Instructions soon arrived from the temporary command center coordinating the entire operation. Jenkins and his group of fourteen were to remain on standby at the street corner, preventing anyone suspicious from entering the area and ensuring no one slipped away if a fight broke out.
The team tasked with making direct contact was composed of mbers from the Church of All Things and Nature, the Earth Church, the Church of Sun and Justice, and the Church of the Unlit Moon.
They split into two groups. One team, disguised as police officers conducting a census, would knock on the front door. The other would attempt to enter through the apartnt's rear entrance, creating a pincer attack.
The operation began swiftly. After a knock, the Night Watchers received a response. The ordinary man who opened the door seed surprised that a simple census required so many officers, but he let the group inside nonetheless.
Simultaneously, Jenkins observed the Benefactors at the rear of the building find an iron gate in the alley—the one used for trash—unlock it, and slip into the apartnt.
He waited patiently for the first sound of an explosion or the flash of so strange light. But, curiously, a long silence followed after both teams went inside. There was no sign of activity.
The spiritual auras inside the building were a chaotic ss, and with so many people having entered, Jenkins wasn't certain his Eye of Reality could properly track the Church's Benefactors.
He waited a mont longer, confirming that the apartnt was indeed unnervingly quiet. He then consulted with the team leader from the Church of Creation and Machinery beside him before contacting the command center to ask if they should continue to hold their position.
They waited another twenty minutes for a response before receiving their next orders:
All units converge and evacuate the entire block. The building now contains a fully deployed maze-lock.
Jenkins had encountered his share of maze-locks before. Ever since Alexia had trapped mbers of the illegal organization known as the Witch's House in that 31-day ti loop, he had gradually learned a great deal about these large-scale rituals.
He knew full well that without any information about an unknown maze-lock, breaking it from the outside was nearly impossible—especially within a city, where many of the more destructive thods were off-limits.
The best way to learn about an unknown maze-lock was to enter it, just as they had done a few months ago in Bel Diran when confronting the vampire's maze-lock. But entering ant being trapped, leaving escape entirely up to those inside.
This created a catch-22. Logically, the only thing the Church could do was wait for the two teams inside to solve the problem on their own. But sitting back and waiting to die had never been the Church's way.
"It's just one maze-lock. Troubleso, yes, but Nolan has gathered so many of its best and brightest. Are we really going to be stumped by sothing like this?"
The Old Gravedigger in charge of the operation shook his head as he spoke. The consensus from the council at Evergreen Forest is that we can't afford to waste ti. We must act decisively.
The second wave of teams arriving from Evergreen Forest brought new instructions. Since destructive and overly conspicuous thods were out of the question in the middle of the city, they would leverage the Orthodox Churches' nurical advantage. They would send five demigods into the maze-lock; surely, one of them would be able to destroy it from the inside.
An operation involving five demigods simultaneously would be unthinkable in ordinary tis, but Nolan's greatest advantage at the mont was its abundance of personnel. Still, sending people blindly into an unknown maze-lock to test it with their lives was hardly a rational strategy. After a brief discussion, the Travelers' Church produced two items: B-11-5-2305, a pair of [Tickets Ho]. These numbered items were powerful enough to allow a direct escape from a Mysterious Realm, which ant they would certainly work on a maze-lock.
Though five people were going in, two tickets would be enough. One of the five spots was given to Jenkins, since he was already on-site. The Church, however, instructed him to disguise his face so that any enemies within the maze-lock wouldn't discover his true identity.
He was likely allowed to participate because he had claid to have reached level 7 and had successfully beco a true Savior candidate. Putting him through dangerous trials was the only way to prepare him for the even more terrifying events to co. If he simply hid away until the final day, it would only be a detrint to their future.
Dangerous missions and cats did not mix, no matter how desperately Chocolate clung to the edge of his pocket with its front paws. As luck would have it, Sigrid Capet, who had been helping at a nearby flower shop, had been urgently dispatched to the scene. Jenkins entrusted his cat and umbrella to her. After discussing their strategy for entering the maze-lock with the other four demigods, the group of five braved the rain, walked up to the apartnt, and knocked on the door.
The sa ordinary man from before opened the door. He looked out at them, his expression tinged with impatience.
"What do you want?"
To be safe, Jenkins had kept his Eye of Reality active the entire ti he crossed the street and approached the apartnt. He therefore saw with perfect clarity that as the man spoke, a strange spiritual light instantly enveloped the area just outside the doorway.
Jenkins understood at once. The trigger for entering the maze-lock wasn't crossing the threshold—it was hearing the man's voice. This ant the chaotic aura he'd been observing from the outside was likely a composite projection from within the maze-lock, offering no useful information whatsoever.
"Careful. We're in."
Jenkins didn't need to say a word; the Old Gravedigger had already spoken. He was the oldest demigod in the diocese and the one who had been stationed in Nolan the longest—essentially, the most powerful man in the city during tis of peace.
"I'm not sensing any spatial distortion. This maze-lock is strange," added Mr. Defour, the demigod from the Travelers' Church.
"I can't get a read on the nature of its power, but I'm certain the internal space isn't large. It probably only covers this building, with no dinsional anomalies inside," comnted Mr. Dupont of the Church of All Things and Nature.
"I sll rancid oil," remarked Ms. de la Salle from the Church of Creation and Machinery.
Jenkins saw that everyone else had spoken and felt it would be awkward if he remained silent. He didn't have any novel discoveries to share, however, so he took another look at the "ordinary man" leaning against the doorfra.
"This is... a corpse," he stated, choosing his words with care.
"While we can't judge the nature of the entire maze-lock from a single individual, considering the environnt and our enemy's usual thods... there's reason to believe the greatest danger we're about to face will involve corpses and machines. Or, to be more precise, chanized corpses."
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