Time until the Eastern Emperor Bell rings: 10 minutes
Shangjing City, Night Watchmen Headquarters.
"What exactly... is the Holy Covenant?"
In the archives room, Zuo Qing stared at the ancient parchment scroll in his hands and muttered to himself.
Ring ring ring—!
The crisp ringtone of his phone pulled Zuo Qing back to reality. He answered the call.
"Alright, I'm on my way."
He returned the file to its original place and hurried back to his office, where his secretary was already waiting anxiously.
"What's so urgent? Have Qiye and the others returned?"
"No... Director Lin and the others should still be at sea. It's something else!"
The secretary handed the tablet in his hands to Zuo Qing and spoke solemnly. "Just a minute ago, the lunar-orbit monitoring satellite we launched sent back some strange images..."
"A lunar-orbit monitoring satellite?"
Zuo Qing narrowed his eyes slightly.
Years ago, when humanity first observed Archangel Michael on the moon, they began developing lunar-orbit satellites to monitor that angel's movements. But after the first satellite was launched, Michael cleaved it from the sky with a single sword strike. Humanity launched several more afterward, each time tentatively increasing the observation distance from the moon. It was not until the fourth satellite that Michael stopped attacking them, tacitly allowing humanity to observe from afar.
But that satellite was simply too far from the moon. Even with the most advanced telescope of that era, it could barely make out the figure within the crater as a white speck. It could not obtain any other useful information, much less conduct surveillance.
Later, after realizing that Michael bore no ill will toward humanity, humanity gradually gave up monitoring the moon. The lunar-orbit monitoring satellite launched all those years ago became an old relic everyone had forgotten.