Chapter 33: Relic Out of Control

The surroundings were deathly silent. Seeing no one, Shard walked toward the sofa. He did not sit down, making it easy to leave at any moment.

However, his eyes once again fell upon the brass metal gear box on the coffee table. According to common sense, Shard would certainly not proactively touch any unknown object.

But up close, in addition to the large and small gear knobs on the brass cubic metal surface, he actually saw a line of text on the upward-facing side that looked like distorted musical notes.

Although he had never seen it before, Shard still managed to read it

"I am watching you in the darkness."

Immediately, a whispering voice in his mind warned

【You have come into contact with a "Whisper."】

"What, is this a Relic?"

Shard said in surprise, simultaneously noticing that the bright gas lamps and crystal chandeliers in the room had actually grown dim.

An inexplicable sense of terror compelled him to look down at the brass gear box. At some unknown point, the box had silently opened; the lid on the front was skewed away from the body.

As the light grew increasingly dim, rolling black mist surged from within, crashing toward the surroundings like waves.

"Isn't this a trope from a horror novel... this is..."

【Relic containment failure.】

Before Shard could even react, the surging black mist completely extinguished the light in the room.

The surroundings were pitch black, as if a layer of black ink had been smeared before his eyes. In the darkness, the sense of fear grew increasingly intense, causing Shard's body to tremble instinctively.

In a world where darkness descended, his sense of direction vanished completely. Shard felt as if he were falling into the most terrifying abyss; his body and soul were being invaded by fear in a dual sense. For a moment, he even believed he was being watched by some massive, indescribable entity within the dark.

The extreme panic made him want to scream, but the Outsider quickly steadied his emotions; he knew what the most rational course of action was at this moment.

In the dark space, rationality and emotion fought one another. This fear was not a matter of emotional control, but an instinctive reaction. At the same time, in the moment the fear surged, whispers drifted from the darkness.

It was not the pleasant female voice from his head, but a whisper of hatred and resentment that sounded as if thousands upon thousands of people were overlapping. The sound was like white worms crawling and rubbing against his ear canals, even causing goosebumps to rise on the back of his exposed hands.

"Hmm? Why can I see the back of my own hand?"

He looked down at his hand. A faint silvery glow covered it, preventing his body from being completely swallowed by the darkness.

"Yes, I am no longer an ordinary person. I am a Circle Warlock."

He managed to calm himself amidst the fear. Gazing at his hands, he felt the brass life-ring slowly rotating within his soul and summoned it forth.

*Clang!*

Behind the body enveloped in silvery moonlight, the white steam in the dark space seemed to be dyed with a silver light.

*Whistle!*

A distant, inexplicable piercing sound echoed through time and space, vibrating the profound darkness.

*Great Hammer!*

A great hammer struck from the depths of the steam and darkness. Amidst splashing sparks, the brass life-ring appeared behind him in a state of extremely high-speed rotation, scattering sparks into the dark.

"Silver Moon!"

Even without mastering any Silver Moon mysticism, relying solely on his current thoughts, Shard—standing in this darkness—followed his intuition and cried out while raising his right hand high.

The full manifestation of the life-ring was the strongest state of a Circle Warlock. The brass ring, splashing with sparks, responded to its master, and the 【Silver Moon】 core rune flashed.

At that moment, Shard seemed to hear a woman's laughter in his ear. Subsequently, upon his raised right index finger, the silvery light bloomed like a dazzling sun.

The moonlight gradually diffused outward, causing the surrounding curtains of darkness to recede as if time were flowing backward.

At the same time, Shard noticed that in front of him, a golden light outlined the silhouette of a seated woman. Her light was also dispelling the terrifying darkness that had emerged due to the Relic's failure.

"So this is the person who wanted to meet me..."

Shard thought to himself, watching the light dispel the darkness and restore the surroundings to the appearance of a reception room.

The darkness retreated unwillingly, attempting to tear at Shard, but it could not approach the radiance of the Silver Moon.

The whispers were also cursing those emitting the light; the voices overlapped repeatedly, making them almost indistinguishable. Yet, Shard still heard the most prominent voice among them. Whispers from more than one place uttered that sentence—it wasn't directed at him, but was the unintentional murmur of the whispers within the darkness.

The Outsider understood this mysterious language

"Old Gods! You damn thieves! The thirteen of you..."

The darkness retreated completely, and the silvery light in Shard's finger gradually faded. However, he could feel that if he needed to, he could use such an ability again. He could treat this entirely as the first mysticism he had created: 【Silver Moon's Radiance】.

Though it wasn't particularly useful.

The final whispers continued to echo in his ears. Shard was surprised by the content, but he did not know if it was true. Generally speaking, content heard within the whispers of a Relic containment failure is untrustworthy.

He looked down at the brass cubic box on the coffee table, but it was already closed, as if the moment the black mist surged out had been nothing more than an illusion.

Looking up again toward the direction where the golden silhouette of the woman had been, he saw the wall where the bookshelf stood. In the bottom right corner of the large bookshelf, there was a wooden door left slightly ajar.

The handle of the wooden door was pure gold, blending well with the bookshelf, so Shard had not noticed it when he first entered the room and stepped onto the thick red wool carpet.

He understood instinctively that the woman who wanted to see him was in the room behind this door.

The interior was somewhat cooler than the corridor. One must note that the corridor itself was cooler than this summer night's city, but the temperature in the room felt more like mid-autumn.

"The temperature seems a bit abnormal. I remember it was normal at the start. Has the consequence of the Relic failure not ended yet?"

【The power of a High-Circle Warlock affects the environment; the other party is likely very angry.】

"High-Circle? Ninth Circle or above? Wait, how do you know? Also, why is she angry? Shouldn't I be the one who's angry?"

Shard thought hesitantly. At that moment, the woman's voice finally drifted from behind the door

"You... you probably understand what just happened, right?"

There was a sense of helplessness and indignation in her tone. For the first time, Shard discovered he could clearly read someone's mood from their tone.

"Relic containment failure."

He answered honestly, and then learned the truth of what had just occurred.

"Young gentleman, you and I... I don't know whether I should blame myself or blame you. That was the Poet-level Relic, 【The Box of Darkness】. It only suffers containment failure when its specific opening incantation is recited while the user simultaneously possesses light or celestial-related spiritual runes. I merely wanted to meet you; why did you do that? Don't you know that strange incantations should not be easily deciphered?"

Her speaking pace was not particularly fast; it was a Northern Common Tongue with an accent. Judging by her voice, she should be no older than thirty, but perhaps she had just passed twenty. Her tone was very elegant, yet even Shard could detect the undisguised irritation in her voice.

Shard truly had no idea about the matter she mentioned. Although he maintained his usual caution, he was, after all, new to this world. He could not have anticipated that merely reciting an incantation in his mind could cause a Relic to fail, but it was indeed an accident caused by his lack of prudence.

He decided to treat this incident as a lesson

"Madam, I am very sorry. I am not trying to evade responsibility, but may I ask, what is it that you are looking for me for?"

He didn't know how else to explain, so he could only express his apologies first while testing her attitude.

The lady behind the door certainly couldn't have guessed that her invited guest could easily read ancient text, let alone know the guest's core runes. Therefore, part of the responsibility for what just happened certainly fell on Shard.

He wanted to offer compensation, but since the other party was a High-Circle Warlock, he certainly couldn't afford it, so he could only ask what she wanted.

Both he and the other party had just used the power of a Circle Warlock, yet the lady behind the door was not surprised, which meant that when she invited the detective from the second floor, she already knew his identity.

This left Shard very confused. He had only been a Circle Warlock for one day; no one should have been able to see through him yet.

But at least the woman behind the door was not Lady Lasoya. Even without having heard Lady Lasoya speak, Shard was certain that a person whose gender was unknown could not speak with such an elegant and calm tone.

"Forget it, an apology is enough. I also shouldn't have left a Relic out in the open during a meeting; we both share responsibility. And this has reminded me once again that one must absolutely never leave a 【Relic】 lying around, otherwise, one might encounter all sorts of people. I also didn't expect that you could actually read those incantations; those words are truly very ancient."

The lady behind the door sighed. Shard breathed a slight sigh of relief—not because the incident had been brushed aside, but because he realized through this event that the High-Circle female warlock behind the door was a reasonable person, making dealing with her very safe.

"To get back to the main topic, young gentleman, how should I address you?"

The woman behind the door adjusted her mood and asked. Shard could not see through the door to the other party, but he believed she could see him. He could perfectly imagine the scene of the woman sitting behind a desk, speaking to him through the door.