Chapter 2294 - 97: Encountering the Knight Order Again

The man moved with mechanical steps, walking from the glow of one streetlamp into the glow of the next, advancing through the pitch-black alleyway between the distant pools of light. The dim radiance fell upon his long cloak, flickering bright and dark.

He passed through alleys whose names Fang Hong could not even call to mind, one after another, from one junction to the next. His gait was stiff, yet without the slightest hesitation. The man always seemed able to avoid the bustling streets; at times only a single row of buildings lay between them, as he crossed a junction and brushed past a patrol of Knights in black-and-white war robes. Inside the alley and outside it were like two entirely separate worlds—one side slipping into darkness, the other ablaze with light.

He only stopped there once, waiting until the patrol of Knights had gone far away, then turned and walked in the opposite direction from them, entering yet another, deeper alley. He passed stairways and a weathered covered bridge; the alley grew narrower and narrower, surrounding buildings packed close together, steep eaves jutting toward the night sky like rows of fangs.

A Clockwork Fairy buzzed through the night sky, its flapping not loud. When that brass sphere skimmed past a window, it did not even startle those who had already sunk into sleep.

The man hobbled forward, entirely without Perception of what was happening behind him. Fang Hong did not know whether the one controlling all this from the shadows was sensing the surroundings through his own Spell, but judging from that citizen's reaction, he likely could not.

The man's movements were like a pre-set program, fixed on where to stop, where to wait. Fang Hong tested it several times: even if he did not keep up, that guide would still depart at the appointed time, every instance precise to the second.

The other side clearly was not rehearsing this for the first day, yet the Seven Seas Travel Group had arrived here only two days ago. The man must have practiced this route over and over long before today; during that period, many different people may have walked back and forth along this path.

But after going to such elaborate trouble, what was the purpose?

Within the Clockwork Fairy's Vision, the man's steps finally began to slow, as though he had reached his destination.

Yet it was only a gray, gloomy alley, with Doors and windows tightly shut all around, showing no sign of anything unusual. A black cat crouched upon a windowsill, its eyes glowing with eerie green Light. When the man entered the alley, it let out a sharp "wa" and leapt down from the sill, landing on an abandoned wooden barrel and turning its head to look in this direction.

A moment later, it jumped off the barrel again and vanished in just a few bounds.

Exactly then, a shrill whistle suddenly sounded from the street next door. Fang Hong had heard those Knights blowing copper whistles to catch suspects during the day, and this was the very same sound. He instinctively turned his head toward that direction, only to see Golden Flame rising into the night sky beyond the one intervening street, thick smoke rolling upward.

"A fire?" Fang Hong's heart gave a jolt.

He only looked for a brief instant before turning back at once, forcing his attention onto the matter at hand again. He did not care what the Knights were doing; the crucial thing was not to lose the trail—this was what mattered most right now.

Only, as he turned back and glanced into the Wind Goggles, he froze where he stood, a jolt of shock flaring in his chest—within the Clockwork Fairy's Vision there was nothing but emptiness; the man had already vanished without a trace.

Because he had considered all kinds of possibilities before coming, and had even entertained the thought that this might be a trap, Fang Hong quickly calmed himself, first ruling out several clearly impossible options in his mind.

First, could it be that he had simply lost the target in the instant he'd been distracted? Yet his distraction, that quick glance back, had lasted no more than a heartbeat; even if the man had maintained his previous Speed, with such stiff steps he could not possibly have walked out of this alley in so short a span.

Then might he have gone through some Door? That was indeed possible. But since the other side had invited him here, upon finding that no one was following, shouldn't he at least come out to check? However, the dim alley lay utterly silent; aside from the shrill whistles rising and falling a block away, here there was no change at all from before.

Yet the Clockwork Fairy and the man had been separated by a fair distance, and Fang Hong himself was keeping a fair distance behind the Clockwork Fairy. For the moment he did not worry about being discovered. He immediately raised his gloved hand, sending the Clockwork Fairy climbing rapidly higher, hoping from a loftier vantage to see what exactly had happened just now.

But as the Clockwork Fairy's Vision rose higher and higher, in the lattice of alleys spread out all around there was still no sign of the target's Shadow. In fact, under the heavy night, there were scarcely any pedestrians at all in these remote back lanes.

He lifted the Clockwork Fairy's Vision further, gauging his own position. Following that man, he had walked for close to half an hour; now he was nearly at the far western edge of the town. Through the Fairy's bird's-eye view, he could even see the low stone wall ringing the outskirts, and beyond it, the Forest stretching in the night.

Fang Hong was more than a little at a loss, unsure whether he had, by means of the Clockwork Fairy, successfully sidestepped a trap. The situation at hand did somewhat resemble one, after all; if the other party truly wished to meet him in earnest, they would not have staged such a commotion.

Keeping his composure, he recalled the Clockwork Fairy, and as it flew back he subconsciously glanced toward the fire a street away. The blaze seemed to be in a three-storey apartment building; Golden Flame boiled over the rooftop, dense smoke shooting straight into the sky, obscuring everything. Crowds thronged that street, seemingly fighting the fire.