Relic Out of Control

The surroundings were utterly silent. Seeing no one, Shade walked toward the sofa. He did not sit down, so he could leave at any time.

But his eyes once again fell upon the brass-colored Metal Gears box on the Tea Table. According To common sense, Shade would certainly not take the initiative to touch any unknown object.

Yet up close, besides the various gears and knobs on the brass cube's surface, he unexpectedly saw a line of Writing, twisted like musical notes, on its upward-facing side.

Though he had never seen it before, Shade still understood it:

"I am watching you in the darkness."

Then the voice whispering in his In Heart reminded him:

You have come into contact with a "Whisper."

"What? This is a relic?"

Shade exclaimed in surprise, only to discover that the bright Gas Lamps and Crystal Chandelier in the room had somehow begun to dim.

An inexplicable terror made him lower his head and stare at the brass gear box. At some point, the box had silently opened, its front lid shifting away from the main body.

As the lights grew increasingly dim, rolling black mist poured from within, crashing outward like waves.

"Isn't this a cliché from a horror novel? This is—"

Relic containment failure.

Shade had no time to react before the surging black mist completely extinguished the room's light.

Everything around him became utterly black, as though a layer of black ink had been smeared over his eyes. In the darkness, the fear intensified, making Shade's body tremble instinctively.

With Darkness Descends, his sense of direction vanished completely. Shade felt as though he had fallen into the most terrifying abyss, his body and mind both assaulted by fear. For one instant, he even believed that some enormous, indescribable thing in the darkness was watching him.

The extreme panic made him want to scream, but the Outlander quickly calmed himself. He knew what the most rational course of action was at this moment.

In the dark space, reason and emotion battled one another. This fear was not an emotion he controlled; it was an instinctive response. At the same time, as the terror surged within him, whispers came from the darkness.

They were not the pleasant woman's voice inside his head. They were whispers of hatred and resentment, as though thousands upon thousands of people were speaking over one another. The sound was like white worms crawling and scraping through his ear canals, and goosebumps even rose on the back of his exposed hand.

"Hm? Why can I see the back of my own hand?"

He lowered his head and Looked Towards his hand. A faint silver glow covered it, preventing his body from being completely swallowed by the darkness.

"That's right. I'm no longer an ordinary person. I'm a Ring Arcanist."

In his fear, he barely managed to calm down. Looking at his hands, he sensed the Brass Destiny Ring slowly rotating within his soul and summoned it forth.

Bell toll!

Behind his body, wrapped in Silver Moonlight, even the white steam in the dark space seemed to have been dyed with Silver Light.

Steam whistle!

A strange, piercing cry echoed through distant Spacetime, its Vibration shaking the Deep and Serene darkness.

Great hammer!

The great hammer struck from the Depths of steam and darkness. Amid flying sparks, the Brass Destiny Ring Appeared behind him, spinning at tremendous speed and scattering sparks into the darkness.

"Silver Moon!"

Though he had not mastered any Thaumaturgy related to Silver Moon, Shade, standing in this darkness and relying only on what he felt in his heart, followed his own will and raised his right hand high as he shouted.

The fully manifested Destiny Ring was a Ring Arcanist's strongest state. The spark-scattering Brass Ring answered its master's call, and the Silver Moon Core Rune flashed.

At that moment, Shade seemed to hear a woman's laughter beside his ear. Then, silver light burst from the index finger of his raised right hand like a dazzling sun.

That Moon Radiance gradually spread in every direction, making the surrounding curtain of darkness recede as though Time Reversal had begun.

At the same time, Shade noticed that ahead of him, golden light outlined the silhouette of a seated woman. Her light was also driving away the terrifying darkness that had emerged from the relic's containment failure.

This is the person who wanted to meet me.

Shade thought, watching Light dispels darkness and restores the surroundings to the Reception Room.

The darkness retreated unwillingly. It tried to tear Shade apart, but it could not approach the radiance of Silver Moon.

The whispers cursed the people Emitting light as well. The voices overlapped repeatedly, making them nearly impossible to distinguish. Yet Shade still heard the clearest words among them. Whispers from more than one place spoke that sentence. It was not directed at him; it was an unconscious murmur from the whispers in the darkness.

The Outlander understood the strange language:

"Old Gods! You damned thieves! Thirteen..."

The darkness completely receded, and the silver radiance at Shade's fingertip gradually faded as well. But he could feel that if he needed it, he could use such an ability again. This could entirely count as the first Thaumaturgy he had created: Silver Moon Light Art.

Though it was not particularly useful.

The final whispers continued to Echo in his ears. Shade was astonished by their contents, yet had no idea whether they were true. Generally speaking, anything heard in the whispers of a relic containment failure was untrustworthy.

Lowering his head to Looked Towards the brass cube box on the Tea Table, he found that it had already closed, as though the black mist pouring from it Just Now had been nothing but an illusion.

When he raised his head and Looked Towards the direction where the golden female figure had been, he saw the wall containing the bookshelves. At the lower-right corner of the enormous bookcase was a wooden door opened by a narrow crack.

The wooden door's handle was pure gold in color and blended perfectly into the bookcase. That was why Shade had not noticed it when he first entered the room and stepped onto the palm-wide red wool carpet.

He instinctively understood that the woman who wanted to meet him was in the room behind that door.

The room was somewhat colder than the corridor. The corridor itself was already cooler than the city on this summer night, while the room's temperature seemed more appropriate for late autumn.

"The temperature seems abnormal. I remember it being normal at first. Have the Consequences of the relic's containment failure not ended yet?"

The power of a High-Ring Arcanist affected the environment. The other party was probably very angry.

"High-Ring? Above nine rings? Wait, how do you know that? And why is she angry? Shouldn't I be the one who's angry?"

Shade hesitated as he thought. At that moment, the woman's voice finally came from behind the door:

"You... hm. You probably understand what happened Just Now?"

There was helplessness and indignation in her tone. For the first time, Shade realized he could clearly read someone else's emotions from their tone of voice.

"Relic containment failure."

He answered honestly, then learned the truth about what had happened.

"Young sir, you and I... I do not know whether I should blame myself or blame you. That was the Poet Level relic, Darkness Box. It will only suffer containment failure when someone recites its activation incantation while possessing Spirit Runes related to light and celestial bodies. I merely wished to meet you. Why did you do that? Do you not know that unfamiliar incantations cannot be casually interpreted?"

She did not speak particularly quickly. Her Common Language carried a northern accent, and from her voice, she sounded no older than thirty, though she might have only recently passed twenty. Her manner of speech was exceptionally elegant; even Shade could hear the undisguised anger in her tone.

Shade truly had not known about what she mentioned. Although he had maintained his usual caution, he had only just arrived in this world. He could not have anticipated that silently reciting an incantation in his heart would cause a relic containment failure. Still, the accident had indeed resulted from his carelessness.

He decided to treat this incident as a lesson.

"Lady, I'm very sorry. I am not trying to evade responsibility, but may I ask why you wished to see me?"

He did not know how to explain himself, so he could only first express his apology and, incidentally, probe her attitude.

The Lady behind the door surely could not have guessed that the guest she had invited could effortlessly understand ancient Writing, much less know the guest's Core Rune. Therefore, part of the responsibility for what had happened Just Now certainly belonged to Shade.

He wanted to offer compensation, but the other party was a high-ranking Ring Arcanist, and there was no way he could afford it. Thus, he could only ask what she wanted.

Just Now, both he and the other party had used the power of Ring Arcanists, yet the Lady behind the door was not surprised. This meant that when she invited the Detective on the 2nd Floor, she had already known the Detective's identity.

This puzzled Shade greatly. He had only become a Ring Arcanist one day ago. No one should have been able to see through him.

But at least the woman behind the door was not Lassoya. Even though Shade had never heard Lassoya speak, he was certain that someone whose gender could not even be determined could not speak in such an elegant, tranquil tone.

"Forget it. An apology is enough. I should not have left the relic outside while receiving a guest either. We are both responsible. And this incident has reminded me once again that relics must never be left lying around, or one might encounter any sort of person. I never expected that you could understand those incantations. Those words are truly ancient."

The Lady behind the door sighed, while Shade relaxed slightly. It was not because the matter had been dismissed, but because this incident showed him that the High-Ring Sorceress behind the door was reasonable. It was much safer to deal with such people.

"Back to the matter at hand, young sir, what should I call you?"

The woman behind the door adjusted her emotions before asking. Shade could not see through the door to view her, but he believed she could see him. He could easily imagine the scene: the woman sitting behind a desk, speaking with him through the door.