Chapter 341 The Judgement of the Guardians
Klaus spoke up.
"The Gray Pact's underground stronghold had wooden figures performing a ritual around the seed. After the battle, all of them were confiscated. The wooden figures and the seed are currently at the branch office."
The report was extremely brief and did not elaborate on the background.
The guard did not ask any further questions. The old man sat on the stone bench, his hunched body enveloped in a dark aura, his cloudy gaze fixed on the wooden structure on the ground in a kneeling posture.
Several black eyes within the aura were directed towards the wooden figure, slowly rotating and staring for a while.
The fingers of his right hand, which was resting on the edge of the stone bench, twitched slightly.
The ground floor of the clock tower remained quiet for a long time. Occasionally, an eyeball would surface in the darkness, only to disappear again. Wind blew in through the half-open door, carrying the smell of earth and the rust of bronze from the stone walls.
The guardian spoke.
"How many are there?"
Klaus answered.
"Five. We brought them all back."
The guardian didn't speak immediately. A dark aura slowly surged around him, and he withdrew his outstretched fingers, resting them on the edge of the stone bench. Lu Yuan could barely detect the change, but the subtle tension on the old man's body had indeed subsided.
The guard lowered his head, his cloudy gaze shifting from the wooden figure to the night outside the door.
The hoarse voice rang out again.
"This thing is dangerous. It contains a power that even I fear."
He paused for a few seconds.
"And it seems to connect to another place."
Klaus frowned.
"Then what should we do?"
The guardian remained silent for a moment, and all the black eyeballs in the dark aura drooped down, sinking into the depths of the shadows. The old man had confirmed what he needed to confirm.
"Keep it with me."
His voice sounded more tired than usual.
"Although these things are dangerous, their current quantity is far from meeting the standard of danger. The power contained within the wooden figures is very strange, but the amount is ultimately too small. They are still far from being able to summon or attract the attention of something."
Lu Yuan stood aside and listened. He had never seen the guard say so much in his limited interactions with him.
Last time at the top of the clock tower, the guards only said "good" and "live well," no more than ten times in total.
The guard's voice lowered even further.
"But remember, you must figure out how these wooden figures are made and what the success rate is."
He paused for a moment.
"This is very important."
Klaus's shoulders relaxed slightly, and Lu Yuan also breathed a sigh of relief. He could leave this wooden figure here and then just send over the rest of the wooden figures.
As they spoke, the guardian's dark aura completely enveloped the wooden figure.
As for more, that's a story for later.
Now that the matter of the wooden figure had been temporarily settled, Klaus straightened up and glanced at Lu Yuan.
"You wait downstairs."
Lu Yuan nodded without asking any further questions. He knew that what Klaus wanted to say to the guards alone was none of his business, at least not for the time being.
He turned and walked out of the door on the ground floor of the clock tower.
The door closed behind him.
Klaus and the Guardian were left on the ground floor of the clock tower.
A dark aura emanated intermittently around the old man, even denser than before, and some of the black eyeballs floated into the air, their directions scattered.
Klaus looked at the guard in front of him.
The light from the marching lamp fell on the old man's hunched body, his gray hair hanging down his shoulders, and the bones beneath his skin were more prominent than when he last visited.
His right hand rested on the edge of the stone bench, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.
His tone softened slightly.
"My lord, is the power within you spiraling out of control again?"
He paused for a moment.
"How much longer can we hold on?"
The guard did not answer immediately.
The old man raised his head, his cloudy gaze falling on Klaus's face.
A dark aura flowed slowly between the two. The inscriptions embedded in the stone walls at the bottom of the clock tower glowed with a dark golden light, pressing inward in circles and forcibly confining the overflowing dark aura within the walls.
The guardian sighed.
The hoarse sigh was very soft, echoing briefly between the stone walls at the bottom of the clock tower before dissipating.
"Don't worry. We can keep it under control for now."
His voice was even lower than before.
"It's strong enough to last until after this dive, and even if the ghouls reappear, it can hold out."
Klaus's fingers clenched slightly at his side, then relaxed. He heard the word "temporarily."
There was a few seconds of silence.
"The new drug is on its way," Klaus said calmly. "This time, the branch purchased it at a high cost, and the effects seem to be quite good."
The guardian did not move. A dark aura surged around him, and several black eyeballs sank into the deeper shadows.
The old man remained silent for a long time.
The wind seeped in through the cracks in the door at the bottom of the clock tower, ruffling his white hair. The dark gold luster of the inscriptions flickered on the stone wall.
Finally, the guardian spoke.
"That's very thoughtful."
Three words. The hoarse voice was flat and emotionless.
Klaus looked at the old man. Under the light, his deeply wrinkled face was expressionless, and a dark aura continued to emanate from him, wisps of which emerged from the gaps in his shoulders and arms.
He'd been in Bronze City longer than I had. He was already there when I arrived at the branch.
Klaus looked away and said nothing more.
He bowed slightly, then turned and walked towards the door. As he opened it, a very faint cough came from behind him, almost inaudible amidst the surging sounds of the dark air.
Klaus paused for a moment.
Without looking back, he pushed open the door and walked out.
The night wind outside the clock tower is colder than inside.
Lu Yuan leaned against the stone wall at the base of the clock tower, his hands in his coat pockets, his breath condensing into a small cloud of white mist in the early morning air.
He didn't look well.
While he was inside the bell tower, he stared at the guard for a while. The old man sat hunched over on the stone bench, enveloped in a dark aura that was even stronger than when he last came, and the way it emanated from him had also changed.
Last time, the aura was steady and heavy, pressing down around the clock tower without moving. This time, it emanated intermittently, leaking out strand by strand from the gaps in the body.
Grayish-white text jumped out at the edge of my field of vision.
[Detection Target: Guardian (Mysterious and Extraordinary) (Slightly Out of Control)]
[The human who has reached the end of the path may linger for a while longer.]
Lu Yuan's gaze lingered on that line of text for a few seconds.
The last time I visited the Bell Tower, the gray and white inscriptions conveyed the meaning of "beyond comprehension" and "being gradually swallowed up by the path one has chosen." Now it has changed. "Slightly out of control," "Perhaps it can still linger for a while."
Only a few days passed between the two visits, during which the guardians only made one move, and it wasn't a high-intensity one.
It seems the guardian's body has reached its limit...
He leaned against the stone wall, looked up at the top of the clock tower, and saw a dark aura seeping out from the cracks in the stone. Some of it was suppressed by the dark golden luster of the inscription, while some seeped out again.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes, his thoughts sinking into the depths of his mind. In fact, after seeing the guardian's prompt, Lu Yuan began to study it.
Lu Yuan wanted to see if he could offer the guards some assistance or at least provide a suitable delay.
However, the solution proposed by the expert told Lu Yuan that he was overthinking things. As a second-tier transcendent with limited knowledge, he simply did not have the ability to reverse the fifth-tier situation.
Even so, the research still yielded two seemingly feasible solutions.
[Taboo Studies - Research Begins]
[Analyzing target status: Guardian (Mysterious and Extraordinary)]
[Status Analysis: Potential exhausted, locked in by human identity, extraordinary pathways within the body teetering on the brink of spiraling out of control.]
[The plan is being developed...]
The gray and white text flickered for a few seconds.
[Solution Generation: Devour Hope (Optimal Version)]
[Principle: Hope contains the power of desire; by using certain methods to absorb it, one might be able to take another step forward.]
[Estimated success rate: 3%]
[Note: But no one has ever tried it...]
[Solution Generation: The Man on the Wall (Reliable Version)]
[Principle: Although the defeated are weaker, they still retain some strength. By paying a corresponding price, you may be able to glimpse a more distant path.]
[Estimated success rate: 1%-5%]
[Note: Walking with the abyss may lead to utter destruction.]
Lu Yuan opened his eyes.
Both options have a success rate of less than 5%. The best option is to use the seed "Hope". That thing is placed in room 7 of area C. Even if it is taken out, the 3% success rate means that the guardian will most likely suffer an impact for nothing, and both the person and the seed may be destroyed.
The safer option is out of the question; it's the one behind the wall, the sealed entity behind the copper wall. No one knows the cost of making a deal with it; a fluctuation of 1% to 5% indicates that even experts can't accurately predict it—there are too many variables.
Lu Yuan snapped out of his thoughts.
Leaning against the stone wall without moving, the wind blew from the direction of the outer city, and the light from the gas lamps blended into a warm yellow in the distance.
He couldn't do anything. His knowledge at the second level was extraordinary, but faced with the end of a bizarre and extraordinary path at the fifth level, he couldn't even come up with a decent solution.
Another line of gray text appeared at the edge of my field of vision.
[Current Status of Bronze City: +1...33.2/50]
The clock tower door rang.
Klaus came out, looking exactly the same as before he went in, but his pace was a little slower than usual.
The two looked at each other but said nothing.
Walking back along the way we came, there were no pedestrians in the alley. In the early morning, the outer city was so quiet that only the footsteps of two people and the occasional sound of wind in the distance could be heard. Gas lamps were placed every few steps, and their warm yellow light fell on the gray stone walls.
After walking for a while, Klaus spoke.
"Go back and rest for a few hours. Interrogation at noon, preparations for the dive in the afternoon."
He paused for a moment, then added another sentence.
"Remember to come over for the interrogation at noon. Also, try to make as many of those things you made with the strange inscriptions as possible tonight. They might come in handy when we dive down."
Lu Yuan nodded.
When we got back to the branch, the sky was starting to turn gray.
Klaus went into the office and closed the door.
Lu Yuan stood in the corridor. Grayish-white text floated quietly at the edge of his vision.
[Rationality: 64/140]
He rubbed his temples and turned to walk back to his residence.
The moment the door closed, a rapid vibration came from deep within my left eye.
The worm of knowledge has emerged.