Chapter 340

Chapter 340: Sinking into the Spirit Realm

The Warden’s cottage grew quiet. A strange stillness seemed to solidify in the air. The Old Caretaker even had an illusion. He felt as if even the altar set up on the desk – the candle flames, the incense smoke, and the faint Spiritual Insight power in the air – had all paused for a moment.

Was it an illusion?

The old man lifted his head in confusion. He saw the flames on the candlestick flickering, but it was as if they had only started to move at the moment he looked up.

He stared at the pale flames for a long time. Then he slowly shook his head and lowered his gaze back to the letter in front of him. He read the words with a strange feeling he had never had in his life.

But after only a few lines, he no longer cared about that sense of wrongness and embarrassment. The contents of the letter were making him realize how serious the situation was.

There was a warning that the city-state was being infiltrated by the power of The Deep Sea, evidence of large-scale activity by Annihilators, a guess that the lord of the Abyssal Deep had invaded the Mortal Realm, and… a warning about Dagger Island.

The Old Caretaker stared fixedly at the lines of text in his hand. Suddenly he felt that the uneasy mood spreading through the city-state at last had an explanation.

He did not know whether he should trust this “report” from some unnameable being, but one thing was beyond doubt – he had to inform the Gatekeeper at once, and inform the Cathedral.

…

Agatha bent down and carefully examined the Senkin lady who lay asleep on the sofa. The woman still slept soundly, completely unaware that a crowd of Guardians had gathered in the room. From time to time she even let out faint, uneasy murmurs in her sleep.

She could still talk in her sleep. That meant her mind had not been damaged in the “attack”, and the uninvited guests who had entered the house earlier had not meant her harm.

Agatha let her gaze sweep over Galina. This Senkin miss had a body that could almost be called hulking. Most Senkin were like this. They were born with powerful bodies and skin as tough as stone. After a simple check, the young Gatekeeper saw that the muscles on Galina’s body tightened now and then. Together with the uneasy mutterings she had heard a moment ago, it seemed this Senkin lady was not having a peaceful dream.

A priest in a gray-white coat stood nearby and reported to Agatha: “No external wounds, no signs of mental corruption, and no traces of a fight. On the surface it looked like normal sleep – but she could not be woken. Considering there is no damage to the locks and the kitchen shows signs of recent use, our first judgment is that the ‘intruders’ were invited into the house.”

“…They might be acquaintances, or guests who had gained her trust,” Agatha murmured. “What about the situation on the second floor?”

The priest nodded and said: “We have already collected many samples. We also found a Final Record. The person who left it should be the source of those… anomalous substances in the room. Based on other clues we found in the house, the one who left the record should be named ‘Brown Scott’. He was a folklorist.”

“A folklorist?” Agatha frowned. “Have you checked his background?”

“We have already sent people to the nearest Resident registry to pull his file, but we have not heard back yet.”

“Stay here and watch over this lady first,” Agatha nodded. “I will go upstairs and take a look.”

“Yes, Lady Gatekeeper.”

On the second-floor study, the Guardians had already finished the first round of recording the scene and gathering samples. When Agatha arrived, her subordinates were trying to clear away the dried “mud” hanging from the shelves so they could move the many books in the room.

In places where an supernatural runaway state had occurred, any books left at the scene were very likely to be corrupted by supernatural power. Moving these books away and sealing them for later study was a necessary part of procedure, even if doing so might “damage the scene”.

Agatha’s gaze fell on the dried gray-black sludge.

These things… reminded her of the samples they had collected in Cemetery No. 3, those strange substances that seemed to be elements.

She also saw the Final Record the priest had mentioned earlier. It lay in the most eye-catching place on the desk.

At first glance, Agatha judged that this manuscript had already been handled. Its surface showed clear traces of cleaning, and the work had been done very carefully.

This was not something ill-intentioned intruders would do. It was more like the work of a “professional” who, like her, had come to investigate for a proper reason. Thinking of the lady sleeping on the first floor, Agatha already had some early guesses in her mind.

A mysterious third party who at least did not seem to be an enemy. Were they the same people who had fought the Annihilators in the alley outside?

If so… then this third party’s power deserved close attention.

As all kinds of guesses and deductions spun in her mind, Agatha slowly let her gaze move over the lines of the Final Record. As those words, soaked with resolve, courage, and awareness, came into view, the Gatekeeper’s eyes grew heavy and solemn.

The Master who had left this record had actually kept clear consciousness and memory.

After a short silence, Agatha took a light breath. She carefully set the Final Record back on the desk, then lifted her Gatekeeper’s cane with one hand and slowly drew its tin tip across the floor.

The sound of metal scraping on planks rang out. Pale flame burned at the cane’s tip and left the same pale glowing marks on the floor. As the flame and glowing trail spread, the sound of the Gatekeeper’s cane against the floor began to change. It grew low and slow, as if a thick barrier was forming in the air, bit by bit sealing off the space around her.

Soon Agatha had outlined a triangle large enough for an adult to stand in. Inside the triangle she drew the rune of the God of Death Bartok. Then she stepped into the center of the triangle, set the Gatekeeper’s cane at her side with one hand, and reached toward her own eye socket with the other.

A fresh, living eyeball popped out of her eye socket and fell into her palm.

In an instant, the area around her grew quiet. All sounds from the Mortal Realm were shut out beyond the triangle by an invisible barrier. Then, in the silence, countless whispers rose up, as if hundreds of unseen watchers were crowding around the triangle and chattering endlessly at the Gatekeeper.

Agatha lifted her hand, palm up, and used her own eyeball to scan the surroundings.

Everything in the room, including the busy Guardians, the dust motes drifting in the air, and the hands of the Chronometer Clock on the wall, froze like amber. As they froze, their colors quickly faded and sank into gloom. A strange pale glow spread in from outside the window, shone through the boards nailed over it, and cast a wavering light over the room.

In this eerie, pale, motionless space, only Agatha in the center of the triangle still kept the appearance and colors of a living person. Her eyelids stayed shut as she held up her eyeball in her left hand, sweeping it around while she spoke calmly: “I wish to speak with the dead here.”

The countless irritating whispers around her suddenly grew much weaker. Agatha turned her left hand to make her eyeball look toward the desk not far away.

That was where the folklore scholar Brown Scott had last worked while leaving the Final Record. In theory, if a soul had truly lingered here, some trace of its afterglow should still be wandering in that place.

Even though the “mud” all over the room showed that what had once been here was very likely just a “Monster” condensed out of supernatural power, that Monster had clearly held some kind of humanity inside. On that point, after reading the record, Agatha was sure.

Yet beside that empty desk, she found nothing.

There was no afterglow of a soul, no projection shaped by lingering thoughts, not even a tiny glimmer that might mean leftover Spiritual Insight. There was only a colorless desk with black matter piled on it, and fine wisps of smoke rising from the matter.

Agatha’s eyeball slowly swayed in her palm.

The Gatekeeper was thinking.

Was it because too much time had passed since death and the soul’s afterglow had already faded? Or because the thing that had stayed in this room had only been a replica, and so had no real humanity, only imitated memories and a false personality? Or… had that soul already passed through Bartok’s gate and entered the place of rest?

The last guess seemed especially impossible. From the state of the room, even if Brown Scott’s soul had once stayed here, it had already suffered severe corruption. And a corrupted soul could not pass through that gate.

So where had the soul gone?

The low whispers around her rose again, even louder and more annoying than before.

The Shadows of the Spirit Realm were growing restless. They did not like this sudden intruder. Even for a powerful Gatekeeper, it was best not to stay at this depth for too long.

Thinking this, Agatha raised her Gatekeeper’s cane and struck it twice on the floor.

The tin Gatekeeper’s cane made a thunder-like boom when it hit the floor.

“Agatha, Gatekeeper of the mortal world, wishes to speak with the Gatekeeper of the world of the dead.”