Chapter 283: Silent Lockdown

The spirit evocation was scheduled for the Branch Office's underground level, inside Old Biggs's autopsy room.

Today, this autopsy room had no master.

When Richard pushed the door open, the stainless steel table was empty.

The ever-burning light above it was still on.

Mrs. MacNeil placed the thirteen anchor bodies onto the iron table one by one.

A broken lantern, a teal clay pot, a weighing stele, an Ebony Box, the Sacred Ibis Bronze Paperweight, Black Prayer Beads, a stone statue of Ammit, a Dark Copper Mirror, a clay whistle, gold-threaded linen, a Small Bronze Balance, a Silent Fern Gizzard...

And the clay tablet densely carved with the general outline of the "Replacement" ritual.

Thirteen items in total.

They were arranged along the table in the shape of a crescent moon.

This had been Richard's idea. Even though not a speck of Mr. Reeve remained, these items were the ledgers for the network he had operated over the past twelve years.

His traces were scattered throughout these thirteen objects.

Placed here, Madam Marie would definitely be able to use them.

"They're set," Mrs. MacNeil said.

"Teacher will be here soon."

Richard retreated to the corner of the room, leaning against the wall.

He didn't dare stand too close.

Time ticked by.

The ever-burning light shone steadily.

Then, a soft sound came from outside the thick wooden door.

Claws scratching at the wood.

The cat avatar had pulled its ether in as tight as possible, trying not to disturb its surroundings.

Yet the tighter it coiled, the more Richard could sense its true weight.

The Silver Ring against his chest grew warm.

The door opened on its own.

A black cat squeezed through the crack.

Half-paralyzed in her wheelchair, Mrs. MacNeil jolted and struggled to rise.

"...Teacher."

"Sit."

A faint trace of attention traveled through the cat from an immense distance.

The voice was gentle, slightly hoarse.

"Your injuries haven't healed. Don't move."

Mrs. MacNeil sat back down.

The black cat strolled up to the crescent of antiquities.

Its pure golden eyes swept over the thirteen relics of the Black Soil River one by one.

It paused when its gaze fell on the clay tablet carved with the "Replacement" outline.

The cat then looked at Richard.

"Little Richard."

Richard bowed slightly.

"...Madam."

"You realized you could gather Mr. Reeve's remnant spirit from these thirteen anchor bodies."

"It was the right idea."

The black cat waved a paw.

"Your quick mind is a talent."

"And a liability."

Richard's heart stirred.

Before he could dwell on the remark, the cat strolled back to the table.

"MacNeil."

"Yes, Teacher."

"The depth of this evocation is far beyond what you can handle."

"Just watch."

"Set up the opening of your Anchor Network, and I'll handle the rest."

"Yes."

Mrs. MacNeil took the last five Spirit Lodging Vessels from a leather suitcase.

She drew a wisp of light from each of the five vessels and wove them into an incredibly thin net, draping it over the thirteen items.

It was a net of reception.

Whatever was about to be dragged back from the Spirit Realm had to land in this net first to prevent it from spiraling out of control.

The black cat sat on its haunches in the center of the room.

It laid out no instruments, merely closing its golden eyes.

Then, it began to call.

The voice bypassed the walls and the rooftops of the North District, knocking directly on the door to the Spirit Realm.

"The thing that has worn a dead man's face in this city for twelve years."

"Come out!"

The thirteen anchor bodies flared simultaneously.

Thirteen traces were yanked from the objects, drifting into the air to form a blurry human silhouette.

That face, so amiable it sent a chill down the spine—Mr. Reeve.

"...Who."

The voice was hollow, laced with the deep reluctance of something dragged forcefully back from an immense distance.

"Finally," the black cat said.

Its pure golden eyes opened.

Fixed under that stare, Mr. Reeve's silhouette drifted slightly in the air.

"...It's you," it said.

Mr. Reeve's voice took on a tone of awe.

"The one from Flower Moon Street," the silhouette said. "We... have long heard of you."

"We?" The cat's voice dropped a fraction. "...The Echo Society?"

The silhouette nodded involuntarily, then instantly stiffened.

But it couldn't control itself.

"It's no surprise the Echo Society knows of me," the black cat said.

"I've always done business openly. The entire Empire knows of me."

"I called you out tonight for one reason."

"I want three things from you."

Mr. Reeve wanted to resist, but couldn't.

"First," the black cat said.

"The Silence Spell you used to kill that coroner."

"Walk me through it, from beginning to end."

Mr. Reeve's silhouette struggled in midair.

Then, it gave up.

Under Richard's Spirit Vision, the blurry silhouette raised an arm clad in a gray cloth shirt.

Without any medium, it simply pressed that arm down into the void.

Richard's Spirit Vision caught the spell formula's operational trajectory.

Casting without a medium—a raise of the hand, a press, and a vacuum was formed.

"What about the distance?" the black cat asked.

"When you killed the coroner, how far away were you?"

The silhouette demonstrated again in midair.

After the pocket of vacuum was pushed out, it didn't land immediately; the spell effect drifted outward.

Long-distance casting.

"...There is something else," the black cat said.

"What did you chant before you killed him?"

The silhouette trembled violently in the air.

It wanted to resist the command.

The harder it fought, the harder the thirteen anchor bodies shook.

The bamboo frame of the broken lantern rattled and cracked.

The teal clay pot shifted its position on the table.

The clay tablet carved with the "Replacement" outline oozed a faint wisp of black mist.

Standing in the corner, Richard broke out in a cold sweat.

"Hand it over!" The black cat's pure golden eyes widened further.

The entire table was suddenly suppressed, and under the sheer force of a Major Adept, Mr. Reeve's silhouette could resist no longer.

It chanted an extremely short incantation.

"Silent Lockdown. So that's what it was," the black cat said.

"MacNeil."

"Yes, Teacher."

"I will copy down the trajectory of this spell formula for you."

Just like Mrs. MacNeil had done last time.

As soon as the trajectory touched the parchment, it imprinted itself, turning into trails of ink.

Three full pages of parchment.

"Take this," the black cat said.

"There is more than one Mr. Reeve in the Echo Society."

"You will encounter this Silence variant again."

"Only by knowing how it's cast can you know how to defend against it."

Upon receiving permission, Richard quickly flipped through the pages.

[Erudition] mapped every stroke, accurate to the millimeter, straight into his mind.

He was also practicing the original version of the Silence Spell and had mentally deduced the possibility of "reversing" it.

Now, from mediumless casting, to long-distance, to lockdown...

The entire advancement path was laid bare before him.

He even vaguely realized that if he were to reverse this "lockdown"... but this wasn't the right place, so he temporarily stopped himself from thinking further.

The black cat looked back at Mr. Reeve's fading silhouette.

"And the last thing."

As it spoke, it stood up.

"MacNeil, close the Anchor Network and retreat to the wall."

"Little Richard, you too. Step back."

Richard felt a vague sense of unease.

They hadn't been asked to step back for the first two questions.

Yet for this final question, they were being driven into the corners.

He didn't say much. Holding Mrs. MacNeil's wheelchair, he retreated all the way to the deepest corner of the room.

"For this next question," the black cat said.

"You are not to hear a single word."

It raised a paw and pressed down lightly.

The first barrier descended.

Under Richard's Spirit Vision, it looked like a layer of salt mist.

It enclosed the small central area, covering both the black cat and Mr. Reeve's silhouette.

The second barrier was like oil-soaked paper; once applied, it even dulled the reflections off the iron table.

The third layer was like water.

The fourth, like smoke.

The fifth...

By the time Richard counted the ninth layer, he lost track.

The barriers stacked one over another, descending swiftly and steadily.

The ether trajectories on each layer made his head spin, and each layer was as thick as a wall.

In the end, the center of the room in his Spirit Vision was reduced to a blurry blob of light, like looking through deep water.

Through the heavy barriers, Richard saw the small black shadow open its mouth to the grayish-white silhouette.

Whatever was asked, not a single syllable leaked out.

Inside the barriers, Mr. Reeve began to struggle violently.

Ten times more fiercely than when he surrendered the Silent Lockdown.

Even through the barriers, the thirteen anchor bodies on the table trembled.

His mouth opened and closed.

At the exact moment his voice dropped...

He exploded entirely without warning, like a glass crushed from the inside out.

The reverberations shattered into a cloud of fragments, splattering everywhere inside the barriers.

Richard's pupils shrank sharply.

In the center of the fragments, something opened.

It was that pupil-less eye.

This shouldn't be... Mrs. MacNeil had just suffered at its hands last time.

Moreover, judging from Madam Marie's words, deeds, and notes, she should also be a seasoned and prudent person.

His Inspiration began to warn him, but the feeling was incredibly faint.

Beside him in the wheelchair, Mrs. MacNeil shot Richard a reassuring look.

Richard relaxed slightly and continued to watch.

Riding the back of the answer that had just been spat out, the pupil-less eye forcibly brought its full gaze to bear.

Pressing down on the center of the barriers, onto that small black shadow.

That person had been waiting for this exact moment.

But at the exact moment that gaze crashed down, the black cat lit up.

A phantom of light rose from its body.

Tall and crowned, leaning on a scepter with indistinguishable patterns.

This was the Virtuoso of the Solar Tradition.

A second figure lit up right after, seemingly hailing from a tropical island.

The figure held an umbrella, water streaming silently off its canopy.

The water dripped from the ribs of the umbrella drop by drop, each drop turning to mist as it fell, carrying the briny stench of millennia-old depths.

Richard couldn't see its facial features, but the reverberation arrived.

...The one who walks the shoreless river, breathing with the tides.

...The one who once gathered thousands of ravines into a single umbrella.

...The one whose spine has melted into water, whose bones are soaked through, leaving only the eternal rise and fall of the tide.

The aura of this Virtuoso was noticeably stronger than the Solar Tradition's.

The third projection was a mass of extremely steady, eerily quiet fire.

It had no distinct face, but a graceful figure could be vaguely seen through the flames.

This hammer-swinging Virtuoso of the Hearth Fire Tradition was actually a woman.

The fourth projection coiled in midair, not even twitching a finger.

The fifth had no face, no silhouette, and it was hard to even confirm if it was truly standing there.

But the moment it appeared, all thirteen Black Soil River antiquities on the table gave a slight shudder, as if recognizing one of their own.

Five phantoms of Virtuosos rose from the body of a single black cat.

They simultaneously pressed their force toward that pupil-less eye.

In Richard's Spirit Vision, the oppressive pupil-less eye was seized from all directions by five invisible hands, and forced back inch by inch to the other side of the veil.

Before closing, the eye trembled in extreme unwillingness.

Then, it was gone.

The thread connecting to the other side of the veil was severed at the root.

The five phantoms vanished just as quickly as they had appeared.

Inside the heavy layers of barriers, that small black shadow sat amidst the gently falling grayish-white fragments.

Quiet and peaceful, as if nothing had ever happened.

Leaning against the wall, Richard was somewhat dumbfounded.

...This was the true weight of running a business that spanned the entire Empire.

He suddenly understood something he had never dared to think deeply about before.

Perhaps Madam Marie had remained at Major Adept for all these years not because she couldn't break through to Virtuoso.

She simply didn't want to.

The heavy layers of barriers dissolved one by one.

Crouching amidst the sky full of fragments, the black cat raised a paw and methodically licked it.

"MacNeil."

"...Teacher," Mrs. MacNeil's voice was hoarse.

"Withdraw the Anchor Network."

"It's no longer needed."

"Little Richard." The black cat looked toward the young man in the corner.

"Yes, Madam!" Richard stood at attention.

"I told you once: 'How it is defined is how it exists'."

"Yes."

"There's another line you must remember tonight."

"To speak is to summon."

The black cat said slowly.

"To ask is also to speak."

"I shut you out because I didn't want you tainted by that 'knowing'."

"As long as you didn't hear a single word, that thread couldn't latch onto you."

"That eye couldn't see you."

"I am not afraid, of course," it said.

"As you just saw, I caught it."

"But the two of you..."

It glanced at Mrs. MacNeil, then at Richard.

"Knowing too much isn't always a good thing."

"Then... those projections just now..." Mrs. MacNeil asked softly.

She didn't dare say the word "Virtuoso" out loud.

The black cat licked its paw.

"I've been open for business for many years. More than a couple of people owe me favors."

It spoke breezily, as if it were nothing.

"I will separately submit the information that needs to be reported."

The black cat stood up.

"Twelve of the thirteen artifacts have dissolved. Distribute what should be distributed, and hand in what should be handed in."

"That clay tablet is to be sealed and sent to Manchester."

"You and MacNeil may both make a copy of those three pages on the Silence variant."

"The original is to be sealed and sent to Manchester along with the rest."

"Yes."

The black cat straightened up and squeezed out through the crack in the door.

Outside the door, the heavy, tranquil ether slowly dissipated, like a receding tide.

Head bowed, Mrs. MacNeil unconsciously rubbed the Bone Bracelet on her wrist with her fingertips.

After a long while, she finally raised a hand and rubbed her eyes.

"Let's clean up."

Richard snapped back to his senses. He stepped forward and first secured the clay tablet carved with the "Replacement" outline.

Once all the artifacts were properly categorized and the iron table wiped clean, the autopsy room returned to its usual desolate state.

Mrs. MacNeil leaned on the armrests of her wheelchair.

"Push me out."

Gripping the handles, Richard pushed her out of the underground autopsy room and up along the long, narrow corridor of the Branch Office.

Stacks of ropes, salt bags, and copper sealing nails left over from the post-battle cleanup still lined both sides of the corridor.

"The matter of Mr. Reeve has now come to an end,"

Mrs. MacNeil said quietly.

"But until that Black Soil River Virtuoso is caught, all dossiers related to the Echo Society within the Empire's borders can never be archived and sealed."

Reaching the main entrance of the Branch Office, the clamor of the outside world rushed in to greet them.

The rumble of coal carts, the chatter of pedestrians, and the shouts of street vendors could be heard faintly in the distance, completely washing away the lingering chill of the underground autopsy room.

Mrs. MacNeil raised her hand, looking out at the endless stretch of houses in the distance.

"The memories of the people in this city have been wiped clean. From now on, they will no longer be haunted by black water and departed spirits. I suppose this is the best possible outcome for the sacrifices made that night."