Winter goes and spring comes, and all things revive.
A month has passed since that highly anticipated trial concluded.
A little girl selling flowers, her clear, childlike voice calling out her freshly picked blossoms along the street; bakeries displaying bright, eye-catching signs, hawking bread with raspberry jam in the market.
Every resident, every shop, and every street in Silver Ring City is filled with warmth and brightness.
There was only one exception.
The Third Inquisition.
The faces of everyone here wore expressions of dejection and despondency, and even the shadows cast by the buildings seemed darker than before.
The court staff, if they wanted to go out on business, had to first remove their black robes embroidered with red crosses and change into civilian clothes. Otherwise, they would be met with disdain, ridicule, and even beatings from the people of Silver Ring City. Knowing they were in the wrong, they never argued back.
A place of judgment where evil heretics don the cloak of inquisitors, a sinful place that harbors filth and slanders saints—what face does it have, what reason does it have to claim to be the sword of the Father and the shield of believers?!
Old Bauer, sixty-four years old this year, was a handyman in the Third Inquisition, mainly responsible for cleaning and maintaining the items. The old man was a man of few words, honest and reliable, and had long enough seniority to be trusted. He held the keys to all the rooms in the inquisition. Of course, some more secluded and taboo rooms were excluded.
It was five in the morning, and the sky was still dark. As usual, Old Bauer began his work from the top floor of the referee's office, going down floor by floor.
The Third Inquisition has a rather peculiar architectural layout; it may be the only place in Silver Ring City where the underground portion is larger than the above-ground portion.
The above-ground section comprises three floors with four main areas: offices, training facilities, storage, and archives. The underground section is much larger; even Old Bauer, who has worked here for nearly twenty years, has only ever reached the fourth underground floor.
After cleaning the reception room, guard room, and interrogation room on the first basement level, the old man looked at the stairs leading to the second basement level, took out his thick cloth coat, and put it on. To go deeper underground, it wasn't just the temperature that dropped; there was a deeper, more profound cold that he could feel every time, a chill that emanated from his very bones.
Surrounded by the prison and corridors on the second and third underground levels, listening to the incessant groans and murmurs, and looking at the inhuman prisoners in the darkness, old Bauer picked up his broom, intending to give them a symbolic shovelful of dust before returning to the warm ground as soon as possible.
After cleaning to the end of the third basement level, the old man put away his tools and was about to turn back when he caught a glimpse of something strange out of the corner of his eye.
The steel door that always remained tightly closed, leading from the third basement level to the fourth, opened...
Half an hour later, the old deacon in charge of managing the underground prison rushed to the scene, followed by old Bauer, an assistant deacon, and two guards.
The old man first bent down and carefully examined the lock on the iron gate.
The iron gate employs a multi-mechanism working principle, with three lock cylinders embedded in the gate, linked together by lead rods and iron grooves. It can only be opened by three deacons simultaneously inserting the keys and turning them.
But now, without any sign of a key being inserted, the lock seemed to come alive and opened on its own.
Pushing open the heavy iron gate, the old deacon waved, signaling everyone to follow him.
Old Bauer backed down.
Ten years ago, he went down to the fourth basement level once and knew exactly what was stored there.
Ever since that one glance, he was plagued by nightmares every night, and he was ill for more than half a month.
Just as he was about to refuse, a shove from the guards behind him forced him to take a step forward.
Upon entering the room on the fourth basement level, a sour, rotten smell permeated everyone's nostrils and entered their brains.
The old deacon, unfazed, took two wads of cotton wool from his sleeve, stuffed them into his nose, and asked everyone to light torches.
As soon as the fire started to rise, the two guards, who had never been to this place before, screamed like women who had seen rats.
The vast underground hall, with its walls and eight pillars, was polished flattened stone, its surface studded like stars in the night sky with countless human heads—men, women, the elderly, and children. The dark gray vaulted ceiling was painted with death-themed patterns, adorned with leg bones, tibias, and ulna bones. Foot bones and metacarpal bones filled the gaps between the heads on the walls. Further into the room, steel cages hanging from the high ceiling held intact mummies and complete skeletons.
This is the "record room" of the Third Inquisition since its establishment, where they have hunted down heretics (some in the Inquisition like to call this place the "trophy room"). The usual practice is to cut off the head of the hunted creature, process it, and then classify and place it according to the creature's abilities and the year it was captured.
Old Bauer took the crucifix from his chest, held it to his chest, closed his eyes tightly, and kept chanting, "Father above, drive away evil! Father above, drive away evil!"
Ignoring the fear and unease of others, the old deacon, accompanied by his assistant deacon, began to check each person individually to see if anything unusual had occurred.
"The 'Power' variant has been checked and nothing is missing."
"The 'Chariot' variant has been checked and nothing is missing."
As each category was checked, the old deacon's brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
This room is mostly filled with the recently hunted mutant species. If you can't find them here, you might have to go deeper into the area, which would make things even more complicated.
Fortunately, his worries did not last long.
The assistant butler quickly noticed something was amiss.
"One of the Solar Xenomorphs is missing here!"
Upon hearing this, the old deacon strode to the wall, where a row of hideous, horrifying heads—the "trophies"—was indeed missing one.
A semi-circular indentation appeared in the wall, and the head that was originally placed there had disappeared.
"Find it for me! Find this missing guy!"
The assistant deacon walked up to the pale-faced, trembling guards, took the thick record book from their hands, and began to turn the pages one by one by the light of the torch.
Time passed slowly, and the sound of pages turning seemed unusually jarring in the stifling and terrifying space.
Finally, a page was selected, and a line of tiny print appeared before my eyes.
The old deacon squinted, carefully examining the characters on the screen.
"Hunting time: January 19, 1170 (Ecclesiastes calendar). Hunting location: Ravenwood, south of Watchtower. Hunted target: Marcos Byrne. Xenomorph classification: Sun V..."
The assistant deacon craned his neck, glanced at it, pointed to a line of small print below, and said to his superior, "There's another note here."
The old deacon leaned closer to the firelight and read aloud the contents word by word: "This person is the bearer of the 'Sutherland Relics'."
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