The red moon returns

Chapter 521 Race against time

The water in all the bottles became turbid, black with green, and exuding a strange smell.

Lin Qi's hand holding the lid of the box trembled slightly, but soon calmed down. He had seen a lot of strange things in the past few months. Although he could not remain calm even if he was in a state of panic, at least he would not make a fuss and embarrass himself.

Looking at the five people around him and seeing no objection, Lynch randomly selected a bottle and held it under the flickering gas lamp.

The originally crystal clear glass bottle was now covered with mud inside, and the cool liquid had become turbid. A large amount of impurities like mud and sand were suspended in the water, as if it had just been pulled out of a quagmire. If you slightly turn the angle, the turbid liquid would occasionally turn green, which made people feel nauseous just by looking at it.

Lynch gritted his teeth and pulled out the crystal stopper from the bottle. A disgusting stench hit him in the face, like the smell coming from the dirtiest pond.

Enduring the stench and thinking for a while, Lynch took the teacup left by others and poured the dirty water in the bottle into it. The foul smell immediately came out of the teacup, but the water was still dirty and did not become clean after leaving the bottle.

Frowning, Lynch took the teapot again and poured the tea in the pot into the bottle. However, as soon as the dark red but clean tea was poured into the bottle, it immediately became as dirty as before.

what's the situation?
Several people looked at each other, feeling vaguely uneasy. Only Chairman Ole's voice sounded slowly:
"Don't really think of it as a medicine box. No matter how much it looks like one, it is essentially a memory from ancient times. You should consider it from the perspective of a strange object, so no matter what inexplicable things happen, it is normal. And don't forget that according to Mr. Leviv's description, this thing works by light, not by having people drink the potion in the bottle, so there is no need to worry too much about the changes in the water."

"But there must be a reason. Aren't strange objects fixed and unchanging?"

Lynch shook the bottle, and the liquid inside had become exactly the same as what he had just poured out. After opening the lid, the stench was still there.

"Nothing is fixed, including strange objects. In the science of strange objects, the factors that affect strange objects are summarized into seven types, which are called the Seven Laws of Disguise."

I have never heard of it before. Looking at the expressions of Trinless and Nightingale, they are also confused.

"It can be distinguished from its transformation type. For example, fracture means that it has received an external force that exceeds the upper limit, and shattering means that it has carried too high a concentration of filth. I believe that this transformation belongs to the fourth type. The specific description is that when the environment is similar to or even overlaps with its internal memories, the internal form is differentiated."

"hiss……"

This sentence made everyone gasp. The internal memory of the Light of Miracle was the plague, which meant that the plague was imminent.

"Don't worry, this is not a bad thing." The chairman's calm tone quickly calmed everyone down. "If a strange object is completely unchanging, it is difficult to study it from the outside. Although changes will bring a lot of trouble, they will also expose their own situation during the changes, creating opportunities for us to study. We can even learn a lot of information from it."

Now Lynch’s only thought was to be glad that he had dragged the chairman into this, and others obviously had the same thought.

"When you got the artifact yesterday afternoon, it had been placed inside the Silver Gate and was not affected by the outside world, so it remained clean and normal. The specific time of the change was... this morning. I remember that when the Archbishop opened it, everything was normal, right?"

"Yes," Trinless said, "I picked up a bottle in the carriage and played with it. I was amazed at how beautiful it was. It's hard to imagine that such advanced glass-making technology existed at the end of the Third Age, but was almost destroyed in the catastrophe."

"That is to say, the disguised time is during the fourteen hours that Leviv has been deeply reading. The span is a bit long, but we can use fuzzy analysis..." The chairman twisted his beard and fell into deep thought. He opened his eyes a few minutes later. "Through fuzzy analysis, I have a rough conclusion. The occult plague has not yet fully formed. There is a divine right that has not yet taken effect. The specific time of the outbreak should be within 168 hours. I personally tend to think it will be around 130 hours."

"Huh, can the time be so precise?"

Lynch heaved a sigh of relief. Six or seven days was more time than he had imagined. He immediately looked at Ms. Nightingale with an inquiring look, and found that the old woman's expression had also relaxed. She nodded and said, "The samples should be ready tonight, and we can start testing tomorrow morning." "Test." Lynch suddenly patted his forehead. "If it is really as the news I brought back, and it is ineffective for people who have already fallen ill, then is the test result still meaningful?"

"The test doesn't just have two results, effective or ineffective, Lin Qi. We naturally have indicators to judge the effect..." The old woman smiled, "If everything goes well, we should be able to start production tomorrow afternoon, and the first batch of drugs will be on the road the day after tomorrow morning."

Archbishop Trinlais also attended the meeting in the past two days and asked with some concern: "Is there enough time?"

"Almost. Even if we calculate it as 130 hours, it's barely in time." Nightingale had obviously calculated it countless times, and said without thinking, "The plague is not completely synchronized. The outbreak of theocracy spread outward from the Rhine. The outbreak of the plague will also follow this trajectory, starting from the Rhine and spreading to the whole world in three to five days."

The archbishop pondered and said, "Then there is hope. With the blessing of the Lord of the Ocean, Xilin, and the transfer of several steamships to the New World route, it should be possible to make a round trip in ten days. It is indeed barely enough."

"So the problem now is the worst-case scenario. If the drug is ineffective or something goes wrong in the end, we can only use the insurance measures that Lynch found."

Ms. Nightingale sighed. Lynch had just described the entire process of deep reading to everyone, without missing any details. This allowed Nightingale to roughly understand the effect of the strange object. She explained:
"There is a rare power of healing here. It should be easy to cure ordinary plagues. But it is more troublesome to cure the occult plague. The process is actually completely different from curing ordinary plagues. In comparison, it is closer to the formation of the occult plague. It also combines two kinds of divine power. The power of light itself has the characteristics of spreading and diffusion. Just like the other party uses the power of transmission of the ancient flicker, the power of healing is spread out, and the power of disease is neutralized by the effect of healing, so that the plague can be dissipated. But this is the price..."

"What's the price?" Lynch asked, "Self-sacrifice?"

Ms. Nightingale shook her head slightly and did not answer.

"Oh, now I remember there is another manifestation." Seeing that everyone had fallen silent, Chairman Ole added, "Judging from the extent of its internal transformation, the effect of this plague is very serious, and it is also a test for it itself."

Lin Qi was stunned: "So it may not work?"

"No, it is definitely effective, but I am not sure how much it will cost to make it effective."

"I will study this. After all, it is something left behind by our ancestors."

Ms. Nightingale smiled and fell into deep thought while holding another bottle filled with sewage.

"Oh, right." Officer Natalie looked at Nightingale's actions and suddenly her expression changed. "I also remembered something."

"Ok?"

"I remember you said that the way to prevent the Miracle Light from getting out of control is to make sure one-third of the bottles are filled with clean water before midnight every day."

"Yeah, here... Shit."

Looking at the twenty-four bottles filled with sewage, everyone present fell into deep thought at the same time.

Is it true that the Shadow Alliance doesn't need to take action?

(End of this chapter)