novelraw Chapter 658: It Must Be Destroyed
Chapter 658: It Must Be Destroyed
In the silent dead of night, the tolling of bells suddenly echoed from the anomaly detector.
Lu Li awoke from his sleep to find Anna leaning over him.
“It’s here. Don’t move,” Anna whispered, feeling a grim energy, like a creeping fog, wash over them.
The sensation reminded Anna of the second Calamity, the one that lurked in the darkness.
The shelter couldn't stop the evil spirit. A dark, intangible energy seeped through the stone walls and the Deep Sea Stone, filling the safe space.
The tolling of the bells from the anomaly detector continued—it wouldn't stop until the Third Calamity receded.
Anna turned down the volume, silently standing guard over Lu Li, whose breathing remained even, as if he were still asleep.
The grim energy flowed through the silence, broken only by the occasional howl of the sea wind in the chimney.
Time stretched on, agonizingly slow. After a long wait, the grim energy began to dissipate.
The tolling of the bells faded as the Third Calamity retreated. Anna waited a few more minutes, making sure it was completely gone.“It’s gone.”
This time, it had only lasted about ten minutes, consistent with reports from other cities.
“Is it like the Plant Calamity and the Night Calamity?” Lu Li asked as he sat up. “You were still able to use your powers within its influence.”
...
Silence had retreated.
Khimfast’s deputy mayor, Didiar Harlowen, his aide, envoys from other cities, and several exorcists were walking along the wooden wall.
“Why are some of the bonfires out?” Didiar Harlowen peered into the misty distance where the wooden wall disappeared into the haze, the remaining fires staining the vapor a crimson red. But in some places, darkness reigned—the bonfires were extinguished.
“That’s the Shadow Stealing Fire,” an exorcist from his retinue answered.
Didiar and the envoys turned in surprise. “Other evil spirits are active during Silence?”
“Apparently.”
Silence posed an even greater threat. Humans were forced into silence, but that was no obstacle for anomalies.
What could be more terrifying than an anomaly attacking the very moment Silence descended?
“The Night Calamity, the anomalous fog, Silence, and the creatures that roam the darkness and the mist...” muttered an envoy from a southern city on the Main Continent, tears streaming down the wrinkles of his aged face. “Is there any future for us...?”
The exorcist didn’t answer right away. He raised his gaze to the crimson haze in the east, as if the dawn were breaking there.
“There has to be.”
...
The morning bell rang out over the hill.
Soon, the doors of the small houses at the foot of the hill began to open. The residents of the underground shelter emerged in groups, heading toward the open-air dining hall for breakfast.
The menu still consisted of mashed potatoes, black bread, and meat broth. In response to complaints about the monotonous food, Roko, who was pushing a cart, explained that the shelter’s management was planning to diversify the diet by adding fish salad and other dishes.
“That sounds unappetizing,” Eileen grimaced from her wheelchair, her chin sinking into her neck.
“Fishcakes are popular in Khimfast,” Lulu, her butler, who read the papers daily, informed the baroness. “It’s a mixture of minced fish and mashed potatoes, fried into patties.”
“And fish salad?” Eileen asked. “Raw fish with sauce?”
“Perhaps a local invention of the shelter.”
Eileen scowled—she wouldn’t be eating that. She might ask for a portion for Lulu, just to see what it tasted like.
Tesla approached the dining hall. He looked better than he had a few days ago—his beard was neatly trimmed.
Taking a newspaper from the “paperboy,” he glanced at the headlines, and his expression darkened.
“No letter from your wife today?” Eileen teased, taking her own newspaper from Lulu.
“Something else,” Tesla replied grimly. “Silence has reached Khimfast.”
As the newspapers circulated through the dining hall, exclamations broke out:
“Good heavens...”
“My family is still there!”
“Khimfast was prepared, everything will be all right...”
“It was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it?” Eileen paused, then set down her newspaper. “Lu Li is clever; he knows how to avoid danger. And as for your wife... there’s no need to worry about her at all.”
“That’s not the point,” Tesla said, shaking his head. He trusted in Lu Li’s abilities, certain he would decipher the hidden message in the letter. “Silence is more terrifying than the other Calamities because it is aimed specifically at us, at our future...”
“Children,” Lulu uttered suddenly.
Tesla’s face grew grim. “Yes. A three- or four-year-old child might understand the need to be quiet. But infants... they can’t.”
They will almost certainly not survive two or three years under the oppression of Silence.
Even if the anomalies were to stop their advance, humanity would die out—from the inability to procreate.
Only the shelter... a pure place where no anomaly can penetrate.
“But we know the location of Silence, don’t we?” Eileen declared resolutely. “Any price is better than the extinction of humanity on the surface. If humans can’t get close, why not send anomalies that are friendly to us?”
“It’s not that simple.”
As an investigator, Tesla understood the hidden meaning behind the news better than an ordinary person.
“Silence is indifferent to anomalies hunting within its domain... but what if something were to approach its vulnerable core?”
No evil spirit would allow another being to get near its core.
...
“Is there really no other way?”
The exorcist hurried after his superior.
After the squad sent to fight the Third Calamity was wiped out, command of the city fell to Keylan Fast of the Night’s Watch of True Vision.
Alas, all the experienced fighters had died on the expedition; only dedicated, low-ranking exorcists remained in the city.
“For example... using bows to shoot from a distance...”
“An arrow won’t take out that monster’s core, but you’ve given me an idea,” Keylan Fast said without turning. He entered the headquarters, taking shelter from the sandy wind, and walked over to the sand table in the center of the room.
The exorcist who followed him in closed the door, spat out some sand, and approached. “You have a solution?”
“The oasis... and the old riverbed...” His rough finger traced a line on the map along the old riverbed, past the oasis where the core was located. “Contact the Main Continent and the Lennon Archipelago. Have them send their warships with the longest range!”
...
“But... she’s too old. It would take at least a month to repair her,” the curator of the Lennon Archipelago’s Maritime Museum said dejectedly.
“What if we go without repairs?” Captain Manik Pa, a man with a thick beard, entered the captain’s cabin, his gaze sweeping over the room with the tenderness one reserves for a lover.
“She might not come back,” the curator sighed.
“Then she won’t. We can’t allow the fate of humanity to stall here.”
Manik Pa clenched his fist and slammed it down on the ship's wheel.
“Weigh anchor!”