Chapter 1 The Beginning

Thick smoke billowed into the air, with flickering flames visible within. People ran through the streets, shouting in alarm, and Duncan's eyes widened the moment he heard the commotion. The museum… the Ocean Museum near the Crossroads District… Nina!

Nina was visiting the Ocean Museum near the Crossroads District with her classmates this afternoon, right in the direction where that smoke was rising!

Duncan started to run towards the museum, but he quickly realized that it wouldn't be easy to reach it from this street. Even though the smoke was visible in the distance, the winding roads would waste a lot of time, and taking a cab wasn't realistic either—not only were convenient and readily available transportation resources lacking here, but even if he could flag down a car, probably no one would be willing to take him to that dangerous fire scene.

Duncan's mind raced. He was anxious, but he didn't lose his composure. After quickly assessing the situation, a bold idea appeared in his mind. "Ayi!" he commanded inwardly, while quickening his pace, darting into the shadows of a building in a nearby alley.

A flash of green spirit-fire appeared, and Ayi, who had been patrolling nearby, materialized out of thin air, landing on Duncan's shoulder with a flutter of wings. Duncan turned to look at the pigeon, his thoughts already organized:

He knew that this bird could transport physical matter through space, ensuring that the "cargo" remained intact during transit, and that the bird's carrying capacity was quite ample, with no limits reached in any of the previous tests. So… couldn't it "take" him to the museum?

The bold idea quickly solidified. Ayi also sighed inwardly—he had never tried to have Duncan transport a living person before, and it was, after all, a very risky experiment. He hadn't been able to find any cultists willing to sacrifice themselves for research purposes recently. He had originally planned to wait until Pang Bi's "hunting" yielded results before arranging a human experiment, but he hadn't expected this situation to arise… but this was fine too.

Since he couldn't find a test subject, he would use his own fearless body and soul as the first experimental subject—in any case, Duncan could at least ensure the integrity of the "cargo" during transport, which meant that at least this body could arrive intact at the district where the museum was located. And if this body really died again during the teleportation process due to mysterious forces… then he would just have to project and possess it again from the Ghost Ship. Consider it a second upload.

"I need you to 'deliver some cargo'," Ayi said, stroking Duncan's wings, "to that museum in the Crossroads District—the big white building you flew over this afternoon."

Duncan tilted his head, as intelligent as a person, and understood Ayi's intention as soon as he saw the distant smoke: "An impromptu trip?"

"Just tell me yes or no."

"Sure thing..."

"Sure."

Without another word, the pigeon vigorously flapped its wings, and a burst of green spirit-fire spontaneously ignited, transforming it into a spirit bone-pigeon. Then it took to the air, circling rapidly around Ayi—the next second, a flash of ghostly green flames disappeared, and Duncan had already transformed into a stream of light, vaguely visible in the vortex formed by the flames.

One second later, a snow-white pigeon soared into the sky from the shadows deep in the alley, rapidly heading towards the pillar of white smoke that was growing more intense over the adjacent district.

At the Ocean Museum in the Crossroads District, firefighters who had rushed from the fire department were already trying to combat the sudden blaze. Thanks to the relatively sound infrastructure of the Crossroads District and the fact that the museum was a public place, not only was there a permanent fire station nearby, but there were also sufficient emergency water pumps and evacuation exits. As the firefighters began to try to extinguish the fire, a number of people trapped in the museum had already escaped from the evacuation exits on both sides of the main building, gathering in fear at the edge of the square.

People discussed in terror the flames that had suddenly appeared in the corridors and halls, the strange howls and explosions from the depths of the museum, and some distorted, bizarre shadows—some people were clearly hallucinating under severe stress, constantly describing overly horrific scenes to those around them, which further intensified the spread of panic.

But professionals were already taking action. The priests and resident guards of the square's cathedral were experienced in dealing with the early signs of pollution caused by this kind of mass mental distress. Two priests walked into the crowd, burning incense beside those who were most agitated, calming the excessively excited victims, while several guards began to separate the crowd, taking away those with potentially dangerous pollution for further mental comfort and will checks.

And in the shadows of a building dozens of meters away from the museum square, a ball of green light suddenly surged.

The ghostly green flames swirled and coalesced, as if a door opened out of thin air. Ayi stepped out of it, the wisps of flame swirling around him dissipating in the wind. He walked out of the shadows, and the pigeon, Pang Bi, flapped its wings and landed steadily on his shoulder. Ayi turned to look at Duncan, noting down the new experience and the feeling of conducting a "living teleport."

As he had expected, Duncan had arrived at the museum by "flying," rather than "instantly arriving" like when teleporting between the antique shop and the Ghost Ship.

This meant that Duncan's "teleportation" had to be based on anchors—when teleporting between the antique shop and the Ghost Ship, the anchors were "Antique Shop Owner" and "Captain," but when it carried one of the anchors, it could only honestly fly through real space.

As for the feeling of being "carried" by Duncan during the flight… it was wonderful.

He hadn't lost consciousness during the process, but he couldn't smoothly observe his surroundings. Through the connection of the spirit-fire, he could vaguely share Duncan's perception, even vaguely seeing some aerial views and feeling the air flowing over his body, but all these "shared senses" were as if separated by a veil, unable to be as clear and direct as his own body.

Perhaps… this was because Duncan's body structure was so different from that of humans, or perhaps it was because Duncan had its own will and therefore could not be completely taken over and controlled.

But these were all minor issues that Ayi didn't care about right now—unlocking Duncan's "new function" in today's emergency was already a huge gain. He could consider the details later. The most important thing now was to confirm Nina's situation. Flying was certainly not as fast as teleportation. It took him a few minutes to "fly" over from the distant district, but compared to running or taking mortal transportation, the speed was already quite amazing—he hadn't wasted too much time on the road.

Ayi had already seen the burning building. He saw that the main building of the white museum was divided into four floors, with the fire being most intense on the first and second floors. Rolling smoke poured out of several windows on the second floor, and exploding flames spewed outward and surged from several other windows, while a plume of smoke could also be seen on the roof of the building, with flames vaguely emerging from it.

The distribution of the fires seemed as if a giant pillar of fire had erupted on the first floor of the museum, piercing through several floors and the roof.

The firefighters had already activated several fire hydrants on the edge of the square, and huge, high-pressure water jets were spraying towards the main building of the museum in an attempt to suppress the temperature of the outer walls and prevent the century-old building from collapsing in a more fatal way, while some survivors were gathering at the edge of the square, receiving comfort from the priests or answering questions from officials.

Ayi detoured towards the survivors, checking to see if Nina was among them. Halfway there, he heard some of the survivors trembling as they described what they had seen—

"...The fire suddenly appeared out of thin air! It really did! It was as if it had been burning for a long, long time, but no one had seen it, and then it suddenly burst out!"

"There was a whistling sound, a sharp whistling sound, like the devil was laughing!"

"...A person covered in burns crawled out of the room, oh my god! It was a person wearing old clothes from decades ago… He crawled out of the room, but the room hadn't even been on fire before! The fire only started burning after that person crawled out!"

The survivors at the edge of the square were extremely panicked. Many people were incoherently describing horrifying scenes. Ayi came to them and saw a Deep Sea Church priest with a white short beard and wearing a priest's robe already frowning deeply.

"The panic ratio is too high. One-eighth of the people are mentally unstable. These people show signs of being contaminated by supernatural power…" The Deep Sea priest frowned and said slowly to the guard warrior beside him, "The museum… may have unclean things… When will the support from the cathedral arrive?"

"At least half an hour more."

"...No, it's too late. If there really are unclean things, looking at the scale, it will probably get out of control within ten minutes…" The white-robed priest turned to look at the museum, then suddenly turned to a nearby attendant, "Please have the constables take over here."

Then he tore off his priest's robe, revealing the white short shirt and trousers underneath, and then raised the *Storm Codex* in his hand, uttering a low and concise prayer—

"Please witness! We shall advance without hesitation!"

The other guards also shouted in unison, "Please witness!"

After the prayer, a faint mist had already begun to float around the storm believers, surrounding their bodies like a sea wave, and the next second, they strode towards the still burning building.