73: Chapter 11: The Aftermath Ends

As the first light of dawn pierced through the thick darkness of night and fell upon Backlund, Lu Li returned to the Old Wharf on the Hoi River.

The morning mist hovering over the river's surface lost the deep chill of late night, gradually thinning and dispersing. The tide of wraiths that had enveloped the end of the pier had completely receded, leaving only a few wisps of silver-white fog floating in midair, drifting gently with the morning breeze before instantly dissolving into the daylight.

The moment he stepped onto the stone stairs, Lu Li keenly sensed a subtle change.

The spirituality imprint he had left here over the years had become exceptionally faint, almost on the verge of dispersing entirely.

This was the inevitable transformation after stripping away the characteristic fragments of the Apprentice Pathway. His spirituality circuit had undergone a quiet reconstruction, automatically adjusting its energy distribution, completely discarding scattered redundancies, and gathering all his spiritual resources to focus firmly on his main Pathway, the Marauder Pathway.

Walking all the way through the quiet, deserted streets and alleys, he returned to his simple apartment in East Borough, where a faint smell of coal smoke was drifting out of the ground-floor kitchen.

The Landlady was crouching in front of the hearth, struggling to light the damp coal. Hearing footsteps in the hallway, she didn't even lift her head, her voice carrying the hoarseness of someone who had just woken up as she casually mentioned, "Someone came looking for you last night. A young gentleman in a gray trench coat, quite decent and quiet-looking. Said he was your friend."

Lu Li paused at the turn of the stairs, his gaze calm. "Did he leave a name?"

"No," the Landlady shook her head, adding a piece of coal to the stove as a faint orange flame flickered up. "He only left a note, pressed under the teacup by your door."

Walking up the stairs, the wooden door handle on the third floor felt slightly cool. A coarse earthenware teacup firmly pressed down a narrow slip of paper. The surface showed faint pencil marks, the handwriting light yet sharp and neat, clean without any redundant strokes—it was Klein's usual low-profile handwriting.

[The warehouse is empty. The Mandated Punishers raided it last night, dismantling the magic circle before it could be completed. The list of missing persons has been handed over to the Church. The ritual equipment is covered in snake emblem markings, and the main force of the Aurora Order is still lingering at sea. —Sherlock Moriarty.]

Lu Li's fingertip brushed over the paper. He carefully folded the note and tucked it neatly into his inner pocket.

In his mind, he had already pieced together the full picture of last night's disturbance.

Klein must have remained hidden on the periphery of the battlefield the entire time. Relying on a Seer's unique spiritual perception, he had precisely observed the entire raid inside the warehouse, grasping all the details of both the Aurora Order's ritual and the Church's operations.

In just a few days, his investigation had extended completely from the initial Mingde Street to the gray area of the River Bay District.

Recalling their chance encounter in the abandoned apartment earlier, Klein had already quietly investigated the layout of the Aurora Order's warehouse back then. He had even anticipated the Nighthawks' investigation pace, following up step by step without any interruption.

Now that the stronghold had been cleared, the magic circle destroyed, and the list handed over to the Church, this major disappearance case involving multiple lives would ultimately be hastily archived by the police department.

No one would look deeper or investigate further. In the end, it would turn into a cold file, categorized as missing persons resulting from gang fights among the lower class.

Those East Borough vagrants who had vanished into thin air, without relatives or anyone to care for them, would ultimately be completely buried in the vast urban dust of Backlund. No one would ask about the hidden conspiracy of the Aurora Order behind it, let alone seek the true whereabouts of their main force.

Pushing open the creaking wooden door, the dim room came into view.

Lu Li took out the long-vacant wooden box of the jiaowei Sealed Artifact, placed it carefully into a hidden compartment of the suitcase under his bed, and sealed it securely.

Then, sitting down at the old wooden desk, he opened his encrypted notebook and meticulously recorded all the key events of the past several dozen hours using his unique shorthand symbols.

The debt contract was completely settled, the snake emblem token was destroyed, the seal on the ruins left behind in Tingen was permanently stabilized, the characteristic fragments of the Apprentice Pathway were successfully stripped away, and the exclusive flames of the jiaowei Sealed Artifact were fully retrieved...

Stroke by stroke, he listed them clearly, freezing all the gains, losses, changes, and conclusions in place.

Having finished all the records, Lu Li closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair, taking a brief moment to regulate his breathing and organize his stabilizing spiritual state.

After a moment, he took out the remains of the token kept in his pocket. Two dull silver fragments lay quietly in his palm, devoid of any shimmer, tremor, or spiritual resonance. Stripped of all mystery and Beyonder qualities, they possessed only the most ordinary metallic texture.

The sequelae of stripping away the Apprentice Pathway's Sequence 9 characteristics now manifested with absolute clarity.

Spatial perception, Beyonder Lock Picking, space charms... all extraordinary abilities belonging to this Pathway were completely reset to zero, dispersing entirely.

The perception that used to keenly capture spatial fluctuations had vanished completely. The spatial charm remnants left over from his repeated practice in the past were now just a pile of useless scrap paper, possessing no extraordinary efficacy whatsoever.

If he wanted to regain the power of the Apprentice Pathway, his only option was to gather potion materials again, consume the Sequence 9 potion once more, and start acting, accumulating, and digesting from scratch.

But Lu Li knew very well that he had absolutely no spare time to waste on this right now.

The main force of the Aurora Order was still lurking in the coastal waters, not having ventured far. Although this blood altar in the River Bay District had been destroyed, this group of mad heretics still possessed deep reserves. As long as their main force remained, they could restart their evil rituals and set up new magic circles in any corner of Backlund at any time. The crisis had never truly been resolved.

After careful consideration, he completely set aside the thought of retaking the Apprentice Pathway.

The most critical priority right now was to stabilize his foundation and fully digest the Sequence 7: Swindler potion.

The retrieval of the jiaowei Sealed Artifact's flames had indeed briefly affected the foundation he had accumulated during the Prometheus stage. However, long before leaving Tingen, he had already fully digested the Prometheus potion and completed all the acting for that Sequence. The power of the jiaowei was no longer a necessity for his promotion and survival.

What he lost was merely the flame manipulation experience accumulated during the low Sequence stage, which would not shake his extraordinary abilities and foundation at Sequence 7 and above in the slightest.

The only shortcoming was that if he encountered extreme heat in the future and needed the Sealed Artifact's flames to counter it, he could only rely on the embers of flame tempered by his own spirituality to barely cope.

Yet, the core of a Swindler had never been brute force and flames, but rather insight into human hearts, manipulation of information, and deception and planning interwoven with truth and falsehood.

Though the weakness existed, it was of little consequence.

Lu Li flipped to a fresh page and picked up his pen to write down his subsequent action plan in an organized manner, every word clear and every goal defined.

First, head to Water Pump Street to meet Abraham and verify the latest movements of the remnants of the Aurora Order, focusing on confirming whether that bizarre black sail ship at Storm Cape was still continuously transporting supplies and personnel to Backlund.

Second, commission Old Eye to keep a close watch on the underground black market to check if anyone was purchasing large quantities of Apprentice Pathway potion materials. Any anomaly would mean that someone within the Aurora Order urgently needed spatial perception and concealed teleportation abilities, which was highly likely to be the core method for their main force to secretly slip into and penetrate Backlund.

Third, settle down and continuously refine and consolidate the digestion progress of the Swindler potion to solidify his own strength.

After finishing the plan, he closed the notebook, changed into a clean, plain shirt, pushed open the door, and went straight to Water Pump Street.

In the early morning, the Underground Commercial Street was devoid of its daytime bustle, cold and quiet everywhere with very few pedestrians passing by.

Abraham was alone in his shop, counting and organizing his inventory. Hearing footsteps, he merely raised his eyes and cast a brief glance. Without needing to ask, he already knew the identity of the visitor and took the initiative to speak of the latest news: "The news of the Mandated Punishers' raid on the Aurora Order's warehouse in the River Bay District has already spread throughout the underground market. The magic circle failed to complete its layering ritual and was directly and completely dismantled. All information on the missing persons has been handed over to the Church."

As he flipped through the ledger, he continued, "Those who went missing were all helpless vagrants from the bottom of East Borough, with no family members to hold anyone accountable or report the case. The Church will highly likely close the case hastily and won't look deeply into the whereabouts of the Aurora Order's main force. Besides, that young friend of yours who often comes to find you also appeared on the periphery of the warehouse last night."

"He chatted with several porters in the Dock District for a long time, and then made a trip back to the secondhand market. What he is investigating has nothing to do with the missing persons case; his target points straight to clues related to Antigonus."

"He is investigating Ince Zangwill. No one in Backlund knows his past. He goes by Sherlock Moriarty. If he comes to Water Pump Street again in the future, there is no need to stop him, nor do you need to deliberately help him. Just let him investigate on his own."

Abraham's finger flipping through the ledger suddenly paused. He looked up at Lu Li with a solemn expression. "There is one more thing. The Aurora Order has still been frantically searching for the snake emblem token in the underground market recently. Old Eye's back alley locker was scanned and probed again last night."

"It wasn't the spatial detection of the Apprentice Pathway, but the Metal Sensing technique of the Artisan Pathway. They are searching the entire city for any suspicious silver objects, refusing to give up. Is the token still in your hands?"

"It no longer exists." Lu Li shook his head gently, placing the two dull silver fragments from his palm onto the counter. The metallic surface was completely ordinary, without any anomalies. "The debt contract is settled, the ruins seal is completely closed, and the token has destroyed itself. Now, only two ordinary silver scraps remain. Even if the Aurora Order turns the entirety of Backlund upside down, they won't find a single trace."

Abraham picked up the fragments and scrutinized them for a moment. After confirming there was no spiritual fluctuation, he silently placed them back on the table. Then, he retrieved a palm-sized brass compass from the depths of a drawer and gently pushed it in front of Lu Li.

"Old Eye asked me to pass this to you."

"He knows that you lost your Apprentice Pathway characteristics in the ruins, so you can no longer activate that Spirit World positioning compass from before."

"This is a low-grade, simple version. It can be used without the enhancement of any spatial Pathway extraordinary characteristics. Its effective range is only a few meters, and its accuracy isn't high, but it's enough for you to lock onto the general locations of the Aurora Order's new altars and warehouses before the full moon."

Lu Li put away the compass, tucked it securely into his coat pocket, and after offering his thanks, turned and left Water Pump Street, walking slowly eastward along the banks of the Hoi River.

The riverside dock was bustling with life. A cotton cargo ship from the Southern Continent had just docked, and porters carrying heavy burlap sacks shuttled back and forth between the pier and Warehouse No. 4, dust floating in the wind from the ship.

Amidst the crowd, he caught sight of a familiar hunched figure.

Old Kohler, carrying two heavy bags of cotton on his shoulders, walked with steady steps, following closely behind the foreman. Compared to before, his complexion was much ruddier, and the haggardness and fatigue in his eyes had faded significantly.

Presumably, the wages from his night shifts at the dock were enough to make a living, or perhaps it was because his young daughter could find a loaf of white bread wrapped in old newspaper at the warehouse entrance every day, bringing a touch of stability and warmth to their impoverished and difficult days.

Lu Li quietly watched the old man's figure disappear into the warehouse doors, then withdrew his gaze and turned around to head back to East Borough.

Today, he still had one last important matter that he had to personally verify.

He needed to return to the Old Wharf in the River Bay District to personally inspect the remains of the scene after the Mandated Punishers' raid.

Although the Aurora Order's supplies had been entirely cleared out and the complete magic circle had been thoroughly dismantled, the foundation of the magic circle buried deep underground was not completely destroyed.

He had to personally investigate the remaining spiritual patterns and energy fluctuations to confirm whether there were hidden dangers lurking beneath these ruins, and whether they might automatically restart and activate the incomplete ritual during the surge of spirituality on the night of the full moon.

As the evening breeze blew gently and the daylight grew brighter, Backlund's prosperity and darkness intertwined and coexisted. Though one storm seemed to have concluded, deeper undercurrents were still quietly surging beneath the city, waiting for the right moment to erupt.