93: Chapter 31 Aftermath

On the third day after Malcolm was handed over to the Mandated Punishers for detention, a six-member professional cleanup squad from the River Bay District church outpost moved into the abandoned Textile Factory.

The team members, dressed in standard-issue trench coats embroidered with pure white thorn patterns, used containment vessels to seal the remaining spare rune fragments and Sea of Wraith tidal dust on-site one by one. They also hoisted and removed the array base that had eroded their spirituality, completely erasing any traces of the blood sacrifice in the area.

The outpost commander, through Sherlock, conveyed the church's verbal commendation to Lu Li and made a promise: in the future, any commission submitted by Lu Li would enjoy priority approval and priority processing by the church outpost.

Lu Li had no interest in empty accolades, but he firmly noted this priority access. If he needed to consult the church's Sealed Artifact files or apply for temporary allocation of Beyonder materials in the future, this convenience from an official Beyonder organization would be far more valuable than verbal praise.

On the other side, Abraham, relying on Old Eye's bookstore, sent the latest interrogation intelligence regarding the Aurora Order case.

The captured Notary, Malcolm, could not withstand the Mandated Punishers' exclusive interrogation ritual and confessed all the hidden safe houses the Aurora Order had set up in Backlund. Two strongholds hidden in the slums had already been raided and completely destroyed by the Mandated Punishers in a lightning strike. Only one remained, an abandoned warehouse located at the intersection of the Dock District and the East Borough, which still stored a small amount of untransported spare rune fragments.

The mortal sacrifice dragged into this blood sacrifice—the young employee of that shipping company—had his spirituality mostly devoured by the tidal dust when rescued, and his physical organs were also eroded by the wraiths, leaving him on the verge of failure.

Fortunately, the Mandated Punishers promptly applied holy water for purification and repaired his damaged spiritual circuits. His life was no longer in danger, his condition was stabilizing, and he only needed to rest quietly to slowly recover.

Several days later, as dusk descended and the lead-gray sky spread with twilight, Lu Li stepped into Sherlock's detective agency on Mingde Street.

He spread the array deconstruction manuscript and the notes on the rune spiritual power supply circuit, which he had organized overnight, onto the wooden table. The edges of the paper still retained the cold, damp moisture from the Textile Factory.

Sherlock simultaneously spread out the organized distribution map of the Aurora Order's safe houses and the records of the Mandated Punishers' previous raids. The two sat side by side and spent nearly two hours verifying and cross-referencing the intelligence point by point: the spiritual fluctuation spectrum exclusive to the Storm Cape black sail ship, the residual Order source patterns from the Notary's codex, the unique characteristics of the Apprentice Pathway used by the messenger branch to tear open spatial rifts, the coordinates of the strongholds confessed by Malcolm, and the spiritual decay curve of the Sea of Wraith detected from the tidal dust remaining on the array base.

"After the black sail ship docked, the spirituality released by the Sea of Wraith continued to decline. After the Textile Factory's main array collapsed, the decay rate of the dust on the array base doubled. Now, the spiritual concentration has completely fallen below the threshold, insufficient to activate any spare rune." Lu Li tapped his finger on the data table on the paper, his tone plain and objective.

"The field force of this black sail ship from Storm Cape has completely lost all rune nodes in the entire city of Backlund and cannot restart the blood sacrifice ritual in this city in the short term."

Sherlock's slender fingertips landed on the slowly descending arc at the end of the curve, his eyes filled with a touch of caution: "It is true that the field nodes are lost, but the black sail ship comes with a native blood altar, and its core blood sacrifice ability has not been damaged. As long as the Fog Sea can continuously supply the Sea of Wraith tidal dust, the Aurora Order can change cities at any time and replicate this sacrificial array."

He paused, picked up several copies of the records stamped with the Mandated Punishers' wax seal, and pushed them in front of Lu Li: "Last night, the spiritual peak of the black sail ship fell back to thirty percent of its normal state, which means that all the wraith entity puppets loaded on the ship have been exhausted. They must return to the Storm Cape reef area for supplies. Including the round trip and the time for rest and preparation, there will be at least a one-month window."

Lu Li put the records into his pocket and did not delve into the subsequent encirclement plan.

The capture of Malcolm only temporarily severed the operations of the Aurora Order's Backlund branch. The core forces at the Storm Cape headquarters were unscathed, and the threat had never been eradicated.

He had already made plans to wait for the next full moon cycle, combine it with Abraham's ocean freight records and the official movements of the Mandated Punishers, and then finalize the next step of action. Sherlock also intended to slow down the investigation related to the Aurora Order, return to his duties as a detective, and focus his energy on tracking the whereabouts of Ince Zangwill.

Over the next few days, Lu Li dealt with the remaining trivial matters of the case one by one.

He made a special trip to the shipping company's employee dormitory in the Dock District. This was Old Kohler's new residence, a low bungalow right next to the back door of the cargo warehouse, far away from the chaotic slums of the East Borough, making it much more stable.

By the window, Old Kohler's young daughter was standing on tiptoes, lying on the wooden windowsill to draw. On the canvas was the century-old oak tree in front of the church, its branches adorned with tiny, silvery-white road signs. Standing under the tree was a figure with a backpack adorned with copper buckles—this time, the little girl had carefully outlined the eyebrows and eyes; the brushwork was childish and crooked, yet it clearly depicted Lu Li's silhouette.

The little girl jumped down from the windowsill and solemnly handed the painting to Lu Li, her eyes and brows dancing with joy: she had already read the serialized comic about the pirate ghost ship three times and liked this story the most. Uncle Matthew had even specially hand-drawn exclusive illustrations for the story.

Lu Li put away the painting, handed over the dried flower bookmark made by the little girl, and then set off for the artist apartments in the East Borough.

Matthew's mental state had already healed, and the fragmented memories that had been forcibly stripped away had completely stopped fading. However, due to the long-term damage to his spirituality, his feel for mixing skin-tone pigments was much rustier, but after several days of practice, his painting skills had recovered for the most part.

He specially mixed warm watercolors to hand-draw several exclusive illustrations for the little girl's comic, filling in the blank pages of the publication. Lu Li handed him the dried flower bookmark and incidentally conveyed the little girl's heartfelt affection.

Another evening, as twilight soaked Water Pump Street, Lu Li and Sherlock met again at Old Eye's bookstore.

The supply chain for Apprentice Pathway Beyonder materials in the underground market had fully recovered. A shop specializing in Spirit World consumables had a new batch of raw Spirit World dust from the Southern Continent, with the purchase price reduced by twenty percent compared to before, making it much more cost-effective than ordinary products on the market.

Sherlock had been deeply studying the patterns of Malcolm's codex and discovered hidden doubts while deconstructing the rules of order, so he intended to bring them back to the agency for in-depth deduction and research.

Old Eye dusted off the bookshelves and took out two copies of the newly printed "Southern Continent Spirit World Plant Guide" from under the counter. The paper was rough and thick, priced at two pence each, with a store promotion of buy two get one free.

Lu Li flipped through it casually and handed one of them to Sherlock beside him.

"The Sea of Wraith tidal dust cannot threaten Backlund for now. But will the Aurora Order give up the sacrificial route from the Fog Sea to the continent's interior just because they lost one Notary? The next time the black sail ship comes, the methods will be more covert and harder to detect."

Sherlock put away the guide, his tone firm: "Before the next arrival, we will be fully prepared."

Lu Li put the guide into his backpack, raised his hand to take out the little girl's drawing, and gently pressed it under the transparent glass plate of the counter.

The oak tree's branches and leaves spread out, the silvery-white road signs shone brightly, and the figure with the copper-buckled backpack stood quietly under the tree.

Old Eye lowered his eyes and looked for a moment, put down the feather duster in his hand, and for the first time ever, did not say any teasing or critical words.

The two pushed open the wooden door of the bookstore side by side and stepped into the evening street.

The gas street lamps on Water Pump Street lit up one by one, and the winter mist coiled around the lampshades, blurring out circles of soft, hazy, warm yellow light. The winter of Backlund was still long and bone-chilling, but the coldest and deadliest cold night had already come to an end.

Lu Li turned alone and walked slowly along the street toward the River Bay District.

The evening mist dampened the backpack straps, and the brass buttons on the outside of the backpack rippled with tiny silvery-white glimmers under the scattered street lamps, flashing on and off with the rhythm of his steps, eventually dissolving slowly into the heavy twilight.