Chapter 393

Chapter 393: Inside and Outside the Mirror

Agatha suddenly stopped walking.

At the end of her field of view, something strange at the mouth of the alley broke off her wandering thoughts.

In that corner shrouded in gloom, one disgusting mass of black matter after another was surging up. They seeped out of the ground and the walls nearby like viscous grease oozing from pipes. Amid slimy, sickening sounds, the mudlike clumps almost instantly began to take on human shapes and turned hostile gazes toward Agatha.

“Truly persistent…”

Agatha let out a soft sigh, but her movements did not hesitate in the slightest. Before the sludge had time to fully congeal, she had already raised her Gatekeeper’s cane and leveled it at the nearest mass.

pale flame flared into being out of nowhere and instantly devoured that writhing lump of elements. The power of Cremation Fire turned it directly to ash. A second later, a gray whirlwind rose in the alley. Ashen Wind howled through the human-shaped replicas that were just starting to climb to their feet, carrying a mighty power of erosion and devouring that reduced them to dry, crumbling dust.

Yet more and more sludge seeped out of the nearby walls and floor. More and more human-shaped freaks appeared at the mouth of the alley, blocking Agatha’s way.

As Ashen Wind swept past, Agatha’s form condensed out of the gale. There was a bit more weariness on her face. When she sensed a strange new aura suddenly rising from within the sludge, her eyes grew even more grave.

She looked toward the source of the aura and saw a replica formed from elements writhing and mutating at high speed. In a few seconds, it had turned into a smiling young man with short blond hair, a white shirt, and a black vest.

“Miss Gatekeeper, your stamina is truly impressive,” the young man said politely, nodding slightly. “I wonder if you are still enjoying your exercise here?”

“If you think you can tire me to death with this war of attrition, you are being far too naive,” Agatha’s gaze was icy as she fixed her gaze on yet another avatar form of the young man, steadying her breath. “Death means nothing to me. I can still fight after I die. A Gatekeeper’s soul never grows weary, and the day will come when I find you.”

“Of course, of course. Truly killing one of Bartok’s Saints is not so simple,” the young man laughed, his smile bright. “I never planned to kill you. All I need is to keep you here as long as possible. These hollow shells for you to slaughter are just my hospitality, a little entertainment for you when you’re bored.”

“Then you Heretics have a very peculiar way of entertaining your guests,” Agatha knew he was using every trick he could to delay her, but at least for the moment she did not mind saying a few more words while her strength returned. “I’m suddenly a little curious. Is your true body just as relaxed right now? I can feel that I’m gradually closing in on your hiding place. Every monster you control that I destroy makes your position clearer to me. How many places do you have left to hide?”

The blond young man’s smile finally froze for a moment, but only for a moment. Then he beamed again. “Ah, it seems I overlooked something. Bartok’s watchdogs have always had a decent ‘sense of smell’. In that case, why don’t we make a bet?”

He raised a hand as if making an inviting gesture.

“Let’s bet on whether you find my true body first, or Frostholm becomes the first mortal nation to greet the descent of the Holy Lord. The stakes are your soul and the lives of everyone in Frostholm…”

A blast of pale flame erupted with a roar, sweeping over the spot where the young man stood before he could finish speaking. A second later, Agatha had already turned into a howling Ashen Wind. The gale crashed toward the intersection. The gathered replica freaks surged up at once, trying to stop the Ashen Wind, but under the power of the Death Wind they shattered and fell apart. In the blink of an eye, the Ashen Wind slammed into the blond young man wreathed in pale flame and hurled him straight into a low wall on the far side of the street.

With a thunderous crash, the flames were blown apart by the gale, and Agatha’s figure emerged from the Ashen Wind. She held her Gatekeeper’s cane out straight in her right hand. Its tip had pierced the blond young man’s chest and nailed him firmly to the wall.

“Sorry. I don’t gamble,” Agatha fixed her gaze on his eyes, her expression utterly calm. “The clergy forbid gambling.”

“How amusing…” The cultist pinned to the wall by the Gatekeeper’s cane pulled at the corner of his mouth as foul black sludge spilled from his nose and lips. This shell of a body was dying quickly, yet he seemed to feel no fear or pain. “I hope your composure and confidence last a while longer…”

Life flowed out of the shell. The blond young man’s body quickly crumbled and melted into sticky black matter that dripped down and dried almost at once when it hit the ground. The remaining replica freaks he controlled also ceased moving, reverting to lifeless heaps of elements.

Agatha pulled her Gatekeeper’s cane out of the wall and flicked the foul residue from its tip with a touch of disgust. Then she calmly lifted her head and looked toward a certain direction in the Upper City.

She had destroyed yet another avatar form. As its life drained away, the link between the Gatekeeper and the Heretic hiding in the dark strengthened further.

It felt… closer.

“Composure and confidence… I have always believed in myself,”

Agatha muttered to herself. Then she took a few deep breaths, used her Gatekeeper’s cane to steady her body, and slowly walked in the direction her senses pointed. In a puddle behind her, a wisp of ghostly green flame rose from the reflection on the water’s surface, quietly lighting the dim alley.

In the puddles in the alley, in the windows of nearby buildings, on the metal poles of distant street lamps… on every smooth surface, tiny reflections of the flame could be seen.

…

Candles and lamps burned bright inside the Silent Grand Cathedral. The sound of a Gatekeeper’s cane and heels tapping against the floor broke the stillness of the Meditation Hall. A tall figure dressed in black passed through the dark-toned main doors and came to the dais where a black “spirit coffin” rested.

From within the spirit coffin came Bishop Ivan’s hoarse, aged voice. “Agatha, you’re back. How is the situation in the Second Waterway?”

“The first team only just reached the western entrance. It will take them a whole day just to clear the connecting shaft and send equipment down,” Agatha shook her head and spoke with a hint of helplessness. “You have to be a little patient, Bishop Ivan.”

“Oh…” The voice in the coffin fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Then what is the state of the western entrance?”

“…”

After a moment, she sighed. “It’s an underground facility that has been abandoned for half a century. What else could it be like? I assembled twelve heavy machine guns and three Steam Walkers. Every bullet carries Holy Oil and a flame divine blessing. I also brought one hundred and fifty fully armed Silent Monks. Only then did we drive back the darkness down there. The good news is that we’ve managed to establish a first foothold at the crossroads beneath the shaft and restore power and lighting to several connecting tunnels. The next stage of exploration might go more smoothly than expected – if we don’t run into more cave-ins and gas leaks.”

“You found no trace of the Heretics?”

“Not yet,” Agatha shook her head. “But the deeper sections are still unclear. The Second Waterway is enormous, and the collapsed zones cut one another off. Right now we’ve only secured the first passage in one of those sections. There is one thing, though, that’s rather troubling…”

A rustle of cloth came from the coffin. Then the dark lid was pushed open from within, and Bishop Ivan, looking much like a mummy, sat up inside.

“Troubling?” The “mummy’s” voice was low. “What happened?”

“At the ends of some of the old pipes, we found signs that someone had repaired and modified them. There were also some suspicious branch conduits stretching off into the dark,” Agatha said with a frown. “We checked the original blueprints in the archive and confirmed that those pipes weren’t in the designs from back then.”

Bishop Ivan was silent for a while, then asked in return, “…What do you think?”

“It looks as if someone continued to maintain the Second Waterway after it was abandoned and made certain alterations,” Agatha said, voicing her thoughts. “The maintenance wasn’t continuous, so many areas were still left to decay after a few years. But deeper in the sewers, there may be things that are still operating.”

Bishop Ivan listened quietly. After a long time, he finally spoke slowly. “The Second Waterway… it’s a vast underground kingdom, large enough to hold countless secrets. Even if you poured every Guardian unit you have into it, you still wouldn’t fill all of its corridors and junctions. So don’t focus too much on those minor traces of modification. Concentrate on hunting the Heretics. Leave everything else for the people at City Hall to worry about.”

Agatha glanced at Bishop Ivan, then nodded thoughtfully.

Bishop Ivan, however, noticed the weariness in the Gatekeeper’s expression. “You look like you haven’t rested. An exploration of this level shouldn’t have left you so exhausted. Are you unwell? Ever since you came in, you’ve seemed preoccupied.”

Agatha parted her lips, hesitated for a few seconds, then spoke. “A little… unsettled.”