Chapter 501: Apophis Only Asks

Hecate raised her right hand, and a piece of black pottery fell into the center of the round table.

It was the size of a palm and very thin, its uneven edges suggesting it had been snapped off by hand.

An ouroboros seal was stamped on the front—a snake biting its own tail, the head and tail joined seamlessly.

"This arrived last night, delivered to the entire table."

She flipped the black pottery over.

On the back was a single line of text with neat strokes, written in the Albion Language.

Hecate read it aloud.

"My ally wishes to know: who is safeguarding those three syllables for him?"

Silence fell over the temple. The six people sitting in their chairs even softened their breathing.

"Three syllables?" Heracles was the first to speak.

"What three syllables?" His face held unconcealed bewilderment.

No one explained. Dionysus followed up with a question of his own, "Aren't honorific names made up of three segments?"

It was a good question. Hecate's gaze shifted over.

"Honorific names are indeed three segments."

"Those three syllables are likely a part of a true name."

Heracles froze mid-nod.

"...A true name?"

Dionysus traced the rim of his cup. "Whose?"

Hecate shook her head. "He didn't write it. He only wrote 'my ally.'"

She rotated the piece of black pottery a half-turn between her fingers.

"Apophis is the head of the Black Earth River table, a Major Adept Scholar of the Abyss Tradition."

"Seven people sit at his table, and six of them hate him. He has no allies at that table."

"A Major Adept, yet he didn't even dare write his ally's name when sending a message."

"Think about it yourselves—what rank must that entity hold?"

The flames in the temple shrank simultaneously. Demeter's hand finally twitched on her lap.

"A Virtuoso?"

"Very likely," Hecate replied to the older woman.

Heracles's Great Club slipped from his shoulder, hitting the stone floor with a muffled thud.

He stared blankly for a long time before remembering to pick it up.

Dionysus wanted to press further, but sensing something was off, he clamped his mouth shut.

Nemesis's scales tilted. Noticing it herself, she reached up and steadied the balance arm.

Richard sat in his stone chair.

[Perception: Reflection] coated his body. He hadn't withdrawn it since the moment he entered.

Any probing gaze directed here would only have that dossier reflected back at them.

But he knew very well that while the dossier could block detection, it couldn't block the eyes of an entire table.

...At a time like this, the absolute worst thing he could do was remain completely silent.

It made sense for anyone else at this table to be quiet, but not him.

Because his designated role at this table was the appraiser.

Whenever an object of unknown origin was placed in the center of the round table, he was always the first to reach for it.

Heracles's cursed object, Demeter's Name-Recording Tassel, Ares's ebony box, that Bronze Mirror from the Ash Belt...

Tonight, with a piece of unidentified black pottery sitting in the middle of the round table, it would be unnatural for him not to even cast a glance at it.

"Chief."

After a moment of thought, Richard spoke cautiously.

"May I take a look at it?"

"Go ahead." Hecate naturally had no objections.

Richard stood and walked around to the table. His appraisal process was always the same routine: illuminate first, weigh second, then write.

Tonight, he lacked the sacred ibis paperweight and the Bronze Scales, but everything else remained unchanged.

He examined it for about twenty seconds before looking up.

"He mixed the clay himself."

"How can you tell?" Prometheus hurriedly asked.

"The fingerprints." Richard pointed at it.

"The hands that mixed the clay pressed it in the same direction seventy or eighty times. The pressure is very even—definitely the work of an experienced hand."

"And there are only the marks of a single pair of hands. From mixing the clay to pressing it flat to stamping the seal, no second pair of hands ever touched it."

"A Major Adept Scholar certainly has no shortage of students or subordinates to do things for him, yet he stooped to crouching on the ground and mixing the clay himself."

"This shows he didn't want his own people to know about it."

Dionysus picked up his cup.

"As expected of Hermes. Please continue."

"The clay material is from the lower reaches of the Black Earth River," Richard continued his analysis.

"It's the top layer scraped off after the annual floods recede. The color and impurities match perfectly."

"This kind of clay requires several years of saving up to have enough to use, which means this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment whim. It was prepared long ago."

"And there's this." His finger hovered lightly above the line of text.

"He wrote it in the Albion Language."

"What's the significance of that?" Heracles asked.

"A very big significance."

"If he wrote it in an ancient tongue, the recipients could pretend not to understand it."

"Writing it in a common language means anyone can read it, and no one can pretend otherwise."

"He likely asked several tables."

Having delivered his insights, Richard accomplished his task and retreated back to his chair.

Hecate, sitting in the head seat, tapped the tabletop.

"He did indeed send out more than one piece."

The gaze of the entire table turned toward her.

"I asked three people this afternoon."

Hecate began to demonstrate her network of connections.

"One in the Rus Empire, one in Iberia, and one who manages the accounts for the Germanic table."

"Two out of those three also received the same piece last night."

"What did they say?" Prometheus asked.

"They didn't say anything. They just asked if I had received one."

Dionysus chuckled. "...So everyone is asking around about each other."

"Correct."

"Then that makes things easier."

Heracles let out a breath of relief and hoisted the Great Club back onto his shoulder.

"If everyone received one, then he isn't targeting us."

No one in the temple responded to that statement.

Hecate held the piece of black pottery in the palm of her hand.

"Before Apophis sent these out, he had already done a round of investigations."

"How do you know?"

"Because I also know a bit about the situations of the tables he investigated."

"The Rus table halted their mystical side transactions back in April."

"The actual reason is that their head ran into trouble during a fieldwork assignment at the end of March and was bedridden for two months."

"The Iberia table changed two chairs last winter, but that was due to infighting."

"For the Germanic table, their two outward scouting lines were completely cut off after March of this year. The timing lines up."

"But that happened after the team battle in March; the enemy wiped them out in passing."

She lowered her hand.

"All three tables had incidents, but they can all be perfectly explained."

The temple fell quiet for a moment before Dionysus caught on first.

"...Then what about our table?"

Hecate folded her hands on the tabletop.

"...Our table has been running completely smoothly lately."

She looked up.

"In the eyes of the one investigating, we become the only table that can't be clearly explained away."

Heracles wasn't pleased.

"We didn't even do anything to begin with!"

"Whether we did anything or not is irrelevant." Hecate shook her head.

"Not panicking when a major incident occurs implies that we have capabilities."

"And only those with such capabilities can hide things well."

"Then we'll change our behavior," Heracles said on the spot.

"Push the next gathering back by half a month, and I'll suspend my fieldwork for two months..."

"No." Hecate's tone was heavy.

"Take the orders you should take, ship the goods you should ship, and owe the debts you should owe."

"The date for the gathering remains unchanged—mid-October."

"Trying to act differently now will only make us look like a joke."

"Starting today, no one is allowed to mention this to outsiders."

"Even if your masters or guides ask... you are not allowed to mention it."

"The most important thing is that no one is allowed to go asking around about other tables."

"The ones running around asking questions right now will only appear the most desperate."

"Is that clear?"

"Clear." The people at the table answered one by one.

"Chief." Dionysus suddenly spoke up.

"Speak."

"Let me ask a presumptuous question."

He rested his cup on his knee.

"The one offering high-grade items for a price, and this piece of mud... could they be from the same hand?"

The entire temple fell silent for a moment.

Richard sat in his chair. He had actually already considered this point.

Perhaps Apophis figured he'd buy it if he could, and if he couldn't, he would just ask.

And if he absolutely couldn't get an answer, he would just wait to see which side showed anomalies first.

"The sources are different," Hecate said.

"The one trying to poach went through Guild channels. He provided his surname and door number, and even the middleman is a familiar face."

"But that doesn't mean it isn't the same hand behind the scenes."

She flipped her hand, and the black pottery fell into the torch overhead.

The flames flared up a bit. The black pottery began to lose color from its edges, ultimately crumbling into ash within the fire.

"Let's disperse."

As the sea of stars began to retract upward, Richard stood up as well.

"Hermes."

A call came from the head seat.

"Tonight you mentioned that you still lack quite a bit."

"Yes."

The Golden Mask tilted slightly toward him. "Then be faster about it."

When Richard woke up, the sound of rain immediately echoed in his ears.

He sat up and walked to the window in the dark.

Nothing could be seen through the windowpanes. Outside, the streetlamps—dimmed to their lowest setting by the blackout regulations—blurred into faint yellow smudges through the curtain of rain.

This heavy rain had been falling since morning, and it hadn't stopped for a single moment since.

Richard pushed the window open a crack.

Wind wrapped in water immediately squeezed in and slapped against his face, the chill making him shiver.

The path over by the plane trees was completely gone. The stone-paved road that had been there for decades had now turned into a small river.

In the distance, barges were blowing their whistles... The water was rising, and the boats on the river were warning each other.

Richard stood by the window. The white stone taken from the base of the Fire Temple pillar sat on the windowsill right by his hand.

He reached out and touched it; it was still cool, just gradually getting a bit dirtier.

Donner had said that once it turned black, he should bring it back and exchange it for a new one.

Richard set the stone back down. Downstairs, someone was shouting something.

He leaned out to look down. It was the limping porter.

The old man, draped in a tarpaulin, was busy moving the clutter piled in the foyer up the steps; the water had already flooded into the first floor.

"Williams!" The old man tilted his head up and roared through the rain.

"Are you doing alright up there?!"

"I'm fine!"

"Don't come down! The stairs are slippery!"

"Need any help?!"

"No need!" The old man hauled a wooden crate higher, took a breath, and then suddenly looked up again.

"This kind of weather is great!"

"...What?"

"Those iron contraptions in the sky can't fly!"

The old man tugged his tarpaulin up and limped back into the foyer.

Richard stood at the window and suddenly began to laugh.

The old man was right. In rain this heavy, nothing in the sky could fly.

Rain was a good thing; the heavier it fell, the better.

Richard reached out to close the window. The rain ran down the frame, already pooling into a small puddle on the sill.

...

On the other side, in Cairo, Apophis stood in the water and retrieved the echoes of all six pottery pieces.

The river mud of the Black Earth River had one advantage: whatever traces people left on it, the mud would remember them all, bringing them back to him in full when they returned.

For the first piece, he checked the Nordic table.

The pottery had passed through several hands before finally landing with the head, Loki.

That man had pinched it, flipped it over, smiled after reading it, and then did absolutely nothing else. He simply left it sitting in the center of the round table for the entire night.

"...Hmph!" Apophis felt slightly displeased.

The second piece was from the Rus side.

The reply was swift, accompanied by a few pieces of gossip about others. It was all nonsense, not a single detail verifiable.

This was using nonsense as a stance: We are very cooperative, and we know absolutely nothing.

The third piece, Iberia, shattered right at the door. It never even made it inside the room.

The fourth piece, Germanic, was passed on, ending up in the hands of someone who wasn't on the list. He made a heavy mental note of this one.

The fifth piece, an entirely unrelated table, returned it unopened with a single line attached: You have the wrong people.

The sixth piece, Greece. He held onto this one for a long time.

It had been burned. From the moment it fell in to the moment it crumbled to ash, less than two seconds had passed.

Before burning, the piece had been read aloud at the table—read to the entire table without missing a single word.

And after burning, not a single person sent a reply.

Apophis released the lingering warmth brought back in the mud, letting it dissipate into the black water.

"Clean as if it's been washed."

Reading it aloud, burning it, sending no reply... The entire sequence was so flawless he couldn't pick out a single fault, but that in itself was a problem.

Having collected all six pieces, the layer of black water in the room fell still.

Apophis stared into the darkness. This room was never lit. To illuminate oneself was the greatest taboo for an Abyss Scholar.

He closed his eyes and began arranging tools in his mind to perform a cranial divination.

The divination of the Black Earth River was different from elsewhere.

Those in the north cast stones, flipped cards, and read wax, interpreting "what will happen in the future."

The Black Earth River method, from start to finish, only weighed things. After weighing came recording, and after recording came the verdict.

First, he erected pillars—forty-two of them in a circle. Behind each pillar stood a juror, their faces all turned toward the center.

This was the custom of his homeland: after death, a person walked into the judgment hall, and the forty-two jurors would each ask a question.

They all asked, "Have you ever done..." and one by one, you answered, "I have not."

Then, he set up the scale in the center of the circle, placing a feather on the left pan and leaving the right pan empty.

Finally, he took out twelve shabti figures—palm-sized clay effigies with their arms crossed over their chests.

These shabti figures were for burial: when the deceased arrived in the Underworld and someone called them to work, the effigy would step forward in their place and answer, "I am here."

The entire process took place strictly within his mind. Having reached the rank of Major Adept, he had long outgrown the need for physical mediums.

Coupled with the fact that his "ally," the Black Earth River Master, randomly scrutinized him whenever it had nothing better to do, there was no way he could perform a physical divination anyway.

The only risk of a cranial divination was deceiving oneself.

He placed the first effigy on the right pan. A coiled snake was carved into the effigy—that represented himself.

The first weighing: How did this transaction come about?

He pressed his hand onto the balance arm, his memory tracing back to the beginning of this year.

At that time, he still hadn't known what the Black Earth River Master was searching for.

An Abyss peer from St. Petersburg who ran errands for someone else approached him, wanting to trade a recipe for a few items.

That guy was the most useless failure under Elena's tutelage, and failures always had the loosest lips.

He had said: Teacher took on a deep-dive commission a while back.

Apophis had casually asked: How much was it worth?

The man made a gesture, laughing at his own motion once he was done.

"A wisp of death knell—the kind so pure that people in our line of work don't encounter it once in decades."

"Teacher's hands were shaking when she accepted it."

Upon hearing this, Apophis immediately took the matter seriously.

Elena was an old monster who had lived for three hundred years. Her status within the circle went without saying. Goods capable of making her hands shake could only have been brought out by Virtuosos.

Since late last year, a few tables in the circle had started being probed.

They were located in three places: Marseille, Cologne, and Kyiv.

When Apophis connected these dots on a map, he realized the shape they formed wasn't right. It was an attempt to comb through the entire circle from start to finish.

"...Elena's deep-dive commission was inquiring about exactly this."

Then, Apophis began to proactively contact the one in charge.

The Black Earth River Master was actually making multiple moves recently, as Elena had tipped it off to focus its attention on the Theogony Salon.

So, while it was investigating the outside, the tables of the Theogony Salon were its primary focus.

The Theogony Salon was indeed considered one of the more eye-catching collective rituals in the mystical side as of late.

The team battle between Greece and Rome in June had even dragged in two Virtuosos, drawing the attention of quite a few major figures.

Apophis felt a sense of crisis, which was why he had volunteered his services.

He took the initiative to offer his help investigating within the Theogony Salon circle as an exchange condition to gain the entity's support.

As for the Black Earth River Master, investigating the Theogony Salon circle by itself was actually quite arduous because it involved numerous Virtuosos and Major Adepts with rather unique statuses.

If Apophis helped it investigate, things would be much more convenient. It could then focus its energy on investigating others in the outside mystical side.

The two hit it off quite well after that, as both sides knew exactly what the other wanted.

Apophis proposed three conditions.

"From now on, on every token I send out, I will write: My ally wishes to know, invoking your title."

"Granted," the Black Earth River Master agreed without hesitation. "That costs me nothing."

After all, it was best at substitution, and it was the least afraid of others trying to reverse-track it.

"Furthermore, I want the gathering spots you control in the Deep Realm."

The black water began to churn, pausing to think before answering.

"I can send you over, but I won't provide protection. If you die in there..."

"I don't need an escort." Apophis didn't trust this guy either.

"The final condition: in the future, I might need outside assistance..."

"I will not fight for you."

This was the Black Earth River Master's fastest reply—so fast it directly interrupted Apophis's words.

"I will not fight for anyone."

"I'm not asking you to come over and intervene directly," Apophis hurriedly explained.

"What I want is for you to show a strong enough stance."

"Let everyone in the circle know... that making a move against our table might mean facing you. That will be enough."

The black water rolled completely over, nodding.

"Deal. But the division of labor must be made clear."

"Speak."

"The Theogony Salon circle falls to you."

"The outside falls to me. The Guild, the auction houses, the ones teaching in the Academy, the ones recording names for the dead, those few shops still collecting unsold auction goods... I can reach those places without even extending a hand."

"...I've wasted all these months entirely on your circle."

Apophis bowed slightly. "Then you should have looked for me sooner."

Before leaving, the Black Earth River Master left him with one instruction.

"For any table that has a Virtuoso standing behind it, log their names first, but do not touch them."

It had already provoked quite a few enemies of the same tier. Now, at this crucial juncture when things were taking a turn for the better, it didn't want to provoke any more.

The memory ended. Apophis continued his weighing.

He hesitated a moment before placing the second effigy.

Nothing was carved onto this effigy. This one represented: What if he, Apophis, actually found out?

If I find out, do I just report it?

...Yes.

After I report it, will that entity be able to take action itself?

...Yes. It is a Virtuoso. It has no need to borrow the hands of others at all.

After it finishes taking action, will it still need me?

The effigy on the right pan sank downward incredibly fast, leaving no room for doubt.

Apophis let out a miserable chuckle.

"...I knew it."

He didn't bother asking what his fate would be once the other party no longer needed him. It certainly wouldn't be anything good.

"What is the best-case scenario?"

The scale didn't move; he answered the question himself.

"To always be missing the final step."

Handing over solid, tangible progress every two months—progress that could withstand verification, making the other party feel their investment was worth it.

But with every step deduced, there had to be a subsequent step ahead.

It was easy to say, but in reality, it was like forcing him to dance on the edge of a knife.

Because he couldn't half-ass it.

He could fool others, but not that entity. The other party was an old monster that had lived to this day by relying on "substitution."

If he handed over a watered-down report, the Black Earth River Master would smell the deceit without even needing to open it.

So Apophis had truly been investigating recently, and investigating quite seriously at that. Sometimes, he even forgot his original intention was to drag things out indefinitely to scam resources and support.

He was merely keeping the pacing firmly in his own hands.

Apophis dismissed the entire judgment hall. In the emptied space, he placed seven chairs.

After placing those, he placed another seven beside them, and another seven beside those.

He set them up table by table, only stopping when he had placed so many he couldn't even count them himself.

This was his true scheme. Borrowing the Virtuoso's title, the gathering lines, the deterrence... everything was just to help him, Apophis, devour these tables one by one.

Devouring a table meant all the divine names on it—people and masks included—would go to the victor.

The more he devoured, the easier it would be to open the door to advancement looming above him.

Once he advanced to a Virtuoso someday, the Black Earth River would answer to him!

The weighing concluded. Wind kicked up outside.

The wind blowing in from the desert was dry and bitter, rustling the loose dust on the roof.

Apophis rearranged the echoes of the six pieces of pottery in his mind. When he finished, he added a mental note next to the Nordic table.

The one who tries to lead me astray first is the closest to the answer.

After making the note, he shook his head and crossed the line out.

"It's also possible he just wants to muddy the waters."

"Regardless of which one it is, I have no intention of letting a single one of your tables go."

...

Right before the start of the semester, Richard finished the fourth draft of his thesis.

He read through it after finishing and found it dreadfully wordy.

After he delivered it, MacFie only flipped through the first five pages.

Having read that much, he nodded.

"It's good enough."

"Professor... I feel like it's too wordy."

"Wordy is good." The white-haired giant set the manuscript on the corner of his desk.

"Scholars have never feared being wordy. What they fear is trying to be too clever."

Once the fourth draft was finalized, Richard began visiting the museum very frequently.

When the Black Earth River grand exhibition ended last year, Director Wetherby had given him unrestricted access to the ancient text section—he could read them, but he couldn't take them out.

He had gone over a dozen times in total, acting as a porter every time.

With [Erudition], every piece of material his eyes passed over was entirely stored in his memory. A single day of reading for him was equivalent to a month for anyone else.

He went this time for a piece of circumstantial evidence for his thesis.

He wanted to find out if the concept of "the reflection and the main body being one entity" existed in other systems.

He already had the Black Earth River lineage—shuyet, the shadow, an independent component of the soul that remained and continued existing in the Underworld after death.

That was what he had dug out from three popular science books back in the Greenwood library.

For the Moon-Hunting lineage, MacFie had given him a line on the slope: The stronger you are, the longer and darker the shadow you cast behind the veil.

He wanted to find a bit more corroborating evidence.

The ancient text section was on the basement level of the museum's west wing, where the lighting was never sufficient.

At the very back of the seventh row of shelves, Richard found a stack of palm leaves.

The label read: Spice Islands, origin unknown, acquired in 1893.

Beneath it was an even smaller line of text: Undeciphered.

The palm leaves were strung together with hemp rope, their edges already brittle.

The symbols on them had been treated with charcoal black by the person who cataloged them, leaving them still legible.

Richard spread the palm leaves out on the reading desk, first rolling out the Still Water as per his usual routine.

There was absolutely no ether on the surface of the leaves.

These things had been moved out of someone else's temple, soaked in the damp air aboard a ship, and left lying in a storeroom for twenty-two years. They had been wiped clean long ago.

Then, he began his deciphering. On his first pass, he couldn't read a single thing.

This set of symbols didn't match any reference chart he had on hand.

The civilization of the Spice Islands was completely unrelated to Greece, the Black Earth River, and Rome.

[Erudition] pulled up every piece of material he had ever read. After comparing them one by one, the conclusion was: No data in the repository.

Richard leaned against the reading desk, staring at the stack of palm leaves.

This was the boundary of [Erudition].

It was an enormous library, and he could pull down every single book inside it at will.

But if a book had never entered the library in the first place, he was out of luck.

Richard picked up his pen and started using the brute-force method.

First, he counted the total number of symbols: nineteen types.

Next, he counted their frequency of appearance: three of them appeared far more often, making up nearly half of the total.

Then, he looked at their positions: those three never appeared alone; they always followed behind the others.

Richard wrote these three points down. Once he finished, he paused.

Nineteen types, three with high frequency, never appearing alone.

This wasn't writing.

High-frequency symbols in a written language were vowels and common words—they would appear alone, and they would have beginnings and endings.

Could this be counting?

He jotted that down and continued his deduction.

What numbers were they recording?

He flipped through the entire stack of leaves and counted twenty-nine in total.

Richard's hand holding the pen stopped. [Speculation] triggered: A complete lunar phase cycle is twenty-nine and a half days.

He retracted the Still Water and leaned back in his chair.

Right at that moment, [Learning] took its final step forward.

The ever-expanding library in his mind suddenly grew forward a bit on its own.

The Ogham script was the first to connect to this. That script was carved onto edges, meant to be read by hand.

Because it got dark early in the Highlands for eight months of the year, people traveling at night could walk up to a boundary stone and know exactly whose land they were standing on just by reaching out and feeling it.

A language read by hand looked very different from one read by the eyes.

This stack of palm leaves was also meant to be read by hand.

Richard picked the leaves back up, closed his eyes, and ran his fingertips down them from top to bottom.

The depth of the carvings varied. The three high-frequency symbols were carved the shallowest, while the rest were deep.

The shallow ones represented the days, while the deep ones were events.

He counted out that the deep ones fell on the third day, the eleventh day, the eighteenth day, and the twenty-sixth day.

Four points, spaced out roughly seven to eight days apart.

New moon, first quarter moon, full moon, third quarter moon.

Richard opened his eyes. This roll of palm leaves was a tide record.

The fishermen of the Spice Islands had to check the tides before going out to sea, and to check the tides, they had to watch the moon.

They couldn't read, and they had no need to.

They only needed symbols that could be felt by hand in the dark: What day is it today, and is it safe to enter the water?

He wrote this deduction down, adding a half-line next to it when he was done:

"The same principle applies as with the Ogham script. Anything meant to be read by hand must have a medium with edges, and its information must be countable."

He pulled those three high-frequency symbols out separately and arranged them once more.

After arranging them, he realized those three symbols themselves were the lunar phases: a single arc, a double arc, and a circle.

The person who carved them had simply carved the objects to be recorded in their actual shapes.

Deducing this layer of meaning had taken him less than ten minutes.

If it had been before, he probably would have sat in front of this stack of leaves for a very long time and still might not have figured it out.

The panel lit up right at this moment.