Saigon's dawn arrived damp and sticky.
The district that had experienced the "Withering Curse" like a Divine Punishnt last night had already been sealed off by the French Cochinchina authorities' military with tall barbed wire fences and warning signs printed with the word "HAZARD."
The official statent was a sudden outbreak of a "cholera variant" of unknown origin.
All traces of last night's chaotic battle, along with the existence of those dozens of "missing" local civilians, had been forcefully and cleanly erased by the powerful will of the Surface World.
For most people living in this city, nothing had happened last night.
But inside a heavily guarded I.A.R.C. temporary safe house located in the French Quarter, Julian Belloc had stayed awake all night.
He sat before the portable terminal of the Hers Ether Communication Array, looking exhausted with deep-set eyes.
He had spent the entire night converting every detail of last night's heart-stopping ordeal—the complete journey from hope to despair—into cold, objective encrypted telegrams, sending them word by word to Lin Jie far away in New York.
"...The thousand-year-old Tai Sui has been confird as completely destroyed by a Town-class alchemical weapon. Confird, completely destroyed, no viable samples recoverable. Sergeant William Keane's treatnt plan is temporarily declared a failure."
When he typed this final line and pressed the send key, a massive wave of belated helplessness engulfed him.
Julian leaned back in his chair, feeling as if all the strength in his body had been drained away along with those radio waves carrying the ssage of despair.
He had failed.
Even though he had tried his utmost, even once dominating the auction and winning that sole hope.
But in the end, he had still fallen into the Black Lotus Sect's chess ga.
The door was gently knocked.
"Co in," Julian said weakly.
The person who entered was the Knight Templar, Guillau.
He had already changed out of that filthy black tailcoat, now wearing a clean and ticulous white linen suit, looking like a European aristocrat about to depart for a tropical island vacation.
"Have you already sent the 'obituary' to your distant friend?" Guillau's tone remained unreadable, but there was a hint less hostility in his eyes, replaced by a complex emotion shared between fellow "losers."
Julian didn't answer, just nodded wearily.
"I am leaving Saigon soon," Guillau said directly. "This plague caused by the Blasphers, although forcefully suppressed by your association in a brutal way, holds no further aning for us. The holy relic has been destroyed; staying here serves no purpose."
He paused, took out a small package wrapped in oilcloth from his chest, and placed it on the table before Julian.
"This should be helpful to you."
Julian opened the package.
Inside was an I.A.R.C. standard-issue Investigator's handbook, soaked beyond recognition by bloodstains and corrosive fluids, along with an equally battered Paris branch badge.
"My n found him at a temporary Black Lotus Sect stronghold," Guillau said solemnly. "He was a tough man. Based on the traces we found, he endured extrely brutal torture after capture, but he never revealed any of your secrets until death."
Julian silently looked at the handbook, his fingertips gently tracing the familiar emblem of crossed swords and scales, a sharp pain in his heart.
"The intelligence?" he asked quietly.
"The target he was tracking was indeed the Black Lotus Sect," Guillau replied. "But what he tracked wasn't the Tai Sui. It was a batch of... contraband they smuggled out from an alchemy lab at the Port of Marseille."
"Protheus's Blood," Guillau uttered a term that felt sowhat unfamiliar even to Julian.
"What is that?"
"A highly dangerous synthetic agent invented by the alchemists of the Eternal Serpent cult," Guillau explained. "It possesses no power itself, but it can forcibly break the 'barriers' between different species in an extrely domineering manner. In other words, it is the most critical and core ingredient for conducting 'live UMA modification' experints."
Julian's heart sank.
"The Black Lotus Sect's... true purpose in Saigon was to obtain this substance?"
"Correct," Guillau affird. "The Tai Sui auction was rely a smokescreen they released to attract everyone's attention."
"Their real target was to complete the secret handover of this batch of Protheus's Blood at another dock in Saigon while everyone's eyes were fixed on the Tai Sui."
"Your colleague was silenced precisely because he inadvertently stumbled upon this transaction."
This intelligence hit Julian's heart like another massive boulder.
"Wasted several million, got nothing, and was played for a fool," he thought to himself.
This was an even more complex "killing three birds with one stone"!
Using the Tai Sui as a biological bomb, the Black Lotus Sect not only successfully dealt heavy blows to I.A.R.C. and the Knights Templar, creating massive chaos in Saigon and shaking the foundations of French rule.
But also, under the cover of this imnse chaos, they secretly and safely transported the key ingredient they needed out of the port!
Just how terrifyingly deep had they calculated this chess ga?!
"Ghosts hidden in the mist," Julian murmured, feeling a profound sense of helplessness and fear toward a certain enemy.
"Ghosts, too, have monts when sunlight touches them," Guillau's voice pulled Julian back from his daze. "Monsieur Belloc, we will et again. Whether in Europe or on other filthy lands. As long as the Blasphers exist for one more day, our Knights Templar's purification will not cease."
With that, he gave a slight nod, then turned and left the room as silently as he had entered.
Julian sat alone in the empty room for a long ti.
Guillau was right.
Failure isn't terrifying; what's terrifying is sinking into despair after failure.
He rallied his spirits, carefully storing the fallen colleague's belongings.
Then Julian picked up the encrypted telegraph machine on the table again, this ti contacting that old fox far away in the Kowloon Walled City of Hong Kong.
—Old Abacus.
He needed to know if, besides the Tai Sui, there existed any other possibility—even the slightest sliver—of a divine dicine that could cure William anywhere on this vast Eastern continent.
The telegraph reply ca quickly.
But its content was like a Siberian cold front, dousing the faint hope Julian had just rekindled.
"...Wishful thinking."
Old Abacus's wording was as harsh and rciless as ever.
"Monsieur Belloc, what do you think the River Jiao is? Is it like those fire-breathing lizards from your Western countryside legends?"
"That's a 'half-dragon'! The fundantal manifestation of this land's water system spiritual veins! Only divine objects of the sa level, or even higher foundational rank, can counteract it!"
"The Tai Sui counted as one. A pity, you ssed it up."
"There might be others left. For example, the heart's blood of the 'Lord of White Mountain' that has slept deep within the Changbai Mountains for a thousand years. Or perhaps the fruit of the 'Jianmu Tree' atop the Kunlun Ruins that blooms once every millennium."
"Or, return to the Witch Mountains Dragon's Lair in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, find the River Jiao's true form, and directly extract a wisp of dragon energy from it, using poison to attack poison."
Every option Old Abacus listed was like an insurmountable mountain.
"Which one do you think you can accomplish alone, in your current state?" The telegraph ended with rciless mockery and advice.
"Child, listen to an old man's advice. The waters of the Qing Empire run deep now. That River Jiao in the Witch Mountains is just the tip of the iceberg. You foreigners better not step in lightly."
"Stay quietly in your concessions, do business, drink tea, maybe you'll live a few more years."
"Give up for now, wait for the right mont. Perhaps... an opportunity will arise?"
"The East offers no path."
These four words weighed heavily on Julian's heart.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
He thought of William's face twisted in pain, of Lin Jie's eyes full of trust and expectation, of the imnse fortune Ethan had prepared for him—enough to buy all of Saigon.
Give up?
No.
Julian Belloc could accept failure, but he would never accept giving up.
Since all known "divine paths" were blocked, then he would carve out his own... "ghost path" that no one had walked before!
Julian reopened his eyes. All weariness and despondency were swept away, replaced by a fla bordering on obsession and madness.
He picked up the telegraph machine again. This ti, he didn't contact anyone.
Instead, he began using the Redgrave family's vast financial network and I.A.R.C.'s remaining intelligence network across Southeast Asia to issue a series of high-value anonymous bounties.
"Bounty One: Any leads regarding the bones, scales, or blood of Eastern mythical creatures such as 'dragons,' 'qilin,' 'phoenixes,' etc. Verified leads reward 30,000 francs."
"Bounty Two: Any intelligence regarding ancient alchemical formulas, Eastern elixir recipes, or primitive tribal witchcraft capable of 'raising the dead,' 'regenerating limbs,' etc. Verified intelligence rewards 50,000 francs."
"Bounty Three: High-price acquisition of any unknown UMA core materials related to 'vitality,' 'regeneration,' 'evolution.' Price negotiable, no upper limit."
...
He would use the simplest and most brutal thod—money—to mobilize all the hidden, shady inner world hyenas, vultures, and rats lurking in the darkness across Southeast Asia!
He would turn himself into a mobile intelligence trading hub, the center of a vortex!
Julian refused to believe that on this vast Eastern land with millennia of mysterious history, he couldn't find a second divine herb capable of saving his comrade's life!
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