Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

The silence was profound, and seeing no one around, Shard walked toward the sofa. He didn't sit down, staying ready to leave at a moment's notice.

But his eyes once again fell upon the brass-colored metal gear box on the coffee table. According to common sense, Shard naturally wouldn't reach out for any unknown object.

However, up close, he saw not only the various sizes of gear knobs on the brass cube's surface but also a line of twisted, musical-note-like script on its upright face.

Though he had never seen them before, Shard still understood them:

"I am watching you in the darkness."

Immediately, a murmuring voice inside his mind reminded him:

[You have touched "Whisper."]

"What, this is a Relic?"

Shard exclaimed in surprise, at the same time noticing that the bright gas lamps and crystal chandeliers inside the room had started to dim.

An inexplicable sense of dread led him to look down at the brass gear box, which had silently opened without notice, with its lid askew from the body of the box.

As the lighting grew dimmer, billowing black mist emerged from it, spreading like waves in all directions.

"This is just like a scene from a horror novel... This is..."

[Relic Containment has failed.]

Shard hardly had time to react when the surging black mist snuffed out all the light inside the room.

It was pitch-black all around, as if a layer of black ink had been painted over his eyes. In the darkness, his fear intensified, causing Shard's body to tremble involuntarily.

In a world where Darkness Descends, the sense of direction had utterly vanished. Shard felt as if he had plummeted into the most terrifying abyss, both his body and spirit assaulted by fear, at times even believing he was being observed by an immense, indescribable entity within the darkness.

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The extreme panic made him want to scream, but the Outlander quickly calmed himself down, knowing what was the most rational thing to do at that moment.

In the dark space, reason and emotion fought each other, this fear was not an emotional response but an instinctual one. And in the moments when the fear surged, whispers came from within the darkness.

It wasn't the pleasant sound of a woman's voice in his head, but rather a loathsome whisper of hatred and resentment from what seemed like millions of people overlapping. It sounded like white worms squirming in his ear canal, raising goosebumps on the back of his exposed hand.

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

He looked down at his hands to see a faint silver glow covering them, preventing him from being completely devoured by the darkness:

"Right, I'm no longer an ordinary person, I am a Circle Sorcerer."

In the midst of fear, he barely calmed down, looking at his hands and feeling the slowly rotating Brass Life Ring in his soul, summoning it forth.

The bell tolls!

The body wrapped in silver moonlight made the white steam in the dark space seem to be tinted with silver light.

The siren!

A distant whine echoed through Space-Time, rocking the profound darkness.

The gavel!

The hammer struck from the depths of steam and darkness; as sparks flew, the Brass Life Ring appeared behind him in a high-speed spin, casting sparks into the darkness.

"Silvermoon!"

Even without mastering any Arcane Technique of Silvermoon, Shard still followed his instincts and, standing in this darkness, raised his right hand high and shouted.

When the Life Ring fully appeared, it was the sorcerer's strongest stance; the spark-emitting Brass Ring responded to its master's call, the Core Rune of [Silvermoon] flickering.

Shard seemed to hear a woman's laughter at that moment, and then the index finger of his raised right hand emitted a silver light as dazzling as the sun.

The light of Moonlight gradually spread outwards, causing the surrounding darkness to retreat as if time was reversing.

At the same time, Shard also noticed in front of him a golden light sketching out the silhouette of a seated woman, her glow also driving away the terrible darkness created by the Relic's loss of control.

"This is the person who wanted to meet me..."

Shard thought to himself as he watched the light drive away the darkness, returning the surroundings to the appearance of a reception room.

The darkness, unwilling to retreat, sought to tear at Shard, but it couldn't come near the radiance of Silvermoon.

Whispering voices were also cursing the people emitting the light, their voices overlapping, almost indistinguishable. But Shard heard the most obvious voice among them, not just one instance of whispering saying those words, it wasn't directed at him; it was an inadvertent mutter in the darkness.

The Outlander understood this inexplicable language:

"Old God! You damned thieves! Thirteen of..."

The darkness completely receded, and the silver glow from Shard's fingers gradually faded as well. However, he felt that if he needed to, he could still use this power, which could be considered his first creation of an Arcane Technique, the "Silvermoon Light Spell."

Although it wasn't very useful, that is.

The last of the whispers echoed incessantly in his ears, and Shard was surprised by their content, but he didn't know whether they were true or false. The content heard in the whispering of the out-of-control Relic was usually not to be trusted.

He looked down at the brass cube on the coffee table, which was already closed, as if the emergence of black mist from just moments ago was an illusion.

Then, looking up at the spot where the figure of a golden-haired woman had been, he saw the wall where the bookshelf stood, with a wooden door slightly ajar at the bottom right corner of the whole bookshelf.

The door handle was pure gold and blended well with the bookshelf, so Shard did not notice it when he first entered the room, stepping on the thick red wool carpet.

Instinctively, he understood that his woman was in the room behind this door.

The room was cooler compared to the hallway, given that the hallway itself was already cooler than the city on this summer night, and the temperature in the room seemed to be of late autumn.

"The temperature seems a bit off; I remember it was normal at the beginning. Has the aftermath of the Relic's loss of control not ended yet?"

"The power of a High Ring Sorcerer affects the environment, she must be quite angry."

"High Ring? Above Nine Rings? Wait, how do you know? Also, why is she angry? Shouldn't I be the one who's angry?"

Shard hesitated in thought when, finally, the woman's voice came from behind the door:

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

There was a tone of helplessness and indignation in her voice, and it was the first time Shard discovered he could clearly discern someone's feelings from their tone.

"The Relic lost control."

He replied honestly and then learned the truth of the recent events.

"Young sir, you... I... I don't know whether I should blame myself or blame you. That was a Poet-Level Relic, the 'Box of Darkness,' which can only be contained when the opening Spell Words are chanted, and at the same time, one possesses Light and celestial-related Spirit Runes. I only wanted to meet you; why did you do this? Don't you know that you should not lightly read unfamiliar inscriptions?"

She spoke not too quickly, in that accent-laden Northern Common Tongue, with a voice that sounded to be no older than thirty but possibly just over twenty. Her intonation was very elegant, and even Shard could hear the unadulterated anger in her tone.

As for the things she mentioned, Shard truly did not know. Although he maintained his usual caution, being new to this world, he could not have foreseen that muttering Spell Words in his mind could cause a Relic to lose control, but it was indeed an accident caused by his carelessness.

He decided to take this incident as a lesson:

"Madam, I am very sorry. I don't intend to shrug off responsibility, it's just... may I ask, what matter do you have with me?"

He didn't know how else to explain, so he could only express his apologetic attitude while probing the other party's mood.

The lady behind the door could never guess that the guest she invited could easily understand ancient texts, nor would she know the guest's Core Runes, so part of the responsibility for what had just happened definitely lay with Shard.

He wanted to mention compensation, but facing a High Rank Ring Sorcerer, he definitely couldn't afford it, so he could only inquire about her intentions.

A moment ago, both he and the other had used the power of a Circle Sorcerer, and the lady behind the door was not surprised, suggesting she knew the identity of the detective she invited to the second floor.

This puzzled Shard greatly, he had only been a sorcerer for a day, and no one should have been able to see through him.

But at the very least, the woman behind the door was not Lady Lassoya. Even without having heard Lady Lassoya's voice, Shard was certain that a person of indeterminate gender could not speak with such an elegantly calm tone.

"Never mind, an apology will suffice. I also shouldn't have left the Relic out during a reception; we both bear some responsibility. This incident has reminded me never to leave Relics lying around carelessly; otherwise, who knows what kind of people might come across them. I couldn't have imagined that you could actually read those ancient Spell Words."

The lady behind the door sighed, and Shard breathed a slight sigh of relief, not because of the issue being brushed aside, but because through this incident he realized that the High Ring Female Sorceress behind the door was a reasonable person, making it quite safe to deal with her.

"Back to the point, young sir, how should I address you?"

The woman behind the door adjusted her mood and then asked. Shard couldn't see through the room's door to the other side, but he believed that she could see him. He could fully imagine the sight of the woman sitting behind a table, conversing with him through the door.