Chapter 177 - 159: Forged Blade

Mr. Hutton held an extremely thin red pencil in his right hand.

"All four Newcomers, come and help."

The four of them couldn’t move from their positions, but copies of the Rubbing Copy transmitted over to them automatically.

"Edmund."

With a flick of his fingertip, Mr. Hutton sent a glowing segment of Medieval Inscription from the Rubbing Copy flying over to Edmund.

"You’re in charge of this section."

"Maggie." Another segment of the Inscription, this one with Pre-Roman toothed symbols, flew over to Maggie.

"The entire Gaelic System falls to you."

"Yes."

"Theodore." Mr. Hutton’s red pencil sketched a rough directional map in mid-air.

"The position on the battlefield every second, the children’s movements, the captain’s strike points, Sarah’s trajectory... record it all and report it to me."

"...Report to you?" The boy from the stables’ voice trembled slightly.

"No analysis needed. Just report."

"...Yes."

"Richard."

The final, and largest, segment was given to his own student.

"You’ll handle synthesis.

"As soon as Edmund and Maggie report their sections, you will immediately connect them in their corresponding positions.

For the missing part in the middle, you’ll have to pull it from your own mind."

"...What I have in my head might not be enough," Richard answered honestly.

"Report it whether it is or not."

"If it’s something you haven’t read, I’ll treat it as a gap. If you have read it, I’ll use it immediately."

"Understood."

A Hunter can only kill the children, not the Mother.

A Secretive One can only control the field, not suppress the source.

To sever the link to the Mother herself, the Inscription she has written upon the Ether Layer must be analyzed from beginning to end.

No one else here could do this. Only a Scholar could.

This was the work of a Scholar: to forge a sharp blade from knowledge and words.

And to do it quickly, he needed help.

"Begin." Mr. Hutton raised the red pencil in his right hand.

The children shifted beneath the ground. Gray bands flowed under the "ground," reaching the outer edge of the True Name Stone’s circle and beginning to arch upward.

"Edmund, you take the glowing words in the southeast section."

"...’In nomine Sancti Cuthberti’ (In the name of Saint Cuthbert)," Edmund reported immediately.

"And after that?"

"’Qui custodit limen’ (The one who guards the threshold)."

"The one who guards the threshold?" Mr. Hutton confirmed.

"Yes."

"Good."

The old Scholar’s red pencil swiped across the half-moon-shaped Rubbing Copy.

He pulled "the one who guards the threshold" from its corresponding position in the Medieval Inscription and moved it to the center of the Rubbing Copy.

"Maggie."

"Here."

"The northwest section. The Pre-Roman one."

Maggie bit her lip.

She remained in her position, holding the Oak Short Staff upright with the ram’s horn on its tip pointed downward.

Beneath her feet, the eighteenth figure poked half its head out from the "ground," held in place by her Cyan Green Ring, unable to advance or retreat.

She had to split her focus: half on maintaining the Cyan Green Ring, the other half on reading the text.

"’Sí’ (That one)," she reported.

"Mm."

"’a ghoideann’ (Steals)."

"’scáth na n-óg’ (Shadow of the young)."

"’The one who steals the shadows of the young.’ We’ve read this line before."

"Yes."

"Now, it pieces together with ’the one who guards the threshold’."

The old Scholar touched the two segments together in the center of the Rubbing Copy.

As they touched, a gap appeared in the center of the half-moon-shaped Rubbing Copy.

The shape of the gap was the part Richard was meant to fill.

"Richard, connect it."

Richard focused his mind on the gap in the center of the Rubbing Copy.

In that second, [Scholarship] was pushed to its limit.

He began searching his mind:

Page 143 of *A Comparison of Pre-Roman Inscriptions and Medieval Seal Terminology*, from the east wing of the third floor of the Imperial University Library;

The fifth line of the second set in the glossary of Alexandrian School terms Isabella had given him;

The section on "Ether Circulation Names" in Part Two of Appendix C;

The detailed annotation on "Sacrificial Scar Rune Connection" in *Curtain Weak Point Examination*...

"Between ’the one who guards the threshold’ and ’the one who steals the shadows of the young,’ the Medieval Church used a transitional Curse: ’qui transit sub umbra’ (he who walks beneath the shadow)."

Richard’s brain felt overloaded for a moment before he slowly reported his finding.

He finally understood why the trait unlocked by [Scholarship] at Lv. 3 was [Erudite].

"’He who walks beneath the shadow’?" Mr. Hutton confirmed.

"Yes."

"And the corresponding Gaelic expression for the Pre-Roman segment?"

"’Tí faoi scáth’ (He beneath the shadow)."

"Good."

The old Scholar’s red pencil swiped across the half-moon-shaped Rubbing Copy.

"The one who guards the threshold" + "he who walks beneath the shadow" + "the one who steals the shadows of the young." The three segments were strung together on a single line.

Richard saw, with his Spiritual Vision, a line shimmering with a dark gray light appear on the Rubbing Copy.

That line was the nascent form of a Judgment.

"Theodore."

"Here!"

"Position of the second child in the southeast?"

"Four steps and seven-tenths from the outer edge of the True Name Stone, moving north," the boy from the stables reported haltingly.

"Speed?"

"Moving... a little more than one step per second."

"Which way is he veering?"

"To the west."

"Good."

Mr. Hutton moved one end of the dark gray line to the spot the second child from the southeast was moving toward.

The line latched on.

When the second child reached that spot, it was snagged by the waiting line.

It wasn’t pinned down, but it was pulled off course by half a step.

But for tonight, half a step was enough.

’One segment of the Judgment for one child.’

’There are twenty-five segments in total. Our goal is to use the Judgments to hold back the children.

’At the same time, we’ll save the deciphered Judgments to use against the Mother.’

In that moment, Richard fully understood the true structure of tonight’s battlefield.

The twenty-five children were both the assault and the raw materials.

The more children there were, the more they had to decipher.