Chapter 398

Chapter 398: Crossing Waterways

Deep in the secret passage that led to the Second Waterway, Nemo held a consecrated lantern in one hand. He walked ahead to lead the way and said in a slightly gloating tone: “Our people already got the news. They pulled out and ‘cleaned’ all the traces down here. The Church’s people are drilling around under the central district and the western district—those spreading shadows should be their headache now.”

“I was worried you would take the chance to cause some trouble,” Duncan said casually. “After all, on the Second Waterway, this is your home turf.”

“We have no reason to do that.” Nemo shook his head. “We serve Captain Tyrian, and Captain Tyrian never wants this city-state destroyed. From the point of view of protecting the city, we don’t really clash with the Church, or even City Hall. Right now the Church’s people are trying to clear out the cultists in the city. We’re not so hot-headed we would do something that helps those cultists.”

Duncan nodded, then asked with some curiosity: “Old Ghost didn’t show up today?”

“Old Ghost…” Nemo hesitated, then let out a light sigh. “Old Ghost’s mental state has been more and more unstable. He’s too old. The Church’s search of the Second Waterway also rattled his nerves. It made him recall the fighting in the sewers back then. To avoid an accident, I had to leave him resting in the tavern cellar.”

The last Warrior who had once served the Queen still could not walk out of that nightmare from decades ago. Duncan could only sigh at that, then he and Alice went on in silence toward the depths of the Second Waterway.

They passed through the secret passage, went through several hidden doors and intersections that seemed to be watched by hidden sentries, and in the end entered the Second Waterway again along a route completely different from last time.

It was clear that, to deal with the search operations of the Church and the authority, the Sea Mist Fleet Informants hidden in the city-state had activated a long-prepared system of disguises and early warnings.

In the end, Duncan and Alice, led by Nemo, returned to that corridor again—the place where Crow had met with his accident.

“I’ll head back now,” Nemo said to Duncan. “Things are tense in the city. There are more and more people watching us. I have to keep an eye on what’s happening above. You should be careful of the Church down here…”

He had wanted to remind Duncan to be careful in case he ran into a Church search team here. But halfway through, he suddenly felt something was off. He swallowed his words for a long moment, then forced out: “Maybe go easy on them. They’re actually not bad people…”

Duncan could not help but laugh. “You don’t have to worry. I know my limits. Go on back. You’ve already been away from the tavern too long.”

“Okay.”

Nemo left quickly, and the wide, chilly underground waterway fell quiet for a moment.

Duncan raised his head and looked at the empty corridor ahead. In his mind, he recalled what it had been like when he came here last time.

The young man called Crow had fallen by the sewage channel not far ahead. He had died on the dry ground, but his cause of death was drowning in seawater. In his pocket, someone had stuffed a record of “Sacred Script” copied from some unknown place.

Now the corridor had already been cleaned. It had probably been Nemo and Old Ghost who did it.

Duncan turned his head and saw Alice following honestly at his side. The eyes that showed from under her veil looked serious—but he knew this Doll was actually spacing out and not thinking about anything at all.

Of course Duncan knew he couldn’t rely on this Doll to discuss or reason through anything. He had brought Alice only because she could see those “threads”—even the threads that sometimes leaked out when the mirror world world drew close could not escape her eyes.

“If you see the threads again, tell me at once,” Duncan said seriously.

“Mm-hmm!” Alice nodded right away.

Duncan walked forward slowly.

In his mind, he was still thinking about Crow.

At the time, he and Morris and the others had guessed that Crow had stumbled into some place by mistake and that was why disaster fell on him. But in the end, they had searched the whole corridor and found no clues. The investigation had hit a dead end. Now, though… it seemed the place Crow had stumbled into finally had an answer.

Most likely, mirror world Frostholm had briefly overlapped with Mortal Realm Frostholm in this corridor. It might have been a crack, or a fleeting reflection on some pool of water. Crow had just been passing by and fell into it by bad luck.

No matter how he had crossed that boundary back then, one thing was clear:

This corridor should be a weak point that connected the mirror world and the Mortal Realm.

…

Underground, it was cold and damp. The air was full of the moldy smell of rot. It felt as if the whole city-state was a corpse that was slowly rotting away—and she was walking inside the organs of this rotten corpse.

Footsteps echoed in the foul-smelling corridor of the sewers. They sounded a bit heavy. Agatha walked forward slowly. At the same time, she used temporary Divination and Spiritual Insight to feel out and confirm the direction, while carefully watching for any change in the air around her.

Her black clothes were badly torn. The soft armor under them and the ritual bandages wrapped around her body were stained with more blood. The damage to her body had passed the point where it could repair itself. She could only use divine magic to stop the bleeding for now. She had no time to think about healing flesh and bone.

The good news was that Agatha felt more and more sure she was moving in the right direction. After destroying more and more replica freaks, after clashing several times with this hostile replica city, she could finally “smell” the Heretics’ presence more and more clearly.

Following this scent, she walked through the streets and alleys of the Lower City, passed through empty, twisted subway tunnels, then crawled into the collapsed sewers. In the end, she discovered this world deep beneath the city-state that had been abandoned for who knew how many years.

Its vastness went beyond what she had seen in the records in the archives, and beyond what she had imagined from those files.

Agatha raised her head and looked at the wide corridor ahead, lit only by dim light. Old gas lamps were set into the walls on both sides. Their flames flickered, starved of gas. The light wavered and jumped inside the glass covers. On the arched ceiling of the corridor, she could see crisscrossing pipes and support beams. Under the shaking light of the gas lamps, everything cast twisting, shifting shadows, as if countless unseen things were crawling in the gloom.

On both sides of the floor ran channels full of filthy water. Sickening black water poured down from grates in the walls and merged into the channels, making a constant rushing sound.

Agatha knew what this place was.

This was the “Second Waterway” under Frostholm—the place she had originally planned to explore with a team.

The only difference from her plan was that she had planned to explore the underground of the city in the Mortal Realm world. Now she was trapped inside a copied Frostholm.

Agatha closed her eyes a little and carefully felt how the air moved. She shut out the filthy stench and relied on her intuition as a Spiritual Insight to search for the Heretics’ location.

She could feel that the longer she stayed here, and the more she dealt with these freaks, the stronger the “link” between her and this replica city became.

Up ahead.

The Gatekeeper opened her eyes. She ignored the faint pain from the wounds all over her body, chose one of the branches in front of her, and went deeper down the corridor.

She suddenly remembered something.

Not long ago, she had visited the being who had descended in Frostholm, the one who might have been an Elder God, or the avatar form of an Elder God. Back then, that being had hinted to her that she should go “underground” to look for clues.

Now, guided by the traces in the air, she was going closer and closer to the Heretics’ lair.

The Heretics really were hiding under the city, hidden in this abandoned Second Waterway—but this “underground hideout” was not under the Frostholm of the Mortal Realm. It was in this strange realm, inside a city copied from the original.

Agatha tugged at the corner of her mouth.

The road twisted, but in the end it brought her back to the starting point.

She had misunderstood the hint of the Descended One and had thought the enemy was hiding in the Second Waterway of the Mortal Realm world. Now, by a strange turn of fate, she had entered this replica city and found clues in this replica Second Waterway instead.

To wander at all the forks and finally walk onto the right path—was that also a kind of luck?

Agatha studied her surroundings.

She had never explored the Second Waterway in the Mortal Realm world in depth, but she did know a few basic facts. She knew that old sewer system had long been abandoned and sealed. All pipes, shafts, and drains that led to the Second Waterway had been closed. In theory, it should be a dry or mostly dry place.

But in the sewer corridor in front of her, she could see flowing sewage everywhere. She could also hear drainage sounds from the pipes around her from time to time.

In this copied Frostholm, the Second Waterway looked as if it was still in regular use. Was this also one of the differences between a replica and the real thing?

Agatha thought about this, then suddenly stopped walking.

Sticky, disgusting slithering sounds came from around her. black sludge was seeping out from the openings of the waste pipes and from the walls covered with black corruption.

Those relentless freaks had come again.

Her body was very tired. Her wounds were aching. The ritual bandages were already torn. The God of Death’s divine blessing was slowly fading. The weakness from blood loss had reached a level she could no longer ignore.

But Agatha only raised her head calmly. Her gaze fell on the twisted monsters gathering in front of her.

“Come,” she said. “Come die.”