I can copy tags infinitely.

Although he found the sub-tag he needed, Lee En remained unexcited.

After incorporating the label into his replication process, Li Encai turned his attention to Lin Qi in front of him.

[Copying has begun]

[Remaining Time: 0:09:59]

Please maintain a close and stable distance from your target.

This copy only takes 10 minutes?

Li En was somewhat surprised, but Lin Qi's roar drew his attention back.

"Don't come any closer!"

A muffled growl emanated from Lin Qi's frail body. He held a dirty rag doll in his left hand and a bottle half-filled with water in his right.

His arm trembled as the liquid slammed against the bottle, making a gurgling sound.

Beneath his sleeves, Lynch's arms were covered in wounds, which looked like bloody scratches he had made himself with his sharp fingernails. The wounds were festering and had a disgusting yellowish-brown color.

"Don't come any closer!" Lynch growled again, raising the rag doll in his hand. "Inside... are the hairs of all the Scotland Yard officers. If you dare come any closer, I'll kill them all right now!"

Li En immediately raised his hands. "I understand. Calm down. As long as you don't act impulsively, there's still a chance to salvage the situation!"

Li En's words seemed not to reach Lin Qi's ears at all. He just raised his head blankly and looked at the surrounding walls, as if he was using his eyes to search for something that Li En could not see.

"No...no...no...don't come any closer!"

He raised the bottle in his hand and poured all the liquid inside over his head, letting out a terrified scream, seemingly oblivious to what he was seeing.

"Let me go back! I need to descend... I need to descend..."

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name: 202ᴋᴋs.ᴄᴏᴍ]

As he spoke, Lin Qi suddenly looked up and his gaze fell on Li En.

"Help me descend, or I'll die. Help me descend, or I'll die..."

He repeated his frantic words and charged straight at Li En!

Li En's eyes hardened, and he was just about to draw the flintlock pistol from his waist.

But someone had already fired the shot before him.

boom--

A dull bang rang in my ears, and grayish-white smoke, carrying a pungent smell of sulfur and burning, spread throughout the already cramped room.

The crazed Lin Qi was shot in the abdomen, blood gushing from the wound, and he staggered back several steps.

"Are you alright?!" Joel rushed into the study, shielding Li En behind him, and skillfully took the flintlock pistol from Li En's waist, pointing it at Lynch's head.

"I'm fine," Li En said in a deep voice, "but Mr. Lynch looks very strange, like he's gone mad."

Joel looked at the disheveled Lynch in front of him. Although he had only been transferred to Scotland Yard not long ago, Joel still managed to remember most of the officers.

Lynch was no exception.

But how could a normal person be turned into this grotesque state in just one week?

What exactly happened to him?!

"Tobin Lynch," Joel warned, "you are suspected of attempted murder and copycat crime. I am arresting you on behalf of Scotland Yard and the citizens of London. Don't resist. Drop what you're holding, put your hands behind your head, and place them where I can see you!"

Despite being shot in the abdomen, Lin Qi acted as if nothing had happened.

He looked up and his gaze met Joel's.

Then, he revealed a strange smile.

He threw away the bottle in his right hand and then grabbed the doll's head.

His frail body unleashed tremendous power at this moment.

The rag doll's neck, sewn together with needle and thread, broke apart under the immense force, revealing the cheap cotton fabric underneath.

"not good!"

Jolton suddenly realized something, and he touched his neck, where a trickle of blood was gushing out.

It was as if his head was tied to something, and a tremendous force was tearing at his head, almost pulling his head off his neck!

What is this thing?!

Joel's vision blurred, and he couldn't even hold onto his gun. An invisible force was acting on him, slowly taking his life away!

scold--

The match struck the friction bar, and a reddish-orange light illuminated the study.

The flame on the match was faint, flickering in the air like a seedling in a storm, which could be extinguished at any moment.

But before that, Li En had already thrown it out.

The match landed on Lin Qi, but it didn't ignite any of his clothes.

"superior!"

Li En gave a low shout, as if issuing an order to something that didn't exist.

Lynch was unaware of what was happening. He was still gripping the doll's neck and tearing at it with all his might. He was just a hair's breadth away from ripping the doll's head off.

Just as he was about to tear the doll's head off, Lynch seemed to notice something.

He heard a roar from beyond the material world; something was approaching him, but he couldn't see it!

"You, you too are a climber attempting to rise above and transcend fate!"

rise?

From the very beginning, Li En kept hearing strange words from Lynch, such as "descend" and "ascend." He could understand words like "fate," but "descend" and "ascend" were beyond his understanding of the mystical world.

Upon realizing that Li En was from the same world as him, Lin Qi panicked.

Scotland Yard, an organization serving the rational side, posed little threat to him, and he held their lives in his hands.

But Lee Eun is different.

He, like himself, was also drawn into the mystical realm!

That roar, which came from beyond the material world and pierced through fate, must have been an attack he launched against himself!

The only effective means of attack that Lin Qi had was the rag doll in his hand, but he didn't have Li En's hair or nails.

In front of Li En, he was clearly a sitting duck who couldn't fight back!

*Pfft*

Blood splattered out, and Lin Qi screamed as he fell to the ground.

A formless hound, invisible in the material world, attacked him through the veil of fate!

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"You bastard!"

Lynch cursed as he got up from the ground. The howling of the hounds still echoed in his ears, and the threat of death was not yet over!

"Book...book!"

Lin Qi seemed to suddenly realize something and rushed straight towards the shrine, smashing it to pieces.

The whale oil lamp fell to the ground, but the light did not disappear; it simply became dimmer.

He clutched the book tightly to his chest, and an invisible barrier spread out, as if isolating him from his previous spiritual connection.

The hounds of rational hunters were kept outside that invisible barrier.

This book is very strange; it seems to exist outside of this world, yet it is particularly favored by the spiritual.

"Now, neither of us can do anything about the other." Lin Qi panted, and his originally erratic words surprisingly regained some coherence under the influence of his current emotional state.

He held up the rag doll with its head torn in half, his eyes revealing madness.

"I hold the lives of the entire Scotland Yard in my hands. Let me go, and I guarantee they'll be alright," Lynch twisted the rag doll's neck. "If you don't let me go, I'll take them all with me!"

Li En squinted and met Lin Qi's pupils, which were of different sizes.

Are you threatening me?

Lin Qi chuckled softly, "Threat? Not really, I'm just negotiating with you."

"You let me leave, and I'll let Scotland Yard live. It's a good deal, isn't it?"

Li En glanced at the countdown timer for the copy label before focusing all her attention on the rag doll in Lin Qi's hand.

"Before that, I have a question for you."

"What's wrong?" Lin Qi's breathing gradually calmed down, but his wound was still bleeding heavily, and he couldn't hold on for much longer.

Li En cut to the chase: "What's your connection to the London serial killer?"

Lynch was surprised that Li En would ask this question and let out a sinister chuckle. "Sorry, I'm not the London serial killer you're looking for."

"But I can tell you one thing."

"The London serial killer, like us, was a climber striving for advancement!"

In other words, was the London serial killer also a member of the mystical side?

Having obtained the information he wanted, Li En was already satisfied.

He bent down slightly and took his flintlock pistol from Joel's hand, who was lying on the ground.

"What are you doing?" Lynch sensed some danger. "Don't you care about the lives of these Scotland Yard policemen?!"

Li En scoffed.

"Oh, I see... You can't see the spirit, right?"

Lynch's pupils dilated slightly.

"That book does indeed shield you from the influence of spirits and supernatural entities, ensuring you won't be killed by my hounds, but do you know the price?"

Li Enping raised his flintlock pistol. At this distance, even without the label of a sharpshooter, he was confident he could blow Lin Qi's head off.

Lin Qi vaguely realized something.

This book isolates one from the spiritual, ensuring one's safety and providing a safe haven in the material world from attacks by a higher realm.

However, correspondingly, any abnormal objects will have no effect in this safe house.

A true vacuum zone!

"No--!"

Before Lynch's scream could even fully escape, Lee pulled the trigger.

The smoke and muffled sounds of gunfire erupted simultaneously in this compact townhouse.

The bullet, propelled by a brilliant burst of flame, ricocheted from the muzzle and struck Lynch precisely in the right eye.

Fresh blood was a minor issue; even white stuff splattered out along with blood and bone fragments.

Lin Qi knelt down, and even so, he was still on the verge of death.

"Such tenacious vitality."

Li En frowned slightly, but that was all. With injuries of this severity, Lin Qi would die very soon.

This amount of time is barely enough for him to say a few last words.

But clearly, Lynch had no intention of giving his last words.

He shakily opened the book in his hands, randomly flipped to a page, and dipped his finger into the blood on his body.

Using his hand as a dip pen, he wrote a line of extremely distorted text on the book, but Li En couldn't understand what it said.

This is a situation where Li En doesn't recognize the written characters, but he knows what language it is.

"It's Greek!"

Many core texts in the Hermes Collection are written in Greek. Depending on the publisher's translation skills, whether translated into Latin or directly into English, the meaning may differ from the original.

Therefore, the University of Michigan encourages students to learn Greek independently and then read the original Greek texts on their own.

Li En only knows Greek, but has not studied it systematically.

What did he write down?

Before Li En could even retrieve the relevant information from his mind, Lin Qi had already finished writing and raised his hand with trembling hands.

The still-intact left eye, covered in blood, revealed an unprecedented madness and devotion.

"Kill him!!!"

click -

After saying this, Lin Qi vomited a large amount of blood and collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

he died.

As the murderer of the mysterious side, he ultimately died at the hands of the rational side's weapon.

Looking at Lin Qi's corpse, only one question occupied Li En's mind.

What did he do in his final moments before he died?

Is he talking to something, giving final instructions?

Li En raised her head slightly and looked at her own face reflected on the transparent lampshade of the whale oil lamp.

click -

The lampshade of the whale oil lamp is broken.

It shattered his face.