Chapter 556

Chapter 556: Contact

“Before we know more, we cannot rush into destructive tests on this substance—especially after confirming that there is a living heart inside it.”

Ted Riel spoke as he opened his heavy tome again and slid the “stethoscope” back between its pages. His face always looked tired, but now a trace of a complicated emotion appeared there.

“To be honest, this was the strangest ‘thing’ I had ever seen in my life. I had seen plenty of unspeakable creatures invading the Mortal Realm, but a lump of metal with a heartbeat was not so common—and it was so… quiet.”

“Quiet?” Lucretia frowned without thinking when she heard that.

“Yes. Quiet, almost harmless,” Ted Riel nodded. “As you can see, its ‘shell’ had almost solidified. According to the field team, it was violently active for a short time right after it entered the Mortal Realm, but it soon shifted toward this ‘solidified’ state. It also showed none of the ‘active traits’ we usually see, such as trying to escape containment, corrupting Wardens, or resisting outside probing…”

The Truth Keeper slowly shook his head as he spoke: “Among ‘living anomalies’, this was very unusual. Trying to break out of containment is the most obvious trait of all ‘living anomalies’.”

Lucretia stayed quiet for a moment. Nina, beside her, slowly showed a thoughtful look. No one knew what she was connecting in her mind, when she suddenly said: “It kind of felt like… it had nothing left to live for?”

“That is an interesting… idea, though I do not think this living metal would have such a human reaction,” Ted Riel lifted his eyelids and glanced at Nina, but it was clear he did not really take that wild thought to heart. “I am more inclined to think it simply could not adapt to the environment of our Mortal Realm, but as time passes, it might slowly adapt. When that happens, its activity could rise again.”

“Tell me what happened at the market,” Duncan suddenly broke the silence. His gaze fell on Nina and Shirley. “Nina, when you contacted me, you said that you and Shirley had felt strange watching eyes on you and were about to report it to a Guardian by the road, and then this ‘thing’ suddenly appeared?”

“Mm-hmm.” Nina nodded at once. As she spoke, she tried to recall the scene. “Shirley and I felt it several times. It was like some gaze kept falling on us now and then, and there was also a presence that kept getting closer. I think it must have been this thing. Later, when Shirley and I were about to find someone to report it, it finally could not hold back and jumped out, and then…”

She suddenly stopped there. A very hesitant look crossed her face. She hesitated for several seconds before speaking again, frowning slightly and sounding unsure: “And there was a very wrong detail. I don’t know if I saw it wrong. When this thing first appeared, in the instant I caught it in the corner of my eye, I thought… I thought it was a person.”

Nina’s tone was full of doubt, but what she said made the room fall silent at once. Even Ted Riel, who always looked tired and lazy, suddenly opened his eyes wide. But before he could speak, Shirley, who was closest to Nina, was the first to shout: “Huh? What did you say? You’re telling me this thing looked like a person at the start? And you didn’t tell me?!”

“The field team’s report did not mention this,” Ted Riel said. His expression turned unusually serious. “Miss Nina, are you sure?”

“That’s why I said I don’t know if I saw it wrong,” Nina answered nervously. “The market was in chaos at the time. People were running everywhere. Maybe I got it wrong… or maybe the Guardians on site missed it? It was only the very first instant, after all…”

“Not likely. The Guardians have strict ‘contact record standards’ for first contact. Many anomalies can change themselves very fast or evade cognition, so we require the people handling ‘first contact’ to carefully record the exact ‘start time of contact’ and to state whether their gaze shifted at any point, so we can confirm whether the team had any ‘observation gaps’ when watching the target…”

Ted Riel briefly explained the work rules of the Knowledge Guards, then shook his head: “According to the field team’s report, they made contact the very moment the target entered the Mortal Realm. At least two Guardians were already watching the place where it would appear before it actually showed up. Through the entire process, at least one person was looking right at it. There was no chance for a gap.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Duncan suddenly broke the silence: “But I believe Nina.”

Ted Riel froze for a second, then seemed to realize something: “…You mean?”

“At least from Nina’s point of view, this ‘Intruder’ looked like a person for a moment at the start,” Duncan said calmly. Then he glanced at Shirley. “You were with Nina the whole time. You did not see that, right?”

“No,” Shirley shook her head at once. “I didn’t see it looking like a person.”

“Different observers, different ‘forms’ of the same target?” A strange light flashed in Ted Riel’s eyes. He looked at Nina with surprise and thoughtfulness. “And only Miss Nina saw something different from everyone else… why?”

Curiosity clearly took hold of him. His gaze soon fell back on Duncan: “Does Miss Nina have something special about her?”

The Truth Keeper seemed truly puzzled. He did not know Nina’s background. Without actively using Spirit Sight to examine her, Nina looked, to outsiders, like an ordinary seventeen-year-old young lady—but there was no doubt that this ‘ordinary young lady’ had to be special.

Just the fact that she could stay on Duncan Abnomar’s ship proved that.

“Have you heard of the ‘Black Sun Descent’ in Pland? If you have, you should know that when the Vanished left that city, they took a fragment of the ancient Sun with them,” Duncan said, lifting his hand to point at Nina. “She is that fragment.”

He ignored the wonderful change that flashed across Ted Riel’s face and focused again on Nina: “Do you still remember what that ‘person’ you first saw looked like?”

Nina tried hard to recall. After a while, she finally spoke: “It looked like someone wearing strange ancient armor, the kind you see in history books, all wrapped up like an iron can… oh, and there was a ragged scarf or a short cloak? I only saw it for an instant, so I’m not sure about many details…”

She paused for a moment, then added: “Because of the helmet, and the armor looked so heavy, I couldn’t tell what the person inside looked like. I didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman. But I could feel that the armor was tattered, like it had gone through many battles.”

“A Warrior in ancient armor…” Lucretia muttered. She thought quickly, then asked: “So how did that ‘person’ turn into a lump of living metal? Did you see that process?”

“No.” Nina shook her head. “It changed in an instant. It just became like this, as if there was no gradual change at all… Maybe I blinked? I’m sorry, I really can’t remember clearly…”

“Remembering this much is already very good. You gave us very important information,” Duncan said. He comforted Nina, who seemed a bit down, then turned and walked to the platform where the ‘sample’ was placed.

He stared solemnly at the solidified ‘living metal’, sorting through the information they had so far.

In some first moment, ‘it’ seemed to be a Warrior in heavy ancient armor. The armor was old and worn, scarred by many battles.

Nina had felt gazes fall on her several times and sensed she was being followed. That meant this thing was very likely coming for her—or rather… coming for the ancient Sun.

The market had been crowded, but when Nina first felt the gaze and that tracking presence, no one saw anything strange. That meant ‘it’ either had some ability to disrupt cognition, or it had ‘slipped across’ from a deep layers world like the Spirit Realm into the Mortal Realm…

Duncan slowly reached out and pressed his hand against the surface of the ‘metal’.

Cold, hard sensation spread from his fingertips.

He seemed to feel the heart buried deep inside the metal, to feel its slow beating and the low thud of its pulse.

It was alive, living in a way Humans could not understand.

It seemed to have held some purpose, but then something went wrong at the last step. It had revealed itself from hiding and pounced at Nina and Shirley. It clearly had not meant to end up as this lump of solid metal in its final move.

Ted Riel watched Duncan’s action with some tension, then almost without thinking glanced toward the Witch standing nearby.

Lucretia only shook her head, signaling him not to interfere.

Tiny ghostly green sparks appeared at Duncan’s fingertips.

He carefully controlled that small flame, making sure it did not ignite this metal that was clearly in the supernatural category. He guided the flame to seep into the metal, feeling its flow of life, its heartbeat, and the thoughts that might exist within it.

Yet what answered him was only a vast emptiness and a hazy, chaotic ‘touch’.

There seemed to be no information inside this metal that could be ‘read’.

But for some reason, Duncan still felt that something was hidden in that empty, hazy, chaotic touch. It was not that he could not find it. He simply could not ‘understand’ it yet.

“…Who are you?” he could not help asking softly in his heart. “Where did you come from?”

After an unknown time, that great emptiness was still there. But in the faint feedback from the flame, a tiny ripple suddenly seemed to appear.

Duncan seemed to hear a voice—or rather, an ‘idea’—rise in his mind:

“We are marching toward Doomsday.”