No way… Isn’t Mr. Azk the so-called first Baron of Ramd? That’s a figure from over a thousand years ago… Wait, how can I be certain that the man in the portrait is indeed the first Baron of Ramd? Klein stared at the oil painting, his mind suddenly in turmoil, as if he had just realized that everyone around him had turned into monsters—or that the entire world was merely a dream conjured by the gods. He abruptly lifted his head, fixing his gaze on the medium-aged man with golden hair, reached into his gun pouch at his side, and pulled out a revolver, speaking firmly: “This isn’t just antique. If you don’t clarify the situation right away, I’ll charge you with fraud and file a lawsuit!” He didn’t care whether the lawsuit fell under the jurisdiction of the police—his sole objective was to intimidate the man and extract information! Meanwhile, Klein gently tapped his left teeth twice, activating his spiritual vision to monitor the emotional color shifts of his target. Yellow-haired mid-fifties man was startled, speaking in a frightened, indistinct manner: "No, I don't know whether it's an antique or not. No, I've heard it's an antique, but I don't understand these things at all. I truly don't— I even don't recognize many words, um, words." His eyes darted around, as if trying to call for help. But at that moment, he noticed Caine adjusting the wheel and the trigger, assuming the posture of someone about to kill a resisting suspect. Instantly, he straightened up, no longer daring to look around. "Where did you acquire this oil painting?" Caine asked, his tone heavy with weight. The middle-aged man with gray hair moved his lips, smiling warmly and pleasantly: "Officer, my grandfather found this painting in the manor. Forty years ago, the outer walls and the second-floor rooms collapsed, and some items were uncovered—things that the earlier inhabitants hadn't been able to locate. Among them was this painting—no, not exactly this one. The original painting was already quite deteriorated and couldn't be preserved. My grandfather therefore commissioned someone to recreate it. That's the one you just saw. I didn't deceive you at all. The original painting from forty years ago certainly qualifies as a piece of antique." "Then, are you certain this is the portrait of the first Baron Ramd?" Klein ran his fingers along the trigger, ensuring the officer's gaze remained fixed. The middle-aged man chuckled: "I'm not entirely sure, but I believe it to be so." "Why?" Klein almost found himself laughing at the man's lack of conviction. "Because the painting doesn't bear any name." "Rarely do I answer seriously," the middle-aged man with yellow hair remarked, "just as people call me 'Griffon the Unprincipled,' my father is known as 'Griffon the Wavy-Haired,' and only my grandfather is truly a Griffon." ...Klein silently exhaled. "Where is your grandfather?" "He's buried in the cemetery, there for nearly twenty years now. My father rests beside him, buried three years ago." The middle-aged man answered honestly. After asking a few more questions from different angles, Klein, in front of the man, adjusted the gun's cylinder, then placed it back into his armpit holster. He removed his officer's credentials, donned his black lightweight coat, turned around, and walked steadily toward the inn, moving silently through the faint lights spilling from the side buildings, hands in his pockets. "I'm not sure whether the portrait belongs to the first Baron Ramd... I don't know if there are any definitive historical records about the town's castle..." "But regardless, the man depicted in the painting is undoubtedly ancient—dating back at least a thousand years..." "He is almost identical to Mr. Azk, except for his hairstyle. That's what we call reincarnation, isn't it?" "When Mr. Azk chose to leave the other universities in Beckland and come to Tinggen, perhaps there was an instinctual drive lingering beneath the surface..." "Hmm. There's another possibility—what if the man in the portrait is actually Mr. Azk, and Mr. Azk himself is the reincarnation?" At this thought, Caine was startled, nearly tripping over the steps ahead. He walked back and forth in front of the damaged gas lamps, drawing upon his insights from the information age and refining his earlier speculations: "Mr. Azk could have become an immortal being—for instance, a vampire—thus living from ancient times right through to the present?" "Not quite. There aren't any bronze-skinned vampires..." "And when I shook hands with Mr. Azk, I could clearly feel his body temperature, sense the flow of fresh blood within him." "He dislikes the heat of the south, yet he is not afraid of the sun; in fact, he once rowed in a team competition under the scorching sun alongside other teachers." "Hmm. There's another possibility: Mr. Azk's sequence of magical elixirs—or some other factor—has granted him a long life, at the cost of losing his memories! Oh, considering the completely different dreams he's had in each of these episodes, could it be that his memory loss occurs in a recurring cycle?" Every few decades, he forgets the past and is reborn, and those dreams are the real lives he once lived... Hmm, I seem to have read a novel similar to this... To verify this, divination alone is not enough—we must find traces of Mr. Azk's successive lives, especially evidence of childhood and youth; otherwise, we only have traces beginning from adulthood! With bold assumptions and careful verification, Kline is increasingly inclined toward his second hypothesis, though the possibility of reincarnation remains unexcluded for now. He calmed his scattered thoughts and seriously considered whether to inform Captain Dunn of this matter: "If Mr. Azk is indeed an extraordinary ancient being who has lived for over a thousand years, then his strength will be far greater than I had imagined..." "He showed me kindness before, but once I uncovered traces of his past, I'm not sure whether he will still remain kind..." "Still, Mr. Azk has been consistently kind to me, and introducing the Night Watchers abruptly might pose a significant risk to him." "Ah, to perform a clear, undisturbed divination atop the gray mist—this is precisely what a seer should do!" With this decision made, Kline accelerated back to the inn. While Dunn and Fley were still en route, he spent one suler to secure a new room. Upon entering, Kline used the "Saint's Night Powder" to create a spiritual wall, then stepped backward four paces, cutting through the frantic murmurs, and reached the gray mist above. The majestic palace stood still and serene, its ancient, weathered bronze long table and twenty-two high-backed chairs unchanged. Caine sat at the head of the table, causing a brown sheepskin parchment and a black steel pen with a rounded barrel to appear before him. He picked up the pen and wrote carefully: "Artemis should be informed of Mr. Azk's matter." Then, he removed the yellow crystal pendant from his left sleeve and performed a pendulum divination. The result was a counterclockwise motion—meaning, "should not be told!" He set the pendant down. Having always relied on his intuition, Caine paused for several seconds, then decided to try a dream divination for added assurance. This time, his divination statement became: "The consequences of keeping Mr. Azk's matter concealed within the night watch." Holding the parchment, he silently repeated the phrase seven times, then leaned back, entering a deep meditative sleep. He saw himself within that illusory, hazy, fragmented world, struggling to sink beneath a sea of blood. At that moment, a hand reached out and pulled him from the blood, the owner of that hand being Azk, with his copper-toned skin and small black spots near his ears. The scene shattered and then reassembled: now, Caine found himself inside a dark, cold mausoleum, each coffin around him opening one by one. Azk stood beside him, gazing toward the front, as though searching for something. Then, suddenly, Caine stepped out of the dream and once again saw the ethereal, pale, boundless mist. "The symbolism of that dream was this: if I keep certain matters hidden from Mr. Azk, then when I face a crisis in the future, he will come to my aid—ah, perhaps that very crisis arises precisely because of my efforts to conceal the truth. What does the final image mean? Am I to explore a mausoleum alongside Mr. Azk?" Well, the mausoleum might carry another symbolic meaning... Clary crossed her hands, resting her chin on them, interpreting the just-received "dream divination." Combined with the earlier results from the pendulum reading, he had decided not to report his speculation to the captain in detail, but only to mention roughly that a townsfolk had presented a portrait believed to belong to the first Baron of Lamed, which bore a strong resemblance to Professor Azk of Hoy University. Clary wasn't certain whether Dunne might have heard of this elsewhere, so he needed to make the point. Of course, without Professor Azk's own account of his strange dreams, it would be difficult for Dunne—someone unfamiliar with Azk—to connect the dots. In fact, Clary even suspected that the captain might no longer remember Azk's appearance. With this thought in mind, he gathered himself and prepared to leave the Gray Mist, only to find at that very moment that the long-still deep red star once again exhibited subtle contractions and expansions. Klein extended his spiritual awareness and once again saw the young boy who had spoken the Giant language, kneeling before a pure crystal sphere. The boy still wore a black fitted garment distinct from the styles of the northern continental nations, his features blurred and distorted, only faintly suggesting brown-yellow hair. He knelt there, pleading with an unusually painful voice. Klein leaned in, listening carefully and managing to grasp the meaning of what the boy was saying through his rudimentary knowledge of the Giant language: "Great deities, please once again turn your gaze upon this place you have abandoned." "Great deities, grant us the dark folk relief from this destined curse." "I am willing to offer my life to you, to please you with my blood." ... Abandoned place... the dark folk... the great deities... Klein silently repeated these key phrases and suddenly remembered a place mentioned by the 'Hanged Man': "The Place Forgotten by the Gods!" Rossel's journal had also mentioned it! He dispatched a fleet in search of it, yet achieved no results... Klein's eyes narrowed, uncertain whether his speculation was correct. With his fingers tapping the edge of the bronze long table three times, he then made a decision, extending his right hand to gently touch the phantom deep-red star. The deep red instantly surged to life, its light flowing like a stream. PS: Another chapter will follow a few minutes later.