Chapter 748

Chapter 748. An Uninvited Guest on the Ship

The long dusk had ended, and the veil of night had descended.

The electric lights came on, driving the darkness from the room. Taran Ael stood at the window, frowning as he stared at the streets outside. The glow of the gas lamps lit the road, and now and then he saw patrolling Knowledge Guards with watch dogs appear near the corners. Aside from that, the whole city seemed dead under the veil of night, empty and silent.

He did not know how much time had passed before he pulled his gaze back from the window and looked at the stacks of sorted notes and books on his desk. He let out a barely audible sigh.

He had sorted all this before the Sun set. Next, he needed to pack everything and send it to the academy’s Grand Library. There, a new office waited for him, blessed by the God of Wisdom and guarded by many holy wards, where he could safely carry out his research and reading.

But only a few scholars ever qualified to get a “safe room” in the Grand Library. For most people, once the Sun set, “reading” became a taboo. For safety, all books had to be sealed away for the whole duration of this veil of night, until the next sunrise. This was also part of the “veil of night Ban” that the Administration Hall had just issued.

At the same time, teaching in all schools also had to stop. The young students did not yet have the strength or experience to deal with the monsters that came chasing from the Spirit Realm and the Abyssal Deep Sea. It was far too dangerous.

Of course, some people thought things were not so bad in Lightwind Harbor. The glowing geometric body beside the city-state had a power similar to the Sun. Within its “sunlight”, people might still live and work as normal and carry on their research. But that was only a guess. No one had ever tested the power of that glowing geometric body during such a long veil of night, nor knew the limits of its protection. They could not risk it.

As far as Taran Ael knew, a group of scholars was already running tests near the glowing geometric body. They were fully armed and protected by equally armed Guardians. At different times and places, they tried to “read under the veil of night” to check how well the “sunlight” could protect them.

But even Taran Ael did not know how long these tests would last or how many times they would need to be repeated.

The door opened, and his young apprentice Joshua walked into the room, pushing a small cart. He froze a little when he saw his Teacher and asked: “…You still haven’t gone to the Grand Library?”

“I’ll go with the next group,” Taran Ael said casually, lifting a hand to point at the things on the desk. “Everything is already sorted. Just take these from the desk. Leave the rest here… I’ll be back after dawn.”

“Alright, Teacher.” Joshua answered honestly, then quietly began tying up and packing the sorted books and papers, moving them onto the small cart. He kept his head lowered the whole time, as if trying not to see the words on the pages, or perhaps to avoid meeting his Teacher’s eyes.

“After you finish tidying up here, go home with the others,” Taran said suddenly as he looked at his young apprentice. “You’re on holiday.”

“Can I go to the Grand Library with you?” Joshua hesitated for a moment, then looked up. “I… still have a paper I haven’t finished.”

“So now you decide to be motivated?” Taran raised an eyebrow and spoke on purpose in a teasing tone: “Aren’t you always shouting about wanting a break?”

Joshua pressed his lips together, looking a little embarrassed: “I…”

“Alright, I’m joking,” Taran laughed and shook his head gently. “Go home. Stop thinking about your paper. Those ‘safe rooms’ in the Grand Library are not that safe either. A seasoned scholar like me knows how to work carefully with those wards, but a young man like you is not ready yet… Even if the safe room blocks the bodies of the malevolent spirits, the muttering from the books can still drive you mad.

“Take your break. Rest well and build up your strength. We’ll still have long days ahead of us… and when that time comes, you won’t get such a comfortable holiday.”

Hearing his Teacher’s words, Joshua only nodded slowly. After hesitating for a while, he finally gathered his courage to ask: “Will it really get light again afterward?”

“…Yes, it will,” Taran looked into his apprentice’s eyes and spoke with extra seriousness. “Remember? You and I calculated the Sun’s rate of descent together, and it sank below the sea horizon right on time according to our numbers. It will rise again according to the same calculations. It just needs some time.”

The tense look on the young man’s face finally eased a little. He quietly packed the rest of the things, respectfully said goodbye to his Teacher, then pushed the cart out of the room.

Taran Ael watched Joshua’s back as he left. After quite a while, he suddenly turned his head toward the window and said: “How long do you plan to stand there watching?”

The air near the window twisted at once, and the figure of Truth Keeper Ted Lier emerged from it out of thin air: “I just didn’t want to disturb your talk with your apprentice.”

“…You still dare to use ‘sacred miracles’ to travel?” Taran gave the Truth Keeper a sidelong glance. “Did you forget what happened last time with that Subspace butterfly stroke?”

Ted’s expression twisted at once, then he forced down the twitch at the corner of his eye: “Of course I made sure it was safe… Do you really have to hold such a grudge?”

Taran did not answer. He just quietly raised a middle finger.

The corner of Ted’s mouth twitched again, then turned into an awkward smile.

“Shouldn’t you be leading your Guardians to protect the city’s night right now?” Taran asked casually. “How do you still have time to come here and cause trouble?”

“I finally don’t have to look at that pile of rushed, patched-together papers from those rookies. I’m in a very good mood now, so I came to chat with you—does that reason work?”

Taran still said nothing. He only looked quietly at the Truth Keeper in front of him.

“…Fine. I’m here to personally escort the second group of scholars, including you, to the Grand Library,” Ted shrugged. “A squad of Knowledge Guards is already waiting downstairs. When the others are ready, you’ll come with me.”

“Is that really necessary? A Truth Keeper escorting us in person?” Taran frowned. “It’s only a ten-minute drive from here to the Grand Library. I can just drive myself…”

“In the city-state of Morka, two scholars vanished into thin air on their way to take shelter in the library—the night swallowed them,” Ted cut him off. The Truth Keeper’s face grew serious. “The veil of night has become more dangerous than we thought. And the ‘knowledge’ in your head… is especially sweet to ‘them’.”

Taran Ael froze for a second, then silently turned and walked toward a low cabinet nearby.

“What are you doing?” Ted asked curiously when he saw this.

“Taking my revolver, and a knife and charm amulet for self-defense.”

…

Pages turned in the room. Morris compared the notes he had written before and scribbled in a thick notebook, stopping from time to time to think and adjust his line of thought.

His big notebook was filled with dense lines of writing and abstract symbols, and many dizzying diagrams that sketched the shape of this world.

He was finishing his most important project: trying to build a “model” that could explain the whole world, from the Great Annihilation as the starting point, to the beginning of the Deep Sea era, up to the current state of this “Sanctuary World”, and its possible future.

He had worked on this research for a very long time, and only now, as the world neared its end, did he see a chance to complete it.

Not far from Morris’s desk sat Shirley, who was nodding off, and Dog, who was fully focused on the documents.

After an unknown while, a faint, muffled whisper suddenly sounded by Morris’s ear.

As the whisper rose, a cold current suddenly flooded the whole cabin. The room seemed to turn into an ice cave at once. The chill gathered on the ceiling as if it were solid, turning into strands of white fog that drooped down. In the fog, invisible shadows slowly seeped out and stretched a tendril toward Morris…

Morris did not even lift his head. He kept writing in the notebook and said casually: “Knock it down.”

Before he finished speaking, Dog had already turned into a whirlwind made of shattered bones and black smoke. Fragments of bone and dark mist howled across the ceiling and, in the blink of an eye, devoured the twisted entity that had come chasing after knowledge.

In the next second, Dog’s form returned to normal and dropped back onto the floor.

Shirley jerked awake with a start: “Ah… huh?! What happened?!”

“Another shadow chasing after knowledge,” Dog muttered offhand, turning his head to glance at Shirley. “…Go back to sleep. It wasn’t coming for you.”

Shirley thought for a moment, then nodded: “Oh.”

She simply crawled over beside Dog and half lay down leaning against him. A second later, she was already snoring softly.

Morris stopped what he was doing and looked up, giving Shirley a helpless look. He sighed once, then lowered his head again and solemnly added the last footnote on this page.

And the moment he wrote the last letter, a strange voice suddenly came into his ears—

“An excellent study… You are already pacing before the last gate of Truth.”

Morris jolted in surprise and snapped his head up toward the source of the voice.

A figure in a worn white robe was sitting quietly beside him, wearing a gentle smile and looking at the open notes and papers on the desk.

Morris’s muscles tensed at once. In a blink, his hand went for the revolver under the desk. Dog reacted at the same time and sprang to his feet. Shirley let out an “ow” as she fell to the floor, and then she too saw the uninvited guest who had appeared in the room. Her eyes went wide, and a bone spike shot from behind her like an arrow, as if it would stab the intruder in the next second—

Yet the figure in the worn white robe only sat there quietly, as if unaware of the sudden tension and hostility around him, still absorbed in Morris’s manuscripts.

After two or three seconds, he slowly raised his head, still wearing that gentle smile: “I want to speak with your captain.”