Chapter 175: The Return

Chapter 175: The Return

Leaning against a wooden wall of the cabin, Murphy took a long breath and focused into the bruises over his arms. The clothes were still dripping water. He put his fedora nearby and glanced at Silas, who seemed to struggle to maintain his listening ability.

Deep within Murphy’s cold mind, Mo Fei only watched his new teammates without them knowing who Mo Fei was.

Although they managed to escape the Bloodborne Sea and even completed their rituals, the silence remained loud.

Dante took a brief look at Murphy and blinked once. ’A Detective... maybe, I was wrong. He looked at me as a human, unlike pirates... even if his actions are questionable.’

Silas, however, sat in a chair. His expression tensed from the constant sounds that threatened to explode his eardrums. The conceptual ability he had was yet to be managed; even with the supporting charms, it was still new.

The vessel moved alongside the waves, moving toward Ciradyl.

Dante finally let go of the steering wheel and looked out through a nearby window. Outside, the place seemed to be the center of the ocean. "It’ll take a day or more to reach Ciradyl port." He slowly walked outside the cabin and looked back at Murphy. "I’ll bring clothes for your wound, Mr. Law."

Murphy only gave him a hard stare that once again scared Dante, who quickly moved outside, letting out a sigh of terror. "Oh my god, that stare is terrifying."

He murmured before bringing the bandages from the inventory and looked at the broken poles. ’I should fix them.’

***

A day prior in the Ciradyl, near Mo Fei’s house, the footsteps echoed directly near the rented room.

Lionel stopped and moved his hand to knock it, but his gaze lay on the lock. "Huh?"

Near the door, he found a page pinned to the wall. He quietly plucked it and read it throughout the end. "I’m going outside for a trip; I know you would come, so consider waiting for a few days."

He blinked and stepped back, yawning slightly, then turned back toward the pathway. "I suppose I have to do the mission myself then."

With that, he quietly walked away and brought a pie and mash to eat from the bakery.

***

In the afternoon of the next day, the ordinary lapping of saltwater against the hull brought a strange, grounding clarity back to the cabin. The suffocating dread of the Bloodborne Sea had finally dissolved.

By that time the violet sky of the deep sea transitioned back into the dull, light blue twilight of the waters near Ciradyl. The crimson water had thinned out, losing its bubbling malice and returning to a deep, mundane navy blue.

Murphy stood by the cabin window, his uncorrupted left hand resting flat against the damp wood. He had changed into a clean, dry white shirt brought by Dante, though his signature long black coat remained draped over his shoulders, soaked with the salty water.

Beneath his rolled-up sleeve, the intricate web of phantom thread pulsed, keeping the Flesh Authority’s volatile corruption perfectly sealed against his marrow.

"Go... Andronicus."

The voice — his voice, layered with an ancient depth — had still dug deep into his mind. He couldn’t tell whether it was a fake memory crafted by the phantom thread or just an imaginative realm of Deity.

What exactly was in the City of Light? Why did I suddenly hear a memory that wasn’t mine?

He shook his head slightly, adjusting the brim of his fedora over his pale forehead. He couldn’t go there yet. His spirituality was still healing, and because of the seven-day timeline, he had to isolate himself for a week.

Going straight into an ancient, dead metropolis built by Andronicus the Great without a fully restored Authority would be nothing short of suicide; that place was already heavy from unusual spiritual presence.

"Mr. Law..." Dante’s hesitant voice broke the silence. The cleaner-turned-helmsman was steering the vessel with an impressive amount of care, his eyes wide as the distinct silhouette of the Ciradyl port finally materialized through the afternoon mist. "We... we’re actually back. I can’t believe I’m alive. It’s just a normal day."

"Naturally, Dante." Murphy replied, returning to that unnervingly calm, polite cadence. "The dream realm does not leave footprints in the mortal geography. Secure the vessel at the lower docks. Take whatever inventory is left, and ensure the repair instruments are returned to the lower deck."

Dante heaved a long sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping as he steered the ship toward an empty berth." Understood, Mr. Law. And... thank you. For not leaving me to drown out there."

Murphy remained quiet without answering him. He turned his cold gaze toward Silas, who was sitting silently in a wooden chair. A newly advanced Chaos Listener, his eyes bloodshot and dilated to the edges of his irises. Even with the protective charms, the sheer volume of the ordinary world, the shouting of dockworkers, the clanking of iron chains, and even the flapping of seagulls was hitting his raw ears like explosions.

Murphy walked over and gave Silas a firm, grounding nod. "Rest your senses, Mr. Silas. The descent is complete, but you’d require a quiet room. Go back to your quarters inland and establish your walls of silence. I will handle the rest, and if you ever need me, you may find me at Ciradyl."

Silas managed a stiff, respectful bow before quietly slipping out of the cabin, eager to find a dark, silent basement where his advanced hearing wouldn’t drive him to madness.

An hour later, the ship arrived at Ciradyl port. Murphy lifted his fedora slightly and gave Dante a nod. "Well then, pal. May we meet again on another journey? You may decide your fate now. What’d you like to do?"

Dante gulped slightly but returned the nod respectfully. "I... I would stay with Mr. Silas... I can’t leave him in his worst time."

Murphy gave him a mocking chuckle. "Staying with an ascended means inviting danger, are you still willing to?"

"Of course... I don’t have anyone else either way." Dante replied before waving his hand once and entering back into the ship.

...

His spiritual presence was almost entirely dull as he quietly moved toward the police officers, explaining everything about the pirate and managing to control the cops with his detective persona to ensure Silas and Dante wouldn’t have to face legal issues.

The Detective persona, Murphy Law, was slowly receding into the background, allowing Mo Fei’s core consciousness to fully reclaim his physical vessel. His long coat hid the heavily bandaged right arm where the crimson stitches held the flesh corruption in stasis. Every step he took toward his rented room felt incredibly heavy; his spirituality was deeply exhausted from hosting the Lenormand Club meeting, and fighting off a true deity’s manifestation in the span of a single night had exhausted him mentally.

Mo Fei walked through the familiar, rain-slicked cobblestone streets of Ciradyl.

As he reached the narrow pathway leading to his house, his boots clicked against the stone. He stopped right outside his door, his gaze immediately landing on the empty space where Lionel had pinned his note a day prior. Lionel was gone, likely handling his own missions for the Church, which was a small mercy. Mo Fei needed absolute isolation to think.

He plucked out the note from the wall and read it carefully. "If you return, then please visit Midnight Wings. Old Bai wants to meet you."

Old Bai?

He unlocked the door, stepped into the quiet room, and collapsed heavily onto his worn leather armchair. He didn’t turn on the lamps. He simply let his head fall back against the cushion, staring up at the shadow-draped ceiling as his mind began to sort through the chaotic events of the past twenty-four hours.

Suddenly the feminine voice of the Mirror of Truth echoed in the empty room. It had appeared on one of the walls. "It was tiring, wasn’t it?"

Mo Fei tilted his head toward it. He had survived the exposure to an Embodiment and escaped, but he wasn’t feeling well, almost as if something was taken away forcefully from his core... he couldn’t understand.

"Tiring or what, either way I would have died. It is a constant war of survival after all."

Mirror of Truth disappeared back into the spirit world, leaving behind a faint yawn.

Mo Fei, however, remembered someone. The memory of that stranger he had crossed paths with on the port of Ciradyl.

The man had introduced himself as Aiziq, a quiet, unassuming history professor and physician who seemed completely lost in the modern layout of the city. He had approached Mo Fei with a polite, gentle demeanor, asking for directions to the Lakeview Institute of Arts.

At the time, Aiziq had appeared entirely ordinary but with a really tall height, just a man of academia who had seemingly forgotten his own personal history, wandering the world with a blank amnesia.

Now, having experienced the terrifying pressure of high-Ordinal entities, Mo Fei’s spiritual perception re-evaluated that encounter with absolute horror.

’That presence...’ Mo Fei’s eyes narrowed in the dark room, his breath catching in his throat. ’When I stood next to him, my low-ordinal Authority couldn’t pick it up correctly because the scale was too large. That pressure I assumed as a terrifying being was true... a suppressed but terrifyingly clean frequency of an Angel.

An Angel of the GraveWalker Authority.

A literal mythical being walking the ordinary streets of Ciradyl under a false mortal name, completely unaware of his own divine identity...

’Why would a Death Angel be looking for the Lakeview Institute of Arts?’ Mo Fei pondered, his fingers tightly clenching the armrest.

He needed answers that his current detective persona and his isolated lifestyle could not provide. To track a hidden Angel and uncover the secrets of the dead cities, he needed an information network that operated in the deepest shadows of Ciradyl’s occult underworld — a place where orthodox churches couldn’t interfere.

And to his win, he already knew the perfect place to get that information.

Mo Fei slowly stood up, pushing his exhaustion aside. He walked over to his wardrobe, reaching past his long black coat to pull out a wholly different set of attire: a classic dark grey suit, a polished silver pocket watch, and a pristine silk top hat.

The Midnight Wings Organization... a secretive, underground intelligence network where he held an active membership under a thoroughly different, highly respected operational alias. Maybe he could use it for more details about that man.

’First I should find that man, and his name... afterward I’ll go to the City of Light, of course after rest.’