# 412
Chapter 412 – Knights of Holy Judgment
“Read every clause carefully; we’re a legitimate asylum, not some shady outfit that cheats its patients.” Lin Qiye handed the contract to Bell Cranel and shrugged.
The pug ground its teeth as it scanned the dense list of obligations, then the blank column opposite—so empty its doggy legs trembled. “You—”
“Don’t want it? Give it back.” Lin Qiye reached to take the contract.
The pug’s paw pinned the paper. “Don’t move… I’ll sign!”
It scooped up the pen in its mouth and scrawled a crooked English signature. The instant the name was finished, the contract dissolved into ash and vanished.
A string of tiny numbers flashed on Bell Cranel, perched on the pug’s tongue—005.
The moment the digits appeared, Bell Cranel flopped like a salted fish that had lost all dreams.
Lin Qiye nodded in satisfaction. “Good.”
With Bell Cranel on board, the Asylum of the Gods now had five orderlies. Pity that in Fengdu Jialan had landed the queen ant’s final blow, so the soul never appeared in the cell.
He turned to leave. “Come on, let’s find somewhere to talk.”
Man and dog exited the cell. A Zhu, hugging a bundle of laundry toward the washroom, spotted Lin Qiye and bowed politely.
“Good morning, Director.”
Lin Qiye beamed and nodded.
The pug rolled its eyes at the bow.
“?” A Zhu’s expression twisted. “Director… I think that dog just looked down on me.”
Remembering something, Lin Qiye chuckled. “Right, this is our new orderly—he’ll be under you from now on.”
He nudged the pug, which reluctantly stuck out its tongue, revealing the tiny golden insect.
“A golden fly?” A Zhu brightened. “What’s his name?”
“Hmm…” Lin Qiye pondered. “Lord Baylor.”
Bell Cranel: …
“Lord Baylor.” A Zhu crouched, patting the pug’s head with a friendly smile. “Then the toilets are yours—lick them spotless, understood?”
Lord Baylor’s furry frame shook!
Visions of this dog-body flashed through its mind, along with a very bad premonition…
“Let’s go.” Lin Qiye, already far ahead, called back.
Still stiff with horror, Lord Baylor pulled itself together and trudged after him into the lounge.
Lin Qiye brewed a pot of tea, settled into Merlin’s rocking-chair, and spoke slowly. “Tell me—where are you from? What’s it really like inside the Fog?”
Lord Baylor had the pug sit by the door. After a silence it said, “I come from a distant western city, a place whose culture and landscape are utterly unlike Great Xia—cold, damp, full of low, pointed, ancient buildings…
The Fog had long since killed every living thing. Only a few ‘mysteries’ that emerged from the Fog still moved among the corpses and rubble. Immune to the Fog, each possesses bizarre, terrifying power—what you call ‘mysteries.’ I am one of them.”
Chin in hand, Lin Qiye pondered.
“So mysteries exist inside the Fog as well?”
He had assumed they appeared only within Great Xia, that the Fog was lifeless. He’d been wrong.
Mysteries hadn’t limited themselves to Great Xia; they’d descended beyond the Fog too—and could walk through it unharmed.
Which meant… outside the Fog, the world might already belong to the mysteries.
“Correct.” The pug nodded. “After I was born in the Fog, I found tattered books in the ruins and taught myself the local tongue—an alphabetic script far simpler than Great Xia’s. Once I could read, I explored farther. From signs and fragments I learned the city’s name…”
It paused.
“A century ago, it was called Edinburgh.”
“Edinburgh…” Lin Qiye frowned, racking his memory. “Sounds familiar—one of the foreign cities lost a hundred years ago.”
In boot camp the instructors had skimmed over pre-Fog foreign history, mostly to explain foreign mythologies; cities themselves were barely mentioned.
“It belonged to a country called Britain,” the pug continued. “After Edinburgh I reached places named Liverpool, Leeds, Oxford, Manchester—same story: ruins, nothing more.”
“So every nation swallowed by the Fog a century ago has truly fallen…” Lin Qiye’s brow knit. “Besides ruins and mysteries, is there anything else out there?”
“Yes.” The pug opened its mouth, certain. “People.”
“People?!”
Lin Qiye started, face darkening. He rose from the rocker and crouched before the pug. “You’re telling me… there are living humans in the Fog?”
“Few, but real. I nearly died at their hands.”
Lin Qiye’s eyes narrowed. “A Sea-realm mystery like you, almost killed? Who are they?”
Memory flickered in the pug’s eyes. “When I reached a city called London, I found far fewer mysteries, and weaker ones; the buildings stood more intact. While I was exploring, they appeared without warning.
They wore red-and-white full plate, carried silver lances, rode heavy motorcycles—and hunted the weaker mysteries through the Fog. Powerful, bodies glowing gold; the Fog couldn’t touch them.
They call themselves the Knights of Holy Judgment.”