The ticking of the clocks grew louder with every step Klaus and Rio took. The alley where Simon's workshop was located was strangely quiet, but Klaus felt as if time itself had slowed down. The lights emanating from the wooden workshop windows had a faint golden glow.
Klaus slowly pushed the door open. The scene inside was a nightmare. Hundreds of clocks hanging on the walls were randomly spinning their hands, making annoying sounds as if they were in a state of madness. In the middle of the room, "the Cosmic Clock," Simon's masterpiece he had worked on for decades, was partially dismantled.
Someone was standing in front of the clock. They wore a mask that completely covered their face, seemingly made of old clock parts. They held a precise tool in their hand, like a surgeon performing an operation, and were disassembling the clock's intricate parts.
Klaus: (In a sharp voice) Stop.
The masked man slowly turned. He showed no fear, but there was a sense of satisfaction in his movements.
The Masked Man: (In a voice that echoed) I was waiting for you, Klaus. I expected you to come.
Klaus: You're behind everything. Why are you doing this?
The Masked Man: (In a calm voice) Because time is just a mistake that needs to be corrected. Look around you, Klaus. People are trapped in time, in the moment they lived. I am freeing them. I am freeing history itself.
Klaus: You're not freeing them. You're destroying them!
The Masked Man: (Laughs coldly) Art is born only from destruction.
The masked man reached out and grabbed the mainspring of "the Cosmic Clock," its beating heart. At that moment, the clock made a loud sound, like a final gasp, and then stopped working. All the clocks in the workshop stopped with it, and a profound silence fell.
The Masked Man: (Says as he puts the spring in his pocket) This is all I need.
Suddenly, the masked man bolted toward the workshop wall. There was a secret opening that Klaus hadn't noticed before.
Klaus: (Screams) No!
But it was too late. The masked man had disappeared, leaving behind a ruined workshop and an unknown fate awaiting Simon, who was lying on the floor unconscious. His body was shaking strangely, as if he were aging very rapidly.
"The Cosmic Clock" was still there, but it was nothing more than a dead work of art. On the clock face, a newly engraved message bore another riddle: "In the heart of silence, the echo of a power that no one touches reverberates."
Klaus ignored the riddle carved on the broken clock for a moment and ran to Simon, who was lying on the floor. His body was trembling, and his skin was wrinkling at an astonishing speed. His eyes were covered with a strange glaze, and his white hair was falling out. Time was flowing from his body.
Rio: (In her calm voice) Vital signs are failing. The cells are aging at a rate thousands of times faster than normal. He's dying, Klaus.
Klaus stood up and looked at the broken clock, then at Simon. The criminal had left "the Cosmic Clock" here because it no longer held any meaning for him. He had taken the "echo" he wanted.
Klaus: (In a broken voice) He's repeating the riddle. "In the heart of silence, the echo of a power that no one touches reverberates."
Rio: (In astonishment) Why? Is it a misstep?
Klaus: (Shakes his head) No. Not a mistake. He's repeating the riddle because he wants us to understand that everything in this series is connected. The "still water" in the first riddle represented ancient history, and the "silence that does not die" was the books. As for here, the "silence" is the stopped clock, and the "echo" is the mainspring he took. He's not a killer; he's someone who designs endings.
Klaus sat on the floor beside the clock and examined it meticulously. He touched every gear and every remaining part, as if reading a book. His thoughts were racing. He looked at a small gear that was left behind and found a precise engraving on it that could only be seen with a magnifying glass. The engraving was a strange musical note.
Klaus: (Whispers to himself) He doesn't want to destroy history. He wants to destroy the sound.
Klaus picked up the gear and stood up. His eyes held a deep exhaustion, but the determination was stronger. The criminal wasn't stealing things; he was stealing ideas.
Klaus: (Stares at the horizon) "The sound that no one hears" isn't a secret. It's a sound that is yet to be born. It's not a musical sound. It's the sound of something.
Klaus now knew who the next target was. It was a person without a voice. A person who documents everything, but doesn't speak. A person who collects all the "echoes" of the past.
Klaus: (In a decisive voice) We must go. We must find the archivist "Julian."