192: Chapter 192 The Crow Lantern Falls into the Sea

Bai Ya was exceptionally annoyed by the current deathly silence.

It was not the quiet of a deserted late night, but rather the fact that everything around was clearly functioning, yet all the sounds that should have been echoing had vanished into thin air.

The Patrol Crow Lamp hung from his fingers, its wick wrapped in a ring of black-feathered flames. In the past, with just a thought, the raven shadows would spread their wings and scatter, their noisy cawing filling the entire port area; but now, the raven shadows remained, their wings intact, yet it was as if an invisible hand had gripped their throats, preventing them from letting out even the slightest chirp.

They could not fly very far.

Once they were more than three meters away from the Fire Beacon, the edges of their wings would be eroded inch by inch by fine black patterns.

"Probe a bit further ahead," Bai Ya ordered in a low voice.

The first raven shadow flapped its wings and rushed out of the windowsill, passing through the salty, humid sea breeze of the Linhai Port Area, skimming over the Guardian Lamp Fire Beacon on the hospital roof, crossing the long-since sealed Seventh Pier, and following the grey-black anomalous trajectory, diving straight toward the sea surface.

Ten seconds passed in a flash, and the raven shadow disintegrated inch by inch in mid-air.

A charred feather filament drifted down from the Patrol Crow Lamp. Bai Ya gently twisted it open with his fingertips; between the feather filaments seeped tiny water droplets, and inside the droplets was wrapped half a child's cry.

The cry only drifted out for half a sentence before being completely cut off.

He collected the charred feather into a sealed storage bag, his expression cold and grim.

"It's not just simply taking away sounds. It is intercepting human voices to create signposts to lure the living."

Tide stood to the side, crumpling the yellowed Linhai old Tide level record sheet in her hand. Upon hearing this, her heart tightened: "So you mean, as long as someone calls for help, it will snatch that voice away and lure others to follow the sound into a trap?"

"Pretty much."

"Truly vicious."

Bai Ya glanced at her sideways: "Your summary is precise and on point."

Tide was in no mood to banter with him. The sea breeze blowing from the Distant Sea was deathly silent, without even the slightest sound of waves crashing against the shore. As someone who had worked night shifts at the port for years, she knew that the ocean would never be completely silent.

There was only one possibility—the entire sea area had been gripped by this silent old law, holding its breath.

The second raven shadow changed direction, circling toward the abandoned old Clock Tower deep in the pier.

The building originally housed a century-old clock that had stopped working years ago. Because the cost of removal during urban renovation was too high, the walls were simply sealed off and left as is. Bai Ya had reviewed the old city archives; the last time this clock had chimed was on the night of the super typhoon that swept through the port area over thirty years ago.

Just as the raven shadow neared the Clock Tower wall, the Patrol Crow Lamp suddenly turned cold, and the real-time image was projected into Bai Ya's eyes.

The inside of the Clock Tower was empty.

It wasn't that the clock was damaged, but that the entire bronze bell had vanished into thin air.

The wall only left a huge circular indentation, as if someone had forcibly gouged the bronze bell out of the wall, scraping away even the slightest lingering echo. Below the indentation, a white paper, dampened by seawater, was nailed to the wall with blurred handwriting: [Those who hear the bell, do not look back.]

Before Bai Ya could examine it closely, a hand suddenly reached out from thin air behind the raven shadow.

The hand was wearing an old-fashioned white glove, the knuckles long and pale, as if it had been soaked in the deep sea for a long time. Two slender fingertips pinched lightly, precisely locking onto the raven shadow's beak.

"Snap—"

The light of the Patrol Crow Lamp dimmed significantly all of a sudden.

Bai Ya staggered back half a step, a trace of blood slowly sliding down the side of his nose.

Tide's heart tightened, and she quickly stepped forward: "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Bai Ya raised his hand to wipe away the blood casually, his voice remaining steady.

"You call a nosebleed 'fine'?"

"As long as I'm still alive, it doesn't count as an incident."

In the communication channel, Shen Qinghe's voice came through at the right moment: "Did you capture its tracks?"

Bai Ya transmitted the image of the white glove back to the Grey Net database.

"Only managed to capture half of it."

Zero immediately linked and compared the Linhai old city archives, the remaining traces on the Clockless Shore, and the intelligence from the Rhine Line, and a line of cold text popped up. [Target Identification: Clock Collector.] [Identity: Executor of the old law.] [Plunder Priority: Bell chimes, ringtones, alarms, cries for help, and all warning System sounds.]

Bai Ya let out a low scoff.

"It certainly knows tactics; it disables all early warning channels before starting the war."

Inside Xinhuo Hall, Lu Chen quietly stared at the transmitted image, not saying a word.

The Clock Collector had no intention of wantonly slaughtering the living.

It only needed to plunder all the sounds in the city that could warn of danger, summon support, or allow people to echo each other, and it could directly dismantle the coordinated dispatch that Torch relied on.

This strike was never aimed at any single powerhouse like Zhao Ye or Shen Qinghe.

What it wanted to crush was the firm belief in everyone's hearts that "Torch will definitely come."

At the Qinghe Safe House, Tang Zhiwei had already urgently replaced the entire dispatch plan.

"Stop using voice communication across the board; use text for confirmation. All field vehicles must keep their hazard lights on throughout the journey and transmit live photos upon arriving at the location. Abandon audio recognition for access control and only look at light color codes. In areas where alarms are disabled, install red warning patches everywhere."

She spoke extremely fast, her fingertips pressing hard against her headset. The headset had long since lost its background static, and it was terrifyingly silent. She frowned and took off the headset, throwing it onto the table.

"Chen Jue, go downstairs and move all the spare handheld Guardian Lamps up here."

Chen Jue grabbed his jacket and was about to rush out, but Lin Zhao quickly stepped forward to stop him.

"Take two people with you."

"I know what I'm doing."

"Knowing what you're doing and actually being prepared are two different things."

Chen Jue gritted his teeth, turned back to call two collaborators, and went downstairs together to move the supplies.

Bai Ya watched as the third raven shadow completely disintegrated on the sea surface, and a faint tapping sound suddenly drifted from the wick.

It wasn't a bell chime, but the sound of knuckles tapping lightly against glass.

Three taps, a brief pause, then three more.

Tide's face turned pale instantly.

"This is an old-fashioned maritime distress signal from the port area."

"Which area does it correspond to?"

"Directly below the old Clock Tower." Her voice was tight. "That area was permanently sealed off years ago; no one can enter."

Bai Ya firmly held the Patrol Crow Lamp in his palm.

"A dead end that was supposedly sealed off, yet at this moment, someone is inside knocking on the door for help."

Beneath the dark silhouette of the distant old Clock Tower, a faint light that shouldn't have existed suddenly flared for an instant.

A figure stood under the light.

It wore a long black formal suit and pure white gloves, holding a small bronze box in its hand.

It slowly raised its head. Its face was smooth with no features, no lips, yet a cold, flat voice resonated simultaneously across the three cities through the Fire Seal on everyone's palms. [Hand over the bell.]

Bai Ya no longer let the raven shadows rush to the sea.

He urged the third raven shadow to drill into the abandoned old inpatient building of Linhai Hospital.

The nurse station had always had a call bell, ringing every night for decades; when a patient pressed the bell, a nurse would arrive in time to care for them. Now, the bell body was intact, and although the indicator light could light up when the button was pressed, it couldn't emit a single warning sound.

The raven shadow landed beside the bell box. On the hospital bed, a little girl reached out and pressed the button over and over again. Her mother was fast asleep by the bedside, her face full of exhaustion. The child did not understand the silent catastrophe outside, whispering: "Why hasn't the nurse sister come yet..."

Her voice was so soft that it was almost swallowed by the entire deathly silence.

Bai Ya watched this scene quietly through the raven shadow, his chest feeling inexplicably tight.

The Patrol Crow Lamp was never a sharp blade for eliminating anomalies, nor was it a suppression bell for suppressing the old law. It was just a pair of eyes, helping him see countless dark corners that no one noticed. But often, witnessing powerless, fragmented suffering with his own eyes was far more agonizing than fighting head-on.

He controlled the raven shadow to stop beside the call bell and used the spark to peck the indicator light three times gently.

The light flashed three times in succession.

The nurse on duty looked up, and a line of pale white text appeared out of thin air on the clipboard on the table: [Patient in bed number three needs care.]

The nurse immediately hurried toward the ward.

Bai Ya withdrew his gaze, his expression even worse than when he suffered the backlash earlier.

"Dealing with this thing, brute force alone won't work," he said in a low voice. "What it stole is the connection of mutual care between people in the entire city."

Tide softly agreed: "Then we will take these connections back one by one."

Bai Ya looked at her sideways.

"You make it sound as simple as moving bricks."

"It is a job of moving bricks, after all," Tide said, looking at the silent port outside the window. "In the past, when maintaining the port's beacons, we also repaired them one by one."

Bai Ya marked this footage of the hospital as [Low Threat, High Lethality Risk].

Most anomalies never need to tear through floors or summon monsters from the Wilderness; simply cutting off a bell, a horn, or a cry for help is enough for daily order to collapse on its own, breeding countless casualties.

In the past, he was always obsessed with investigating the big fish behind the scenes—smuggling guides, Wilderness deliverers, and the source of the old law hidden in the dark. But after taking charge of the Patrol Crow Lamp, he was forced to see countless tiny loopholes. These loopholes were inconspicuous, yet they were enough to silently take lives.

Bai Ya felt annoyed.

From now on, he couldn't just stare at the most dangerous giant black shadows; he also had to take care of those small corners where no one stopped or paid attention.

Tide saw through the weariness in his heart and fished out a mint candy from her pocket, tossing it to him.

"Leftover from Master He's supply pack."

Bai Ya caught the candy without opening it.

"Consider this a disguised bribe?"

"It's a reminder," Tide said in a serious tone. "Don't fall."