The mortuary of Guangfu Funeral Parlor had now been temporarily converted into a laboratory filled with the scent of alchemy.
Lin Jie stood before a square table, his gaze sharp as he stared at the tal fragnt that had just undergone three hours of cleaning and restoration by Julian.
After removing the calcified stomach acid crystals and years of gri clinging to its surface, the insignia retrieved from the belly of the Giant Nabau Serpent finally revealed its breathtakingly exquisite craftsmanship under the glow of the gas lamps.
It was made of an unknown alloy with a dull, purplish-gray hue.
It seed to absorb all surrounding light, with only the edges of its incredibly intricate relief patterns occasionally flashing a silvery, rcury-like gleam.
"Unbelievable."
Julian moved his sore right eye away from the brass monocular microscope, wiping sweat from his forehead, his voice trembling.
"Even at a microscopic level I cannot comprehend, the structure of this insignia remains as precise as a miniature city."
The French Academy scholar readjusted the microscope's focus, gesturing for Lin Jie to co closer and look.
Through the specially treated lenses soaked in alchemical potions, Lin Jie saw a microscopic world that made his scalp tingle.
Beneath the round table relief carved on the front of the insignia, deep within the patterns of the twelve swords symbolizing chivalry, were hidden countless miniature chanical gears, each only a fraction of a hair's diater in size.
These gears were not static decorations.
They were active.
They interlocked perfectly, forming a vast and complex chanical transmission system, as if the famous "Antikythera chanism" had been shrunk tens of thousands of tis and stuffed into this small tal piece.
"This is a lock."
Julian's voice beca unusually serious as he pulled a black archive folder with a completely detached cover from a nearby pile of ancient books.
"And it's a 'chanical combination lock' that transcends any known alchemy in our current understanding."
"Its internal structure contains at least three thousand independent interlocking nodes. Each node can only rotate under specific frequencies or specific spiritual stimuli."
"If forcibly disassembled, the self-destruct chanism inside would definitely release sothing unpleasant instantly."
Lin Jie straightened up, looking at the silent tal piece under the light.
"Is this the 'fault line' evidence you were looking for?"
"Yes."
Julian nodded, his fingers quickly flipping through the black archive folder until he stopped on a page that had been largely blacked out, leaving only a few blurred dates.
"When I was in the Underground City library, I read through the Association's chronicles countless tis. According to official records, I.A.R.C. was formally established as a global organization in 1845, riding the wave of the First Industrial Revolution and the colonial expansion of the Victorian era."
"But before that."
Julian's finger tapped heavily on the blacked-out page.
"During the decade from 1830 to 1840, there's a completely inexplicable gap in the Association's archives."
"No mission records, no personnel lists, no financial statents. Even the diaries of hunters active during that period seem to have been completely erased from the river of history by so force."
"That decade is called 'The Silent Decade.'"
"I used to think it was just missing records due to war or lost archives. But now it seems soone deliberately covered up an internal war that could have overturned the Association's foundation."
Julian pointed at the miniature gear structure under the microscope.
"This technology, this concept, this craftsmanship that perfectly combines chanics with spirituality—it's definitely not sothing the current Technical Departnt could produce."
"This is lost technology."
"It's the legacy of the losers who were purged during 'The Silent Decade.'"
Lin Jie picked up the insignia.
He turned it over and looked at the Latin inscription etched into the back using alchemical ans, red as blood.
"Tradidimus sacrantum, in infernum perpetuum cademus."
(We betrayed our oath, we shall fall into eternal hell.)
"What did they betray?" Lin Jie asked softly.
"It's not that they betrayed their oath."
Julian adjusted his glasses.
"It's that they believed they betrayed 'humanity.'"
"Or rather, that another faction betrayed the original intent."
Julian pulled a yellowed parchnt fragnt from the pile of materials—a rubbing he'd made while examining the micro-inscriptions inside the insignia.
Though only fragnts remained, it was enough to piece together the truth of that ti.
"In the 1830s, that was the period of most turbulent revolutionary thought in Europe. The slogans of liberty, equality, and fraternity resounded throughout the Old Continent."
"The 'New Round Table Knights' of that ti were also impacted by this ideological current, splitting into two diatrically opposed factions."
"One faction was the idealists led by 'Gawain' and 'rlin.' Most ca from scholarly, artisan, or lower-class mystic backgrounds."
"They advocated making the existence of the inner world public knowledge, teaching ordinary people the knowledge and techniques to combat UMA free of charge, giving everyone the ability to protect themselves from supernatural forces."
"They believed this was justice akin to 'Protheus stealing fire.'"
"They wanted to break down the barrier between the surface and inner worlds, establishing a new world without secrets."
A slight fluctuation appeared in Lin Jie's eyes.
This ideology was essentially the "proletarian revolution" of that era transposed into the field of mysticism.
Radical.
Romantic.
But also extrely dangerous.
"And the other faction?" Lin Jie asked.
"The other faction, which later won and established the prototype of the current I.A.R.C.—the 'Council Faction.'"
Julian's voice turned cold.
"They represented the interests of various royal families, major bankers, and the Vatican Church."
"They were realists."
"They believed power must be controlled. UMA were precious resources that must never fall into the hands of those 'uncontrollable' ordinary people."
"They advocated building high walls, completely separating the surface and inner worlds, with their small group acting as 'Night Watch.'"
"This is the Association's true purpose: 'Control, Contain, Protect.' But behind this protection lies absolute rule."
The story's outco was already clear.
The "Council Faction" ultimately won.
That internal war called "The Silent Decade" was a great purge targeting the "Round Table Faction."
Those idealistic knights were branded as heretics and traitors, subjected to brutal suppression.
So died in assassinations, so were exiled to the ends of the earth, so—like the owner of this insignia—died in the bellies of unknown monsters.
"So this is a tombstone."
Lin Jie rubbed the sharp edge of the insignia.
"And also a key."
If Julian's speculation was correct, then what was locked inside this insignia wasn't just that erased history, but likely also included the technology mastered by the Round Table Faction back then.
"Can we open it?" Lin Jie asked.
Julian shook his head, a bitter, helpless smile appearing on his face.
"Impossible. The structural logic of this micro-chanical lock completely exceeds my cognitive scope. It has no keyhole, and even the alchemical diagrams of that era contain no similar records."
Lin Jie looked at the silent tal piece.
Since physical thods wouldn't work, he could only try other approaches.
No matter who left this thing, no matter what secrets it contained, since it was "manufactured" by soone, it would inevitably retain traces of the maker's consciousness.
This was a universal principle.
"I want to try."
Lin Jie gently placed his palm over the insignia.
"Try what?" Julian asked, puzzled.
"Try listening... to the voices of the dead."
Lin Jie closed his eyes.
He adjusted his breathing, cleared his mind, allowing his heartbeat to gradually calm.
[Reverberation Touch].
As spiritual energy was infused, the surrounding cacophony of rain, the bubbling sound of Su Sanniang brewing dicine, and even Julian's breathing all faded away in an instant.
The world fell into absolute silence and darkness.
At the far end of that darkness, there were no scenes of bloody battle, no terror of a giant serpent consuming, nor the despairing face of the knight nad "Gawain" before his death.
The material-level mories on this insignia seed to have been deliberately erased or shielded by so higher-level power.
Instead.
There was a voice.
A voice sealed in the interstices, crossing half a century of ti, yet still as clear as a whisper in the ear.
It was an aged, weary male voice.
"...When you hear this ssage, whoever you are, it proves the gears of fate haven't completely rusted shut."
Lin Jie's consciousness trembled violently in this void space.
This was a pre-recorded ssage!
The voice continued, carrying a sense of vicissitude that seed to traverse the mists of ti.
"I am the last watcher, and the record-keeper of these failures."
"In the purge, they used steel and gunpowder to destroy the coexistence order we tried to establish."
"They contemptuously labeled us in the archives as the stubborn 'Druidic Faction,' portraying us as madn who only hugged trees and cried."
"But they didn't dare write our true na into history."
"Because they fear that table, fear the oath represented by those twelve swords."
The voice paused briefly.
Then, a truth that could shake Lin Jie's worldview was slowly revealed.
"I am the leader of these remnants."
"On the Association's wanted list, I am the long-dead Oak Sage. But at that round table, my codena was... rlin."
Identity confird.
Lin Jie's heart pounded violently in his chest.
The one who had been hidden behind the scenes, guiding Karl von Stein onto the hunter's path, even indirectly guiding him—it was actually the rlin from back then!
"We lost. Gawain died in the South Seas, Lancelot fell in the far north. Our ideals were shattered before reality."
"But we didn't lose everything."
"I took away the seeds."
The aged voice continued.
"I hid them in a corner even the Association's hounds couldn't sniff out. A refuge between reality and illusion."
"Its na is... Avalon."
"There lies all our research into this world's essence, the weapon blueprints we prepared to combat that ultimate fear, and the final resting place of those comrades unwilling to collude."
Avalon.
The legendary paradise of Arthurian legend, the eternal resting place.
It wasn't just a legend—it was the underground base this radical faction established after the purge.
"But relying on us alone isn't enough."
The voice suddenly beca serious, carrying a sense of scrutiny that traversed ti.
"This world is sick, sicker than we imagined."
"Those so-called UMA, those so-called anomalies, are just pustules on the skin. The true lesion lies deeper. In this world's own... incompleteness."
"To repair this incompleteness, we need a variable."
"An observer who doesn't belong to this rule system, who can jump outside the chessboard..."
Here, the voice paused for a long ti again.
The next sentence struck Lin Jie's soul like a thunderbolt.
"If you are the one Karl chose... or so existence even more special than he anticipated..."
"If you can read the mories within this insignia..."
"Then co find ."
"Bring this insignia—it's the key to entering Avalon."
"I await you... at the world's end."
"Finally, rember one thing."
"Don't believe your eyes, and don't believe that so-called truth."
"Because this world we protect... perhaps from the very beginning, is a colossal lie."
The voice abruptly ceased.
The torrent of information that had surged like a tide suddenly cut off.
Lin Jie's eyes snapped open.
He gasped for breath, sweat covering his forehead, as if he'd just surfaced from a long, deep-sea dive.
His hand still rested on the insignia.
But now, the tal felt scalding hot.
"What did you see?"
Julian, who had been anxiously observing Lin Jie's reaction, asked urgently.
Lin Jie slowly withdrew his hand, pulling the silver cigarette case from his pocket, his hands trembling slightly as he tried to light a cigarette.
That chilling ssage still echoed in his mind.
"The Oak Sage... is alive."
Lin Jie exhaled a cloud of smoke, his voice hoarse.
"He is rlin. Not only did he survive the purge back then, he also established a third-party organization called 'Avalon.'"
"What?!" Julian was so shocked he nearly jumped up. "Avalon actually exists? Isn't that mythology?"
"In this mad world, mythology is often just covered-up history."
Lin Jie looked at the insignia in his hand.
"This insignia is a key, a pass to that refuge."
"And... he seed to foresee this day."
This was what made Lin Jie feel most uneasy.
That ssage wasn't general talk.
It ntioned "the one Karl chose," ntioned "reading mories."
This ant that decades ago, that "rlin" had already accurately predicted that soone with special abilities would co, holding this insignia belonging to Gawain, and open this lock through this specific thod at this specific ti.
This wasn't just wisdom.
This was... prophecy.
Or so high-dinsional sche involving temporal causality.
"How could he know?" Lin Jie questioned himself internally. "How could he know I'd ti-travel? How could he know I'd possess [Reverberation Touch]?"
"Could every step I've taken, even coming to Borneo this ti, be part of that old man's script?"
A sense of anger at being manipulated like a chess piece welled up.
But beneath this anger was wariness toward that sage hidden in the mists of history.
And his final words.
"The world is a colossal lie."
This statent resonated perfectly with the "projection" and "prison" ntioned in Yan Xilou's notes.
These two sages representing Eastern and Western mysticism had reached the sa despairing conclusion in different tis and places.
This was definitely no coincidence.
"Where is he?" Julian interrupted Lin Jie's contemplation. "That Avalon... where is it?"
"The world's end." Lin Jie repeated that vague phrase. "This could be a taphor, or it could be a place na."
He placed the insignia back into his inner pocket.
No matter what that "rlin" was planning, no matter if this was a trap spanning ti and space.
This was currently Lin Jie's only clue to accessing the world's truth.
He had to go.
Not just to unravel I.A.R.C.'s historical mysteries.
But to understand the truth behind his own ti-travel, and what exactly was wrong with this world.
He adjusted the [Black rcury] trench coat that had just been repaired.
"We can't stay out of this anymore. Since they all want to use us as chess pieces."
The corner of Lin Jie's mouth curved upward.
"Then I'll flip this chessboard over. Let's see what monsters and demons are hiding underneath."
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