Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

When the two security guards wearing fluorescent vests ran out of the side door, only three residents pushing a wooden cart carrying canned goods and a gray short-haired dog that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere remained on the street.

The man in the dark blue trench coat was gone.

The older security guard returned, put his hands on his knees, took a couple of breaths, and shook his head at Molly.

Molly glanced down at the kraft paper package on the table; the sealing wax gleamed with a dark ochre-red luster under the fluorescent light.

She picked up the landline handset from the table and turned the handle three times.

"Please connect me to the office of the editor-in-chief, Mr. Graham."

Seven minutes later.

Editorial Director Simon Graham sat behind an oak table in his third-floor office, his hands clasped in white cotton gloves he pulled from a drawer, carefully prying open the wax seal wrapped in kraft paper.

The contents of the package were wrapped in a layer of moisture-proof wax paper.

He unfolded the wax paper, revealing a copy of sixty-three pages of handwritten text. The edges of the paper were yellowed, and the ink on some pages had slightly blurred due to its age, but every letter was still clearly legible.

Graham picked up the first page.

There is no official title or watermark on the page, only a number handwritten in blue ballpoint pen in the upper left corner.

His gaze slid down the first paragraph, his pupils constricting at the third line.

MI6 internal operation codename.

The date range spans from 2016 to 2021.

Graham turned the first page, and the contents of the second page made his fingers, which were holding the paper, tighten slightly.

Six action reports.

This involves a secret project in which the British government secretly manipulated cobalt ore transactions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Mozambique.

The operation targeted the private bank account statements of the mining ministers of the three countries, the flow of funds from London to Zurich, and a list of at least four shell companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Graham stopped when he turned to page seven.

He looked up, his gaze passing over the office window frame and landing in the southwest direction.

That place is about two kilometers away from here.

He couldn't see the black granite, nor the tourist souvenir sword priced at nine pounds and ninety-nine pence.

But he knew it was there.

Twelve phantom knights were silently patrolling in circles.

Graham looked away, lowered his head, and turned to page eight.

Page eight contains a summary of an internal memo dated November 2018.

The signatory field of the memorandum was blacked out, but the recipient field clearly showed the full name of the Deputy Director of the Africa Division of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Graham turned the pages one by one, and closed the document when he reached the tenth page.

He reached for the telephone receiver on the table.

All digital communication equipment within the force field coverage area was scrap metal, but the Financial Times editorial office restored an old-fashioned analog telephone system with copper core lines on the third day, thanks to a 1950s hand-cranked generator in the basement.

The dial pad spun seven times between his fingers.

The call was answered after four rings.

"Andrew."

Graham placed his white-gloved fingers on the edge of page ten.

"It's Simon. I need you to come to my office right now."

The voice of legal counsel Andrew McFarlane came through the phone in a low voice.

"What is it?"

Graham glanced at the sixty-three-page photocopy spread out on the table.

"We'll talk when you get there."

Eleven minutes later.

Andrew McFarlane pushed open the office door and saw Graham sitting motionless behind his desk, a stack of yellowed papers in front of him.

Graham gestured with his chin, indicating that he should close the door.

Andrew pushed the bolt into the lock, walked to the table and sat down, his gaze falling on the stack of papers.

"Start with the first page."

Graham pushed the paper over.

Andrew took it, maintaining his professional composure as he turned to the first page, but his brows furrowed when he turned to the third page, and he pulled his chair forward half a foot when he turned to the fifth page.

Fifteen minutes later, Andrew closed the last page and neatly placed the entire stack of documents back on the desktop.

He tapped the edge of the table three times with his right index finger.

"If the allegations are true, this would be enough to trigger one of the biggest scandals in British diplomatic history."

Graham's fingertips remained pressed against the edge of the document.

Andrew paused for two seconds before continuing.

"If you publish this, be prepared to be silenced by a D-Notice."

Graham did not respond immediately.

The ticking of the wall clock in the office was amplified several times in the silence. It was an old-fashioned clock driven by pure mechanical gears, and after the force field was blocked, it became the only thing on the entire floor that could still tell the time accurately.

The second hand made twenty revolutions.

Graham spoke.

"We'll conduct a fact check first, and the results will be available within 48 hours."

Andrew stood up, paused at the doorway, and turned around.

"Where did it come from?"

"Someone left their name at the front desk and then left."

Graham gathered the sixty-three pages of documents, preparing to lock them in the cast-iron safe on the right side of his office.

Just as he was turning the kraft paper-wrapped outer shell over to stack it, his fingers touched something pressed under the sealing wax at the seal.

He bent down and leaned closer to take a look.

A dried plant leaf.

The leaf was pressed intact in the gap between the wax seal and the kraft paper. Its color had changed from bright green to dark green, but the shape of the edges was well preserved.

The leaves have serrated barbs, and the veins radiate outwards from the central axis, branching to both sides with slightly curled ends.

Dark green oak leaves.

Graham's hand, holding the leaf, hovered in mid-air for three seconds.

He recalled the internal memo that had been circulated throughout the company yesterday afternoon, which included a blurry photo taken with a mobile phone, showing a crack in the wall of an abandoned building within the force field containment zone.

In the photo, a tree that grew from one foot to two meters in a single night is cracking a three-story-high concrete floor.

The retired teacher used a magnifying glass to confirm the tree's identity.

Celtic oak.

Species that went extinct during the Industrial Revolution in 1847.

The serrated curve of the leaf in Graham's hand is almost identical to that of the ancient tree leaf in the photograph that is frantically looking back through the ruins.

He put the leaf back on the parchment and locked it in the safe along with the sixty-three pages of documents.

The dull thud of the cast-iron cabinet doors closing echoed for a long time in the empty office.

Graham sat back in his chair, unconsciously rubbing the wax residue on his gloved fingertips with his right hand.

Outside the window, the London sky was as gray as an unwashed old cotton cloth, and the faint screeching of wooden cart wheels could be heard in the distance.

Two kilometers away on the south bank of the Thames, twelve phantom knights continue their relentless patrol.

The nine-pound, nine-pence tin alloy longsword was stuck in the center of the black granite, with an occasional, extremely thin arc of dark light flashing across the hilt.

It lit up briefly, then went out again.

Like some ancient, patient pulse.