23: Chapter 23 Anchor Point Activation

Ince Zangwill squatted in the center of the stone chamber, the dagger still stabbed into his left palm. The blade had pierced through his entire hand, its tip protruding from the back of his hand and pinned into the central groove of the old sigil on the ground.

"The sigil has been activated." His voice was hoarse but calm.

Lu Li stood at the doorway without moving. He gripped the copper holy water bottle in his left hand, and pressed his right hand against the rapidly pulsing fragment of the worm of time in his pocket.

"But you didn't come to stop me—you came to ask questions."

"Two questions." Lu Li took two steps forward, stopping about three meters away from Ince. "When you carved this sigil six years ago, did you know it would be used to open a breach for the Spirit Descent Ritual?"

"I knew," Ince said without hesitation. "Six years ago, Roy King found me and said he needed a backup sigil, and its location had to be at the weakest point of the Chanis Gate's outer sealing. I carved it for him. He paid me five hundred gold pounds, plus the main ingredients for a Sequence 6 potion. Back then, I thought it was just a transaction."

"When did you realize it wasn't?"

"Three years ago. I was doing a routine inspection of this stone chamber and found that the lines of the sigil were extending on their own—the original sigil I carved had seven branch nodes, but it grew an eighth one by itself. The newly grown node pointed directly to the core keyhole of the Chanis Gate's main seal."

Ince propped himself against the stone wall with his right hand, shifting his body up half an inch, causing another gush of blood to well up from the wound on his left hand.

"Only then did I realize this wasn't a backup sigil. It was a reverse interface for the Spirit Descent Ritual."

"You knew, but you didn't dismantle it."

"I couldn't," Ince said, looking down at his left palm, his lips twitching slightly. "Once a sigil is carved, it fuses with the anchor. The only way to dismantle it is to reinfuse the sigil's lines with the carver's whole blood, and flush it from the inside with holy water the exact moment it is completely filled."

"But this process will trigger the sigil's defense mechanism. The sigil will reversely drain the carver's life force to resist. Once it drains enough, the carver will be sucked dry before the sigil is destroyed."

Lu Li switched the copper holy water bottle from his left hand to his right. "So you didn't come tonight to activate it."

"No." Ince gripped the hilt and pulled the dagger out of his left palm. Blood gushed from the wound, but none of it flowed onto the ground—it was all sucked into the sigil's grooves, like dry sand absorbing water.

A deep, old scar was revealed on his left palm, its shape identical to the lines of the sigil.

"All the actions at the Pumping Station tonight are just a cover for Roy King. Roy King didn't need a backup sigil to complete the Spirit Descent Ritual at all. After he carved himself into the twelfth sigil at the annual banquet, the ritual's main anchor had already begun to take root inside him. To him, the backup sigil was just a decoy that could be discarded at any time."

Lu Li's heart sank. Ince didn't know the Nighthawks' specific deployment tonight; he was gambling that Old Neil would follow him into this old passage.

"Second question." Lu Li squatted down and held the copper holy water bottle up in front of Ince. "You said destroying the sigil requires reinfusing it with the carver's whole blood. By pouring your own blood into the sigil tonight, are you activating it or dismantling it?"

Ince stared at the copper bottle for a long time. The flickering frequency of those eyes on the stone wall grew faster and faster.

"Both," he finally spoke. "The moment the sigil is activated, the Chanis Gate's main seal will suffer an asymmetrical impact from the outside. This impact will tear an extremely fine rift in the seal's structure. The moment the rift appears, the main anchor inside Roy King will resonate with it."

"How long will the rift last?"

"About thirty seconds. It will heal automatically after thirty seconds. Unless someone crawls out from the rift before it heals."

Lu Li stood up. "So you want me to guard these thirty seconds for you. Don't let anyone touch this sigil. Once the rift heals, the sigil will be flushed clean from the inside by holy water, becoming completely useless."

"Yes."

"Why should I help you?"

Ince looked up, staring at him with a gaze that bordered on pity.

"Because during those thirty seconds when the rift appears, if Roy King successfully stabilizes the rift with the main anchor's resonance, the Spirit Descent Ritual will be fully completed. By then, the Chanis Gate will no longer be a gate—it will become a backdoor for the Snake of Fate. All the blockades you Nighthawks have set up at the Pumping Station won't be able to stop an Outer Deity passage opened from the inside."

Lu Li was silent for a moment. He tightened the cap of the copper holy water bottle, placed it within Ince's reach, then stood up and turned around, facing away from him.

"Thirty seconds. Counting from the moment the sigil is activated."

"That's long enough." Ince gripped the dagger tightly again, aiming the tip at the last gap in the center of the sigil. He pressed the blade down with all his strength.

All the eyes on the stone wall opened at the same time. A dark green light flashed blindingly.

The fragment of the worm of time in Lu Li's pocket shook violently. An extremely low, deep whisper surged from the depths of the sigil—not heard through the ears, but exploding directly inside his skull. It was counting. From one to twelve. After it finished counting, it paused for a moment, and then asked in a tone that did not belong to any human, 'Have you seen my missing finger?'

"It's asking you," Lu Li said without turning his head.

"I know," Ince's voice trembled, but he still maintained a composure ground out after being washed over by fear countless times. "It was already asking three years ago. The first time I heard it, I threw up in this stone chamber for a whole hour."

Ince's left palm began to inject a dark red mist, thicker than blood, into the sigil. The mist spread rapidly along the sigil's lines, making a hissing, burning sound as it came into contact with the spiritual residue seeping from the mouth of the copper holy water bottle.

Lu Li stood at the doorway, his gaze piercing through the corridor toward the back door of the Pumping Station. The receiver lay quietly on the ground in a corner of the stone chamber, not buzzing. He had turned off its speaker function before setting out, keeping only the vibration alert.

"Just now it asked me, if the sigil is destroyed, what I plan to use to compensate for my finger," Ince's voice came from behind, his tone suddenly turning very light. "I said I would compensate with all my remaining fingers."

Outside the front gate of the Pumping Station, Leonard took a quick look down at the issued compass in his hand. The compass needle was drifting to the right at an extremely slow speed, pointing not toward the depths of the Pumping Station, but toward the old main drainage channel outside the back door.

"Daly, take a look at yours." He shone his flashlight on the dial. "My compass is drifting toward the back door."

Daly took out her own compass and glanced at it. The needle was drifting by the same margin. She frowned. "That direction is the old anchor area outside the Chanis Gate. Dunn said the seals there have been inactive for decades, but a compass wouldn't drift toward an inactive seal."

She stood up and glanced in the direction of the Pumping Station's back door, but the night mist was too thick to see anything.

"Go notify Klein, and I'll tell Dunn."

When Klein received Leonard's verbal message, he had already sensed the abnormality above the Gray Fog. He closed his eyes and stood by the iron door of the backup entrance for a few seconds, letting his spirituality sweep across the underground drainage network of the Iron Cross Street above the Gray Fog. An extremely fine rift was opening between the Spirit World and reality in the direction of the old passage of the Pumping Station's back door—it wasn't a broken seal, but something more precise, like a cut made by a scalpel. One end of the rift connected to the third sealing node on the outskirts of the Chanis Gate, while the other end extended toward an area he couldn't fully lock onto above the Gray Fog.

"The anchor might be activated. Lu Li is in the direction of the old passage of the back door. Tell Old Neil to watch out for the seal rift." He folded it, activated it, and the paper figurine flew through the night mist toward the front gate of the Pumping Station.

Then he checked the paper figurines and charms he carried with him, pushed open the iron door of the backup entrance, and walked quickly along the main drainage pipe toward the old passage.

In the stone chamber, nearly half of the thirty-second countdown had passed. The dark green light in the center of the sigil was still pulsing, but its frequency had begun to drop—the rift was healing naturally.

Lu Li stood in place without moving. The fragment of the worm of time in his palm had begun to cool down slowly after the pulse peak at the moment the rift appeared, and by now it had dropped to a temperature slightly higher than body heat.

"How much time is left?" Ince's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

"Twelve seconds."

Ince did not speak again. His left palm was still pressed tightly against the sigil's groove, and the dark red mist was still seeping out of the wound, but the speed of seepage had slowed down significantly. The light in the sigil's lines was fading from dark green to grayish-white, like a patch of moss drained of moisture.

Lu Li stared at the bronze door at the end of the corridor. The dark green light leaking from beneath the door crack was gradually weakening, but it had not completely faded yet. His Fate Anchor had sent an extremely weak signal a few seconds ago—not a warning, but a location. Someone carrying the Antigonus bloodline mark was moving from the depths of the Pumping Station toward this direction. The speed wasn't fast, but the direction was clear.

"How many vials of holy water did you bring?" Ince suddenly asked.

"Two."

"Give me the other one."

Lu Li didn't look back. "You already poured one on the sigil."

"Not to pour on the sigil." Ince released his right hand from the hilt of the dagger and tapped the old scar slowly tightening on his left palm with his fingertips. "This mark has been with me for six years. After the sigil was activated, it started to contract—it's sucking the carver's spirituality back in. If I don't seal it, even if the sigil becomes useless, it will continue to absorb my life force until I'm sucked dry. Holy water can't cure this completely, but it can shut it up."

Lu Li took another backup small copper bottle of holy water from his pouch, turned around to walk in front of Ince, unscrewed the cap, and poured the holy water onto his open left palm. The moment the holy water came into contact with the old scar, a layer of fine white smoke rose from the surface of the scar. Ince gritted his teeth and let out a muffled groan, but he did not pull his hand back.

"Thanks."

Lu Li put the empty copper bottle back into his pouch and walked back to the doorway. The eyes on the stone wall had closed completely, leaving behind only extremely fine scratches that looked as if they had been carved by fingernails.

The rift was closed.

The last trace of dark green light in the center of the sigil dissipated silently. The stone chamber fell back into a half-bright, half-dark silence, with only the patch of skin on Ince's left palm soaked in holy water still making a faint hissing sound.

"The sigil has lost its effect." Ince's voice sounded as if he had aged ten years in an instant. He slowly slid down against the stone wall, pressing his right hand against his left wrist and resting the hand with the puncture wound on his knee.

Lu Li turned around. "On the other side of the rift, what did you see?"

Ince closed his eyes, his lips twitching slightly. "I'm missing a finger." He raised his left hand—on that palm pierced by the dagger, the base of the index finger had a clean cut, with no blood flowing, as if that finger had never grown there in the first place.

Lu Li was silent for a moment, then squatted down and picked up the blood-soaked copper talisman fragment from the ground—it was what Ince had pried out from the center of the sigil when he pulled out the dagger earlier. The patterns on the back of the talisman had been completely corroded by the holy water, but a line of extremely fine Hermes script remained on the front: "Ring of the Snake, Key of Blood."

"Did you carve this six years ago?"

"I carved it. After I finished, Roy King dripped a drop of his own blood onto it." Ince opened his eyes, pulled a small object from his inner pocket, and slid it over on the stone floor. "Take this. There are three more abandoned anchors on the outskirts of the Chanis Gate that I deleted from the archives, with their coordinates carved on this. You need to flush them with holy water one by one, and the order must not be wrong, or it will trigger a chain resonance."

Lu Li looked down. It was a small copper sheet, its edges worn bright, clearly having been repeatedly clutched and rubbed in someone's palm for a long time.

"Why give it to me?"

"Because Old Neil won't accept it," Ince's voice suddenly grew quieter. "I was in the Nighthawks for fifteen years. I know his personality. If I went to tell him 'I'm sorry,' he would point his sealing staff at my face and say, 'Get out of the way.' But you are different—you've only been on the team for a few months, and you haven't been fooled by me yet." He wrapped his coat tighter and closed his eyes against the stone wall. "Don't let Old Neil go alone. To cooperate with your actions tonight and stall Roy King, he will definitely use the key to seal that guy surnamed King. The key's backlash doesn't target the spirit body, but humanity. Is he ready?"

Lu Li did not answer. He put the copper sheet into his pocket, turned around, and walked toward the end of the corridor.

Outside the iron railing of the Pumping Station's back door, the night was thick. Just as Lu Li crawled out of the railing, he saw Klein. He was leaning against the brick wall, holding an unactivated paper figurine in his hand, the hem of his trench coat fluttering in the night wind.

"Ince is inside." Lu Li took out the copper sheet and showed it to him. "The backup sigil is already useless. He gave me this—there are three more deleted abandoned anchors on the outskirts of the Chanis Gate, with their coordinates carved on it. We need to flush them with holy water one by one, and the order must not be wrong."

Klein took the copper sheet, glanced at the carving on it by the dim light of the gas streetlamp, and then looked up toward the depths of the Pumping Station. The bell tower of the Saint Selena Cathedral stood silently in the distance, and the bells did not ring—the seal rift had already healed. But he noticed that a very faint ripple still remained on the Gray Fog, continuously spreading outward from some location deep within the Pumping Station. That wasn't a rift, but the spiritual pulse of the key, and its frequency was completely identical to the resonant frequency Old Neil had marked in the potion formula.

"Old Neil has already made his move." He put the copper sheet into his pocket and drew another paper figurine from his sleeve.