179: Chapter 179 The Shadow of Crows Enters the Shore

Zhao Ye moved with extreme speed.

Under the Old Lighthouse in Linhai, no sooner had the hidden lines of the Black Shore been marked by Bai Ya than he had already stepped into the Suppression Domain.

The air suddenly sank, and the whistling sea breeze felt as if it had been gripped by an invisible hand, its very sound stifled by half.

Tide stood behind him, clutching the Tide gauge, her eyes fixed intently on the jumping values, her knuckles turning white.

"It's still rising."

Zhao Ye didn't turn back: "How much has the Tide level risen?"

"The actual Tide level hasn't moved."

"Speak plainly."

"It's the Black Shore that's rising." Tide gritted her teeth, her voice tight. "It's not overflowing from the sea surface; it's seeping out from beneath the shadow of the lamp."

Zhao Ye looked down.

The firelight from the Old Lighthouse cast onto the ground, making the shadows so faint they were almost invisible. Yet, right at the edge of the shadow, tiny specks of black water were seeping out, like ink dripping into clear water.

The stone steps left behind by the Lamp-less Emissary were no longer extending toward the sea; instead, they were growing in reverse, climbing upward step by step, pointing straight toward the interior of the lighthouse.

It was trying to drill into the city from the shadow of the lamp.

Zhao Ye let out a low laugh, tinged with a hint of ruthlessness.

"Fine then."

He raised his hand, and the path of the Evil Suppressor settled heavily within him.

There were no boundary-suppressing nails, no new law instruments, only the solid, hard-won confidence he had ground out through time and again of weathering Old Objects, the Night Bus, the Tide-Reversal Bureau, and the Court of No Return.

The Suppression Domain fully expanded.

The surging black water suddenly came to a halt.

It only stopped for three seconds.

Three seconds were enough for Bai Ya's crow shadow to rush into the carriage.

Deep beneath the Jiangbei Liuqiao Old Station, the moment the gray-Bai Ya shadow drilled into the lamp-less carriage, Bai Ya's vision suddenly went black.

He saw that the carriage was full of people.

They were not passengers.

They were individual standing lamp shadows.

Each person held an extinguished old lamp in their arms, heads bowed, every face covered in thick black salt, obscuring their features like half-formed clay sculptures.

In the front row sat Deputy Captain He Yuan's shadow shell, the worn-white Shore Keeper badge pinned to his chest, his posture identical to when he was guarding the lamp for the last time.

Bai Ya knew this was fake.

But even the fake could sting.

The Black Shore hadn't obtained Deputy Captain He Yuan's true name, but from the sea area where he died and that old lamp, it had scraped off a layer of residual shadow and hung it here, just waiting for someone from Torch to have a moment of weakness.

"Truly disgusting." Bai Ya cursed under his breath.

All the shadow shells in the carriage raised their heads simultaneously.

Countless featureless faces turned in unison toward that tiny crow shadow.

The next instant, all the extinguished lamps ignited with black fire simultaneously.

Bai Ya felt a stinging pain in his left eye, as if it had been forcefully doused with concentrated salt water. He gritted his teeth and forced the crow shadow to charge into the depths of the carriage.

The target was not Deputy Captain He Yuan's shadow shell.

It was the lamp hanging at the end of the carriage.

Tied to the lamp cord was a tiny black feather bell, with a line of text engraved on its body, identical to the carvings on the stone steps: [Those who light the lamp wrongly, summon the Tide.]

This thing was the connection point between the Black Shore and the carriage.

Just as Bai Ya was about to control the crow shadow to peck and shatter the bell, Deputy Captain He Yuan's shadow shell suddenly spoke.

"Bai Ya."

The voice was too similar.

Similar to the bone.

Before Deputy Captain He Yuan died, he had said to him: "You young people, you light the lamps too brightly, but you must also remember who is blocking the wind for you."

Now, this shadow shell used the exact same tone and said softly: "I'm cold."

Bai Ya's fingertips suddenly paused.

It wasn't that he believed it.

It was just that when a person hears a familiar deceased person call out that they are cold, the body always feels a dull pain before the mind does.

The Patrol Crow Lamp in his palm dimmed suddenly.

In the Old Lighthouse, Shen Qinghe raised her hand and pressed it onto his shoulder, her voice steady: "Bai Ya."

Bai Ya closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his voice was terribly hoarse, yet there was no trace of wavering.

"Deputy Captain He Yuan is already on the record."

"You are not him."

The crow shadow lunged forward, its sharp beak pecking fiercely at the black feather bell.

The sound of the bell exploded.

It wasn't a crisp ringing, but a dull roar, like hundreds of thousands of lamps falling into the water simultaneously.

The lamp-less carriage in Jiangbei began to crack from the edges.

Under the Linhai lighthouse, the seeping black water suddenly rolled back, the impact forcing Zhao Ye to take half a step back, his shoe soles scraping two deep white marks on the stone ground.

Tide rushed over to support him, but was stopped by his raised hand.

"Don't come over, the ground is dirty."

Tide looked down and saw scattered, fine black salt on the ground, along with fragments of broken lamp shadows, like crushed paper flowers.

At the end of the stone steps, the Lamp-less Emissary re-emerged.

This time, there was a thin, deep crack on its blank face, like a scar pecked out by the crow shadow.

"Patrol Lamp-bearer." It spoke, its voice still like the Tide grinding against reefs.

Bai Ya's crow shadow re-condensed in front of it, most of its feathers missing, looking as if they had been burned by fire, yet it still stood very steadily.

"Here." Bai Ya spoke through the crow shadow, his tone very calm.

The Lamp-less Emissary lifted the extinguished lamp in its hand, and the black salt inside the lamp shade surged violently.

"You light the lamp, and you will attract more of the Shore."

"If I don't light the lamp." Bai Ya let out a laugh, tinged with sarcasm, "Does the Shore cease to exist?"

The Lamp-less Emissary fell silent.

Bai Ya's voice grew colder: "Then what are you afraid of?"

As his words fell, the crow shadow suddenly dispersed, transforming into seven gray-white sparks. They didn't rise, but instead sank straight toward the ground, like seven nails driven into the darkness, landing separately on the seven black salt residue points in Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai.

Not illuminating the sea surface. But illuminating the underground.

The reminder from the Starry Sky before had finally come in handy.

The seven sparks sank deep into the soil, illuminating the cold, damp branch lines hidden by the Black Shore beneath the city—they were like rotten fish bones, intertwined and buried in pipeline networks, old cable wells, abandoned subway lines, and drainage ditches, spreading silently into the city.

Tang Zhiwei instantly took over coordination, issuing orders one after another, crisp and efficient.

"Seal the Qinghe No. 3 drainage well immediately! Cut off the power on the west side of the Jiangbei Old Station! Everyone on the Linhai North Shore retreat two hundred meters—Tyrannosaurus King, go drag away that abandoned car blocking the road."

Tyrannosaurus King's voice exploded in the channel: "Why is it me again?!"

Tang Zhiwei's tone was flat: "Your vehicle is big."

"What a perfunctory compliment."

Complaining as he spoke, the roar of the engine had already started.

In Xinhuo Hall, the gray-black dark lines below the three-city fire map were illuminated by the sparks, revealing the seven weakest nodes.

Lu Chen raised his hand.

The Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow trembled gently deep within the Fire Map.

It wasn't the complete sound of a bell, but just the third reverberation, light as if it were drifting from a very distant place, yet in an instant, it sank into every fire point, like an invisible bell, steadily covering the seven weak points.

Zero's prompt quietly surfaced.

[Unknown Bell Law reverberation stability increased.]

[Currently capable of bearing: One active Law Suppression.]

Lu Chen didn't give it a name.

Nor was he in a hurry to ask about its origin.

He simply raised his hand and let that single active Law Suppression fall steadily into place.

The seven Black Shore branch lines came to a halt simultaneously.

Bai Ya seized this half-breath gap, and all the patrol crow shadows lunged down in unison.

Beneath the sea surface and deep within the soil, it was as if a flock of gray crows had opened their eyes in the darkness simultaneously.

The moment the black fire in the Jiangbei carriage lit up, the pressure on Lin Zhao's side suddenly doubled.

Several affected civilians outside the yellow line stepped forward simultaneously, as if pulled by the same thread, their eyes staring blankly.

Lin Zhao pushed the Guardian Lamp device to its limit, the wall of fire as thin as a sheet of paper, ready to shatter at any moment.

He gritted his teeth and shouted: "Chen Jue, the right side!"

Chen Jue immediately lunged over, the return line rope wrapping around a woman's wrist, forcefully pulling her back.

The woman cried, shouting that her husband was on the train.

Chen Jue didn't say "He is no longer here," but just gripped the rope and said in a low voice: "You must stay alive first, so that he will have someone to remember him."

Under the Linhai lighthouse, cracks began to appear at the edge of Zhao Ye's Suppression Domain, like a net repeatedly rammed by a school of fish.

It wasn't that he couldn't hold on, but that there were too many dark lines, as thin as needles, specifically drilling into the gaps.

He stepped and crushed a section of the growing stone steps, but the next section immediately emerged from the shadow of the lamp.

Zhao Ye cursed, veins bulging on his forehead.

Tide wanted him to retreat, but he turned back and roared: "Report the numbers! Don't stop!"

Tide gritted her teeth and continued to read the Tide levels and report the changes in the dark lines, her voice, which had been trembling at the beginning, slowly becoming steadier and steadier.

When Bai Ya controlled the crow shadow to rush past Deputy Captain He Yuan's shadow shell, he knew clearly in his heart that the Patrol Crow Lamp had almost been swept into the black fire just now.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen dead people, nor was it the first time he had been baited by an anomaly using the voice of an acquaintance.

But people like Deputy Captain He Yuan were the hardest to guard against.

He was not dazzling, not powerful, not like the heroes written in books, just holding an old lamp, forcefully blocking the Black Shore for an entire night.

When such a person speaks up and says they are cold, anyone's heart would skip a beat.

When the reverberation of the Law-Suppressing Bell Shadow fell, a thin cut was jarred open on Lu Chen's fingertip.

As soon as the blood appeared, it was burned away completely by the Purifying Flame at his side.

The three-city fire map sank downward simultaneously, and all the fire points in Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai were steadily covered by an invisible bell.

The sound of the bell wasn't loud, not even complete, yet it caused the wildly growing Black Shore branch lines to hesitate for the first time.