The Faceless One

Night fell like ink, thickly shrouding the entire city.

The streets that had bustled during the day had now fallen silent. Only scattered oil lamps swayed in the wind, casting mottled, shifting shadows. Ian quietly returned to the surface through a hidden exit of the Ancient Egyptian Library, his mind still echoing with the wisdom and warnings of those ancient tomes. Rather than hurry back into the city, he chose to walk slowly through the shadows on the outskirts, trying to sort through his thoughts.

However, as he passed through a narrow alley, the corner of his eye caught a blurry figure. It was someone in a dark gray cloak, lean in build, moving lightly and cautiously. He was crouched before a household's wooden door, holding a slender magical pen as he swiftly and furtively drew something in the shadows of the doorframe.

Sneaking around so mysteriously—it was obvious at a glance that he was up to no good. His movements were alarmingly practiced. In only a few breaths, he had "visited" every doorway on the entire street. Moonlight spilled over Memphis's cobblestone streets like cloudy beeswax as Ian silently followed behind the furtive figure.

What the man drew was not random graffiti, but a set of exceedingly complex runes—interwoven lines linked ring by ring, with a tiny hexagram embedded at the center.

After finishing, he quickly rose and moved to the next house, repeating the same action.

"Marking every house in the middle of the night?" Ian frowned. "This is no ordinary act. If he isn't a thief scouting the area, then this is the prelude to some kind of ritual."

Alarm bells rang in his mind. He thought of the recent string of disappearances, the maid's bizarre corpse, the temple's abnormal seal, and that imitation Eye of Ra.