20: Chapter 20 The Probing in the Gray Fog

On the door of the office at the end of the corridor on the second floor of Blackthorn Security Company hung a plaque framed in brass—"Captain's Office."

There was a shallow scratch on the paint below the plaque, caused by stone debris ejected by a shockwave during an accidental containment breach of a Sealed Artifact last year.

Dunn had not let anyone repaint it; he said keeping the scratch served as a reminder to himself: "Danger never comes from the direction you expect."

At this moment, Dunn was sitting at the desk behind this scratch, with two documents spread out before him.

On the left was the "Investigation Report of the Iron Cross Street Underground Channel Secret Room" submitted by Klein Moretti, and on the right was the "Action Log and Evidence List of the Underground Channel Secret Room" submitted by Lu Li.

The two reports described the same secret room, but from completely different perspectives.

Klein's report focused on the data of spiritual fluctuations remaining at the scene, the geometric structure analysis of the array, and the preliminary identification results of the scale samples.

He used a writing style akin to an academic paper—every piece of data was marked with measurement time and environmental conditions, and every inference was followed by a parenthesis containing the note "This conclusion awaits further verification."

Dunn had been a Nighthawk for over a decade and had seen countless field reports, but Klein was the first newcomer to write a report as neatly as a university thesis.

Lu Li's report was of a different style.

He recorded in detail the twelve-pointed star structure carved by the cultists, the destroyed sealed charms in The Dark Channel, and his experience of having his memories flipped in the secret room.

The writing style was concise, so concise that it almost deliberately omitted certain details—such as what Pathway characteristic the fragment he used to resist the memory flipping belonged to, or why the wings of the moth he brought out of The Dark Channel after the illusion ended had eyes on them.

Dunn noticed these gaps but did not mark them with question marks.

He understood that "unlicensed Beyonders" would have secrets.

As long as these secrets did not become threats during missions, he was willing to extend his trust.

These two reports, placed together, painted the most complete picture of the Underground Channel Secret Room incident.

But Dunn's mind was not on the reports themselves at this moment.

There was a third document on his desk—an encrypted telegram from the Nighthawks' internal review committee. The content was only one sentence: "It has been confirmed that Ince Zangwill was last sighted near the Old Wharf in the East Borough of Tingen City, approximately three hours before The Dark Channel incident occurred. Multiple remnants of Antigonus sealing structures were found in the area. It is recommended that the Tingen team immediately conduct a spiritual re-examination of all members who participated in The Dark Channel operation."

Ince Zangwill.

This name was like a fishbone stuck in his throat, unable to be spat out or swallowed.

He had served in the Tingen team for fifteen years and was one of the teammates Dunn trusted most, as well as the only backup person in charge of the containment maintenance work at the Chanis Gate alongside Old Neil.

After he defected, all the containment nodes he had handled became potential ticking time bombs.

The scale samples Klein collected in the Underground Channel Secret Room had already been analyzed by Old Neil—the samples contained trace amounts of Fourth Epoch noble bloodline remnants, which had a certain "unconfirmed but impossible to rule out correlation" with the blood sample record Ince submitted during his onboarding medical examination.

Dunn rubbed his brow, closed the three documents, took a small copper whistle from the drawer, and blew it.

The frequency of the whistle was specially modulated, and only Nighthawks wearing the same copper whistle could receive it on a spiritual level.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the office door.

It was Klein who entered.

He was wearing the standard dark gray trench coat of the Nighthawks, the buttons at his cuffs done up meticulously.

His black hair was slightly disheveled by the draft in the corridor, but his eyes were clear, and his breathing was steady; he had clearly rested well last night.

Dunn gestured for him to sit down, then pushed the telegram from the review committee toward him.

"You should read this first."

Klein took the telegram and read it from beginning to end.

His expression did not change significantly, but Dunn noticed that he did not put the telegram down immediately after reading the last line; instead, he looked at it for a few more seconds—not rereading the content, but thinking about the information hidden behind the wording of the telegram.

This subtle habit reminded Dunn of how he looked when he first started the job.

Back then, he also liked to read things that the author hadn't explicitly stated from every document.

"Participants in The Dark Channel operation need a spiritual status re-examination." Klein placed the telegram back on the desk, his tone steady. "According to the review process, I should be the first—I did the on-site investigation, and I collected the scale samples. If it is contamination left by Ince at the Old Wharf, I have the highest risk of spiritual contact."

"You are indeed first." Dunn took out Old Neil's spiritual examination record sheet from the drawer, flipped to a blank page, and wrote down Klein's name. "But there is one more thing that needs to be confirmed with you. How much do you know about Lu Li?"

Klein was silent for a moment.

This question was not sudden—ever since returning from The Dark Channel, Klein himself had been thinking about the same thing.

That night in the corridor outside the Chanis Gate, he had clearly sensed an extremely brief fluctuation coming from Lu Li.

The frequency of that fluctuation had produced a certain faint resonance with his own "Seer" Pathway spirituality.

The intensity of the resonance was not high, but the source was very clear—it was not any known Sealed Artifact, nor any conventional means of spiritual detection, but a more primitive resonance coming from the same source.

It was like two strings that had never met, vibrating the same note when blown by the same breeze.

"Is he on the same Pathway as me?" Klein asked.

This was a clever question.

It wasn't "What is his Sequence," nor "Is he a hidden existence," but rather using an alternative question to limit the scope of the problem to a level the other party could answer—if they were on the same Pathway, the resonance could be explained by the commonality of the Pathway; if they were not on the same Pathway, then another reason would need to be found.

"No." Dunn's voice was steady. "Your Sequence is Seer, and Lu Li's Sequence is Marauder. Marauder and Seer both originate from the Lord of the Mysteries, and there is a certain natural affinity at the Sefirah level. The Nighthawks' archives record that Beyonders of the two Pathways will produce faint spiritual resonance within a certain distance. The intensity varies from person to person, does not affect combat power, and does not constitute a contamination risk. The few times you sensed him before and after The Dark Channel incident were very likely manifestations of this affinity."

Klein's expression relaxed slightly, but the cautious light in the depths of his eyes did not completely disappear.

He knew the Marauder Pathway, and he also knew that this Pathway shared the same origin as the Seer Pathway.

But the resonance he felt in the corridor that night was much stronger than the "faint spiritual resonance" described in textbooks.

It wasn't just resonance; it felt more like someone had gently touched him from above the gray fog, through a thin veil.

"I understand." Klein did not continue to press on this topic, but he stored this question in the folder labeled "To be observed" in his heart.

Ever since he woke up above the gray fog, he had seen too many things that could not be explained by common sense and had learned to coexist with questions.

Some answers did not need to be rushed; they would surface on their own at the right time.

Dunn nodded, signed his name on the spiritual examination record sheet with a fountain pen, and then stood up.

"Let's go. Old Neil's Potion Room is already prepared. The re-examination will be quick; draw a tube of blood, pass it through a spiritual filter, and we'll have the results in half an hour."

In the Potion Room, Old Neil had already set up all the testing equipment.

A row of labeled blood collection tubes was placed on the workbench, each with the examinee's name written on the label—Klein, Lu Li, Leonard, Daly.

Leonard's blood collection tube label had a small line of text added by himself with a ballpoint pen: "I am donating blood voluntarily; please do not sing while drawing blood."

Old Neil had crossed out this line with a pencil and added a note beside it: "Will not sing."

Klein sat in the blood collection chair and rolled up the sleeve of his left arm.

Old Neil wiped the inside of his elbow twice with a cotton ball dipped in antiseptic alcohol, then picked up the blood collection needle.

The moment the needle pierced his skin, Klein's spiritual perception captured an extremely subtle fluctuation—not a fluctuation of pain, but the material of the blood collection needle.

It was not a normal steel needle, but a silver alloy mixed with trace amounts of Moonstone powder, which could perform a preliminary spiritual filtration on the blood sample while drawing blood.

This type of needle was specially made within the Church and could not be bought on the black market outside.

The blood was injected into the collection tube labeled with his name, and the dark red liquid flowed slowly along the glass tube wall.

Old Neil placed the tube into the centrifuge and pressed the start button.

The centrifuge emitted a low hum, and the entire Potion Room was enveloped in a faint vibration.

While waiting, Klein sat in the corner of the Potion Room, pressing the needle hole on his arm with a cotton ball while rethinking the origin relationship between the Marauder and Seer Pathways that Dunn had just mentioned.

He knew what the Marauder Pathway was, and he also knew who this Pathway led to—Amon, the Worm of Time, the God of Deceit.

He had never really talked to Lu Li about this matter before because the two of them had only exchanged a few brief nods when passing each other in the corridor.

But looking back carefully, ever since Lu Li joined the Nighthawks, everything he had done was outside the scope of the Nighthawks' regular duties—he had investigated the spatial fluctuations in the ruins of the Textile Factory alone while patrolling the East Borough; he had discovered the sealing scratches on the bronze door of the secret room at the first moment during the Hoi Family's annual banquet; he had dragged back a cultist on the verge of losing control alone in the Underground Channel Secret Room and had remained fully rational after having his memories flipped in that secret room.

Each of these actions could be explained as "excellent ability" when viewed alone, but when put together, they exceeded the reasonable performance of a "Sequence 9 newcomer."

Klein raised his head, his gaze crossing the workbench of the Potion Room and landing on Lu Li, who was organizing the blood collection labels on the opposite side.

He had a few cards up his sleeve that he hadn't revealed.

This judgment was not guessed; it was observed—just as he himself would deliberately restrain a portion of his spiritual intensity in front of his teammates every time he advanced a Sequence, Lu Li also always retreated within the safety line just before others were about to figure out the upper limit of his abilities, as if he had known where that line should be drawn all along.

This precision of restraint could only be recognized by someone who was also hiding their true strength.