Chapter 1848: Chapter 1848

Instructions soon arrived from the temporary command center coordinating the entire operation. Jenkins and his group of fourteen were to remain on standby at the street corner, preventing anyone suspicious from entering the area and ensuring no one slipped away if a fight broke out.

The team tasked with making direct contact was composed of members from the Church of All Things and Nature, the Earth Church, the Church of Sun and Justice, and the Church of the Unlit Moon.

They split into two groups. One team, disguised as police officers conducting a census, would knock on the front door. The other would attempt to enter through the apartment's rear entrance, creating a pincer attack.

The operation began swiftly. After a knock, the Night Watchers received a response. The ordinary man who opened the door seemed surprised that a simple census required so many officers, but he let the group inside nonetheless.

Simultaneously, Jenkins observed the Benefactors at the rear of the building find an iron gate in the alley—the one used for trash—unlock it, and slip into the apartment.

He waited patiently for the first sound of an explosion or the flash of some strange light. But, curiously, a long silence followed after both teams went inside. There was no sign of activity.

The spiritual auras inside the building were a chaotic mess, and with so many people having entered, Jenkins wasn't certain his Eye of Reality could properly track the Church's Benefactors.

He waited a moment longer, confirming that the apartment was indeed unnervingly quiet. He then consulted with the team leader from the Church of Creation and Machinery beside him before contacting the command center to ask if they should continue to hold their position.

They waited another twenty minutes for a response before receiving their next orders:

Jenkins had encountered his share of maze-locks before. Ever since Alexia had trapped members of the illegal organization known as the Witch's House in that 31-day time loop, he had gradually learned a great deal about these large-scale rituals.

He knew full well that without any information about an unknown maze-lock, breaking it from the outside was nearly impossible—especially within a city, where many of the more destructive methods were off-limits.

The best way to learn about an unknown maze-lock was to enter it, just as they had done a few months ago in Bel Diran when confronting the vampire's maze-lock. But entering meant being trapped, leaving escape entirely up to those inside.

This created a catch-22. Logically, the only thing the Church could do was wait for the two teams inside to solve the problem on their own. But sitting back and waiting to die had never been the Church's way.

"It's just one maze-lock. Troublesome, yes, but Nolan has gathered so many of its best and brightest. Are we really going to be stumped by something ?"

The Old Gravedigger in charge of the operation shook his head as he spoke. The consensus from the council at Evergreen Forest is that we can't afford to waste time. We must act decisively.

The second wave of teams arriving from Evergreen Forest brought new instructions. Since destructive and overly conspicuous methods were out of the question in the middle of the city, they would leverage the Orthodox Churches' numerical advantage. They would send five demigods into the maze-lock; surely, one of them would be able to destroy it from the inside.

An operation involving five demigods simultaneously would be unthinkable in ordinary times, but Nolan's greatest advantage at the moment was its abundance of personnel. Still, sending people blindly into an unknown maze-lock to test it with their lives was hardly a rational strategy. After a brief discussion, the Travelers' Church produced two items: B-11-5-2305, a pair of [Tickets Home]. These numbered items were powerful enough to allow a direct escape from a Mysterious Realm, which meant they would certainly work on a maze-lock.

Though five people were going in, two tickets would be enough. One of the five spots was given to Jenkins, since he was already on-site. The Church, however, instructed him to disguise his face so that any enemies within the maze-lock wouldn't discover his true identity.

He was likely allowed to participate because he had claimed to have reached level 7 and had successfully become a true Savior candidate. Putting him through dangerous trials was the only way to prepare him for the even more terrifying events to come. If he simply hid away until the final day, it would only be a detriment to their future.

Dangerous missions and cats did not mix, no matter how desperately Chocolate clung to the edge of his pocket with its front paws. As luck would have it, Sigrid Capet, who had been helping at a nearby flower shop, had been urgently dispatched to the scene. Jenkins entrusted his cat and umbrella to her. After discussing their strategy for entering the maze-lock with the other four demigods, the group of five braved the rain, walked up to the apartment, and knocked on the door.

The same ordinary man from before opened the door. He looked out at them, his expression tinged with impatience.

To be safe, Jenkins had kept his Eye of Reality active the entire time he crossed the street and approached the apartment. He therefore saw with perfect clarity that as the man spoke, a strange spiritual light instantly enveloped the area just outside the doorway.

Jenkins understood at once. The trigger for entering the maze-lock wasn't crossing the threshold—it was hearing the man's voice. This meant the chaotic aura he'd been observing from the outside was likely a composite projection from within the maze-lock, offering no useful information whatsoever.

Jenkins didn't need to say a word; the Old Gravedigger had already spoken. He was the oldest demigod in the diocese and the one who had been stationed in Nolan the longest—essentially, the most powerful man in the city during times of peace.

"I'm not sensing any spatial distortion. This maze-lock is strange," added Mr. Defour, the demigod from the Travelers' Church.

"I can't get a read on the nature of its power, but I'm certain the internal space isn't large. It probably only covers this building, with no dimensional anomalies inside," commented Mr. Dupont of the Church of All Things and Nature. Content orıginally comes from NoveI★Fire.net

"I smell rancid oil," remarked Ms. de la Salle from the Church of Creation and Machinery.

Jenkins saw that everyone else had spoken and felt it would be awkward if he remained silent. He didn't have any novel discoveries to share, however, so he took another look at the "ordinary man" leaning against the doorframe.

"This is... a corpse," he stated, choosing his words with care.

"While we can't judge the nature of the entire maze-lock from a single individual, considering the environment and our enemy's usual methods... there's reason to believe the greatest danger we're about to face will involve corpses and machines. Or, to be more precise, mechanized corpses."