I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Gerrard was buttoning his hunting jacket collar button by button under the porch of 13 Chelsea Road.

The butler stood half a step behind him with a lantern, not daring to utter a sound.

The house was empty; in such a large house, he was the only hunter who could move tonight.

That's fine, no one's stopping him.

Gerald tucked his hunting knife into the leather sheath at his waist, turned, and went down the steps.

The butler seemed to want to say something, but after opening his mouth, he only held the umbrella over the butler's head.

"No need," Gerald said, not taking the bag. "A little rain will clear your head."

He did not ride in a carriage.

He could draw up the city's defense deployment map with his eyes closed.

Tonight, all the available manpower has been deployed to the districts with a high concentration of churches, leaving the old town area east of the river empty.

The worst hole in the old town; no one dares to go near it.

In the great plague of 1665, nearly 100,000 people died in the capital.

The church grounds were completely buried, so the government dug several large pits in the east of the city, filled them with layers of corpses and quicklime, and then flattened them.

Two hundred years later, a cemetery was built on it, and two rows of fir trees were planted, naming it Bone Hill Garden.

The pit had long since cooled down, but tonight was different.

Gerrard stopped at the garden gate.

The iron gate was ajar, rusted and unable to open properly.

Inside the gate, two rows of black fir trees stood tall, and beneath them lay countless tombstones.

On the eve of the day of mourning, people all over the city sent wreaths to the deceased.

Since there wasn't enough space in the church cemetery, some people placed wreaths on these unclaimed old graves.

Circles of white chrysanthemums, black gauze, and paper crosses were placed on a stone tablet from two hundred years ago.

New grief, layer upon layer, pressed down.

Gerrard spread out his vision.

In the vision, the newly accumulated grief sank into the bottommost pit.

With each breath, the pit was re-soaked by the new grief poured down tonight.

Gerrard stood at the door and smelled the stench of the plague.

He drew the knife.

As the hunter grew older, the fire that burned within him, fueled by blood, dwindled with each passing moment.

He held the fire tightly in his hand, unwilling to waste a single drop.

Tonight he will save this fire for last.

When the bugle call sounded, he poured out all the fire he had never been willing to burn in his life.

Dying before the hunter's eyes settles the debt, and the Ashford family will at least retain the honor of being martyrs, making their descendants' path easier.

It's worth it, at least he thinks it's worth it.

He pushed open the iron gate.

It noticed that the rhythm of breathing at the pit mouth paused for half a beat.

Gerrard stepped inside, and the darkness beneath the fir trees swallowed him whole.

That open space in front is right in the center of where the pit was filled in back then.

On the ground, wisps of white steam were rising.

Something is standing up in the white mist.

Gerald held the knife horizontally in front of him.

That night he was waiting for the bugle call; before the bugle call came, he could do some of his old work.

Four humanoid figures emerged from the white mist, carrying a military canvas stretcher.

Their faces were black.

In 1665, the gravediggers who carried the corpses smeared their faces with coal tar to avoid getting sick.

Two hundred years later, that layer of tar solidified in the spiritual vision into a mask stuck to his face.

On the stretcher, several corpses were haphazardly piled together.

The hands and feet of the troop hung down from the edge of the canvas, swaying with the steps of the pallbearers.

They walked slowly, keeping time with the rhythm of a funeral procession.

Gerald took a step forward and slashed at the central pole of the canvas stretcher.

The swaddled corpse fell to the ground with a thud, scattering into a pile of soaking wet rags and broken bones.

Without the stretcher, the outlines of the four pallet carriers stood frozen in place.

They were the ones who carried the corpses, but now that the thing they were carrying is gone, they don't know what to do anymore.

As Gerrard sheathed his knife, he casually smeared the neck of the person closest to him.

The tar-covered dough cracked open in the middle, and black smoke leaked out through the crack and scattered into the rain.

Gerald ignored the remaining three and walked around them.

A thing that has lost its soul cannot catch up with a living person.

Young hunters feel secure only when they've chopped up every dirty thing, but Gerald, at his age, has ingrained the habit of conserving every ounce of energy into his very being.

On the muddy surface of the open ground, countless arms emerged in dense clusters.

Back then, the pit was filled with layers of corpses and quicklime; some people were still alive when they were thrown in.

They grabbed Gerald's boots, trying to drag him into the ground as well.

Gerrard stopped.

The blade gleamed, glowing with an almost invisible red.

Where the knife passed, the white-shelled arms retracted from their roots that were close to the ground.

For a master hunter of the moon, dealing with these low- to mid-level evil creatures that had never even taken shape was as easy as cutting melons and vegetables.

Before the bugle sounded, the breathing at the pit entrance had already changed.

The wisps of white steam were twisting into the outline of a hunched old woman carrying a broom.

Gerald held the knife horizontally in front of him again.

This one is on a completely different level from those scattered soldiers and ruffians.

When the Vikings crossed the sea, they brought her with them.

They called her Pesta—the plague mother.

The old records clearly state that if she went to a village and brought a rake, half of the villagers would die of illness.

Take up a broom, and not a single chicken or dog will be left behind.

She was leaning on a broom at that moment.

Gerald's grip on the knife tightened slowly.

The blade blazed red-hot with a bang, a blindingly bright red.

His knife was no longer the old, effortless knife; its blade was now imbued with the gleam of a hunter in his prime.

Gerald stepped into the fog at the edge of the pit and slashed at the broom with his sword.

The first cut cracked the broom handle.

The old woman turned around; her face had no features, only a cloud of mist flowing down.

She wanted to grip the broom tightly again.

The second blow landed on the hand that was holding the broom.

With the third cut, the broom broke.

The broom, broken in two, and the silhouette of the old woman carrying it disappeared into the mist at the mouth of the pit.

The breathing at the pit mouth gradually subsided.

Gerald stood in the middle of the mess, leaning on his dimmed hunting knife, panting.

Just then, the sound of bugles came from afar, growing louder as it approached.

Gerald slowly straightened up, holding the hunting knife across his chest, and channeled the last bit of strength into his limbs.

He had been on hundreds of field missions in his life, but he had never packed everything up so neatly as he did now.

He even prepaid for his own funeral.

The coffin, the tomb, and the funeral carriage were all included, and even the money for the meal prepared for the pallbearers was placed in an envelope.

A hunter should make sure his end is respectable and dignified.

Gerrard, leaning on his knife, straightened his back.

After forty-nine years in the hunting grounds, he has reached this final step tonight, and he wants to die with dignity.

The bugle call was getting closer.

Tens of thousands of horses trampled on the roadless ground, the dense, clattering hoofbeats making the two rows of fir trees in Bonehill Garden tremble.

Gerald closed his eyes and then opened them again, ready to burn his last bit of ether at any moment.

He waited for that endless darkness to crack open in the night and pull his old bones inside.

The horn sounded outside the garden wall, and then... it paused for a beat.

Then the sound began to recede, moving from near to far.

The sound of the horn grew fainter and fainter until it became a thin line, which then disappeared into the distance.

Gerrard's eyes widened.

There was no crack, and nothing came.

He stood motionless in the center of the mess, leaning on his knife.

………………

The old tower of St. Michael stands on the riverbank, and no one has been up there for 120 years.

The bell at the top of the tower was cast nearly three hundred years ago. Of the inscription around its surface, only one line is still legible, eroded by wind and rain:

pro innominabili sonat (to speak for the unspeakable).

This bell has no hammer.

A person is walking up the spiral stone steps of the tower.

Old Phillips leaned against the cold stone wall, carrying a thermos of tea.

He has done everything he was supposed to do in the past two weeks.

Old Phillips stopped at the foot of the clock.

He placed the teacup at his feet and looked up at the clock without its hammers.

On the day of mourning, the bells tolled, and churches throughout the city rang in remembrance at the same time.

Millions of people observed a moment of silence, recited hymns, and prayed for the deceased at the same time.

It was a net bigger than anything else, simultaneously opening a crack in the door between life and death.

In the middle of the night, knocking sounds echoed through one hundred alleys.

Someone opened the door, and a wet shadow appeared outside, calling out the name of the person inside in a voice that sounded all too familiar.

"It's me, let me in."

Old Phillips stepped closer to the clock, standing right in the center.

The bell was accepted by the person who rang it.

The inscription's phrase "to speak for the unspeakable" truly means "to speak on behalf of the unspeakable."

Old Phillips had already thought it through.

He didn't want to be taken away so easily; he wanted to ring the bell himself.

He closed his eyes and uttered his name syllable by syllable into the bell.

Then, he began to toll the bell according to ancient rituals.

Tonight, he will announce the deaths of all the dead in the city.

The first strike landed, but without a hammer, the bell wouldn't ring.

The name that old Phillips called in was replaced by a voice in the clock.

Several dogs guarding the riverbank suddenly let out a long howl towards the top of the tower.

The original meaning of a death knell is to drive away the evil spirits that haunt the departed soul.

Once a person's death has been officially announced, they can no longer pretend to be alive.

As the first blow landed, the words "It's me" from all a hundred alleys simultaneously caught in their throats.

The half-open door stopped abruptly.

When Phillips hit the second shot, he felt a little lighter.

He knocked very steadily, and the rows of guests in front of the living man's door suddenly flickered.

When the seventh strike landed, old Phillips adjusted the rim of the bell.

The soaking wet guests faded away one by one outside the threshold.

Those ladies standing in the living rooms of Mayfair, Chelsea, and Bloomsbury, facing the phonograph canisters and card tables.

Suddenly, the voice that had been singing and answering their questions inside the room disappeared.

The candle holders fell silent, the card table stopped banging, and the pencils slipped from their hands.

On the eighth note, old Phillips coughed, and more and more things were being taken away.

Only one shot left.

The ninth record is the last one, the one that announces someone's death.

Tonight, he also announced his own death.

He called all the remaining names into the bell.

The ninth stroke, settled.