After walking forward a stretch, Lin Jie suddenly stopped in place, tilting his head slightly to listen carefully to the movents above.
Logically, the intense spiritual energy fluctuations from the silent cleanup process just now, combined with the earlier uncontrolled conflict, should have attracted so attention from above regardless.
Even if the alarm network ford by the [Recorder's Tongue] was paralyzed, the inspectors responsible for guarding this place should have noticed sothing abnormal—like the sudden interruption of monitoring data, or so intuitive sense of unease.
But it was too quiet.
That quiet wasn't the held-breath tension of an ambush, but rather an empty, lifeless desolation.
"Sothing's not right."
William's brows furrowed deeply into a deep crease. The veteran's intuition was sharper than any detection instrunt; he slled a trace of eerie abnormality.
"There's no killing intent above," William said in a low voice. "Not even the oppressive feeling ford from long-term stationing."
"Maybe they're deeper inside?" Evelyn adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose, trying to peer through the thick concrete floor above.
But in her structural X-ray vision, the floors above presented a lifeless, static appearance.
"Regardless, we need to go up."
Lin Jie made the decision, pointing toward a maintenance ladder ahead that led to a half-open iron door, a sliver of dim gaslight seeping through the crack.
The four of them maintained a standard tactical formation as they climbed up the rusted iron ladder.
Pushing open the iron door, a strong sll of carbolic acid disinfectant washed over them.
Before them stretched a wide, deep corridor.
The floor was paved with black-and-white checkerboard tiles, the walls painted with a depressing, sickly green paint.
Gas wall lamps were installed at intervals along both sides of the corridor, their flas turned very low, casting flickering, unsteady shadows.
This was the basent level of St. Mary's Hospital, typically used for storing corpses, dical waste, and detaining certain ntally disturbed patients.
But right now, it was empty.
Not only were there no fully ard inspectors, but there weren't even any night-shift orderlies.
Only a shutter at the far end of the corridor flapped lightly against its fra in the wind, making a monotonous "tap, tap" sound.
"This is too..." Julian tightened his grip on the reagent bottle in his hand, his gaze scanning the surroundings warily. "Too easy? It's like soone deliberately left the door open to invite us in."
"Stay alert," Lin Jie commanded in a low voice. "Check every room."
They advanced along the corridor.
Each ti they passed a door, William would quickly press close, peering inside through the observation window on the door, while Evelyn was responsible for scanning the structures behind the walls.
The first room was a linen closet, piled high with yellowed sheets and patient gowns.
The second was an equipnt room, glass cabinets displaying cold surgical scalpels and bone saws.
The third... was an ordinary hospital room.
William stopped, his expression turning sowhat strange.
He slowly pushed the door open. A patient lay inside the room.
It was an emaciated old man, curled up under the blankets, moaning in pain.
On his bedside table sat a cup of murky water and half a piece of dry, hard bread.
This was just an ordinary, socially abandoned bottom-tier patient, waiting for either death or recovery in a corner of this charity hospital.
"Just ordinary people," William stepped back out, gently closing the door. "The entire corridor is like this. The people living here are all poor folks—tuberculosis, typhoid, or so severe work injuries."
"What about the Association people?" Evelyn asked incredulously. "Didn't they requisition this place as a containnt zone? How could they allow ordinary patients and containnt entities to mix?"
"Perhaps this is the best camouflage," Lin Jie said coldly. "The greatest concealnt is within the crowd."
He looked up, his gaze locking onto the double doors at the end of the corridor.
Unlike the wooden doors with glass observation windows on the other rooms, that door was made of pure steel.
On it was a complex chanical combination lock, and an alchemical rune lamp embedded in the door fra above, which had already gone dark.
Spray-painted on the door in red paint was a huge number: "0-77".
And below the number, a line of small text written in Latin ant "Absolute Isolation".
"That's the place," Lin Jie said.
Arthur had ntioned that the leader said they were taking Lily to the "isolation ward".
In this basent level filled with the sll of disinfectant and the aura of death, this steel door was the only place that matched the description.
The four of them quickly walked to the steel door.
Evelyn imdiately moved close to inspect the lock.
"This is a standard chanical lock," she said, pulling out a set of precise lock-picking tools from her toolkit. "If we break it by force, it will trigger the internal self-destruct chanism."
"Can you open it?" Julian asked.
"Give two minutes," Evelyn put on a magnifying glass, her fingers nimbly fiddling with the dial. "The logic of this lock is based on astrology and mathematics. As long as I calculate today's variable..."
"Click."
A crisp sound of a chanism springing interrupted her.
Evelyn froze.
She hadn't even started calculating yet; she had only tentatively turned the dial once, and the lock... opened?
This wasn't just undefended.
It was as if the lock itself was already in the "unlocked" state, just left ajar waiting for soone to push the door open.
An intense sense of unease enveloped everyone.
A trap?
Or so higher-level psychological tactic?
Lin Jie didn't speak.
He reached out, pressing his hand against the cold steel door. The sensation transmitted through his palm told him there was no high temperature behind the door, nor any violent energy reaction.
Although the [White Vulture's Mark] was heating up, that heat was steady, like a compass pointing toward the magnetic pole.
"William, cover ."
Lin Jie took a deep breath and forcefully pushed open the heavy steel door.
"Creak—"
The door slowly opened, revealing the scene inside.
The room was large, much more spacious than the ordinary hospital rooms outside.
All four walls and the ceiling were covered with thick lead plates, carved with dense, intricate suppression runes.
These runes should have been glowing, forming a sturdy spiritual energy cage, but now they were all dim and dark, as if their energy had been cut off.
In the center of the room stood a single bed, and on the bed lay a small figure.
Lily Weston.
She wore a white straitjacket, the kind used in ntal hospitals to prevent patients from self-harming, but now the straps were only loosely draped over her.
Her eyes were closed, long eyelashes casting shadows on her pale cheeks.
Golden hair spilled across the pillow like a blooming sunflower.
Beside her bed were several complex instrunts.
They were life sign monitors combining steam power and alchemy that Lin Jie had never seen before.
Several patches connected by copper wires were attached to her forehead and chest, the other ends linked to a slowly rotating drum recorder.
The ink pen on the drum was drawing a wave pattern so steady it was almost a straight line.
"Lily?"
Lin Jie quickly walked forward, warily scanning every corner of the room.
No one else.
In this heavily sealed, labeled "isolation" room, there was only this sleeping little girl.
William quickly checked under the bed and inside cabinets, confirming no one was hiding before lowering his gun and walking to the bedside.
"Is she alive?" William's voice trembled slightly.
"Alive."
Julian leaned in to look at the recorder, then reached out to check Lily's breathing.
"Heartbeat is very slow, only about thirty beats per minute. Body temperature is low. This is a state of deep coma, or rather... hibernation."
"Hibernation?" Evelyn frowned. "Humans don't hibernate."
"But she's not just human anymore."
Lin Jie reached out, removed his glove, and gently pressed against Lily's forehead.
The touch was cool, like smooth jade.
But at the mont of contact, Lin Jie felt a strange vibration.
It wasn't a pulse.
It was breathing.
But not breathing from the lungs.
The rise and fall of Lily's chest was extrely faint, almost imperceptible.
But Lin Jie could feel that the air in the entire room, even the entire basent, was pulsating with so grand rhythm.
Outside the window—though this was a basent, there was a ventilation pipe leading to the surface—ca the sound of wind.
It was the howling of London's late-night cold wind scraping through chimneys.
"Inhale—exhale—"
Lin Jie was surprised to discover that Lily's faint breathing rhythm was completely synchronized with the rhythm of the wind outside.
When the wind grew louder, her breathing deepened.
When the wind ceased, her breathing also held.
This synchronization wasn't limited to just the wind.
Lin Jie could feel that every slight tremor of the earth beneath their feet—perhaps from a distant passing train, or the flow of groundwater—resonated within Lily's body.
It was as if she had beco a sensory organ of this city, this land.
She was breathing with the world.
"Synesthesia."
Lin Jie withdrew his hand, his expression grave.
"Arthur was right. She's assimilating."
"She's losing the boundaries of her 'individuality,' gradually lting into the so-called 'Earth Mother Goddess' concept."
"If we had arrived a few days later, she might have turned into a plant, or a stone, completely losing human consciousness."
"Check those instrunts," Lin Jie said to Evelyn. "See what exactly they did to her."
Evelyn imdiately stepped forward, examining the recorders and IV lines.
"The IV bottle contains high-concentration sedatives and so kind of... inhibitor," Evelyn pulled out the needle, sniffing the residual liquid at the tube opening. "The composition is complex. The main ingredients are rcury and mandrake extract. This is used to suppress spiritual energy activity."
"And..."
She pointed at the drum recording paper.
"Look here. Three hours ago, there was a violent fluctuation in the recording here."
There was a section of wildly scribbled lines on the paper strip, like a seismograph recording during a strong earthquake.
"That was a sign of her trying to wake up."
"But then, this data suddenly plumted, becoming the steady state we see now."
"It's like... soone forcibly cut the power."
"Or soone withdrew the defensive forces from here," Julian added.
He looked around, pointing at the extinguished runes on the walls.
"This is why we got in so easily."
"The guards withdrew, the defenses turned off. Like they suddenly abandoned this stronghold."
This was too abnormal.
Ackerman was a madman who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He would never easily give up a key "living beacon" like Lily.
Unless sothing more important than Lily had happened.
"Whether it's a trap or not, we take her with us first."
Lin Jie said decisively.
He pulled out a knife from his coat and cut through the straitjacket straps on Lily.
Then he took off his own trench coat, wrapping the small body tightly within it.
William stepped forward, carefully picking Lily up.
"She's light," William said in a low voice. "Light as a feather."
"But her 'sense of presence' is heavy," Lin Jie looked at Lily's sleeping face. "I can feel the spiritual energy around us converging toward her."
"Let's go."
"Back to the safehouse Marcus arranged."
The group quickly evacuated from the eerie isolation room.
The retreat process was still unsettlingly smooth.
They retraced their path, passing through the empty corridor, climbing down the ventilation shaft, and returning to the sewer.
The mud channel Pip left had long closed, but Lin Jie rembered the route.
They moved along the intricate underground pipe network toward the south bank of the Thas.
One hour later.
South Bank, London, Bermondsey district.
This was an area concentrated with tanneries and brickworks. The safehouse Marcus arranged was in the basent of an abandoned tannery.
This place belonged to union territory. Those bottom-tier workers were extrely xenophobic, making it difficult for the Association's Eyes to infiltrate.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door, a wave of warm air washed over them.
A fire was burning in the basent. Silas lay on an old army cot. Though his face was still pale, his breathing had steadied considerably.
Seeing Lin Jie and the others return safely, Silas struggled to sit up.
"Don't move."
Lin Jie waved his hand, signaling him to lie back down.
William placed Lily on another bed, and Evelyn imdiately began conducting detailed examinations and care for her.
"How's the situation?" Lin Jie asked Silas.
"Not good."
Silas pointed to an old-fashioned telegraph machine on the table.
"Marcus just sent back a ssage. Everything's gone chaotic outside."
"What happened?"
"London's East End, the Whitechapel area. A large-scale riot broke out two hours ago."
Silas's voice was weak but clear and logical.
"Apparently, a group of bottom-tier civilians suddenly went mad."
"They stord police stations, burned streets, tried to charge London Bridge."
"And there, a large number of low-tier UMAs appeared."
Lin Jie's brows furrowed.
Whitechapel.
That was his starting point, also London's most chaotic place.
"Is this a diversion?" Julian guessed.
"Very likely."
Silas nodded.
"Because the scale of this riot is too large, and it involves the public exposure of supernatural forces, it touches the Association's bottom line—the 'Secrecy Law.'"
"To prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, to prevent ordinary people in the Surface World from discovering the truth, the Association had to mobilize most of its mobile forces to suppress it."
"Including that elite squad originally stationed at St. Mary's Hospital."
"No wonder."
Lin Jie suddenly understood.
This was why the hospital was an empty shell.
For the hawk faction, maintaining stability and secrecy was the top priority.
Once a large-scale exposure event occurred, all resources would tilt toward that.
In comparison, a comatose little girl was important, but if guarding her led to London's riots spiraling out of control, that would be putting the cart before the horse.
"Who did it?" Lin Jie asked. "Who has the capability to organize such a large-scale riot at this ti?"
"Don't know."
Silas shook his head.
"Could be people from Avalon, or so unknown faction we're unaware of."
"But for us, this is an opportunity."
Just then, the telegraph machine on the table suddenly started clattering.
The paper tape slowly spit out. Lin Jie walked over and picked up the tape.
It was a telegram.
The sender's signature was only one letter: B.
Barton.
Lin Jie quickly decoded the telegram's content.
As each word was translated, his expression grew increasingly grave, the light in his eyes sharper.
"What is it?" William asked.
Lin Jie placed the decoded telegram on the table.
"Barton confirms Silas's intel."
"Ackerman's main force has indeed been drawn to the East End riots."
"Right now, the Underground City, the Association headquarters, is in an unprecedented state of emptiness."
Lin Jie looked up, scanning each person in the room.
"The moderate faction's negotiations in Geneva have reached a deadlock."
"The hawk faction has presented evidence of Tintagel's 'loss of control,' demanding the Council pass a comprehensive purge bill."
"If we can't produce counter-evidence, not only us, but all moderate faction supporting branches will be purged."
"Therefore,"
Lin Jie's finger tapped heavily on the telegram paper.
"He wants us to take advantage of Ackerman's absence, infiltrate the Underground City."
"There's a docunt stored there, an original copy called the 'Knight Protocol.'"
"It's the contract jointly signed by the original Round Table Knights when they created the projected world."
"It's not just a docunt."
Julian suddenly interjected, his eyes lighting up with the fervor of a scholar touching ultimate knowledge.
"I've read legends about it in ancient texts."
"It's a rule-level holy relic with a 'blood pact' effect."
"All descendants of the Round Table Knights, aning the current Association's upper echelons, their bloodlines are bound by this protocol."
Julian's voice trembled.
"This is the 'legal basis' the moderate faction wants."
Lin Jie clenched his fist.
He glanced at Lily lying on the bed.
The little girl was still asleep, her breathing still synchronized with the wind.
If they didn't completely resolve the hawk faction, if they didn't end this twisted era, they would forever remain rats in the gutter.
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