The corridor in the underground archive fell silent.

This place was located beneath the highest-level city-state university in Qingfeng Harbor. Analogous to the city-states under the administration of the Deep Sea Embers or the Church of Death, this place was equivalent to the central cathedral of the entire city—the "sealed items" that could be housed here were naturally extraordinary, at least on par with "anomalies" like Alice, numbered in the top hundred, or similarly dangerous carriers of contamination.

And this level of anomalies and contamination carriers had a common characteristic: the traits of living things.

They might possess incredible thinking abilities, means of communicating with people, or tendencies to move and escape. Regardless of the strength of these "living traits," they could at least achieve the instinct to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages—just like Alice had instinctively behaved herself when she didn't know Duncan at all.

In short, they had a bit of a brain, not much, but they were afraid of death.

Duncan liked those with a bit of a brain; they saved a lot of trouble in many situations.

Lucretia looked at this side with a hint of awe. Nina and Shirley first widened their eyes in surprise, then triumphantly raised their faces—it was unclear what they were so proud of.

Ted Riel was stunned for a moment, then looked at Duncan with a complex expression—not as fearful as ordinary people, but without vigilance or hostility either. He seemed to be thinking about something, and after several seconds, he suddenly blurted out, "You can visit here more often during your stay in Qingfeng Harbor."

"Oh?" Duncan was a little surprised. "When other city-states deal with me for the first time, they wish I would stay far away. Places like the central cathedral are heavily guarded immediately. Why are you actively inviting me?"

Ted pointed to the now-silent corridor. "With you here, I can take a vacation."

Duncan: "……?"

However, the "Guardian of Truth" didn't seem to care about the subtle reactions of others to his words. After saying that, he continued to walk deeper into the corridor.

The others followed, but this time Duncan deliberately lagged behind a few steps. He came to Lucretia's side and asked in a low voice, "I don't remember the details about this 'Guardian'. Is he always like this? I mean… this resentment, as if he's been working overtime for a lifetime."

Lucretia also lowered her voice. "Lord Ted is currently teaching the graduating class."

Duncan was stunned when he heard this. "……The city-state's guardian leader also has to do this? I don't remember Vanna having similar extra work when she was an inquisitor."

"The power bestowed by the gods is closely related to the words and deeds of believers. Studying and spreading knowledge is a necessary process for the followers of Lahm to 'perform sacred duties'. Therefore, the entire clergy system of the Truth Academy is structured as an 'academy'. Higher-level priests must teach students as mentors, and the higher the level, the heavier and more difficult the teaching tasks—so, the Guardian of Truth has to teach the graduating class, and the most difficult one at that."

Duncan: "……"

Listening to Lucretia's explanation of these wonderful new pieces of knowledge, he couldn't help but feel some peculiar feelings in his heart, so he couldn't help but raise his head and take another look at the Guardian not far away.

Ted Riel, walking in front, instantly noticed the gaze. He glanced back, a hint of doubt rising in the Guardian's mind—

How could this "Captain Duncan," who had lost his memory due to the influence of the subspace and had been like a stranger to him just now, suddenly look at him with inexplicable understanding, nostalgia, and sympathy?

After a brief moment of doubt, Ted Riel shook his head and stopped in front of a door near the end of the corridor.

"This is it, Containment Room Twenty-Four," he said, pointing to the door in front of him.

The door was decorated with many sacred runes, and the whole thing seemed to be cast from black steel, inlaid with silver-white metal particles. Shirley curiously glanced at the door a few times and felt that her gaze was about to be drawn into the deep blackness and the silver-white dots. A feeling of being separated from her senses arose, scaring her into quickly withdrawing her gaze.

Nina looked at the corridor she had come from, then at the area around Containment Room Twenty-Four, frowning slightly and curious. "There isn't even a guard here? Isn't this a very important and dangerous place? Shouldn't there be people guarding it?"

"There are guards at necessary points, but around each containment room, the fewer people, the better," Ted Riel glanced at the curious girl and casually explained, "Because some 'anomalies' possess psychological parasitism and mind-jumping abilities. Too many guards near the containment room would make it easier for those things to break through containment."

"For most 'anomalies' and pollutants, the correct sealing method is far more important than the number of security personnel," Lucretia added, "A correctly placed stone or metal powder scattered on the ground can keep some anomalies quiet for years, but an extra 'person' might cause intangible forces to break through containment. Therefore, the core areas of many sealing facilities have the fewest people, and many sealing measures take effect automatically in the absence of people."

"The guards stationed outside the core area are more to deal with external invasions and prevent anyone from coming in to destroy the containment conditions than to deal with the monsters inside," Ted Riel nodded, reaching out and pressing on the door of the containment room. With a soft "click" from an unknown source, the door opened. "However… this sample sent in this time is truly the most special one I have ever seen. I'm not even sure whether to put it in the sample containment room or somewhere else."

The door opened, revealing a brightly lit but not very spacious room. The floor and walls of this room were covered with complex and precise sacred symbols. The oil lamps and gas lamps filled with special oils were surprisingly numerous. Other than that, there were no extra furnishings or furniture in the room, only a square platform in the center, on which was placed that strange..."sample."

A cleric wearing an academy robe, a strange black mask, and hands tightly locked in shackles was standing next to the platform, seemingly the guardian of this containment room—when Ted Riel led the group into the room, this "guardian" with strange shackles on his hands looked up, then looked at Ted and nodded slightly.

"Are there any signs of activation in the sample?" Ted asked.

The guardian silently shook his head.

"Are there any signs of the shackles being opened?" Ted asked again.

The guardian raised his hands, showed the shackles on his hands to the Guardian of Truth, and shook his head again.

"Okay, thank you for your hard work. You can go and rest now," Ted seemed relieved, nodding slightly. "I'll take over here—remember, personally put the 'shackles' back on the 'statue's' hands. Do not attempt to switch places with the statue, and do not react to its 'cries for help.'"

The guardian nodded without a word and turned to leave the room.

"Those shackles are part of Anomaly-087, the 'Statue'," Ted Riel explained to Duncan and the others after the guardian left. "Through a special 'protocol' ritual, we can borrow the shackles from the 'Statue' for a certain period. The wearer of the shackles cannot speak and can imprison and restrain a selected entity in front of them during the wearing period. We usually use it to assist in controlling newly discovered dangerous items whose nature is not yet clear."

"Such as… a 'reality invader' who suddenly appeared in the market with a mysterious origin."

Lucretia muttered softly, looking up at the strange "substance" that looked quiet and gleamed with metallic iron-gray luster on the platform in the center of the room.

The thing looked like a mass of cooled and solidified steel, but the lines and contours on its surface still retained a strange softness and smoothness, as if it had once undulated like some kind of mollusk and then quickly solidified like this. And on its smooth "skin," some angular protrusions were occasionally visible. The feeling that those protruding structures gave people…

It was as if something was about to break free from the inside of this "substance."

"These protrusions appeared after the sample was sent to the containment room," Ted Riel explained from the side. "In the minutes after it was sent to the containment room, it suddenly showed strong activity again, and the surface structure changed greatly. We once thought it would try to break free from the seals here and even considered sending it to a higher-level containment area. But after those few minutes, its activity dropped off a cliff again, and has been decreasing until it is almost like a piece of hard metal."

"Almost?" Duncan keenly noticed the key point in his wording.

"Yes, almost, because it is actually still 'alive'," Ted Riel nodded. "In the most core area of this mass, there is always a faint active 'signal'. Even if the entire mass has solidified like this, that core is still active. You can even hear it—"

As he spoke, the Guardian of Truth opened his magical book again, turned to a page, and tapped it lightly with his finger.

A device that looked like a stethoscope floated out of the air above the page.

Ted Riel casually clamped the book under his arm, picked up the "stethoscope," hung it around his neck, and carefully pressed the other end of the stethoscope against the surface of the "solidified metal."

The next second, a rhythmic sound echoed throughout the room—

Thump, thump, thump…

"It has a heartbeat," Ted Riel raised his head. "Inside this mass of metal, there is a heart that is still alive."

(End of this chapter)