Whispering Poems

Chapter 2655 Damaged Clock

Iluna was also a little surprised to see Shade here, but they both remained calm and just passed by. Five minutes later, Shade saw Iluna in the empty corridor where the boxes on the third floor of the opera house were located.

"Good afternoon. I thought you were in Riverwood now."

The eighteen-year-old brown-haired girl took off her hat and held it in her hand:
“Our team is collecting the relics. Since last Monday, there have been multiple reports of missing persons near the Queen Maria Opera House.

The Redwich Court began investigating the incident last Wednesday, but soon an officer and two police officers investigating the incident also disappeared. The police took it very seriously and sent more people to investigate, but they also disappeared.

So the matter was reported to the church, and the church delivered the file to the captain at the weekend."

"So your captain discovered this relic hidden in the opera house?"

Xia De pointed downstairs.

"No, our captain is missing too."

Iluna shook her head, but the expressionless look on her face showed that although he was missing, the captain of the Blackstone Security Company should be fine:

"After the captain disappeared for a day and a night while investigating alone, we didn't dare to send anyone to this area anymore. Then the church asked the Prophet's Association for help and conducted some peripheral investigations before confirming that the relic here was a Secret Keeper-level relic [the damaged Antarctic Constellation Clock]. Oh, 'Antarctic Star' is a watch brand from the Fifth Era."

Since the word "clock" is in the name of the relic, it is most likely a time-related relic. Iluna's subsequent introduction also proves this point, even if she faces this relic alone, she will encounter danger:

"The body of this relic is a damaged mechanical clock. The pendulum of the clock will not swing, but the hands will move normally. In the event of a containment failure, the three hands on the dial will stop moving one by one -

First, the second hand. When the second hand stops, anyone who sees the clock will fall into a state of time stasis. This state is terrible because the consciousness of the person who touches it is still active and can perceive the surroundings, which will make their spirit fall into an indescribable bad state.
Then there is the minute hand. When the minute hand stops, the bodies of people who are stuck in a state of time standstill will disappear and enter the so-called "narrow space of time". In this way, even if we regain control of the relics, most ordinary people will be lost in it and unable to return;

Finally, the hour hand. When the hour hand stops, the mechanical clock's time-stopping power will spread to the surrounding area. If not stopped in time, the clock may cause the entire area to fall into a state of stillness. The keeper-level danger rating of this relic is mostly due to the characteristics of the last hour hand when it stops. "

"So now is the minute hand stop phase, right?"

Shade asked curiously, and Iluna nodded in annoyance:

"This clock has a strange property of making a clicking sound that attracts people. The missing people were attracted here by the sound, and when they opened the door and saw it, time stopped and they disappeared. Then the investigators came here based on the clues, saw the clock again and disappeared. Finally, the captain came here and disappeared after seeing the clock.

We must admit that if we don't know what's here in advance, the characteristics of this relic are indeed difficult to defend against. But when the captain comes back, we will laugh at him severely."

Although her description was simple, this relic was actually quite terrifying. If the Tobesk Parish had not been well-staffed, who knows how many more people the small hall containing the clock would have "devoured" before anyone noticed anything unusual.

Even because of the "clock stop" feature of the relic itself, people may have to wait until the entire area falls into a time stop before they know what happened here.

Xia De was amazed at this relic, and then continued to inquire:
"Since time can only be stopped by looking at the clock, can't you just send someone to contain it with their eyes closed? Why are you making such a big noise now?"

Iluna looked unhappy:
"It's not about watching, but about sensing. As long as you know the existence of the clock and get close to it, the effect will be passively triggered. So our team is not here to contain the relic. We are responsible for setting up the ritual around the room to prevent the third stage of the feature from being triggered and then being unable to end.

A ring warlock who doesn't know what kind of relic is here will come to collect it later, so we have to go out on field work in such a horrible weather."

It’s not that she is unwilling to do field work, but she is not happy about having to wait for others for the entire afternoon.

"So do you need help? I still have the can of umbilical cord with me. I'm not sure how effective it is against this relic, but at least it can ensure that you won't be stilled at a glance."

"Not for the time being. I think this matter should be easy to resolve. What I'm more curious about now is who put it in the opera house. The manager of the theater said that no clocks have been purchased here recently. Could it be that the person who rented the performance hall before forgot to take it away?"

Although Iluna wanted to continue talking to Shade about recent events, she still had to work, so she had to say goodbye to Shade in a depressed mood.

However, Shad thought that he would probably be in the opera house all afternoon, so he invited Iluna to have dinner with him, Vanessa and the others if she had time in the evening.

The eighteen-year-old girl nodded and agreed. Although she loved her work in the church, she was not a complete workaholic.

It was very interesting to watch the girls rehearse on stage, discuss the script with Siris, or be taken to the dressing room by Vanessa to watch the actors put on makeup. The thirteenth-level witch didn't care much about the relic going out of control not far away, but she joked with Shade that afternoon:
"We've only been here for a week and we've already encountered something like this. This is truly the city you live in."

"It should be the city where Iluna lives. I rarely see unclaimed relics getting out of control around me."

Shade corrected him, saying that he was not worried about what was happening over there. Since Iluna and the others already knew the characteristics of the relics and how to deal with them, and the church had sent someone to collect them, this was a standard relic collection mission.

There is no room for error in this kind of mission.

But this time, Shad's idea was obviously wrong. As it was getting close to evening, he sat in front of the dressing table. A group of girls surrounded him, laughing as they watched Sirius bend down to help him draw his eyebrows. He was still wondering when Iluna would come over.

Vanessa was watching this scene with a smile and was about to comment on Shade's appearance at the moment, but suddenly she and Shade turned to look at the wall:

"The Whispering Elements are rioting. What's going on?"

Xia De, who was quite uncomfortable with his "handsome" appearance at the moment, stood up immediately:

"I'll go check out the situation. You don't have to go over there. Hillis, you should practice on Mia next time. I think my original eyebrows look good."

The young blond girl then smiled and said:
"It's too difficult to put makeup on a cat. I'm afraid I can't do it. Do cats have eyebrows?"

So all the girls looked at the cat lying on the dressing table, and Mia looked up at Shad who was about to leave with wide eyes, thinking that he was going home now, so everyone was sure that cats had no eyebrows.

(Luvia is fortune-telling.)

In the blocked performance hall on the second floor of the Queen Maria Opera House, as evening approached, the gas lamps in the room were lit up along with the gas lamps in other rooms of the opera house.

There were only two people in the slightly downward-sloping auditorium. Iluna held up the dark golden scales formed by her life ring in both hands. The light from the scales enveloped her entire body. When the light around her came into contact with the air, rippling water ripples appeared one after another.

She was standing in the middle of the aisle of the auditorium at this time, and on the stage with the curtain half drawn, the three hands of the mechanical clock with a mahogany case had all stopped.

But what was even more terrifying was that behind the clock, half of the body of a man who looked to be around thirty years old seemed to be closely integrated with the clock.

The left half of his face had been integrated into the textured wooden shell of the clock, and the remaining right half of his face had an abnormally crazy expression. The clock was transforming the remaining half of his body while assimilating him. Iluna clearly heard the clicking sound coming from his chest as it continued to run, and she was almost frozen in place just by looking at the clock.

Iluna moved forward with difficulty, her mouth tightly shut. The golden scale was balancing the abnormal flow of time, but her movements were still incredibly slow.

The sun gun that she had just tried to throw was still suspended in the air behind her, and all the people who had entered here earlier had disappeared. She complained in her heart that the previous investigation team had not found out the origin of the clock, but the current situation could only be solved by her alone.

Even though she was moving slowly, she was getting closer to the stage. The man on the stage, who was merging with the clock, finally stretched out his right arm, which seemed to be pierced by a metal needle under his skin, and pointed it at her when Iluna was close enough.

"stop!"

When he spoke, there was even a metallic friction sound that made Iluna dizzy, and after that almost roaring sound, Iluna felt her whole body stiffen.

She could still move, but her speed became slower, and the obstacles she encountered in the process of moving forward were like pushing a house with a solid foundation. She was now very glad that she had experienced Xia De's "time pause" and accumulated experience, otherwise she might have been affected in the moment just now.

Seeing that Iluna was still moving forward, the man madly turned his right arm counterclockwise and pointed at her again:
"return to!"

(End of this chapter)