Chapter 394 – Inside and Outside the Mirror
Chapter 394 – Inside and Outside the Mirror
Agatha stopped abruptly.
At the end of her vision, an unusual sight at the intersection of the alley interrupted her rambling thoughts.
In that corner shrouded in dimness, clump after clump of sickening black substance was surging up, oozing out from the surface of the nearby floor and walls like sticky grease spilling out of a pipe, and with a slimy and disgusting sound, a slime-like mass began to take on a human-like form almost in the blink of an eye, and threw Agatha a gaze full of hostility.
“It’s still really shady ……”
Agatha couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh, but her physical movements didn’t hesitate in the slightest – before the mud had time to fully coalesce, she had already raised her cane and pointed it at the closest of the clumps.
Pale flames flared up out of nowhere, instantly engulfing the writhing mass of “primordial elements”, the power of cremation directly turning it into flying ash, and the next second, another gray whirlwind swept up in the alleyway, the gray wind whistling through those humanoid forgeries that were crawling up one by one, as if with a powerful devouring and weathering power, turning them into dry, eroded dust. Dust.
Still, more and more of the muddy substance seeped out of the nearby walls and floors, and more and more humanoid freaks appeared at the intersections, blocking Agatha’s movement.
As the gray wind rolled by, Agatha’s figure coalesced from the wind, a few more hints of fatigue on her face, and after sensing a certain strange aura that suddenly appeared in the mud, her eyes became even more grave.
She looked in the direction of the scent, and saw a “fake” formed by the primordial elements writhing and mutating rapidly, and within a few seconds, it transformed into a smiling young man with short blonde hair, wearing a white shirt and a black vest.
“Ms. Gatekeeper, you have great stamina,” the young man nodded slightly, his tone very polite, “I wonder if you’re still enjoying your exercise here?”
“It would be naive of you to try and tire me out here through such tactics of attrition,” Agatha’s gaze was icy cold as she gazed at yet another of the young man’s incarnations, calming her breath, “Death has no meaning for me, I can still fight after death- -The Gatekeeper’s soul never tires, and you will always be found by me one day.”
“Of course, of course, it’s certainly not that simple to actually kill a Bartok acolyte,” the young man laughed, a rather wide smile, “I never considered killing you, I just need to keep you here as long as possible, these empty shells for you to kill are rightfully a treat, a a pastime for your boredom.”
“Then you heretics have a really chic way of hospitality,” Agatha knew that the other party was delaying herself in every way possible, but at least for this moment, she didn’t mind saying a few more words to recover her strength, “I’m suddenly a little curious if your original body is also so leisurely right now –I can feel that I’m gradually approaching your hiding place, and with each monster under your control that I destroy, I can more clearly sense your location …… How many other places do you have to hide?”
The smile on the blonde young man’s face finally stiffened for a split second, but it was only a split second before he smiled pleasantly once again, “Ah, it seems that I had overlooked it – Bartok’s watchdogs have always had a good ‘sense of smell’ ‘, so why don’t we simply make a bet?”
He raised one hand as if making an inviting gesture.
“Let’s bet on whether you find my essence first, or whether Frost becomes the first earthly kingdom where the Holy Lord descends first – the stakes are your soul, and the lives of everyone in Frost ……”
A pale fiery flame exploded, suddenly sweeping the direction the young man stood in even before his words fell, and in the next second, Agatha had transformed into a whistling gray wind, which crashed into the intersection with a loud bang, and the assembled fake freaks immediately surged up and tried to block the gray wind, but they disintegrated and shattered under the power of the winds of death – only In the blink of an eye, that gray wind slammed into the blonde young man who was being entangled in the pale flames, sending him flying directly into a short wall on the opposite side of the street.
After a loud boom, that fiery flame was blown away by the gale, and Agatha’s figure appeared from the gray wind, holding her cane with the flat of her right hand, and the front end of the cane nailed directly through that blonde-haired young man’s chest, pinning him to the wall in death.
“Sorry, no gambling,” Agatha gazed into the other man’s eyes, a calmness in them, “Gambling is forbidden for the clergy.”
“Interesting ……,” the cultist pinned to the wall by the cane tugged at the corners of his mouth, his mouth and nose spilling foul black slime as he spoke, the husk was dying fast and yet he seemed to be free of fear and pain, “I hope this your calmness and confidence last a little longer ……”
Life drained out of the shell, the blonde young man’s body quickly disintegrated and melted, turning into a sticky black substance that flowed down and quickly dried up as it fell to the ground, and the remaining fake freaks under his control around him also stopped moving, reverting to a pile of lifeless “primeval elements”.
Agatha pulled her cane out of the wall and shook the dirty substance from the end of it in disgust, then calmly raised her head and looked in a certain direction towards the Upper City.
Another incarnation had been eliminated, and the bond between the Gatekeeper and the heretic hiding in the shadows had been further strengthened in the course of the passing of life.
It feels …… closer. “Subdued and confident? …… I do always believe in myself ……”
Agatha muttered to herself, then took a few deep breaths, propped herself up on her cane, and slowly walked in the direction she perceived, while in a puddle behind her, a cluster of ghostly green flames was emerging from the water’s reflection, silently illuminating the dimly lit alleyway.
The puddle in the alley, the windows of the nearby buildings, the metal lampposts of the streetlights …… all the polished mirrors in the distance, all reflected the tiny shadows of the flame.
……
In the silence of the great sanctuary of the bright lamps and candles, the cane and the sound of the heel of the shoes knocking on the ground broke the peace of the meditation sanctuary, a tall figure dressed in black crossed the dark color of the door, came to the black “spirit coffin” parked beside the high platform.
From the coffin came Bishop Ivan’s somewhat hoarse and old voice: “Agatha, you’re back – how is the situation of the second waterway?”
“The first batch of people have just arrived at the entrance of the western district, it takes a day just to clean the connecting shafts and send the equipment below,” Agatha shook her head and said somewhat helplessly, “You have to have some patience, Bishop Ivan.”
“Oh ……,” the voice in the coffin was silent for a moment, then asked, “And what’s the status of the western entrance?”
Agatha: “……”
After a moment, she sighed, “What can the situation be with an underground facility that’s been abandoned for half a century? It took me mobilizing twelve heavy machine guns and three steam walkers, all bullets blessed by holy oils and flames, and a hundred and fifty heavily armed Silent Monks to dispel the darkness there, and the good news is that we’ve managed to establish our first stronghold at the crossroads beneath the shaft and restarted the power and lighting in a few of the connecting tunnels, and the rest of the quest may go a little smoother than expected –if we don’t run into more collapses and gas leaks.”
“No sign of the heretics?”
“Not yet,” Agatha shook her head, “but the deeper depths are uncertain – the Second Waterway is so large, and the various areas of collapse are so isolated from each other, that we’re only in the first passage of one of them now We’re only in the first passage of one of the areas. There is, however, one situation that is more concerning ……”
The rustling sound of fabric rubbing came from the coffin, and then the dark and heavy coffin lid was pushed open from the inside, and the mummified Bishop Ivan sat up from inside.
“A concerning situation?” “Mummy” voice was low, “What happened?”
“At the ends of some of the old pipes, we found traces of repairs and remodeling, as well as some suspicious branching pipes that extend deep into the darkness,” Agatha said with a frown, “We accessed the original blueprints in the archives, and confirmed that those pipes weren’t on the design drawings from back in the day. ”
Bishop Ivan was silent for a moment and asked rhetorically, “…… What do you think?”
“It looks like someone continued to maintain the second waterways even after they were abandoned and modified them to some degree,” Agatha voiced her thoughts, “That maintenance wasn’t continuous, so a lot of the areas remained abandoned after several years of maintenance, but deeper down in the sewers , there may be things that are still functioning.”
Bishop Ivan listened quietly, and after a long time, he slowly spoke, “The second waterway …… is a huge underground kingdom, big enough to hold countless secrets, even if you fill it with all the Guardian troops, you won’t be able to fill all of its corridors and intersections, so don’t pay too much attention to those inconsequential traces of remodeling – concentrate on searching for those heretics, and just leave the rest to the headaches of the people at City Hall.”
Agatha glanced at Bishop Ivan, then nodded thoughtfully.
Bishop Ivan, on the other hand, noticed the weariness in the gatekeeper’s demeanor: “You don’t look rested – this level of exploratory action shouldn’t have tired you out like this, in bad shape? You’ve seemed preoccupied since you came in just now.”
Agatha opened her mouth and hesitated for a few seconds kind of seconds before speaking, “It is a little …… distracted.”
(End of chapter)