The paddle wheel of the "Queen Cleopatra" stopped turning. Accompanied by a prolonged blast of the steam whistle and the sound of the iron anchor hitting the water, the ship slowly docked at Luxor's pier.
The mark of the Vulture Goddess on the back of Lin Jie's hand, which had just established a faint resonance with him, also fell silent once more.
He let out a heavy sigh. Now was not the ti for deep exploration.
The four team mbers gathered their respective luggage and equipnt. Along with the European tourists who were elated and full of anticipation for the "In-depth Pharaoh's Capital Tour," they walked down the gangway, officially setting foot on this ancient land. A land praised by the great ancient Greek poet Hor as the "City of a Hundred Gates," a land saturated with the aura of divine and royal authority.
However, to their surprise, on the pier at Luxor, they did not see any official mbers from the Horus Court coming to greet them.
There were no mysterious priests in white robes, nor any elite guards with scimitars at their waists.
Apart from the local vendors enthusiastically hawking cheap souvenirs and guide services to tourists, and a few British colonial governnt customs officials routinely checking travelers' identity docunts, the entire pier showed no other unusual sights.
That previously received "Royal Summons," with its respectful yet authoritative wording, seed like a malicious joke played by so bored individual.
"What's the aning of this?" Ethan's brow was tightly furrowed. He scanned the bustling crowd around them with vigilance, his tone revealing displeasure and suspicion. "Do these rats hiding in the shadows want to put us in our place?"
"Perhaps." Lin Jie's expression remained calm. He wasn't surprised by this situation.
"For a group of Guardians who regard royal authority as their highest creed, personally coming to a pier full of mortal clamor and the stench of infidel comrce to welco several outsiders they likely view with suspicion might itself be considered a sacrilegious act."
As the group felt puzzled and displeased by this reception, a silent figure erged from under a date palm tree in a corner of the pier, a tree sowhat withered by the sun.
It was a carriage driver.
An elderly local Egyptian who looked no different from the ordinary carriage drivers commonly seen on Luxor's streets.
He was lean, his skin tanned a bronze color by the harsh sunlight of the upper Nile, his face etched with deep wrinkles.
The carriage driver also wore a heavy, faded headscarf, deeply concealing his face and identity within its shadow.
He didn't speak. He simply walked silently up to the four of them, then gently pointed with his right hand to a similarly unremarkable two-wheeled passenger carriage parked not far away.
If not for Lin Jie spotting the Eye of Horus emblem on his arm, even he would have likely dismissed this carriage driver as a local just trying to solicit business.
This was the Horus Court's way of doing things.
Their low profile and secrecy, yet their omnipresence.
They were like dust integrated into the air of this land, seemingly insignificant, yet monitoring everything that happened here.
The group exchanged glances and ultimately chose to trust this silent "guide."
They boarded the carriage, ordinary in appearance but exceptionally luxurious inside.
With a crisp crack of the long whip in the carriage driver's hand through the air, two Arabian horses pulled them away from the bustling port area and rged into Luxor's ancient streets.
The carriage headed east the entire way.
It went straight towards that majestic structure standing on the east bank of the Nile, hailed as the "Land of the Rising Sun," specifically built to honor the pharaohs and gods.
That structure was so imposing it could render anyone who saw it speechless, one of the great yet insane miracles in the history of human architecture: the Karnak Temple ruins.
By the ti their carriage finally stopped before that architectural complex covering over a hundred hectares, composed of countless temples, obelisks, and massive stone pillars, dusk was approaching.
The magnificent sunset was slowly sinking below the vast desert horizon on the west bank of the Nile, casting its final rays of afterglow upon this stone forest that had been silent for millennia.
The entire temple was dyed a bloody golden hue.
After delivering them to this place, the carriage driver, along with his carriage, vanished into the shadows at the temple entrance, just as he had arrived.
With complex emotions, the four of them stepped onto the long sacred way leading to the temple's core.
It was a broad passageway. On both sides stood dozens of sphinxes with ram heads, eroded sowhat indistinct by millennia of wind and sand, yet still emanating authority.
Those rams were the sacred manifestations of the god Amun-Ra, the "King of the Gods" in ancient Egyptian mythology.
Under the imnse shadow of the famous "Bubastis Colonnade" at the end of the passageway, a colonnade twenty-four ters high supported by twelve massive papyrus-shaped stone pillars.
A mysterious old man was quietly waiting for them.
The old man was stooped, his height roughly equal to the ancient scepter in his hand. He wore a plain white linen robe without any superfluous adornnt.
On his face was a mask made entirely of pure gold, gleaming with a piercing radiance in the sunset's afterglow.
That was the sacred visage of Horus, the "God of the Sky."
He was the supre leader of the Horus Court.
The true "Pharaoh" hidden behind the curtain of Egypt's entire inner world, the High Priest of the Court.
When this old man saw Lin Jie and the other three walk up to him, he did not utter words of welco or courtesy. He didn't even lift his face to look at them.
"Oh, splendid."
In this suffocating silence, a low whisper, both caustic and sarcastic, drifted softly into Lin Jie's ear.
Julian, this French academician, felt clear dissatisfaction with the "colleague" before them and their dieval-style arrogant hospitality.
"I swear, Lin Jie." Julian's voice was quieter than a mosquito's wingbeat, but the sarcasm in his tone was thick. "Even the most imperious Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles would at least symbolically lift his noble eyelids when receiving several distinguished guests from the I.A.R.C."
"And the 'living mummy' gentleman before us, he apparently believes the face hidden behind his golden mask is more precious than that of the Sun King himself."
Hearing this, the corner of Ethan's mouth twitched uncontrollably. He forcibly suppressed a laugh.
Lin Jie rely glanced sideways at this teammate who never abandoned the cause of sarcastic comntary in any predicant, a flash of helpless amusent in his eyes.
Soon, the High Priest, who seed not to have heard Julian's "treasonous" whisper, moved.
With a solemn posture, he raised the pharaonic scepter in his hand.
Then, under everyone's gaze, he gently tapped a stone slab at his feet, a slab engraved with dense, intricate symbols.
"Thud!"
The tapping sound wasn't loud, but it seed like the final command to initiate so ancient ritual.
"Hum—hum—hum—"
Several long, resonant bell-like tones rose from deep within the earth. The Karnak Temple ruins, silent for millennia, were awakened from their long historical slumber.
Centered on the stone slab beneath the High Priest's feet, complex patterns of a magical formation, composed of golden spiritual power, instantly spread across the sandstone ground of the temple.
They connected every stone pillar. They entwined every obelisk. They activated the hieroglyphic symbols engraved on the walls.
In just a few short seconds, within the entire Karnak Temple ruins, all the "Royal Guardian Formations" were fully activated. Formations constructed over generations by successive pharaohs, exhausting the kingdom's wealth and countless slaves' lives, formations that had endured for thousands of years.
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