Chapter 399 – Intersecting Waterways

Chapter 399 – Waterway Crossing
Deep in the secret passageway connecting the second waterway, Nemo Wilkins, holding a lamp in his hand, said in a somewhat gloating tone while leading the way, “Our people have gotten wind of it, evacuated and ‘swept’ clean the traces down here, and the Church’s people are drilling around underneath the central city and XC district – now those spreading darkness should give them a headache. of the city are burrowing around underground – it’s time for those spreading darknesses to give them a headache now.”

“I was worried you’d take the opportunity to do some damage,” Duncan said casually, “After all, you’re the main event in the Second Waterway.”

“We don’t have to do that,” Nemo shook his head instead, “We serve Captain Tirion, and Captain Tirion never wished to destroy the city-state – from the point of view of protecting it, we have no conflict with the Church, or even with City Hall There’s little conflict. Now that the Church’s people are trying to find a way to purge the city of its cultists, we are not so intent on doing something to help those cultists.”

Duncan nodded, then asked with some curiosity, “The old ghost didn’t show up today?”

“The old ghost he ……” Nemo’s words were a little hesitant, then sighed softly, “The old ghost’s mental state has become more and more unstable recently, he is too old, and the church’s action of organizing manpower to search for the second waterway has also somewhat stimulated his nerves, which made him recall the battle in the sewers back then – in order to avoid a situation, I can only let him rest over in the tavern cellar.”

The last of the warriors who had served the Queen could not walk away from that nightmare decades ago after all – Duncan could only sigh at that, and traveled deeper into the Second Waterway with Alice in silence.

They passed through secret passages, and through multiple hidden doors and intersections that seemed to be watched by shadowy sentries, before finally entering the Second Waterway through a path that was nothing like the last one.

Apparently, in response to the search operations of the Church and the authorities, the Sea Mist Fleet informants lurking in the city-state had activated a camouflage and warning system that had been prepared long ago.

Eventually, Duncan and Alice, led by Nemo, returned to that corridor – the place where the raven’s accident had once occurred.

“I’ll be heading back,” Nemo said to Duncan, “there’s been a lot of tension in the city lately, and more and more stakeouts, so I’ll have to keep an eye on things up there, and you keep an eye on the church here ……”

He wanted to remind Duncan to pay attention to safety, be careful to meet the church’s search team here, but the result of halfway through the words suddenly felt that there is something wrong, in the throat held half a day, came up with a sentence: “You go easy on them, they are actually not bad people ……”

Duncan couldn’t help but be happy: “You don’t have to worry, I know the proportion – hurry back, you have left the tavern for too long.”

“Good.”

Nemo quickly left, and the empty and cold underground waterway was quiet for a while.

Duncan lifted his head and looked ahead at the empty corridor, but his mind recalled when he had arrived here earlier.

The young man called “Raven” was lying in the sewer not far ahead, he died on the dry ground, but the cause of death was drowning in the sea, and in his pocket, there was also a copy of the “Holy Scripture” record from some place.

The corridor has now been cleaned up, presumably by Nemo and the old man.

Duncan turned his head and saw Alice following him honestly, a serious expression in her veiled eyes – but he knew that the doll was really just letting her head go, not thinking.

Duncan of course knew that he couldn’t expect to discuss or reason with this doll, he had only brought Alice here because she could see the “threads” – even the occasional “threads” that leaked through from the proximity of the mirror world, could not escape her! Even the “threads” that occasionally leaked from the proximity of the mirror world could not escape her eyes.

“If you see the ‘lines’ again, tell me immediately.” Duncan said seriously.

“Uh-huh!” Alice immediately nodded her head.

Duncan slowly walked forward.

In the back of his mind, he was still thinking about the Raven.

At that time, he and Maurice and other people guessed that the “crow” was mistakenly into a place that met with misfortune, but finally searched the entire corridor could not find clues, the investigation came to an impasse, but now it seems that …… the crow mistakenly into the place seems to have the answer.

Most likely, is the mirror image of frost in this corridor and the reality of frost has a brief encounter, it may be a crack, may also be a momentary reflection of the emergence of a certain pool of water – from the side of the crows passing by the unfortunate fall into it.

Regardless of exactly how he crossed that line at that moment, one thing was clear:
This corridor should be a weak point in the connection between mirror image and reality.

……

Underground, cold and damp, the air was filled with the smell of decay and mold, giving people the feeling as if the entire city-state was a corpse that was gradually rotting away – and they were walking in the inner organs of this rotting corpse.

The sound of footsteps sounded slightly heavy in the sewer corridor filled with the strange odor, and Agatha slowly walked forward, confirming the direction of her advancement through her temporary divination and psychic perception while cautiously paying attention to the wind and grass around her.

Her black dress was already badly torn, and her lined soft armor and the wrapped, ritualistic bandages around her body had more blood stains, the damage that had been inflicted on her torso had already exceeded the threshold of self-repair, and she could only stop the bleeding with her Divine Arts first, but she had no time to think about flesh and blood repairs anymore.

However, the good news is that Agatha is more and more sure that she is moving in the right direction – after destroying more and more fake freaks, and after many encounters with this malicious replica city-state, she finally “smells” the heretics more and more clearly! The smell. She followed the scent through the streets of the Lower City, through empty and twisted subway passages, through collapsed and torn sewers, and, finally, into a world that had been abandoned for years, deep beneath the city-state.

It was vast beyond the records she had seen in the archives, beyond what she had imagined after seeing those files.

Agatha raised her head and looked at the dimly lit wide corridor in front of her, ancient gas lamps were embedded in the walls on both sides of the corridor, the flames of the insufficiently supplied lamps flickered, the light wavered and pulsed in the glass shades, and crisscrossing pipes and support structures could be seen on the curved corridor vaults, and under the swaying gas lamps, everything cast shaky and distorted shadows, as if there were countless invisible things wriggling in the darkness.

On both sides of the floor of the corridor, there were trenches flowing with sewage, and disgusting black water flowed down from the openings in the grills on the walls and merged into those trenches, making a crashing sound of running water.

Agatha knew what this place was.

This was the “second waterway” of the Frost Underground – a place she had planned to explore with her team.

The only difference from her plan was that she had planned to lead a group to explore the underground of a city-state in the real world, but now she was trapped in a replica of Frost.

Agatha closed her eyes slightly, carefully sensing the flow of scents in the air as she blocked out the foul, malodorous smells and relied on her psychic intuition to search for the heretics’ bearings.

She could feel that the longer she stayed here, the more she dealt with those freaks, and the more the “connection” between herself and this fake city was gradually being strengthened.

In front.

The Gatekeeper opened her eyes, ignored the vague pain coming from the wounds on her body, and chose a fork in the road in front of her, continuing to walk deeper into the corridor.

She suddenly remembered something.

Not long ago, she had visited the being who had descended upon the Frost, suspected to be an ancient god or an avatar of an ancient god, and at that time, the other party had hinted to her that she should look for clues in the “underground”.

Now, she was being guided by the scent to the lair where the heretics were hiding.

The heretics were really hiding underground in the city-state, in the abandoned second waterway – only this “underground hideout” was not in the real-world Frost City, but in a replica of a foreign land.

Agatha tugged at the corner of her mouth.

The road twists and turns, but it comes back to the original point.

She had misinterpreted that Adventist’s hints then, mistakenly believing that the enemy was hiding in the second waterway of the real world, and now she herself had entered this replica city-state by mistake and found clues in this replica of the second waterway.

Wandering in a fork in the road and eventually heading in the right direction – was this also a kind of luck?
Agatha surveyed her surroundings.

She hadn’t checked the second waterway in the real world in depth, but she knew some general information, and she knew that that ancient sewer system had long been completely abandoned and blocked off, and all the pipes, shafts and drains leading to the second waterway had been shut down, so theoretically, it should be a dry or relatively dry place.

Instead, sewage was flowing everywhere in the sewer corridor in front of her, and the sound of draining could be heard from time to time in the pipes around her.

In this replicated Frost City State, the second water line presented itself as being used all the time – is this the difference between a fake and a genuine one?

Agatha pondered, then suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Sticky and disgusting writhing sounds were coming from the surroundings, and black mud was seeping outwards from the mouths of those sewage pipes and the surfaces of the walls covered with black pollutants.

Those insidious freaks were at it again.

The body was tired, the wounds were aching, the ceremonial bandages had torn, the blessing of the God of Death was waning with it, and the weakness caused by the loss of blood felt too great to ignore.

But Agatha just calmly raised her head and gazed at the monstrous monsters that were converging before her eyes.

“Come, to the death.”

(End of chapter)