Chapter 2610: Damaged Grandfather Clock

Iluna, who was walking in a hurry, was also surprised to see Xia De here, but neither of them moved, just brushed past each other. Five minutes later, Xia De saw Iluna in the empty corridor where the boxes on the third floor of the opera house were located.

"Good afternoon, I thought you were in Creekwood Town now."

The eighteen-year-old brown-haired girl took off her hat and held it in her hand at this time:

"Our team is containing relics. Since last Monday, there have been successive reports of missing persons near the Queen Maria Opera House.

Ridgewich Field started investigating this matter last Wednesday, but soon a police officer and two police officers investigating this matter also disappeared. The police attached great importance to this, and after adding manpower to investigate, they also disappeared.

So this matter was reported to the church, and the church only sent the file to the captain's hand over the weekend."

"So your captain discovered this relic hidden in the opera house?"

Xia De pointed downstairs.

"No, our captain also disappeared."

Iluna shook her head, but seeing that there was no expression on her face, she knew that although he disappeared, the captain of the Black Stone Security Company should be fine:

"The captain investigated alone and disappeared for a day and a night, so we didn't dare to send anyone to this area anymore. Later, the church asked the Divination Association for help, and after some peripheral investigations, it was determined that the relic here is the Secret Keeper-level relic 【Damaged Antarctic Constellation Clock】. Oh, 'Antarctic Star' is a clock brand of the Fifth Era."

Since the relic name contained the word "grandfather clock," this was likely a time-type relic. Iluna's subsequent introduction also proved this point. Even if she faced this kind of relic alone, she would encounter danger:

"The body of this relic is a damaged mechanical grandfather clock. The pendulum of the clock will not swing, but the hands will rotate normally. And in the state of containment loss, the three hands on the dial will stop rotating in turn—

First is the second hand. When the second hand stops rotating, anyone who sees this clock during this period will fall into a state of time stasis. This state is very terrifying because the consciousness of the contact person is still active and can perceive the surroundings, which will make their spirit fall into an indescribable bad state;

Then it is the minute hand. When the minute hand stops rotating, the bodies of the people who fell into the state of time stasis will disappear and enter the time gap called 'Time Gap.' In this way, even if we regain control of the relic, most ordinary people will be lost in it and unable to return;

Finally, it is the hour hand. When the hour hand stops rotating, the time stasis power of that mechanical grandfather clock will spread to the surrounding area in a range. If not stopped in time, that grandfather clock may cause the entire area to fall into stasis. The Secret Keeper-level danger evaluation of this relic is mostly because of the characteristics when the hour hand stops rotating at the end."

"So it is currently in the stage where the minute hand stops rotating, right?"

Xia De asked curiously, and Iluna nodded in annoyance:

"This clock has a peculiar characteristic of attracting people with a click~ sound. Those missing persons were all attracted by the sound to come here, opened the door to see it, and were frozen in time and disappeared. Then the investigators found clues and came here, saw the grandfather clock and disappeared, and finally the captain came here and disappeared after seeing the grandfather clock.

We must admit that if we didn't know what was here in advance, the characteristics of this relic would indeed be difficult to guard against. However, after the captain returns, we will mock him severely."

Although she described it simply, this relic was actually quite terrifying. If it weren't for the sufficient manpower in the Tobesk parish, it was unknown how many more people that small hall storing the grandfather clock would have to "swallow" before the abnormality was detected.

Even because of the "hour hand stops rotating" characteristic of the relic itself, perhaps people would only know what happened here when the entire area fell into time stasis.

Xia De marveled at this relic, and then continued to ask:

"Since watching that grandfather clock will freeze time, then you just need to send someone to close their eyes and go to contain it, right? Why make such a big commotion now?"

Iluna looked unhappy:

"It's not watching, but perceiving. As long as you know the existence of that grandfather clock and approach it, the effect will be passively triggered. So our team is not here to contain this relic; we are responsible for setting up a ritual around the room to prevent the third-stage characteristic from being triggered and getting out of hand.

Later, a Ringed Shushi who doesn't know what kind of relic is here will come to perform the containment work, so we are running errands in this kind of ghost weather."

She was not unwilling to run errands, just dissatisfied with waiting for others all afternoon.

"Then do you need help? I still have that jar of umbilical cords with me. Although I'm not sure about its resistance effect on this relic, at least it can ensure you won't be frozen at a glance."

"Not needed for now. I think this matter should be solved without any problems. What I am more curious about now is who put it in the opera house. The theater manager said that there has been no purchase of clocks here recently. Could it be that someone who rented that performance hall before forgot to take it away?"

Although Iluna wanted to continue chatting with Xia De about recent things, she had to work after all, so she had to say goodbye to Xia De in annoyance.

However, Xia De thought that he would probably be in the opera house all afternoon, so he invited Iluna to have dinner with him and Vanessa and the others if she had time in the evening.

The eighteen-year-old girl nodded and agreed. Although she loved the work of the church, she was not a complete workaholic.

Watching the girls rehearse on stage, talking about the script with Siris, or being taken by Vanessa to the dressing room to watch the actors put on makeup were all very interesting things. The thirteen-ring Great Witch didn't care much that there was a relic out of control not far away, but she joked when talking and laughing with Xia De this afternoon:

"We just arrived locally for a week and actually encountered such a thing; this is worthy of the city you live in."

"It should be the city Iluna lives in; there are very few events of ownerless relics out of control around me."

Xia De corrected, and he was not worried about the matter over there. Since Iluna and the others already knew the characteristics and response methods of the relic, and the church had also sent a specialist to contain it, then this was a standard relic containment mission.

Such missions would not have any mistakes.

It was just that this time Xia De's idea was obviously wrong. Near dusk, he sat in front of the dressing table, surrounded by a group of girls, watching Siris bend over to draw his eyebrows, and he was still thinking about when Iluna would come over.

Vanessa, who was watching this scene with a smile, was about to comment on Xia De's appearance at this time, but suddenly turned her head to look at the wall with Xia De:

"Whispering elements are rioting, what's going on?"

Xia De, who was very uncomfortable with his "delicate" appearance at this time, stood up immediately:

"I'll go see the situation, you don't have to go. Siris, next time you should practice on Little Mia; I feel my original eyebrows look good."

The young blonde girl then laughed:

"The difficulty of putting makeup on a cat is too high, I'm afraid I can't do it yet... Does a cat have eyebrows?"

So all the girls looked at the cat lying on the dressing table. Little Mia stared wide-eyed and looked up at Xia De who was preparing to leave, thinking he was going home now, so everyone determined that the cat had no eyebrows.

(Luweiya is divining...)

In the small performance hall blocked on the second floor of the Queen Maria Opera House, at this time, with the arrival of dusk, the gas lamps in the room also lit up together with the gas lamps in other rooms of the opera house.

There were only two people in the room with slightly sloping auditorium seats. Iluna held her dark golden balance transformed from her spiritual ring with both hands. The light of the balance covered her whole body, and the water ripples of the light and air contact appeared wave after wave.

She was standing in the middle of the auditorium aisle at this time, and on the stage with half-drawn curtains, the three hands of the red wood mechanical grandfather clock had all stopped rotating.

But what was even more terrifying was that behind the grandfather clock, half of the body of a man in his thirties seemed to be growing tightly with that grandfather clock.

His left half face had merged into the textured wooden shell of the grandfather clock, while the remaining right half face carried an extremely crazy expression. While the grandfather clock was assimilating him, it was also transforming the remaining half of his body. Iluna clearly heard the click-click sound of continued operation coming from his chest, and just now she almost froze in place after just making eye contact with the other party.

Iluna kept her mouth shut and moved forward with difficulty. The golden balance balanced the abnormal flow of time, but her movement of constantly moving forward was still incomparably slow.

The sunlight gun she tried to throw just now was still suspended in the air behind her, and the people who entered here one step ahead had all disappeared. She complained in her heart about the early investigation team for not finding out the origin of this grandfather clock, but the current situation could only be solved by her alone.

Even if the forward speed was slow, she was still approaching the stage, and the man on the stage who was merging with the grandfather clock finally pointed his right arm, which seemed to be pierced by metal hands under the skin, at her when Iluna was close enough:

"Stop!"

When speaking, there was even a metal friction sound that made Iluna dizzy, and after that near-roar, Iluna felt that her whole body was frozen.

She could still move, but her speed became slower. The obstacles encountered during the forward process were like pushing a house with a stable foundation. She was very glad now that she had experienced Xia De's "Time Stasis" and accumulated experience, otherwise she might have really been affected in an instant just now.

And seeing Iluna still moving forward, the man crazily rotated his right arm counterclockwise and pointed at her again:

"Retreat!" ===== CHAPTER 2611 =====