Chapter 114: Chapter 118 Fire Scene
Thick smoke billowed up, with flickering firelight mixed in the haze. People ran and screamed in the streets, and Duncan’s eyes widened slightly the moment he heard the cries.
The museum… the marine museum near Cross District… Nina!
Nina was visiting the marine museum near Cross District with her classmates that very afternoon, in the direction from which the smoke was rising!
Duncan took a step to rush towards the museum, but soon realized it wouldn’t be easy to run there from this district. Even if the smoke was visible, the winding roads would waste a lot of time, and taking a taxi was impractical—not to mention the lack of convenient and adequate transportation, even if he could flag down a car, it was unlikely anyone would want to take him to that dangerous fire.
Duncan rapidly calculated in his head. He was urgent but did not lose his composure; after quickly organizing his thoughts, a bold idea came to mind.
“Ai Yi!” he suddenly ordered in his mind, quickening his pace as he darted into the shadows of a building in a nearby alley.
A flash of green spiritual fire passed by, and Ai Yi, who was patrolling nearby, appeared out of thin air and flapped its wings, settling on Duncan’s shoulder.
Duncan turned to glance at the dove and had already sorted out his thoughts:
It was known this bird could carry physical matter through space, ensuring the “cargo” remained intact during the process, and it was also known this bird had a sufficient carrying capacity, having never reached its limit in several tests.
Could it possibly “transport” him to the museum?
This bold thought quickly solidified, and Duncan also felt a slight sigh of relief within—he had never tried letting Ai Yi carry a living person through teleportation before since it was an extremely dangerous experiment. He had not found a suitable Heretic willing to sacrifice for research recently. Initially, he planned to arrange a human trial after Ai Yi had some “hunting” success, but this situation arose unexpectedly… however, it turned out well.
Since he could not find a tester, he might as well use his fearless body and soul as the first experimental subject—after all, at least Ai Yi could ensure the “cargo” itself remained intact during transport, meaning at least his body could arrive completely intact at the district where the museum was located. And if his body really died again during transmission due to mysterious forces… then he could simply project his soul again from Homeloss.
“I need you to transport something,” Duncan said, touching Ai Yi’s wings, “to the museum at Cross District—the large white building you flew over this morning.”
Ai Yi cocked its head, its intelligence understanding Duncan’s intentions from the sight of the smoke rising in the sky: “A trip on the spur of the moment?”
“Just tell me if you can do it.”
“Right now…”
“Yes.”
Without a word, the dove vigorously flapped its wings, and a burst of green spiritual fire erupted out of nowhere, transforming it into a spiritual Bone Dove. It then soared up, quickly swirling around Duncan— the next second, the eerie green flames flashed and disappeared, and Duncan had turned into a stream of light, vanishing in the vortex formed by the flames.
A second later, a snow-white dove burst out from the shadows deep in the alley and quickly headed towards the dense black smoke column over the next district.
Near the Cross District marine museum, firefighters rushed from the fire station had begun trying to combat the sudden blaze. Thanks to Cross District’s relatively good infrastructure and the museum’s special status as a public place, there were not only permanent fire units nearby but also adequate emergency water pumps and exits. As firefighters began their efforts to extinguish the fire, some people trapped in the museum had already escaped through evacuation exits on both sides of the main building and gathered anxiously at the edge of the square.
People discussed in panic about the flames that burst suddenly in the corridors and hallways, the strange and eerie booms from deep within the museum, and certain distorted, bizarre shadows—some were clearly hallucinating under severe stress, describing eerily terrifying scenes to others around them, which only spread the panic further.
Professional personnel had already taken action. The clerics from the square’s church and the permanent guardians were experienced in dealing with premonitions of contamination caused by group psychological stress. Two priests had entered the crowd, lighting incense near the most agitated individuals to calm their overly excited emotions, while a few guardians began separating the crowd, taking those potentially contaminated away for subsequent psychological soothing and will testing.
Near the museum square, and a few dozen meters away in the shadows of a building, a cluster of green light suddenly surged.
The eerie green fire twirled and concentrated, forming a gateway out of thin air. Duncan stepped out from it, the threads of flame wrapped around him dissipating in the wind, and he walked out of the shadows, with the dove Ai Yi flapping its wings and settling steadily on his shoulder.
Duncan looked back at Ai Yi, recording the new experience in his mind, as well as his sensations during the “live teleportation.”
As he had expected, Ai Yi arrived at the museum by “flying” rather than “instantly arriving” as he usually did when transporting between the antique shop and the Homeloss.
This indicated that Ai Yi’s “transportation” had to be based on anchor points—when transporting between the antique shop and Homeloss, the anchor points were the “antique shop owner” and the “captain.” However, when carrying one of the anchors, Ai Yi could only honestly fly through physical space.
As for the feeling of being carried by Ai Yi while flying… it was quite peculiar.
During the process, he did not lose consciousness but also could not smoothly observe his surroundings. Connected through the Spiritual Body’s flame, he could vaguely share Ai Yi’s perception, even catching glimpses of overhead views and feeling the air brushing past his body. Yet, all these “shared feelings” seemed to be separated by a curtain, not as clear and direct as his own body.
Perhaps… this was because Ai Yi’s body structure was vastly different from humans, or it could be because Ai Yi had its own will, preventing full control.
But these were minor issues, and Duncan did not care right now—the emergency unlocking of Ai Yi’s “new function” today was already a significant gain. He could ponder over any details later. Currently, the most important thing was to confirm Nina’s condition.
Flying was certainly not as fast as transporting. It took him a few minutes to “fly” over from the nearby district, but compared to running or using regular transportation, this speed was already quite astonishing—he hadn’t delayed much on the way.
Duncan had already seen the burning large building. He saw that the main building of the white museum was split into three levels, with the fiercest fires on the first and second floors. Dense smoke billowed from several windows on the second floor, with explosive flames spewing and undulating out of a few windows, and smoke trailing from the roof where faint flames sporadically emerged.
The distribution of the fires seemed as though a massive column of fire had erupted from the first floor of the museum, piercing through several floors and the roof.
Firefighters had activated several hydrants at the edge of the plaza. Massive jets of high-pressure water were being sprayed at the main building of the museum in an attempt to cool the exterior walls and prevent the century-old building from collapsing catastrophically while some survivors gathered at the edge of the plaza, being comforted by priests or answering inquiries from officials.
Duncan headed straight toward those survivors, all the while checking to see if Nina was among them.
Halfway there, he heard some survivors tremblingly describe what they had seen—
“…the fire just suddenly appeared out of thin air! It really came out of nowhere! It was as if it had been burning for a long time, but no one had seen it until it suddenly emerged!”
“There was a shrieking sound, a sharp shriek, like a devil laughing!”
“…a person all burned up crawled out of a room, oh, Goddess above! That was someone in old clothes from decades ago… He crawled out of the room, but that room hadn’t been on fire before! The fire only started after that person crawled out!”
The survivors at the edge of the plaza were in extreme panic, many jabbering about the terrifying scenes. Duncan approached them and saw a Deep Sea Church official with short black stubble and wearing a priest’s robe frowning deeply.
“The panic is too high, one-third of the people are mentally unstable, these folks show signs of contamination by Transcendent powers…” the Deep Sea Priest said in rapid-fire to a nearby guardian warrior, “There might be something unclean in the museum… When can the cathedral support arrive?”
“At least half an hour.”
“…no, that’s too late. If there really is something unclean, looking at this scale, it might get out of control within ten minutes…” The black-robed priest glanced at the museum one last time, then suddenly turned to an attendant next to him, “Please have the sheriffs handle this area.”
Following that, he swiftly tore off his priest robe, revealing a black short-sleeve shirt and pants underneath, then raised the “Storm Scripture” in his hand and prayed loudly and briefly—
“Please bear witness! We march forth unwavering!”
The other guardians also called out in unison, “Please bear witness!”
After the prayers, a faint mist started to swirl around the Storm Believers, encircling their bodies like ocean waves. Next second, they strode boldly towards the still fiercely burning building.
(Push book recommendation from Demon Monk Hua Wuzhao’s “Carrying a Door Wherever I Go”: Earthling Cao Xin dies in a car accident, transmigrates to a world with scarce resources, and acquires a “Bronze Immortal Gate”…)