The Calamity Star Tablet

After Lin Jie sent the false good news, which was enough to mislead the Eternal Serpent Cult's headquarters for a time, he slid down in front of the bloodstained alchemical telegraph machine.

This time, directly touching a corpse to read the dead man's memories had been far more filthy and mentally contaminating than his previous few experiences of sensing Afterimages.

The black-clad leader's conflicting emotions before his death—his fanatical faith in the cult and his terror at the prospect of dying—had left fragments behind in his mind like a potent poison.

William hurried forward and helped him to his feet.

The silent old soldier said little. He simply took a small silver medicine bottle from his pocket, tipped out two pills, and put them in Lin Jie's mouth. They gave off a cool minty scent.

"These are the Association-issued Sedative and Mental Purification Tablets. The ingredients include powdered tears from an Asian South Sea Merman. Take them and get some rest. You'll be fine."

Lin Jie nodded gratefully and swallowed the pills dry.

A cool sensation immediately rose from his stomach, gently washing over the nerves that had grown hot and painful from overexertion, and easing his headache a little.

"We have to leave this place before daybreak."

William's tone was firm. He glanced out the window. "This ship won't last much longer. Once it sinks completely, every trace will be carried to the bottom of the lake."

They had accomplished their main objective. Now it was time to withdraw safely from this chaotic game of chess.

"Before we leave, there's one last thing we have to do."

Lin Jie's gaze fell again on the headless black-clad corpse, its self-destruct mechanism already triggered. "This man clearly held a high position in the cult."

"He must be carrying something more valuable than what the ordinary members had."

William nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.

Scavenging for spoils was an essential part of any victory.

Without further delay, the two of them began one last thorough search of their most valuable "relic."

They soon discovered that the black-clad leader's equipment was indeed far superior to that of the other ordinary members.

The lining of his seemingly ordinary black uniform was made of UMA leather, a remarkably tough material that could effectively resist knife blows.

The barrel of the Steam Weapon at his waist was also engraved with unknown alchemical runes.

In the inner pocket of his clothes, Lin Jie found several obsidian snake-shaped badges that marked his rank within the cult. Then his fingers brushed against a hard, cold object about the size of his palm, its surface apparently covered in intricate patterns.

He carefully took it out.

It was a dark gray tablet, neither stone nor jade, cold and heavy in his hand.

The tablet was irregularly shaped, as though it were a fragment violently chipped from a much larger stele.

Its surface had been polished to a remarkable smoothness. Carved into it in an ancient linear script Lin Jie had never seen before, alongside complex astronomical symbols, was a star chart steeped in an ominous sense of calamity.

At its center, a huge and evil "calamity star" seemed to radiate lines of ill-omened light.

Several other stars representing the capitals of Europe—London, Berlin, Rome, and others—looked dim beneath its radiance, appearing doomed to fall.

Only one star was not suppressed by the calamity star. Instead, it echoed it from afar, forming a strange energy connection.

Clearly carved beside that star was a Latin word Lin Jie knew all too well: "PARIS."

Lin Jie's expression changed!

He immediately realized that this tablet was no ordinary ornament or badge of rank!

It was likely a sacred relic the Eternal Serpent used for astrological rituals and divination—and perhaps it was even connected to the mysterious "Mentor" the black-clad leader had mentioned!

The "Paris Calamity Star Descent Map" depicted on it laid bare, like a divine oracle, the final location and central purpose of that mad "ancestral return ritual"!

"Sergeant William, take a look at this."

Lin Jie's voice was brimming with barely contained excitement.

William leaned closer.

He could not understand the complex symbols, but when he looked at the tablet, he felt a malicious spiritual presence emanating from it. Even a battle-hardened veteran like him was overcome by a deep sense of unease.

"What a sinister thing," William muttered. "This is no ordinary object."

"Bring it with us. We're leaving now!"

Lin Jie nodded solemnly.

He carefully wrapped the tablet in more than a dozen layers of oilcloth, then tucked it into the inner pocket closest to his body.

The information this tablet contained was invaluable.

With it, I.A.R.C.'s top scholars and occultists might be able to decipher the Eternal Serpent Cult's grand conspiracy surrounding the Paris World's Fair.

After finishing their final search, they did not linger.

The two of them slipped back into the freezing lake.

The return journey was much more difficult than the trip out.

The enormous whirlpool raised by the "Guardian Deity" had subsided, but the currents and eddies it had stirred up at the bottom of the lake had yet to dissipate completely.

The water kept battering their exhausted bodies.

When they finally dragged themselves back onto the fishing boat, which had remained hidden in the darkness, the scholar—who had been anxiously waiting aboard for nearly an hour—rushed over, almost in tears.

"Thank God! Thank the holy spirits of the lake!" With trembling hands, the old scholar wrapped dry blankets around them and pressed a pot of hot tea, laced with plenty of whisky, into their hands.

"I just...I saw those cultists who escaped on the shore! They came out of another hidden passage by the lake like a pack of frightened rats, then ran straight for the depths of the woods without looking back! I was terrified they'd find us!"

After William briefly recounted everything they had discovered aboard the sunken ship, including the tablet, Alistair's face was shadowed with fear.

"Those madmen..." the scholar muttered. "We must return to Inverness immediately and send word to your organization by telegram as quickly as possible!"

"No, quite the opposite, sir." Lin Jie took a sip of the scalding tea and calmly rejected what seemed the most reasonable suggestion.

His gaze turned toward Inverness.

"We can't yet be sure whether the Eternal Serpent has eyes in a major Highland town like Inverness."

"The telegraph office there might be monitored. Every coded telegram sent to London could be intercepted. We can't take even the slightest risk."

"Besides," William added, his cautious thinking perfectly in sync with Lin Jie's, "the survivors who didn't take part in the operation will now be doing everything they can to leave Scotland and avoid an official investigation."

"And the fastest way out of here is to take the train from Inverness south. If we go back now, we could run straight into them at the station."

Alistair immediately understood the danger.

If they ran into those desperate men in a cramped station while everyone was utterly exhausted, the encounter would inevitably turn into a bloody fight.

"Then...what should we do?" The scholar was at a loss.

Lin Jie turned his gaze to the detailed map in his hand.

His finger traced the long stretch of Loch Ness, all the way south.

"Sergeant William is right. We can't take the usual route. But if they can think of it, so can we. We just have to get there before they do."

His finger came to rest on an unremarkable little town at the southernmost end of Loch Ness.

"Fort Augustus. It has a railway station too, and it's smaller and less conspicuous than Inverness."

"We'll sail this boat south along Loch Ness through the night and go straight there. We'll board the train to London before they can."

"Also, Mr. Alistair, we'll need you to come back with us. Besides keeping you safe, we'd like your professional insight into what happened."

William and the scholar immediately agreed to the carefully planned strategy of racing against time.

So the little fishing boat, witness to far too many secrets, did not head north toward the bustling town of Inverness. Instead, it turned around and began its final journey south across the broad, desolate lake, into the unknown.

They reached the peaceful lakeside town of Fort Augustus before daybreak.

At last, when the first rays of morning sunlight fell on Fort Augustus's Victorian-style railway station, three travelers who looked somewhat exhausted but were in remarkably high spirits boarded the first steam train bound for London.