“We cannot recklessly conduct destructive testing on this substance before we have a better grasp of the situation—especially after confirming that there is a living heart within it.”

As Ted Riel spoke, he opened his heavy tome and returned the "stethoscope" to its pages. A complex expression flickered across his perpetually weary face.

"Frankly, this is the strangest 'thing' I've ever seen. I've encountered quite a few indescribable entities invading the real world, but a mass of metal with a heartbeat is not so common, and it is so... quiet."

"Quiet?" Lucretia frowned instinctively upon hearing that.

"Yes, quiet, almost harmless," Ted Riel nodded. "As you can see, its 'shell' is almost solidified. According to the field team, it was quite active for a short period when it first entered the real world, but it quickly began to change towards this 'solidified' state. Furthermore, it has not exhibited any 'active characteristics' such as attempting to escape containment, corrupting the watchers, or resisting external probing..."

As the Keeper of Secrets spoke, he slowly shook his head: "This is very unusual for a 'living' 'foreign object'—attempting to break out of containment is the biggest characteristic of all 'living foreign objects'."

Lucretia didn't speak for a moment. Nina, on the other hand, gradually showed a pensive expression, as if she was imagining something. She suddenly said, "It feels like it has a 'death wish'?"

"That's an interesting... viewpoint, although I don't think this living metal would have such a human reaction," Ted Riel raised his eyelids and glanced at Nina, but he obviously didn't take this fanciful idea to heart. "I'm more inclined to believe that it cannot adapt to the living environment of our real world, but as time goes by, it may gradually adapt, and then it may have another period of increased activity."

"Tell me about what happened at the market then," Duncan suddenly broke the silence, his gaze falling on Nina and Shirley. "Nina, you said when you contacted me that you and Shirley felt a strange sense of being watched, and you were about to report this to the guards on the roadside when this 'thing' suddenly appeared?"

"Yeah, yeah," Nina nodded repeatedly, recalling the situation at the time as she spoke, "Shirley and I felt it several times. We felt gazes falling on us from time to time, and there was an aura approaching. I think it should be this thing—later, when Shirley and I were about to find someone to report it, it couldn't help but pounce out, and..."

Speaking of which, she suddenly stopped, her face showing a very hesitant look. After hesitating for several seconds, she frowned and said uncertainly, "And there was a very strange detail. I don't know if I saw it wrong, but when this thing first appeared, in the corner of my eye, I saw it for a split second and I thought... I thought it was a person."

Nina's tone was very hesitant, and what she said instantly silenced the room. Even Ted Riel, who had always appeared tired and lazy, immediately widened his eyes, but before he could speak, Shirley, who was closest to Nina, was the first to exclaim: "Huh? What are you saying? You saw this thing looking like a person at first? You didn't tell me that?"

"The field team's report didn't mention this," Ted Riel said, his expression unusually serious. "Miss Nina, are you sure?"

"That's why I said I don't know if I saw it wrong," Nina said a little nervously. "The market was chaotic at the time, with people running around everywhere. Maybe I was mistaken... Or maybe the guards on the scene missed it? After all, it was only for a moment..."

"That's unlikely. In the guards' code of conduct, there are strict 'contact process recording standards'. Because many 'foreign objects' do have the ability to quickly change themselves or evade cognition, we require personnel performing 'first contact' to strictly describe the 'start time of contact' when reporting the situation, and whether each person's line of sight shifted during the action, to confirm whether the entire team had a 'observation window' of the target..."

Ted Riel briefly explained the "Knowledge Keepers'" code of conduct, and then shook his head: "According to the field team's report, they made contact at the first instant the target entered the real world. At least two guards were visually observing the location where it appeared before the target manifested, and there was always at least one person visually observing it throughout the contact process. There was no possibility of a 'window' occurring."

As soon as he finished speaking, Duncan suddenly broke the silence: "But I believe what Nina said."

Ted Riel was stunned, as if realizing something: "...What do you mean?"

"At least from Nina's perspective, this 'invader' looked like a person at some point in the beginning," Duncan said calmly, then looked at Shirley again, "You were with Nina the whole time, you didn't see that scene, right?"

"No," Shirley shook her head immediately. "I didn't see it 'looking like a person'."

"Because different observers saw different 'forms' in the same target?" Ted Riel's eyes changed obviously. He looked at Nina with amazement and thought, "And only Miss Nina saw something different from the people around her... Why is that?"

He seemed to be extremely curious, and his gaze quickly fell on Duncan: "Does Miss Nina have anything special about her?"

This "Keeper of Secrets" seemed quite puzzled. He didn't know Nina's background. After all, without actively triggering "spiritual vision" for observation, Nina seemed like an ordinary seventeen-year-old girl to outsiders—but without a doubt, this "ordinary girl" must have something special about her.

Just by the fact that she could stay on Duncan Abernathy's ship.

"Have you heard of the 'Black Sun Descent' event in Pland? If you have, then you should know that the Vanishing Sails took away a fragment of the ancient sun when it left that city," Duncan said, pointing to Nina, "She is."

Then he ignored Ted Riel's instantly wonderful expression and refocused his attention on Nina: "Do you remember what the 'person' you saw at the beginning looked like?"

Nina immediately tried hard to recall. After a while, she finally said, "It looked like someone wearing strange ancient armor, the kind that appears in history books, like a tin can... Oh, and there was a tattered scarf, or a short cape? Because I only saw it for a moment, I'm not sure about too many details..."

She paused for a while, and then added: "Because it was wearing a helmet, and the armor looked very thick, I don't know what the person inside the armor looked like, or even if it was a man or a woman, but I could feel that the armor was tattered, as if it had experienced many battles."

"A warrior in ancient armor..." Lucretia muttered to herself. She thought quickly and asked a question, "Then how did this 'person' turn into a mass of living metal? Did you see this process?"

"No," Nina shook her head. "It turned into this in an instant, as if there was no gradual process of change... Or maybe I blinked? I'm sorry, I can't remember..."

"It's already very good that you can remember these things. You have provided very crucial and important information," Duncan said, comforting Nina, who seemed a little lost, and then turned around and walked to the platform where the "sample" was placed.

He looked solemnly at the solidified "living metal", sorting out the information he had gathered so far.

At some point in the beginning, "it" seemed to be a warrior wearing heavy ancient armor, and the armor was old and battle-worn.

Nina felt the gaze falling on her several times and had the feeling of being tracked, which meant that this thing was likely coming for her, or... maybe it was coming for the "ancient sun".

The market was crowded with people, but when Nina first felt the gaze and the feeling of being tracked, no one noticed anything unusual, which meant that "it" either possessed some kind of cognitive disruption ability, or it entered reality through "submersion" from a deep world like the spirit world...

Duncan slowly reached out and pressed his hand on the surface of the "metal".

A cold, hard sensation came from his fingertips.

He seemed to be able to feel the heart buried deep within the metal, the slow pulse, and the low heartbeat.

It was alive, "alive" in a way that humans could not understand.

It seemed to have had some purpose, but something went wrong in the last step of its action—it appeared from concealment and pounced on Nina and Shirley, presumably not to turn into such a mass of solidified metal in the last step.

Ted Riel looked at Duncan's actions nervously, and then he subconsciously turned his gaze to the "witch" beside him.

Lucretia just shook her head, indicating not to interfere.

A little bit of ghostly green sparks appeared on Duncan's fingertips.

He carefully controlled the flame, not letting it ignite the metal in front of him, which looked like it belonged to the "extraordinary" category. He controlled the flame to seep into the metal, sensing its life flow, sensing its heartbeat, and the possible... thoughts.

However, all that responded to him was a huge emptiness and a hazy, chaotic "touch".

There seemed to be no information that could be "interpreted" within this metal.

But for some reason, Duncan always felt that there was something hidden deep within the empty and hazy chaotic sensation—it wasn't that he couldn't find it, he just couldn't "understand" it for the time being.

"...Who are you?" he couldn't help but ask softly in his heart, "Where did you come from?"

After an unknown amount of time, the vast emptiness was still there, but in the faint information returned by the flames, there seemed to be a ripple.

Duncan seemed to hear a voice, or rather a "thought", appearing in his mind—

"We are marching towards doomsday."

(End of chapter)