Chapter 1

Shirley took Agou and left quickly. Duncan retracted his gaze from the distant intersection and focused on the factory ruins again.

After the ethereal fire faded, the invisible curtain closed again, and the factory returned to its previous "normal" appearance—the traces of the fire were completely erased, and the ubiquitous ashes were hidden in nothingness. Duncan's gaze slowly moved upward, to the top of the factory, to the sky.

He imagined a veil-like curtain quietly covering the surroundings, shielding the truth beneath reality. Although there were not many residents left in the Sixth Block, there were still a few thousand people. And right under the noses of these thousands of people, that invisible curtain had shrouded the truth for eleven years.

The residents here had even completely forgotten about the fire in their memories—they only thought that the factory's "chemical pollution" had caused the district to become so dilapidated.

Thinking of this, Duncan suddenly frowned.

The truth in the factory was a fire, and Agou also confirmed that there was no residual chemical pollution around the factory. Since there was no so-called "pollution"... then why had no newborns been born in the entire Sixth Block for eleven years?! If it wasn't chemical pollution causing the extinction of newborns... could it be some kind of extraordinary power that was preventing the Sixth Block from having new births?

Duncan looked thoughtfully at the sky.

It seemed... that the invisible curtain was larger than he had imagined.

"We're out... we're really out?"

In a remote alley some distance from the Sixth Block, Shirley poked her head out of the shadows. She cautiously observed whether there were law enforcement officers patrolling the nearby road, while whispering to the corner of the wall beside her.

A dark shadow was entrenched in the corner, as if the formless and immaterial darkness had a viscous texture. Agou hid in this shadow, making a low, muffled sound: "It's not that we ran out, it's that some big shot let us go."

"It's all the same," Shirley waved her hand and sat directly on the ground without caring about her image. "Damn, I was so scared... I didn't dare to breathe loudly, and I didn't dare to swear the whole time. I had to pretend to be good... Agou, you don't know—"

"I know, I can see more than you can, have you forgotten?" The voice in the shadows said quietly, "How does it feel to be with a smiling sub-dimensional shadow? Isn't it more tiring than dealing with a bunch of fierce law enforcement officers and guardians?"

"...Shut up, I'm cold," Shirley rolled her eyes. "It's all your fault for scaring me so much last time. If I didn't know anything, I definitely wouldn't be afraid today... Why does this kind of big shot have to pretend to be an ordinary person? He even takes the bus like ordinary people, and even buys a ticket when he gets on! Who would have thought we'd run into him like this!"

Agou was silent for two seconds: "...Maybe it's just out of interest, maybe he's just watching you. That's what I'm most afraid of... We've already dealt with this kind of existence, I'm afraid our fate has already been entangled..."

Shirley shivered slightly and asked carefully, "Do you mean... we'll really meet him again in the future? Spare me..."

"Have you forgotten what he said when he left?" Agou sighed. "He will find us."

Shirley didn't speak for a while, just lowered her head and remained silent. After a moment, Agou suddenly said, "What? Are you scared? Regretting it? It might be a little late now... I warned you before, if you step into the extraordinary world, you must be prepared to deal with all kinds of higher powers. Most of those things are beyond human imagination—if you had listened to my advice a few months ago and stopped investigating those old cases, you could still be living your peaceful life now..."

"Regret my ass!" Shirley lowered her head and interrupted Agou's voice fiercely, "I've never regretted it from the beginning, and I won't in the future! Don't say such depressing things to me!"

"Alright, alright, I won't say it anymore—are you rested enough? We should be on our way. Didn't your 'new friend' make an appointment with you?"

"I...I'll wait two more minutes," Shirley scratched her hair, her voice a little muffled. "My legs are a little weak, just wait..."

Agou didn't speak any more, just made a hoarse purring sound. Then, the wriggling shadow in which it was hiding gradually shrank, slowly merging into Shirley's shadow.

During lunchtime, Vanna stuffed a jam-smeared bread into her mouth, gulping it down while looking at the briefing materials in her hand. She felt a little choked, so she grabbed the glass next to her and gulped down several large mouthfuls.

Uncle Dante's voice came from across the dining table, filled with helplessness: "Vanna, eat more elegantly—and don't drink wine like water."

"Heretics won't wait, shortening meal times as much as possible will send those heretics to see their master as soon as possible," Vanna looked up at her uncle, trying to swallow the food in her mouth while saying, "Besides, this isn't like attending a banquet outside..."

"Family meals also require attention to etiquette—you'll never get married like this," Dante looked at his niece, who was already of marriageable age but had never even brought back a boyfriend, with a headache. "Alas, it's better to say that you're already unmarriageable..."

Vanna's eating movements finally slowed down. The young judge seemed slightly embarrassed: "My... the duties of a judge are more..."

"The Deep Sea Church doesn't prohibit priests from marrying, and judges all have normal families. I've also recited the *Storm Codex*," Dante shook his head. "Seriously, there's really no one suitable?"

Vanna lowered her head and poked at the bread on her plate with a butter knife: "Mainly, there's no one who can fight..."

Dante sighed, looking worried. "...I'll ask if the oath can be withdrawn later. You shouldn't have made any vows when you received the blessing, especially the first one, insisting that only the strong can walk with you. Bishop Valentine should have stopped you back then..."

Vanna lowered her head even further. The tall woman was now full of embarrassment, still like a child when being reprimanded by her uncle, even her voice was a little questioning: "How can an oath be withdrawn casually? That's a sacred agreement made before the goddess, and... I didn't just make a vow, almost all female guardians have that clause when they make their vows. That's the courage that the storm bestows upon us, and it's also to prove to the goddess..."

Dante silently looked at his niece, who was a head and a half taller than him: "Have you ever thought that you would one day train yourself to be invincible?"

Vanna: "...Isn't that for the second and third clauses of the oath..."

Dante: "...Alas."

This was a topic that the uncle and niece would bring up every now and then in the past year or two, and each time the topic would end in embarrassment, and this time was no exception.

However, Vanna quickly adjusted her mood. She finished the battle on her plate with amazing speed, then put away the materials at hand and got up to say goodbye: "I'm done eating, Uncle you... hmm?"

Vanna suddenly stopped, she looked at Dante Wayne's face in surprise, and pointed to his ruby prosthetic eye: "Uncle, the wound near your eye is bleeding... are you okay?"

"Ah?" Dante was stunned for a moment, quickly reached out to touch it, and after seeing the blood on his hand, he quickly got up to get a mirror to check the condition of his prosthetic eye—he saw that the edge of his ruby eyeball was seeping blood little by little, and the blood was flowing down the wrinkles and scars around the wound. The amount wasn't much, but it was scary.

"Don't move," Vanna quickly walked over, put her hand near Dante's eye, and whispered the words from the *Storm Codex*, "May the sea breeze moisten the limbs, so that this flesh and blood may recover as before."

Under the effect of the sacred prayer, Dante felt a slight itching near his wound, and the small bleeding quickly stopped. He was a little helpless: "Don't make such a fuss, it's not the first time this has happened in recent years—after all, it's cold ore and metal, it's normal for it to have a little 'conflict' with flesh and blood from time to time."

The expression on Vanna's face didn't relax at all, she still stared at Dante's ruby eye, and after a long time, she asked, "Do you have any other feelings? Do you have a burning pain? Or do you see any phantoms through this ruby eyeball?"

Dante blinked, he looked at Vanna, and the blessed ruby eyeball clearly reflected the things he could see—

Flames were burning fiercely behind Vanna, the restaurant was covered with ashes and scorch marks, and shapeless coke and molten deposits hung down from the roof, like inverted omens.

The ruby eyeball was slightly hot, and then gradually returned to its cold state.

Dante smiled: "Of course not, everything is normal."