Chapter 180: The Promise

Chapter 180: The Promise

"Mr. Sherlock..." Aiziq’s voice turned raspy, the cadence shifting slightly into the same foreign undertone accent from the far-southern lands of Kemetia through his professional manners. The golden light beneath the linen blindfold flickered slightly. The ghostly rumble of iron-wheeled chariots echoed through the plaster walls, threatening to tear Mo Fei’s fragile spiritual anchors apart.

Although as quickly as the pressure built, it began to subside too. Aiziq let out a long, heavy breath as the golden luminescence dimmed, receding back behind the thick cloth.

"A cradle..." Aiziq repeated, his accent lingering heavily on the elongated vowels. He turned his blindfolded face back toward the dark window, his posture carrying the profound melancholy of a lecturer who had realized all his textbooks were written in a language he no longer understood. "A quiet room... built by someone who wanted me to rest. If what you say is true, Mr. Sherlock, then my friend was a very patient creator. But can a cradle truly carry the tomb?"

Mo Fei forced his breathing to remain slow and measured, keeping his fingers firmly resting on the hem of his long coat. Every instinct he possessed as an Ascended began to frantically call out him to back off.

The entity sitting across from him was indeed a fully fledged Angel of the Death Authority... a walking mythical being capable of harvesting the souls of an entire borough if his sanity fractured. Yet, currently, Mo Fei’s own situation left him with very few choices.

His spirituality was profoundly exhausted from the Bloodborne sea. The crimson stitches beneath his rolled sleeve throbbed with a dull, malicious heat, holding the Flesh Authority’s volatile corruption in check by a thread. Even though the influence of the previous gaze of the True God’s descent had slowly healed from that ritual.

Now, he needed answers about the City of Light, and the words that echoed in the Dreamer influenced sea.

"Professor," Mo Fei began, with a soft murmur, because the words he had witnessed in divinity were beginning to make him lose. "If the anchors here are failing, then remaining within this university will only invite the eyes of the orthodox churches. If another war catches up to you here, the Ciradyl will become a mass grave."

Aiziq listened to his words quietly; the white porcelain teacup rested silently in his dark brown hand. "Mr. Sherlock, rest assured, why would I bring war? Tell me then, why did you come to meet me?"

"There is a place... A mad place." Mo Fei continued, choosing his words with precision, matching the structured, logical deductions of a proper historian, but now slightly less cautious because he knew now the Angel of Death he was talking to was as lost as him. "An ancient, dead metropolis... It was built by Andronicus the Great, and it is known as the City of Light. My current spirituality is too depleted to navigate its depths alone, and the path is blocked by the weight of my corruption. But within those ruins lie the oldest secrets of the dead... records that predate the divine wars of the last century. Please, I need your help, Professor. I can’t go there because of my corruption caused by the Curator of Flesh Authority and the Phantom Thread."

Mo Fei leaned forward slightly, balancing his extreme caution with an undeniable truth. "Could you come with me to the City of Light, Professor? It’d be a great help if you could help me with this; there is something important that I need to understand about it. In return, we will look for the true remnants of your past — the parts this university’s photographs could never capture. We will find out together about you so you can get your memories; I will do everything for this."

After he stopped, a sudden silence stretched over the room. The fresh black ink on the wall stopped dripping, freezing against the plaster. Aiziq looked down at his teacup, his expression entirely hidden behind the linen blindfold, yet his mind seemed to be traveling across thousands of leagues of forgotten sand.

He slightly tilted his head in the left and stared at Mo Fei for a long moment. Lifting the cup toward his lips, he took a long sip and thought for a long moment, as if considering his words. Of course, he knew about that city... He had lived there after all.

Mo Fei, however, seemed tense as he realized that his words that seemed casual held much more depth than what he considered before. He thought that if Aiziq could help, then he may guide Mo Fei through the spiritual resonance of the City of Light... thinking about it deeply, he got it that Aiziq was a literal Angel even though he didn’t know about all of his powers yet.

Finally, a slow, solemn nod from Mr. Aiziq broke the stillness.

"The City of Light...?" Aiziq murmured, his foreign tongue wrapping around the words with an instinctual familiarity. "A metropolis built by the Emperor chosen by the Lord... Very well, Mr. Sherlock Hermès. I shall walk into the dead city with you."

He paused and lifted his hand. "But..."

Mo Fei’s heart dropped at the word, the suffocating silence finally lowered as the relief caught up. Finally, even with the effects of the Phantom Thread artifact, he could finally go there, and now because a presence of an angel would be with him, then it’d lower the cosmic presence and spiritual residue of that City. With a small sigh, he asked. "Yes, Professor?"

Aiziq reclined on the sofa, gazing out the window as night gradually enveloped the world, with stars twinkling and the moon casting a gentle light. "Why do you want to help me? Why are you willing to help me recover memories when you don’t even know my name?" His voice deepened subtly, reflecting a natural wariness typical of an ancient entity.

Mo Fei stared at Aiziq for a long moment. He felt that distrust in his voice... At that moment he knew if he simply gave him a casual answer or even told him a lie, then the Angel would interpret it that Mo Fei was going to use him as mere protection... In front of an Angel trying to keep his humanity in check, it was better to cling to honesty.

Even without his memories, the Angel’s fundamental nature had the heavy instincts for survival. A single lie here could trigger a psychological backlash.

Mo Fei exhaled slowly, letting the polite, rigid mask of Sherlock Hermès slip. He chose to rely on absolute, unvarnished honesty. "An ordinary man cannot look into the abyss of my contamination if I lost control from the corruption because of phantom threads, and an orthodox purveyor would simply put me down to contain the risk. You are the only entity in Ciradyl who can stand beside my corruption without being destroyed if I go insane. If I help you anchor your divinity, I ensure my own survival. There is no grand altruism in my offer... only the desperation of an Ascended. The truth is..."

He paused and glanced at the desk where the card rested. "I previously encountered terrifying beings... you at least didn’t destroy me yet. If you deny my offer, then I won’t mind either, only then I have to wait for my spirituality to heal to go there."

Outside the frosted window, the autumn wind howled through the weeping willows, but inside the history office, even the steam pipes had ceased their rattling.

Aiziq Grieger sat still, slowly, the tension in his broad shoulders dissolved. The faint scent of tomb soil receded, replaced once more by the comforting, mundane warmth of the hot cocoa. A slow, melancholic smile — devoid of the earlier distrust, tugged at the corner of his lips. "Now tell me then, why do you seek the City of Light?"

"Because I am terrified, Professor..." Mo Fei answered, his voice mixed with a murmur and genuine exhaustion. "And because like you, I do not entirely know where I belong anymore."

Aiziq listened attentively, his expression remaining serene. He quietly pulled away from the cup and put his hand gently on the armrest.

"Previously I escaped the Bloodborne Sea." Mo Fei continued. "The sea was enveloped with the Authority of the Dreamer. Under that suffocating pressure, deep within my own mind, a voice echoed. It called out a name: ’Go... Andronicus.’"

He paused, his chest heaving slightly as the crimson stitches beneath his sleeve throbbed.

"I cannot tell if that memory is a fabrication crafted by phantom threads or a fragment of something else entirely. In this world, when you begin to hear words that do not belong to you, you are already standing on the precipice of losing control. I am going to the City of Light to find out if my mind is still my own. Last time... I couldn’t find much, I need to find more about that city."

"The Dreamer..." Aiziq murmured. "A domain of beautiful but terrifying illusions. Yes... when the sea is touched by that script, the boundary between what was, what is, and what never happened becomes as thin as a papyrus reed. Your caution is justified, young friend. In the southern lands, we used to say that a man who drinks from a stranger’s well must first check the bottom for hidden crocodiles."

He stood up from the sofa, his brown suit tracking the movement with a slight rustle. He walked over to the mahogany desk, picking up the porcelain cup and draining the last of the dark fluid.

"Well then. Go now, Mr. Sherlock Hermès." Aiziq said, his voice returning to the calm, gentle cadence of a university don.

He turned his blindfolded face toward the door, his posture signaling the end of their interview.

"At exactly two o’clock at night, the veil between this laboratory and the dead metropolis will be at its thinnest. I shall be waiting right here. We shall find out together whose voice is speaking inside your head. In return, you may use your methods later to help me with my memories."

"Thank you, Professor," Mo Fei said. He rose from his seat, performed a flawless, respectful gentleman’s bow, and adjusted his silk top hat. "Ah, pardon me for my foolishness; I almost forgot to ask for your good name."

"I do not know what my true name is... but I heard from others and the fragments I remember... it is Aiziq."

With another small nod, Mo Fei turned and walked toward the door. As his hand pressed down on the cold iron handle, the relief hit him. The suffocating weight of hosting the Lenormand Club, fighting off the True God’s manifestation, and navigating the occult underworld of Ciradyl had left his psyche entirely spent.

But now he had one reassurance. He had a literal Angel of Death committed to shielding him from cosmic gaze into the ruins of Andronicus the Great. With a presence of that scale walking beside him, the cosmic distortion and spiritual residue of the City of Light would be suppressed, allowing him a viable path to sanity.

He opened the door and stepped out into the misty corridor of the History Department.

The wood clicked shut behind him, leaving him alone with the flickering amber gaslight of the real world. Mo Fei pulled his coat tighter around his throbbing arm, his eyes narrowing with a renewed, cold determination.

It was finally time to prepare and first tell Midnight Wings about this.