novelraw Chapter 191: New Ornaments
Chapter 191: New Ornaments
The turbid waters of the Nile River still flowed slowly within the vortex, only having lost their previous ferocious momentum, becoming heavy and sluggish.
The battle was over.
William was the first to rise from the chaotic water. Silently, he placed the deeply unconscious Ethan over his shoulder, then waded through the waist-deep water, struggling to climb onto the circular island formed of wet sand.
Julian followed closely behind. The French scholar's once-pristine suit lining, soaked by the river water, hung on him like a rag, and the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses were spattered with mud.
He staggered onto the island. Before he could even catch his breath, he heard a tremendous *BOOM* from behind—the sound of a wall cracking and a wooden door being washed away.
A torrent of murky yellow floodwater poured out, instantly submerging another alleyway and spreading with unstoppable force into the deeper, web-like network of lanes within the vast Khan el-Khalili bazaar!
"My God!" Julian's face, which had just regained some color, instantly turned as pale as paper again!
He scrambled and crawled to the edge of the island, craned his neck to look out, and let out a wail of despair.
"We... we flooded the Khan el-Khalili bazaar?!"
He could imagine it: tomorrow morning, when the bleary-eyed shopkeepers pushed open the doors of their shops, still smelling of spices and handicrafts, they would be greeted by a "Venetian" waterscape mixed with sewer filth and ancient Roman aqueduct silt."This is going to be a huge mess..." Julian turned back with a woeful expression to look at Lin Jie, who wore an equally grave face. "How on earth are we going to explain this 'major flood disaster' to Abdul and the Cairo Branch later?"
Listening to Julian's despairing wail, Lin Jie could only helplessly rub his throbbing temples.
His body was utterly exhausted, but he forced himself not to collapse. It wasn't time to rest yet.
They had succeeded.
They had miraculously defeated that sand-beast born of legend.
Now, lying quietly on the damp sand formed from Ammit's "corpse" was their spoils of war.
One was Nephthys, bleeding from all seven orifices and lying unconscious.
This powerful huntress, who had once manipulated them with ease, now lay curled up helplessly in the wet sand, stripped of all threat.
The other was the powerful Grotesque Armament that had automatically detached from her pale arm—the [Scarab's Sanctuary], crafted in ancient Egyptian style from obsidian and gold.
This terrifying vambrace, which had once stirred up a monstrous sandstorm, had now returned to the stillness of an inanimate object after losing its master's control, its dark red surface glow having dimmed.
The four team members, dragging their soaked and utterly exhausted bodies, finally managed this difficult "rendezvous" amidst the battlefield ruins they themselves had created.
After a brief silence and period of catching their breath, William was the first to take action.
The seasoned veteran didn't slack off. He propped the unconscious Ethan against a relatively less-wet sand dune, then retrieved the "spiritual shackles" made of brass from his waterproof equipment bag—specifically designed for restraining dangerous individuals—and efficiently cuffed Nephthys's hands and feet.
Only after completing this did he relax slightly, beginning to carefully check Ethan's faint vital signs.
The moment William placed his fingers on Ethan's carotid artery to assess his condition, the unconscious figure suddenly jerked upright as if resurrected.
His pupils reignited with a terrifying, bloodshot, crazed light.
"The diamond, where is that diamond?!"
Ethan let out a hoarse roar, his voice filled with desperate longing and urgency, like a beast on the brink of death.
Ignoring his teammates' concerned calls, his handsome face twisted. He then stumbled and rushed toward the area where Nephthys lay unconscious, falling heavily to his knees.
With trembling hands, he frantically dug through the cold, damp sand and the pockets of Nephthys's clothes.
Hoping that the next second he would unearth that long-coveted final answer, the one that carried the honor and curse of his family for generations.
Seeing this, William merely frowned but didn't immediately step in to stop him.
He understood. He understood Ethan's feelings at this moment better than anyone.
He understood that complex emotion born of bearing a family's fate and teetering on the edge of life and death for years, only to finally glimpse hope—it was enough to make even the most strong-willed person temporarily lose their reason.
Just as Ethan's fingertips were about to touch Nephthys's tattered collar, a voice tinged with frustration at his stubbornness sounded from behind him.
"Don't waste your effort, my noble sir."
Julian's face showed a look of weary understanding.
"Do you really think those lunatics from the Descendants of Apophis would be stupid enough to casually place a Kingdom-class 'cursed holy relic' on a member serving as bait and a stumbling block?"
Julian's voice wasn't loud, but it was sharp, piercing straight through the bubble of fantasy wrapped in Ethan's desire for vengeance.
Julian adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, spattered with mud, and added mercilessly, "If they actually did that, their so-called 'millennium-old cult' probably wouldn't last a month before we at I.A.R.C. rooted them out completely."
Julian's gaze swept over the unconscious Nephthys and the dulled [Scarab's Sanctuary]. "These are nothing more than discarded pawns they threw out."
Julian's words struck home, each one a blow.
Ethan's frantic digging froze.
Right.
Why hadn't he thought of that?
Because he simply hadn't dared to think it!
He needed a "victory" too badly!
He needed to personally reclaim that cursed diamond too badly, to put a final end to that ridiculous past of his own cowardice and betrayal!
So much so that the sharp judgment befitting an elite hunter had long been burned away by the blazing Inner Demon.
"It seems the psychological trauma left by the tragedy of your father and the death of your close friend is far more severe than you imagined."
Seeing Ethan's utterly dejected state, Julian ultimately couldn't bring himself to say anything more cutting.
He simply sighed softly. "I suggest that after this mission concludes, you should proactively apply to the Association's psychology department for a mental evaluation."
The obsession that had forcibly roused Ethan from unconsciousness was extinguished in this moment, doused by a bucket of cold water from reality.
He knelt powerlessly in the wet sand, his entire person like a broken puppet from which all essence, energy, and spirit had been drained.
"I clearly already won..."
After uttering this final, unwilling murmur, Ethan's body fell backward, unconscious once more.
While the others felt frustrated and helpless at Ethan's actions, Lin Jie, who had been silently observing, crouched down.
His gaze was drawn to a small, inconspicuous object within the pile of wet sand formed from Ammit's "corpse"—something that almost blended into the surrounding silt.
The thing looked like a piece of garbage forgotten by the river of time.
Lin Jie reached out and cautiously picked the small object up from the wet sand.
It was an amulet.
An amulet of ancient design and simple style, shaped like a scarab, carved from an unknown type of dark, heavy wood. Soaked and scoured by the Nile's waters for millennia, this material had developed a jade-like, warm, smooth texture.
The carving on this amulet was crude, possessing a primitive, unadorned simplicity that stood in stark contrast to Nephthys's exquisite vambrace.
It had no ornate decorations;
even the patterns on the scarab's back were blurred, as if it were the clumsy work of some unknown tribal child from before the Pharaohs' era, casually carved with a stone knife.
And yet, it was this seemingly worthless little thing, inferior even to the cheapest tourist souvenir in the Khan el-Khalili market.
The moment Lin Jie's fingertip touched it...
"*Hummm—!*"
A vast, gentle torrent of information, carrying the sedimented weight of the Nile's millennia of history, surged up his finger and flooded into his mind!
[Reverberation Touch] was passively triggered again, without him actively activating it!
Lin Jie's vision went dark.
A rapid succession of memory images belonging to Nephthys flashed before his eyes.
On that dark night, Nephthys and at least five other members of the Descendants of Apophis infiltrated the exhibition hall.
They used a bizarre method to cause all the estate's defensive facilities to fall into a temporary state of disorder.
Nephthys, utilizing her ability to manipulate sand and earth, silently penetrated the heavy foundation and appeared directly inside the exhibition hall, using a massive amount of yellow sand to overwhelm the guards who had noticed.
Then Lin Jie saw the most crucial scene.
After arriving in Egypt, Nephthys and her accomplices held a ritual at a secret stronghold deep in the desert.
They placed the "Tear of Apophis" upon an altar and, using the lives of those seven guards as sacrifice, sent that cursed diamond into the interior of a certain great hall.
Then the memory images gradually blurred.
However, just as these memory images belonging to Nephthys were about to fade, [Reverberation Touch] brushed against a deeper layer of the amulet's "historical rings."
Even older, more indistinct memory fragments, carrying the scent of windblown sand and loneliness, suddenly and abruptly flooded into Lin Jie's mind.
It was no longer Nephthys's perspective. It was a man's perspective!
The perspective of a Caucasian man!
Lin Jie saw a pair of aged, calloused hands, clad in worn leather gloves, tightly gripping this amulet, trudging with great difficulty through the Sahara Desert, baked by the scorching sun into a hellish landscape.
He heard the man, speaking with a German accent, murmuring as if recording something to the empty desert beside him.
"Coordinates confirmed. According to late Ptolemaic-era star charts, the entrance to 'Serapis' should be..."
The image shattered abruptly at that point!
Immediately after, another memory reverberation, consisting only of light, shadow, and sound, surfaced.
This time, Lin Jie saw the amulet as if it were hanging from the waist of some ancient Greek scholar.
He heard the thunderous, ocean-like roar of countless people around him, speaking in ancient Greek with reverence and fanaticism, loudly praising "Alexander the Great."
And before his eyes was the foundation of an immensely grand and enormous library under construction.
All the memory images ceased abruptly at this point.
Lin Jie's eyes snapped open, his mind reeling with shock. "What in the world is this?! The history of this amulet is far older than the Descendants of Apophis cult!"
Before he could share this new discovery with Julian, several faint, warm currents began to seep continuously from the scarab amulet in his hand into his body.
This warm current was nourishing his brain and restoring his mental energy in a slow but effective manner.
A strange expression appeared on Lin Jie's face.