Translator: Lonelytree
The smell of putrefaction suffocated the air. The cadaver of this adult male was torn at its neck. Gu Jun bent over to take a closer look. He could see clearly the tearing of the muscle, the soft cartilage and the trachea. The tearing was surprisingly even, the decapitation must have been done with an extremely sharp instrument but the strangest thing was there was no blood splatter around the body’s neck, clothes and surrounding ground. If the victim was decapitated when he was still alive, then the aorta would have gushed out with blood and the body would not have been so clean so the decapitation must have been done post mortem.
“Is this the work of the devil…” Kathlyn uttered shakingly. The rest turned their eyes away or else their stomachs might turn. This was not a pretty sight for the land’s travellers either. The irreverent way the children were treated reminded them of the Ossarians. For some reason, Kathlyn had this hunch that the two missing children were kneeling before them. Time-wise they would be dead for more than 10 years already.
“Based on my experience, things like these are more often the work of human beings and not the devil.” Gu Jun announced, “Someone who is under the delusion that they are accomplishing some kind of great goal.” Even though he was not a forensic doctor, Gu Jun had more contact with dead bodies than a real one and the feeling he got from these bodies was… strange and inexplicable. For example, based on their level of decay, the bodies should have depleted to a skeletal frame by now and not remained as some mummified corpses. Staring at the neck of the carcass, illusion flashed across his eyes like a shadow, he saw the severed nerves and veins on the exposed neck twisting together to form a spiral triangle… He walked to the next corpse and was assaulted by the same illusion.
“Spiral triangle, spiral triangle…” he mumbled as something came into his mind. He walked along the trail of the dead bodies. The kneeling bodies were placed equidistant from each other… As he walked past them one after another, eventually he could confirm his suspicion, “They are not forming a circle but a spiral triangle with the transmission tower as the centre…” The shape meant that there would be more layers. The distance that he had just treaded was either the innermost layer of the spiral or the outermost. To complete the shape, there had to be more layers, thus this ritual needed more bodies, more sacrifices…
“Mr. Nightmare Man!” Suddenly, Peacock who was at the back shouted in shock. “Something is floating this way.” Gu Jun turned to look and a gust of wind was rushing in from the direction of Warburton. The sand was gathering and among them were several yellowed papers. The wind stopped as sudden as it began just as the papers landed squarely beside their feet. Gu Jun picked up one of the papers and instantly he frowned. The paper was about the size of his palm and an uneven spiral triangle was drawn on it with red and black paint. He had a feeling this was the shape being arranged using the dead bodies…
“What is this?” Tom asked openly as he picked up one of the papers. There were 6 pieces of papers and they all had the same drawing, the six papers seemed to correspond to the six of them.
“I’ve not seen this kind of seal before.” Peacock began before Kathlyn continued shakily, “I have a very, very bad feeling about this…”
The rest of the group studied the paper closely while Gu Jun’s eyes wandered over to the old stone. Something hit him then and his heart wrenched.
“Secret Spell Appear, Death Follow Suit, Shadow Demon Dance, Madness Reign Supreme; Phecda Chaos, Tragedy Birth, High Treason, Big Collapse.”
He lowered his head to look at the yellow paper in his hand again. ‘Could this be the secret spell…? A yellow spell…’ The legacy of the land’s travellers described plenty about the ‘big collapse’ from the prophecy but they had little to no idea about the earlier part. They only knew that ‘secret spell’ and ‘shadow demon’ referred to the defining features of the secret plan concocted by the traitorous party… But was that its actual meaning?
“Secret Spell Appear, Death Follow Suit,” Gu Jun felt this sounded more like a heraldry of the “Phecda Chaos.”
‘And these yellow papers… could they be a notification of death?’ Gu Jun looked at the transmission tower down the distance and in that moment, another mirage struck him. He saw not a grey steel tower but a tower made up of human skulls. Adults and children’s decapitated heads with their faces frozen in madness during time of death. There was no pain and terror, only madness that ravaged at one’s deepest soul. The skull that was placed on the very top was still leaking with blood.
After Wu Siyu landed at the airport, she got into the car that would ferry her to the Spell Department base at the headquarters, this was a privilege extended to not many members of the Recreational Department. When she entered the base that was about 20 storeys tall, it was already noon. Inside the large first floor lobby, she encountered Cai Zixuan who was there to lead her to the conference room.
“Siyu, Ah Jun is still alive!” When Cai Zixuan saw her, he announced excitedly, “I can recognize his voice, that was definitely him!” Over the past year, Zixuan’s hair had fallen even more from his worry, eventually he heeded Elder Tong’s advice and went bald.
“Hmm…” Wu Siyu gave a vague response. Along the way, Cai Zixuan radiated joy as if he would be reunited with his old friend tonight. As much as Wu Siyu tried to see him as a suspect, she could not. She could see fireworks basically erupting within the young man, the joy was pure and unadulterated. When she walked into the conference room, about 30 people were there already, most of them had received the message. Wang Ruoxiang, Xue Ba and Lou Xiaoning were there, their expressions too spoke of happiness. Elder Tong, Prof Shen as well as the central figures of Angell’s Order like Prof Jiang were there as well. Her eyes lingered on the new recruits, those did not know Dirty-minded Jun before this…
“Siyu, I know it was him.” Wang Ruoxiang said with a smile. “Our previous medical assessment has to be wrong, after all Dreamlands is different from this world.”
“Everyone, calm down!” It was Elder Tong who spoke. He was now the leader of a department, he needed to rein people’s expectations in before they got ahead of themselves, “We cannot tell for sure that it is Ah Jun yet. There are still many things to consider, where did the voice come from; how did it reach us; and what is the meaning of this picture that it has given us?”
“What picture?” Wu Siyu asked. Elder Tong did not mention this detail during the call.
“The people who received the message did not enter a specific dream, but other than the voice, they could blurrily remember a picture.” Elder Tong pointed, “The one on the screen now.”
Everyone turned to the monitor, which was showing a picture that was pieced together by everyone who had received the message. The picture had a sandy yellow background and in the middle of it was an uneven drawing of a spiral triangle.