

The power of the inscription was constantly pressing inward, forcibly confining the dark aura emanating from the guardian within the clock tower's perimeter.

This is why the Guardian has always stayed in the clock tower; there is something there that helps him suppress his extraordinary abilities and prevents him from completely losing control.

Klaus paused for a moment, but did not stop.

The door on the ground floor of the clock tower was half open.

The guardian sat on a stone bench in the corner.

The moment Lu Yuan entered, he saw the old man's condition, which was completely different from what he had seen on the battlefield just a few hours earlier.

His hunched body had shrunk even smaller, and his gray hair fell loosely over his shoulders, with a few strands reaching his knees. His right hand rested on the edge of the stone bench, and the veins on the back of his hand were even thicker than before.

A dark aura enveloped him, but it was clearly not released intentionally; rather, it was uncontrollable, seeping out strand by strand from the gaps in his body.

Occasionally, a black eyeball would surface in the air, open briefly, and then disappear back into the void.

Grayish-white text jumped out at the edge of my field of vision.

[Environmental Sensing: A high-risk pollution source has been detected. We recommend staying away.]

The guardian raised his head, his cloudy eyes darting around before landing on Klaus and Lu Yuan.

"You've arrived?"

His hoarse voice was even lower than it had been on the battlefield.

Klaus didn't waste any words.

"Please take a look at these things, sir."

Lu Yuan stepped forward and placed the wooden figure on the ground in front of the guardian.

The old man lowered his head, his cloudy gaze falling on the wooden structure in a kneeling posture.

A dark aura surged from his body, clinging to the surface of the wooden figure. Several black eyeballs emerged, slowly circling the wooden figure, each one wide open.

Then the guard's expression changed.

"Where did this come from?"