120 A Letter from a Stranger 3 (1/2)
Outside the boiler room, the weather was still burning as if it were an even bigger boiler. Even the ocean breeze had stopped at one point. The entire city seemed to be submerged in boiling glue. It was unbearable.
Above the dazzling, radiant, heavenly city, a cloud of polluted smoke rose among the tall uptown buildings. As the boiler room workers fervently created wind, the ashes flew with the flames. The remains of sins rode the hot wind, rising from the crude boiler, finally escaping its hold. They were free outside the boiler, and expanded like a drop of ink in water.
The black smoke seemed solid like metal in the windless air. It rose slow and thick as if it was determined to reach the stars. From afar, it looked like a black pillar reaching into the sky. Just like how one bird flying away in fright would lead to a flock of birds flying, a second cloud of black smoke rose soon after. And then a third, and a fourth…
Everyone in the city looked toward uptown in confusion, looking the smoke that seemed frozen in the air. The people discussed amongst themselves. Some counted the smoke stacks excitedly, ”Five, six… eleven, twelve… sixteen, seventeen! Seventeen!” Under the blazing sun, between the ocean and the sky, above the dazzling city were seventeen clouds of black smoke. They rose from the earth to the air, like pillars holding up the sky. Just as the legends said, the glorious bloodlines were pillars that held up the empire…but these things were polluted to the bone.
Many looked at the angry and humiliated clouds of smoke and laughed gleefully, as if seeing faces swollen from being slapped, but the well-informed witnesses became cautious, ingraining in their mind the name of the man who had practically set uptown on fire—Sherlock Holmes. Who was Sherlock Holmes?
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”This is a warning,” Shaman said in downtown. ”A challenge and a warning to everyone.”
”Warning?” Ghosthand asked in confusion, ”To whom?”
”To anyone who can see it.” The Shaman studied the smoke pillars as if observing an art masterpiece. His eyes were full of appreciation.
”Is this Holmes getting interested in downtown as well?” Ghosthand refused to believe it, as if it were a joke.
”Why not? Every creature needs his own hunting ground, is that not true?” The Shaman chuckled in the darkness, ”Those who have gone to the Dark World know that some fallen tribes like to put up a sign, marking their territory to show that they are sovereign. Some are delicate bones, others are dried corpses or wild totems. When you see them, you know that you should turn around and leave. They’re waving at you. And when you look at the sign… they are also looking at you.”
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”What a great show. Amazing.” The white-haired youth stood before the window, studying the black smoke in the sky. He chuckled lightly, ”Really, it looks much better than all your faces from before.” No one replied.
”Let’s just see this as an omen for the return of the wanderer.” As if studying those faces, he murmured, ”This is just an offhand reminder. Someday, you’ll need to finish paying the debts…”
The shadows of times past flashed through the youth’s eyes. He closed the curtains slowly, moving on from the scene. In the dark room, he sat in a chair, feeling the endless strength leave him bit by bit. The pain and contradicting feelings in his heart, the confusion and frustrations that kept him awake at night finally seemed to disappear. What replaced them was the long-awaited exhaustion. It drowned him like a tidal wave.
Smiling, the youth closed his eyes. The nightmares of the past would not appear in his peaceful dream, right? Finally, he could sleep for a bit.
--
”F*ck, f*ck, f*ck!” someone swore in a hoarse on a small boat slowly leaving the port. Cursing, the man flipped a table in rage, ”F*ck Holmes. F*ck Holmes!”
Glaring at the evil smoke snaking above Avalon, his eyes were wild and hopeless, ”I should’ve killed you, you d*mned b*stard!”
As if he had serious malaria or a strange disease, the man’s skin was green and red, but his face was deathly pale and covered with chickenpox. He curled up in the corner of the ship, panic in his eyes. He was wrapped in a blanket, but his body shook uncontrollably. Under the blanket, his skin swelled, bubbling and rotted.
No one could imagine that the arrogant and proud Pyramid King would be reduced to this state. He looked like a dead and rotting rat. Anyone could see that it was all over for him.