Thick smoke rose up, mixed with faint flames. Someone was running on the street screaming, and Duncan opened his eyes slightly the moment he heard the scream.

Museum... the Maritime Museum near the Cross Street... Nina!

Nina was visiting the Maritime Museum near the Cross Street District with her classmates this afternoon, exactly in the direction where the smoke was rising!

Duncan took a step and was about to rush towards the museum, but he soon realized that it was not easy to run to the museum from this block. Even if the smoke was visible to the naked eye, the winding road would waste a lot of time, and it was not realistic to take a taxi - not to mention that there were no convenient and sufficient transportation resources here. Even if he could really stop a car, I'm afraid no one would be willing to take him to the dangerous fire scene.

Duncan's mind was thinking rapidly. He was anxious but did not lose his composure. After quickly sorting out the current situation, a bold idea came to his mind.

"Ai Yi!" He suddenly gave the order in his mind, quickened his pace, and quickly flashed into the shadow of a building in a nearby alley.

A green spiritual fire flashed by, and Ai, who was patrolling nearby, suddenly appeared out of thin air, flapped his wings and landed on Duncan's shoulder.

Duncan turned his head and glanced at the pigeon. He had already sorted out his thoughts:

It is known that this bird can carry physical matter through space, and can ensure that the "cargo" is intact during the shuttle. It is also known that the bird can carry enough material, and several tests so far have never reached a bottleneck.

So... can it "take" itself to the museum?

This bold idea quickly became firm, and Duncan sighed in his heart at the same time - he had never tried to let Ai carry a living person on the journey, which was an extremely dangerous attempt after all, and he really hadn't found any cultists suitable to devote themselves to the research career recently. Originally, he planned to arrange human experiments after Ai's "hunting" had some results, but he didn't expect this situation to happen... But it's better this way.

Since no tester can be found, then use his own fearless body and soul as the first experimental subject - no matter what, Ai can at least ensure the integrity of the "cargo" itself during the transportation process, which means that at least this body can arrive at the block where the museum is located intact. And if this body really dies again due to mysterious forces during the transmission process... then the worst that can happen is that he can project and possess it again from the Lost Homeland, and it will be considered a second upload.

"I want you to make a delivery," Duncan touched Ai's wings, "to the museum in the cross street - near the large white building you flew over this morning."

Ai tilted his head. As smart as a human, he understood Duncan's intention as soon as he saw the smoke in the sky: "Let's go on a spontaneous trip?"

"Just tell me if it's okay."

"On the hour..."

"all."

Without saying a word, the pigeon flapped its wings vigorously, and a burst of green spiritual fire exploded out of thin air, turning it into a spiritual bone pigeon. Then it took off into the air and quickly circled around Duncan - the next second, the green flames flashed and disappeared, and Duncan had turned into a stream of light, disappearing in the vortex formed by the flames.

A second later, a snow-white dove soared into the sky from the shadows deep in the alley and quickly rushed towards the black smoke column that was growing increasingly intense over the next block.

Near the Maritime Museum in the Cross Street District, firefighters who had rushed in from the fire station had begun trying to fight the sudden fire. Thanks to the relatively good infrastructure of the Cross Street District and the special attributes of the museum itself as a public place, there were not only permanent firefighting units nearby, but also sufficient emergency water pumps and evacuation exits. When the firefighters began to try to put out the fire, some of the people trapped in the museum had already escaped from the evacuation exits on both sides of the main building and gathered at the edge of the square in panic.

People were discussing in horror the flames that suddenly burst out in the corridors and halls, the howling and strange explosions deep in the museum, and some disorganized and bizarre shadows - some people were obviously suffering from auditory and visual hallucinations under severe stress, and kept describing some overly terrifying scenes to the people around them, which exacerbated the spread of panic.

But professionals have already taken action. The priests and permanent guards of the square church are experienced in dealing with the signs of pollution caused by group mental stress. Two priests have walked into the crowd and lit incense next to the most excited people to calm the victims' overly excited moods. Several other guards have begun to separate the crowd and take away those who are potentially at risk of pollution separately, preparing for subsequent mental comfort and will tests.

And in the shadow of a building a few dozen meters away from the museum square, a ball of green light suddenly rose.

The dark green flames swirled and condensed, like a door opening out of thin air. Duncan stepped out of it, and the strands of flames wrapped around his body disappeared in the wind. He walked out of the shadows, and the pigeon Ai flapped its wings and landed steadily on his shoulder.

Duncan glanced back at Ai, taking note of the new experience and the feeling of undergoing "living teleportation".

As he expected, Ai arrived at the museum by "flying" instead of "arriving instantly" like usual when teleporting between the antique shop and the Lost Homeland.

This shows that Ai's "teleportation" must be based on anchor points - when teleporting between the antique shop and the Lost Hometown, the anchor points are the "antique shop manager" and the "captain" respectively, but when it carries one of the anchor points, it can only fly in the real space to travel.

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

He did not lose consciousness during the process, but he was unable to observe his surroundings smoothly. Through the connection of the spiritual fire, he could vaguely share Ai's perception, and even vaguely see some overlooking scenes and feel the air flow blowing through his body, but all these "empathy" seemed to be separated by a curtain, and could not be as clear and intuitive as his own body.

Perhaps... this is because Ai's body structure is very different from that of humans, or it may be because Ai has his own will and therefore cannot be completely taken over and controlled.

But these are minor issues, and Duncan doesn't care about them now - unlocking Ai's "new function" in a hurry today is already a huge gain. He can think about any details later. The most important thing at the moment is to confirm Nina's situation.

Flying is certainly not as fast as teleporting. It took him several minutes to "fly" over from the nearby block, but compared to running or taking ordinary transportation, this speed is already amazing - he did not delay too long on the way.

Duncan had already seen the large building that was on fire. He saw that the main building of the white museum was divided into three floors, and the fire on the first and second floors was the most fierce. Thick smoke was pouring out of several windows on the second floor, and bursting flames were spewing and undulating out of several of the windows. A column of smoke could also be seen on the roof of the building, with faint flames coming out of it.

These distributed fires looked as if a huge column of fire had erupted on the first floor of the museum and penetrated several floors and roofs.

Firefighters have activated several fire hydrants at the edge of the square, and huge high-pressure water jets are spraying the museum's main building in an attempt to suppress the temperature of the building's outer walls and prevent a more fatal collapse of this century-old building. Some survivors are gathering at the edge of the square to be comforted by priests or answer questions from officials.

Duncan walked straight towards the survivors, checking whether Nina was among them.

Halfway through the journey, he heard some of the survivors tremblingly describing what they had seen.

"…the fire suddenly appeared out of thin air! It literally appeared out of nowhere! It was like it had been burning for a long, long time, but no one had seen it, and then it suddenly appeared!"

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

"... a burnt man crawled out of the room, Goddess! He was wearing old clothes from decades ago... He crawled out of the room, but the room wasn't on fire before! The fire started only after the man crawled out!"

The survivors at the edge of the square were in extreme panic, and many of them were describing the horrifying scene incoherently. Duncan came up to them and saw a Deep Sea Church priest with a short black beard and a priest's robe, who had frowned deeply.

"The panic rate is too high. One-third of the people are mentally unstable. These people show signs of being contaminated by supernatural powers..." The deep-sea priest frowned and spoke quickly to the guardian warrior next to him, "There may be unclean things in the museum... When will the support from the cathedral arrive?"

"It will take at least half an hour."

"...No, it's too late. If there really is something unclean, it will probably get out of control in ten minutes or so judging by the scale..." The black-robed priest turned his head to look at the museum, then suddenly turned to an attendant beside him and said, "Please ask the sheriffs to take over this."

Then he tore off his priest robe, revealing the black shirt and trousers underneath, and then raised the "Storm Tome" in his hand and prayed loudly and briefly -

"Please bear witness! We are marching forward without hesitation!"

The other guards shouted in unison: "Witness me!"

After the prayer, a thin layer of mist floated around several Storm Believers, surrounding their bodies like a shield from the waves. The next second, they strode towards the building that was still burning.