87: Chapter 25 (Final Chapter)

The turmoil at the dock had subsided for several days. That afternoon, Lu Li stepped into the intelligence stronghold deep within the black market and met Abraham, who had been waiting for a long time.

The blonde youth calmly pulled open a drawer, took out a cargo observation record stamped with a private shipping seal and damp with sea salt at the corners, and spread it flat on the mottled wooden table. His slender fingertip tapped lightly on a line of text circled in bold red ink. His tone was steady, but every word carried gravity: "The black sail ship at Storm Cape showed an abnormal change in course a few days ago."

"It did not follow the established route toward the waters near Backlund, but suddenly turned its bow mid-journey, heading straight into the depths of the northwest Fog Sea. The moment the ship turned, its overall externalized spiritual fluctuations surged sharply; the measured intensity was more than double what it was before. The long-distance spiritual observation logs from the maritime Nighthawks patrol can corroborate this: the blood-colored altar sealed at the bottom of the ship has been restarted, and the power supply logic has been completely rewritten—the Aurora Order has thoroughly abandoned the blood sacrifice pulse that relied on the blood of living beings and was shackled by the rhythm of the full moon, turning instead to directly draw upon the eternal, non-dissipating spiritual tide of the Sea of Wraith to power the altar."

"Actively abandoning the blood sacrifice pulse." Lu Li leaned over to pick up the cargo record, his fingertips brushing over the dense spiritual frequency data on the paper, his brows furrowing slightly.

The fluctuation curve of the black sail ship after turning toward the Fog Sea was strange and twisted, highly overlapping with the frequency of the ghost ship's wraith entity that had been destroyed previously, nearly originating from the same source.

Abraham picked up the cold black coffee on the table, nodded slightly, and added key intelligence: "The black sail ship anchored at the boundary of the Sea of Wraith for two full days, and after completing the adaptation to the tidal energy, it set sail again. The latest route points directly to the lower reaches of the Hoi River in Backlund. At its sailing speed, it will arrive at the Old Wharf waters within five days. Compared to the blood sacrifice pulse, the maritime spiritual tide has huge advantages; it is not restricted by moon phases or the number of living sacrifices, and its stability is extremely high. It can awaken and activate spare runes in batches at any time. This time when the black sail ship docks, what the Aurora Order intends to transport is definitely not just scattered rune fragments, but a whole ship of materialized wraith puppets formed through tidal power."

Lu Li closed the record book and handed it back to Abraham, a trace of coldness flashing in his eyes: "Within the black market, the remnants of the Aurora Order are still lurking. Help me keep a close eye on all the support personnel, focusing on investigating the middlemen connecting the underground black market with the Dock District. Once the black sail ship approaches, the first to show their heads and the first to act will inevitably be these pawns responsible for liaison."

Leaving the black market stronghold on Water Pump Street, the cold river wind, carrying the smell of rust and the fishy scent of river water, rushed toward him. Lu Li detoured to the open-air second-hand market in the River Bay District, and in front of rows of stacked old furniture and yellowed ancient book stalls, he ran into Sherlock Moriarty.

The man was crouching in the corner in front of the old book stall, the hem of his black coat trailing and getting stained with dust. His fingertips were gently stroking a handwritten logbook with a damaged leather cover and the pattern of the Fog Sea printed on it. Hearing footsteps, he looked up at Lu Li, calmly closed the book, tucked it under his arm, and stood up.

"The black sail ship at Storm Cape has changed course to the Fog Sea, drawing upon the spiritual tide of the Sea of Wraith to rewrite the altar's power supply, and is about to return to Backlund." Lu Li got straight to the point, stating all the intelligence directly.

Sherlock's eyes were indifferent as he exposed the entire layout of the Aurora Order with one sentence: "From the very beginning, that ghost ship wandering near the coast was just a tool to test the waters. The Aurora Order used the ghost ship to repeatedly test the rules of the wraith origin and verify the feasibility of adapting tidal energy to spare runes. Now that the test is complete, they have directly modified the blood altar on the black sail ship, turning the entire ship into a mobile, infinitely enduring tidal power source."

He looked up at the misty surface of the Hoi River in the distance, his tone adding a bit of caution: "The warning runes we pre-buried in the Dock District are stable enough for individual wraiths and small ghost ships, but when facing a black sail ship carrying the tidal power of the entire sea, the warning range and spiritual resistance will both be insufficient."

"I will adjust the deployment." Lu Li immediately finalized the plan, "Notify the Mandated Punishers squad to increase water patrols in the lower reaches of the Hoi River during the night low tide period. During low tide, the spirituality in the river channel is thin, which is most suitable for the secret landing of wraith puppets. I will add another batch of passive warning runes to extend the warning boundary from the Old Wharf pier to the underground drainage pipe maintenance access connecting the River Bay District to the East Borough, blocking all secret landing channels."

"Leave this matter to me." Sherlock's tone was firm, "I was recently commissioned by the Geological Research Institute to finish the filing work for a batch of cross-border ore shipments. I can just use the excuse of assisting the church in checking for abnormal spiritual fluctuations in the port area to go to the Nighthawks outpost in the River Bay District to coordinate and finalize the patrol scheduling."

The two parted ways at the corner of the second-hand market and headed off to their respective deployments.

Over the next few days, Backlund was overcast and rainy, with the daylight dim and oppressive. While Lu Li undertook low-risk missing person and source-tracing commissions in the black market to earn money for daily maintenance and the purchase of spiritual materials, he also went into seclusion to activate the rune fragments gifted by Vera of the Secret Order. The material of these fragments was special; they could attach to bricks, stones, and vegetation to hide their aura and would not be detected by high-level spirituality. Lu Li buried them in batches at key points such as the pier enclosure, river bridge piers, and drainage interlayer, laying down a passive tracking and warning network with full-area linkage.

At the same time, Old Eye sent precise intelligence through the old bookstore: The liaison middleman connecting the black market and the Aurora Order forces at the dock was a regular employee of an inland shipping company in the port area, named Cohen. This person had no extraordinary aptitude and did not belong to the core circle of the Aurora Order; he was only responsible for receiving secret marks left by Aurora Order messengers and passing on landing and support orders. His identity was ordinary, his actions were cautious, and his vigilance was far lower than that of high-level believers, making him the easiest to expose flaws.

After figuring out the cards, Lu Li, using the anonymous identity of "Traveler," released a half-true, half-false piece of "intelligence" in the black market: A batch of serpentine raw stone fragments with ancient inscriptions of the Antigonus Family had been excavated at the construction site of the Old Wharf.

This intelligence circulated layer by layer and successfully reached Cohen's ears. Relics related to the Antigonus Family were of extremely high value, enough to stir the greed of this low-level liaison. Late the next night, with the night as thick as ink, Cohen sneaked into the Old Wharf construction area alone, rummaging through the construction waste pile by the dim light of a kerosene lamp, single-mindedly wanting to embezzle the raw stones for profit.

Lu Li was hidden in the shadows of the dock steel frame and did not disturb him throughout the process. After Cohen left with a guilty conscience, he slowly walked to the waste pile. Before leaving, the other party had indeed taken a piece of ordinary serpentine that had been swapped in advance, with a rune tracking mark attached to its surface. The mark was invisible to the naked eye and relied on spiritual binding. From then on, Cohen's whereabouts, contacts, and trajectories of entering and leaving the port area would be captured in real-time by the full-area warning runes.

On the other side, after finishing the patrol coordination work at the church outpost, Sherlock followed regulations and went to the inland shipping company involved to organize and file the cross-border ore transport logs of the Geological Research Institute. While flipping through the old sailing logs that had been sealed for several months, a dusty clue suddenly emerged: A batch of rare ore samples transported back from the Southern Continent for research by the Geological Department of Backlund University months ago had been swapped during a stop at the Old Wharf. The timing of the cargo ship's stop happened to coincide with the theft of the serpentine fragments and the spiritual anomalies in the port area.

This clue perfectly matched the cross-border ore logs that Old Eye had previously handed to him, completely connecting the scattered cases of the past: the serpentine theft, the ore swapping, and the Aurora Order's layout in the port area were all part of the same chain of layout. Now that the black sail ship was about to dock, this abandoned and modified Old Wharf was still the core channel for the Aurora Order to secretly transport extraordinary items and wraith puppets. The whereabouts of the swapped ore was the key breakthrough to piercing through their layout.

In the evening, the rain eased, and twilight dyed the streets and alleys. Lu Li and Sherlock met as agreed at Old Eye's retro old bookstore, the warm yellow kerosene lamp light covering the tabletop.

Sherlock spoke first, clearly explaining the old clues about the ore swapping and the patrol scheduling results of the Nighthawks outpost; Lu Li simultaneously explained the progress of Cohen being drawn by the bait, taking away the tracking raw stone, and the completion of the full-area warning rune deployment. The two pieces of intelligence corroborated each other, the fragmented cases of the past were completely closed, and the Aurora Order's plan to rely on the Old Wharf to support the black sail ship was already clear and understood.

With the intelligence finalized, Lu Li stood up and bid farewell to the bookstore, returning once again to the dock area to keep a close eye on the next contact movement between the liaison Cohen and the Aurora Order messenger.

The sky over Backlund was always covered with thick gray clouds, the water mist in the lower reaches of the Hoi River surged, and the river surface shimmered with a dead, blue-gray color. On the iron notice board in the Old Wharf construction area, someone had drawn a stick-figure black sail ship with ferocious lines in white chalk, and next to the ship, a line of crooked words was written: "See you next full moon."

Lu Li passed by the notice board, his footsteps paused slightly, he raised his hand to brush over the board, wiping away the provocative chalk writing and the stick-figure ship shadow completely.

The wind on the river grew stronger, and the cold, chilling breath unique to sea salt and wraiths had already drifted into the city along the river channel.

The black sail ship had not yet docked, but the storm sweeping through the entire port area was already close at hand.