15: Chapter 15 Chanismon

The bells of Saint Selena Cathedral rang exactly nine times in the ten minutes before midnight.

The chiming did not come from the bell tower, but propagated upward in waves from deep underground along the rock strata and subterranean water veins.

It passed through the limestone foundation of the cathedral cellar, through the three overlapping layers of sealing barriers around Chanis Gate, through the stone walls of the Nighthawks headquarters' underground corridor, and finally stirred up rippling waves in the spiritual perception of every Beyonder in Tingen City.

Ordinary people could not hear this frequency of bell ringing.

To their ears, Tingen at midnight was as quiet as usual, with only the occasional whistle from the distant docks and the blurred shouting of drunkards as the street corner tavern closed.

But Lu Li knew that any Beyonder who had awakened their spirituality could feel it—that bell ringing was continuously vibrating at a frequency that only spirit bodies could receive, like some ancient code repeatedly knocking against the fragile partition between reality and the Spirit World.

He parted ways with Hewin at the side door of the Hoi Family mansion.

Hewin followed the sewer entrance to track the whereabouts of the person by the niche, while Lu Li headed straight for Saint Selena Cathedral.

There was no unnecessary conversation between the two, only a very brief nod exchanged when they split up.

Lu Li thought to himself that the days spent with the Nighthawks had taught them the same thing—when the bell rings nine times, there is no need to spend time explaining priorities.

Saint Selena Cathedral was about one and a half kilometers away from the Hoi Family.

Lu Li crossed the stone-paved streets of the West District at a speed as fast as possible without attracting the attention of passersby.

The moonlight flickered through the gaps in the clouds, illuminating the wet streets with an intermittent light.

The air was filled with the dampness and coal smoke remaining after the rain.

In the distance, toward Iron Cross Street, the gas streetlights flickered on and off several times, as if the Spirit World pressure of the entire city had reached a level sufficient to interfere with physical light sources.

The main entrance of the cathedral was tightly closed.

Lu Li bypassed the atrium and entered the Nighthawks headquarters through the side door.

The gas lamps in the corridor were still on, but the light was much dimmer than usual, and the flames danced uneasily in the lamp shades, as if being repeatedly fiddled with by an invisible hand.

Rozanne was not at the front desk—her duty coat was draped over the back of her chair, and the coffee on the table was still steaming, but she had already run down to notify Old Neil when the bell rang for the second time.

Several people had already arrived in the stone corridor leading to Chanis Gate.

Dunn stood in the center of the corridor, holding the copper compass in his hand.

The needle was spinning crazily, round and round, completely losing any directional function.

His face looked exceptionally pale under the green light of the phosphorescent wall lamps, but his posture remained straight.

Daly stood half a step behind him, her gloves already removed, revealing the silver rune rings specialized for Spirit Mediums on her fingertips, and the runes on the rings were emitting a pale blue light.

Lu Li could tell that she had entered a semi-Spirit Medium state and was using her spirit body perspective to observe the damage to the sealing barriers around Chanis Gate.

Leonard ran over from the other end of the corridor, the hem of his trench coat still dripping water, and his hair was soaked, clearly having just rushed back from outside.

He was carrying a sealed lead box in his hand, the surface of which was covered with sealing runes, belonging to the same system as the patterns on the main seal of Chanis Gate.

Lu Li guessed that when he was patrolling outside earlier, he had incidentally brought back a few fragments of letters left behind by the cultists from the old warehouse area of Iron Cross Street, and the blood source marks remaining on these fragments had now become key reference points for locating the sealing nodes.

But Old Neil was not in the corridor.

"He is inside."

Daly spoke the moment she saw Lu Li, her voice at least two beats faster than her usual tone.

"Three minutes ago, he said the main sealing node could no longer hold, and someone had to go in to manually activate the backup anchor.

Dunn couldn't stop him—"

"I didn't stop him."

Dunn's voice came from the other end of the corridor, low and restrained, but beneath the restraint was a very thin tremor.

"He is doing what must be done.

Only a Mysticism Magister of Sequence 8 or higher knows how to activate the backup anchor.

I don't have the authority to make this decision for him."

He paused for a moment; the compass had not stopped spinning, and the needle emitted a faint buzzing sound while rotating at high speed.

"What did he take inside?"

"He took his staff and a potion formula."

Daly hesitated for a moment, then added, "The formula is the one you gave him last time."

Lu Li reached into his inner pocket and touched the empty potion bottle.

Old Neil had taken it when he was not around, though he didn't know when.

He hadn't told anyone he was going to take it inside.

He had simply taken the small bottle while putting the backup formula into the locker, then hidden it in a secret compartment of his staff, letting it play its true role only tonight.

Chanis Gate vibrated again.

This vibration was more violent than the previous few times.

Two of the phosphorescent wall lamps on both sides of the corridor went out simultaneously, and plaster from the stone walls fell with a rustling sound.

An extremely cold and heavy Spirit World pressure seeped out from the gap in the door, like countless invisible ice needles piercing into the skin at once.

The fragment of the worm of time in Lu Li's pocket emitted hot pulses, the frequency already too fast to count, like a miniature heart held in a fist beating wildly.

Then, a low, long chant came from behind the door.

It was a sealing reinforcement incantation chanted in Hermes.

The tone was steady, carrying a professional instinct that only someone who had stood at this post for fifteen years would have—the ability to transform fear into focus.

When the incantation reached the last verse, the chanting suddenly interrupted for an instant, and then resumed at a completely different speed—faster, more urgent, as if trying to stop something before an irreversible process was completed.

Lu Li took a step forward.

His gloves were already on, and the silver rune threads on his fingertips emitted a burning, stinging sensation under the stimulation of the Spirit World pressure.

But Dunn extended his arm to block him, his force firm and irresistible.

"He said it."

Dunn's voice was very low, as if repeating to himself some rule that had been recited countless times, "Only he has the authority to enter the core area.

We guard the perimeter.

This is Nighthawks procedure."

"But the potion he took inside can only resist spirit body erosion; it cannot resist—the backlash of the key."

Dunn turned to look at Lu Li.

There were bloodshot eyes in his gray eyes, and also some deeper, unspoken worry.

He knew what Lu Li was talking about.

He knew about that "key of life" better than anyone else.

It was not in any public archives, but it was one of the most dangerous and critical components in the sealing system of Chanis Gate—capable of repairing all spirit body damage, at the cost of gradually absorbing the user's vitality and humanity.

If Old Neil activated it when the seal was under attack, the key would first repair the seal, and then begin to repair the "repairer."

Daly suddenly let out a low exclamation.

Her eyes glowed with a pale blue light in her Spirit Medium state, and the scene behind Chanis Gate was reflected in the depths of her pupils—not seen with the naked eye, but an image projected directly into the level of consciousness through spirit body perception.

She saw Old Neil.

He was standing in front of the main sealing node, his staff planted on the ground, the crystal at the top of the staff already half shattered.

And what he was holding in his hand—not the staff, but a key.

An ancient silver key, with a snake coiled head-to-tail on the handle, with two dark red garnets embedded where the snake's eyes were.

"He has already activated the key."

Daly's voice began to tremble, "The seal is still stabilizing—the seal is stabilizing—the key is helping him repair the seal—no—the key is—is repairing him—"

Her words suddenly cut off halfway, and she staggered back a step, clutching her forehead and falling to the ground.

The Spirit Medium state was forcibly cut off, not because she exited herself, but because she was pushed out directly from behind Chanis Gate by some more powerful force.

Lu Li looked at the door.

The chanting from the space behind the door continued, but the rhythm had clearly become chaotic.

Old Neil was still persisting, using every means to maintain the seal while resisting the key's corrosive instinct.

He didn't have much time left to hold on.

At this very moment, the bell ringing within the spiritual perception range of everyone in the corridor suddenly stopped for an instant.

Then a extremely weak rift fluctuation, which only the Marauder Pathway could capture, came from deep within the secondary drainage pipes around the periphery of Chanis Gate—it was from the direction of the sewers.

The cultist Hewin was tracking had already reached the drainage canal outside Chanis Gate, and he was carrying something capable of interfering with the sealing structure from the outside.

Lu Li understood instantly.

It was a rune, the last one.

The circle that was only half-drawn on the twelve-pointed star diagram in the Hoi Family secret room did not need bloodlines to be filled in, but the anchor itself.

The cultist had used himself as the carrier of the twelfth anchor on the periphery of Chanis Gate, applying the final layer of pressure from the outside.

"Drainage pipes."

Lu Li turned to Leonard, pointing as briefly as possible to the maintenance well entrance in the southeast corner of the corridor, "The cultist carved a rune at the outlet of the canal, located in the old drainage channel directly below this floor of the corridor."

Leonard cursed in Hermes, shoved the lead box into Daly's hands, grabbed his short staff, and ran toward the maintenance well.

Daly hugged the lead box, the rune rings on her fingers still flashing on and off.

Her face was as white as marble, but her voice was regaining control, just a bit hoarse.

Lu Li's fingers were already pressed on the doorknob of Chanis Gate.

The veins on the back of his hand emitted a dark purple light under the silver rune threads of his deerskin gloves.

He looked into Daly's eyes and said in the calmest tone the arrangement for the last variable of tonight.

"Daly. Listen carefully.

The key's backlash has three stages: repairing the seal, then repairing the holder, and the final step is absorbing the holder's humanity as nourishment to repair itself.

Old Neil is still stuck in the second stage—the key is repairing him, and he is still trying to use his willpower to resist the absorption of the third stage.

He hasn't lost control yet; he is holding on with his own spirituality.

But his spiritual reserves can only last at most five more minutes.

So I must go in, not to reinforce the seal, but to make him let go of the key before he enters the third stage.

If I haven't brought him out within three minutes, notify Dunn to blow up the drainage pipes."

She didn't say "You're crazy."

She just looked at Lu Li, silent for a second, then took off the pale blue Spirit Medium rune ring from her finger, put it on the outside of his deerskin glove, and pressed it tight with her thumb.

"Three minutes."

She said.

The copper handle of Chanis Gate was icy and bone-chilling in his palm.

Lu Li pushed the door open.