"Left front, three meters, horizontal slash!"

Evelyn's voice was hoarse and urgent.

Lin Jie folded his body sharply in the middle of his high-speed charge, almost skimming along the ground.

Less than ten centimeters above his head, the air emitted a crisp, ripping sound without any warning.

It was a delayed slash that had been stored there five seconds earlier by a bizarre shadow UMA.

If Lin Jie had hesitated for even a tenth of a second just now, his head would already be rolling in the waves below the cliff.

He used the momentum of his slide to rise, holding [Silencer] in a reverse grip. The blade's ghostly blue luster drew a line of death through the darkness.

His target was the gray figure standing beside a broken pillar.

This attack angle was extremely tricky, sealing off all possible retreat routes for the opponent.

The sharp blade viciously cleaved into the figure's chest.

It felt like swinging a knife with all his might into a mass of thick smoke, or a pool of bottomless stagnant water.

The gray figure twisted grotesquely upon contact with the blade.

Its body scattered like spilled ink, dispersing in all directions. But after Lin Jie withdrew the blade, the gray mist coalesced once more, restoring itself to its completely unharmed state.

The movement of its hands was completely unaffected.

It still mechanically raised its arm, performing a "downward chop" motion toward the empty space ahead.

The damage from this "downward chop" would land on that spot several seconds later.

"Damn it."

Lin Jie cursed under his breath and swiftly retreated.

Half of his alchemical bullets were already spent.

The specially-made bullets, mixed with high-purity rock salt and mercury, only created brief ripples when striking these things.

They did indeed become structurally unstable from the salt, their forms turning more transparent, but their recovery speed was despairingly fast.

Physical attacks were ineffective.

Toxins were ineffective.

Even anti-magic properties couldn't completely sever their existence.

Because they didn't exist in the present at all.

These phantoms were like holographic recordings left behind from the Round Table civil war, echoes of history, "actions" recorded by this special magnetic field.

You couldn't kill a recording unless you destroyed the machine playing it.

But that machine, this very labyrinth array itself, was vast enough to cover the entire Tintagel.

"Lin Jie! Fall back!"

William roared from the rear.

His Winchester had just blasted apart a mass of gray mist attempting to approach Julian, but that mist merely scattered for two seconds before reforming.

"This is impossible to fight! They're laying mines!"

The old soldier was right.

As time passed, more and more gray figures appeared in these ruins.

Some were swinging swords, some thrusting, some throwing invisible spears.

Each action left behind a deadly "delayed damage point" in the air.

In Evelyn's vision, the empty ruins were now densely packed with red cracks.

Those were the stored attacks, countless mines about to detonate.

Lin Jie's maneuvering space was being rapidly compressed.

He could still rely on [Black Mercury]'s trench coat properties to deflect some glancing blows, still rely on Evelyn's navigation to avoid fatal strikes, but this was just drinking poison to quench thirst.

Once the density of these "mines" reached a certain critical point, he would have nowhere left to dodge.

This was a dead end.

"Retreat behind the pillar!"

Lin Jie made a judgment call.

He stomped hard, shattering the stone slab beneath his feet, using the reactive force burst from [Gravity Dancer] to propel himself backward, narrowly avoiding a freshly detonated air slash.

The six of them pressed their backs against a massive broken granite pillar, gaining a temporary moment to catch their breath.

"The structure here is too stable." Julian's face was pale.

"These phantoms are part of this space. Unless we can find the core node maintaining this labyrinth, we can never kill them."

"We don't have time to find nodes."

Marcus said in a muffled voice. His battle axe was covered in notches, marks left from trying to withstand air slashes earlier.

He lifted his head, looking toward the entrance of the ruins.

The sound of chaotic footsteps came from there, the crunch of heavy military boots on gravel, accompanied by the hiss of steam packs operating.

Pale beams of light pierced through the curtain of rain, illuminating the dim ruins as bright as day.

Ackerman's Inspector Squad had arrived.

"Over there!"

A sharp shout cut through the rain.

Followed by dense gunfire.

Dozens of elite Inspectors clad in black uniforms and gas masks surged into the ruins like a black tide.

The heavy rapid-fire nail guns and alchemical rifles in their hands spat tongues of flame, a metal storm instantly covering the broken pillar where Lin Jie and the others were hiding.

Stone fragments flew everywhere.

Lin Jie firmly pressed down on William, who wanted to peek out and return fire.

Ahead lay a minefield laid by unkillable ghosts, behind them a fully armed legion.

They were trapped in this narrow dead angle, like rats waiting to be smoked out.

"Prepare to break through."

Lin Jie tightened his grip on his revolver, a flash of resolve in his eyes.

If death was inevitable, he'd rather die charging forward than be riddled with bullets.

But just then, an unexpected change occurred.

From the shadow of a towering archway at the ruins' entrance, a figure wearing a black double-breasted trench coat slowly emerged.

He wore a top hat and held a walking stick. Among those wolf-like, tiger-fierce Inspectors, he seemed out of place, yet carried a strange kind of authority.

This elite of the London Branch should have been in a safe house dozens of kilometers away.

But he was here.

And standing in the enemy's rear.

Barton's gaze fell upon that archway.

It was the only passage connecting the inside and outside of the ruins, the only link between reality and this spatial rift.

He pulled something from his coat.

It was a roll of black tape.

Different from the small roll in Lin Jie's hand, this roll appeared thicker, its surface completely matte, like a black hole that devoured light.

This was the true form of [The Librarian's Seal].

It was also Barton's strongest trump card as an I.A.R.C. operative.

He tore off a long strip.

Then, he placed that strip horizontally across the stone columns of the archway.

"I hereby declare."

Barton's voice, amidst the chaotic roar of gunfire, clearly reached everyone's ears.

"This place forbids sight."

As his words fell, that strip of black tape suddenly dissolved.

It transformed into a thick, black ink, seeping into the surrounding air, into every drop of rain, into this very space.

The world went out.

This wasn't the darkness after a searchlight was shattered.

Nor was it the darkness behind closed eyelids.

This was absolute nothingness.

Within a fifty-meter radius, all light was "seized" in that instant.

Whether the powerful searchlight beams, the muzzle flashes from gun barrels, even the residual images on everyone's retinas, all vanished.

This was the fully liberated form of [The Librarian's Seal]—"Sensory Seizure: Vision."

The Inspector Squad, which had been firing wildly, immediately fell into chaos.

"My eyes!"

"Lights! Turn on flashlights!"

"Damn it, the flares aren't working!"

Panicked shouts rose one after another.

For these elite soldiers accustomed to relying on vision to lock onto targets, sudden absolute darkness was more terrifying than any monster.

The guns in their hands still spat fire, but in their own perception, those muzzles emitted no light, only recoil and sound proving the shooting continued.

This was the opportunity Lin Jie had been waiting for.

"Go!"

Lin Jie growled.

In this absolute darkness, ordinary eyes had become completely useless.

But he was different.

Everyone in his team possessed non-visual perception methods.

Evelyn pressed the switch on her [Echo Goggles].

Behind those lenses modified with liquid mithril, the darkness did not obstruct her vision. On the contrary, freed from the interference of light, those gray-white lines composed of sound waves and material structures became even clearer.

The entire ruins transformed into a massive, line-based 3D model in her eyes.

"Twelve o'clock direction, that's the exit!"

Evelyn's voice rang out in the darkness, guiding everyone.

William activated [Zulu's Gaze].

In his vision, those panicked Inspectors were no longer men in black, but sources of piercing red "fear" that outlined their human forms and predicted their chaotic movement trajectories.

Silas used his hounds to guide himself and Marcus.

As for Lin Jie, his [Spiritual Sonar] operated at full power in this moment.

Everything around him became echoes of sound waves.

He could "see" the positions of those Inspectors, could "see" Barton's solitary figure standing by the archway like a silent Gatekeeper.

"Don't shoot, stay close to me!"

Lin Jie grabbed Julian, the only one in the team who could only rely on hearing in the darkness.

The six-person team silently slipped out of cover, while the Inspector Squad's chaos intensified.

Soldiers who had lost their vision began firing wildly, some accidentally wounding comrades in their panic.

Their commander, the iron-masked adjutant, tried to maintain order through furious shouts.

"Cease fire! Maintain formation! This is a trick!"

He brandished his command sword, attempting to slash toward the source of the darkness.

But he couldn't see.

He could only charge toward Barton's direction based on memory.

However, he overlooked one thing.

These ruins contained not just darkness.

But also those invisible, deadly "mines."

"Ahhh—!"

A shrill scream exploded in the darkness.

An Inspector who had charged forward fastest, in his blind, frantic run, stumbled directly into the "thrust" trajectory left by some [Delayed Phantom] ten seconds earlier.

A dull thud erupted in the air.

The Inspector's chest instantly burst open into a large hole, his entire body flung aside as if skewered by an invisible spear.

Then came the second, the third.

On this battlefield stripped of vision, those "delayed attacks" that originally required prediction and evasion became the most efficient harvesters.

The Inspectors couldn't see those cracks.

Like headless flies, they frantically crashed into those death traps quietly awaiting them.

Severed limbs flew.

Blood sprayed.

The encirclement originally meant to trap Lin Jie quickly became the Inspector Squad's own slaughterhouse.

Barton still stood there, listening to the screams around him, his face expressionless.

He was not a bloodthirsty man.

But when rules were broken, when justice was twisted, even the gentlest Administrator would become the coldest judge.

He had utilized the enemy's numerical advantage, utilized the characteristics of these ruins, turning this place into a massive meat grinder.

"This way!"

Evelyn's voice guided Lin Jie and the others through the chaotic battlefield.

They avoided the panicked soldiers, avoided those deadly air cracks, arriving at the collapsed area deep within the ruins.

That was the entrance.

The cavity leading underground, sealed shut by transparent gelatinous material.

"How do we get in?"

Marcus felt the slimy gelatinous layer, pushing hard against it. It didn't budge.

"This stuff is harder than steel plate."

"Use this."

Julian pulled a metal bottle from his coat.

It was the "Armor-Breaking Acid" he had concocted at Roscoff Harbor.

He pulled the stopper, pouring the entire bottle of pungent-smelling golden liquid onto the gelatinous substance.

"Hiss—!"

The sound of intense chemical reaction rang out.

That seemingly indestructible transparent substance began to boil and bubble upon contact with the acid, rapidly dissolving a hole large enough for a person to crawl through.

"Hurry!"

Lin Jie was the first to crawl in.

Followed by Evelyn, Julian, and William.

Marcus and Silas covered the rear. Before crawling into the hole, Marcus glanced back at the figure standing in the darkness.

"Barton!"

He growled.

"Come with us!"

Barton's calm voice came from the darkness.

"Someone has to close the door."

"Besides, my seal won't last much longer."

"Hurry."

Marcus gritted his teeth. He knew now wasn't the time for sentimentality.

He crawled into the hole, pulling over a massive stone slab with his other hand to block the dissolved opening once more.

The world fell silent.

The gunfire, screams, and rain outside were all isolated beyond that thick layer of rock.

They had entered underground.

This was a naturally formed cavern hall.

The air was filled with an ancient, stale scent.

Lin Jie lit a lantern, its weak glow illuminating the surroundings.

The rock walls here were carved with intricate Celtic runes, the ground paved with neat bluestone slabs.

And in the center of the hall stood an ancient stone platform.

But before they could observe carefully, a dull vibration came from above.

It was the sound of explosions.

The Inspector Squad wasn't entirely composed of fools.

After paying a painful price, some of them finally reacted.

Above ground, the iron-masked adjutant clutched his slashed arm, screaming hoarsely.

"It's a visual seal! Don't use your eyes!"

"Use ether sensors! Use alchemical smelling salts!"

Several experienced, veteran Inspectors swiftly pulled out various non-visual detection devices from their packs.

Some put on stethoscope-like devices, pressing them against the ground to listen for movement below.

Others took out compasses filled with spiritual mercury, the needles spinning wildly before pointing toward the collapsed area.

"They're below!"

"Demolition team! Blow that entrance open!"

With several loud booms, the rocks on the ground were blown open by directional explosives, creating a gap.

Several flash grenades and tear gas canisters were thrown down.

Immediately after, several ropes were lowered.

Inspectors wearing gas masks and equipped with advanced gear began rappelling down.

They had adapted to the darkness.