The second ghoul skidded to a halt before the light wall.
It crouched at the edge of the crack, its greyish-white eyes staring intently at the light as a low hiss escaped its throat.
It did not dare to cross.
The brightness of the light wall was visibly decaying.
But Agnes did not exert any extra effort to maintain it.
She withdrew her hand and turned to continue walking, her face a shade paler than before.
"Let's go," her voice carried a hint of urgency.
The two other nuns followed behind her. As one of them passed the crack, the light orb on her shoulder flew toward it.
A thin film of holy light covered the opening of the crack, acting as a sealed door.
It would not hold for long.
The team continued their ascent.
But the sounds from behind did not disappear.
At least four ghouls were approaching at full speed along the passage.
One of them was massive.
Its shoulders nearly brushed against both walls of the passage as it ran.
Keratinous armor covered most of its torso.
Its mouth was split to the limit, three rows of teeth gnashing continuously during the pursuit, while mucus splattered against the passage walls.
This was a massive greater ghoul.
"Grenade!" Bo Er shouted at Lu Yuan.
"No!" Lu Yuan flatly refused. "The passage is too narrow. The shockwave will knock us off our feet."
He pulled two copper-cased incendiary rounds from his bandolier and pressed them into the cylinder.
He turned.
Raised his gun.
And aimed at the largest one.
The first shot hit its knee joint.
The copper shell shattered, and the alchemical fire powder ignited.
Blue-white flames erupted over the wound, burning through the keratin layer at the knee and instantly causing the left forelimb to give way.
Its speed plummeted.
It continued to charge on three legs.
Its mouth was agape, three rows of teeth reflecting the wet light within the flames.
The second shot.
Lu Yuan aimed for the mouth.
The copper shell round entered through the open maw and exploded within the cranial cavity.
Blue-white flames sprayed out from the eye sockets and ear canals.
The entire head exploded from the inside.
The body surged forward two more steps before crashing to the ground, clogging most of the passage.
The ghouls behind were largely blocked by the corpse.
"Seal it," Agnes said simply.
The two nuns behind her raised their hands simultaneously.
Two beams of holy light pushed out across the top of the greater ghoul's corpse, forming an X-shaped light barrier in the passage.
The corpse blocked the lower half, while the light barrier sealed the upper half.
The ghouls behind slammed into the light barrier, their skin sizzling as they shrieked and retreated half a step.
The light barrier began to dim after three seconds.
But three seconds was enough for the team to pull away by a dozen meters.
The team charged through the final uphill section.
The scavenger fungus was very thin here, and the hissing sound beneath their boots had nearly vanished.
Ahead, a sliver of white light spilled down from above.
The exit.
Sunlight.
Lu Yuan was nearly the last one to grab the rope and climb out of the hole.
Bo Er was ahead of him, one hand clutching the rope and the other still gripping his copper sword.
The blade was covered in black blood.
The moment he crested the surface, Lu Yuan glanced down.
About five or six meters below the opening, a dozen ghouls were clinging to the walls of the hole.
They did not continue to climb upward.
The sunlight blocked them.
Their greyish-white eyes, filled with greed, stared fixedly at the opening.
Lu Yuan turned around.
Sunlight hit his face, and he looked down at his boots.
The soles were pitted and corroded, and the heel of his left shoe had softened.
Several small acid-etched holes had appeared on the hem of Bo Er's leather armor. The copper scabbard was splashed with black blood.
The hem of Bolen's robes was in tatters.
The nuns' white robes, however, remained pristine.
"Is everyone unhurt?" Lu Yuan looked around.
No one reported an injury.
But everyone's expression was grim.
It wasn't because of the ghouls.
It was because of what they had seen.
That abyss.
Those copper pillars.
And their relationship to the city beneath their feet.
Bolen leaned against the edge of the hole, propped up by his cane, his chest heaving violently.
But his eyes were still bright.
"I want to go back," Bolen's eyes shone, though his voice trembled. "I must go back. Those inscriptions... I only saw them for less than two minutes... It's nowhere near enough..."
"There will be a chance in the future," Lu Yuan said without looking at him.
'A guy who runs the fastest...'
Bolen glanced at him, his lips twitching, but he ultimately did not argue.
Lu Yuan ignored him.
There wasn't much time left for today.
And those eyes staring at him from below the hole would reappear once darkness fell.
Only this time, they knew someone had been there.
They knew someone had seen their nest.
Lu Yuan looked around the defensive position.
The people had changed.
The two Nightwatchers who had stayed on the surface to keep watch were gone.
They had been replaced by three unfamiliar faces, and the unit numbers on their shoulders did not belong to the Ninth Team.
One of them saw them and stepped forward.
"Grand Captain Glock wants you to return to the Alchemy Workshop first."
"How long ago was the rotation?" Lu Yuan brushed the fungal residue off his gloves.
"Over an hour." The Nightwatcher glanced at the people climbing out of the hole behind Lu Yuan, his gaze lingering for a moment on the nuns.
"There was a situation at the position. Grand Captain Glock is handling it at the Alchemy Workshop."
Lu Yuan did not press for details.
He led the team toward the Alchemy Workshop.
The sunlight was pleasant.
But the atmosphere was wrong the moment they reached the entrance of the Alchemy Workshop.
A large number of Nightwatchers were gathered there, which was rare, and their expressions were all grim.
Furthermore, a handcart was parked by the door.
A Nightwatcher was lying on it.
He wasn't from the Ninth Team.
He was from the Eleventh Team on the western side of the position. Lu Yuan had seen him a few times.
A taciturn gunner with an old scar on his left cheek.
At this moment, his eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated, and his lips were moving incessantly.
He made no sound.
But his mouth was repeating the same movement.
As if he were saying something.
Lu Yuan stepped closer.
Two Nightwatchers stood by the cart. One was trying to hold him down as his body trembled slightly.
【Target detected: Bronze City Nightwatcher (Sanity collapse in progress)】
"How long has he been like this?" Lu Yuan asked, looking at the man.
"It started at noon," the Nightwatcher by the cart said in a low voice.
"First he said there were sounds coming from the hole, then he became like this. His mouth keeps moving, but he won't answer anything we ask."
"A few of us listened, but there was nothing. He might be contaminated."
Lu Yuan glanced at his eyes.
The pupils reacted to light, but his gaze was not focused, as if he were looking at something only he could see.
A precursor to Sanity collapse.
It hadn't reached the worst stage yet, but if it wasn't handled, he wouldn't last through the night.
"Give him a Sanity potion. Who else?"
The Nightwatcher by the cart hesitated, then tilted his chin toward the interior of the Alchemy Workshop.
Lu Yuan walked inside.
In a corner on the first floor, another Nightwatcher sat on the ground with his back against the wall.
He was clutching a short-shotgun.
His knuckles were white from the grip.
But the barrel was shaking.
The movement was slight, almost invisible if one didn't look closely.
But for a gunner who needed to shoot accurately within thirty meters, this tremor was fatal.
Glock was standing in front of him, saying something.
Seeing Lu Yuan enter, Glock paused.
"You're back?"
"We're back."
Glock glanced at the people who followed Lu Yuan inside: Bo Er, the three Nightwatchers, Bolen, Kail, and the three nuns.
The group was covered in dust and grime, and even the soles of their boots were ruined.
They were covered in scavenger fungus residue and black bloodstains.
But all ten people were present.
"Any injuries?"
"None."
Glock nodded, not asking about the situation below for the moment.
He dealt with the matter at hand first.
"You all should get checked as well," Glock said to Lu Yuan, his tone flat.
"The personnel at the position have been on duty for three consecutive nights. According to regulations, a Sanity status assessment must be performed. You've arrived just in time, so do it together."
Lu Yuan had no objection.
"Alright."
Glock turned to the Nightwatcher with the shaking hands in the corner.
"Put the gun down. Go with the one outside to the rear."
The Nightwatcher's mouth opened slightly.
"Grand Captain, I can still..."
"Put the gun down."
Glock repeated himself, his voice rising slightly, brookng no argument.
The Nightwatcher was silent for two seconds before placing the short-shotgun on the floor.
When his fingers released the stock, they shook even more violently.
The assessment process was simple.
The second floor of the Alchemy Workshop had been temporarily requisitioned as an assessment point.
A bespectacled Nightwatcher clerk was in charge of the operation. A testing device sat on the table—a copper disc base with a spherical, pale blue mineral embedded in the center, its surface carved with intricate inscriptions.
"Hand on it, don't move."
Lu Yuan pressed his right palm against the mineral.
The inscriptions on the surface lit up, and several ripples of light spread outward from the center.
The light ripples condensed into a thin layer of color on the mineral's surface.
Pale green.
The clerk looked down at a color spectrum comparison card, then wrote a word in a logbook.
"Excellent."
He looked up at Lu Yuan, then back at the color of the mineral, as if wanting to confirm he hadn't misread it.
"Incredible Sanity. You are in good condition and can continue your duty."
Lu Yuan looked at the instrument on the table with interest.
At the edge of his vision, the greyish-white text had already popped up.
【Sanity: 89/120】
'It seems it can only provide a rough detection.'
He withdrew his hand.
When he walked out, Bo Er was leaning against the hallway wall waiting.
"What color?"
"Slightly yellow," Bo Er rubbed his face. "They said it's a bit low, but hasn't reached the withdrawal threshold."
After three nights of fierce combat plus a trip to the nest, slightly yellow.
Bo Er's result was actually within the normal range.
Of the two Nightwatchers being sent away from the position, one was deep orange and the other had turned straight red.
Red meant the Sanity threshold had been reached.
If they weren't withdrawn now, it would no longer be a matter of fatigue.
"Stay with the team," Lu Yuan said.
"Of course," Bo Er's tone was no different than usual.
The three Nightwatchers also finished their checks one by one. Their colors were between yellow-green and slightly yellow, all above the safety line.
Glock leaned against the doorframe, flipping through the logbook handed over by the clerk.
His gaze paused on Lu Yuan's entry.
Pale green.
Three days of fierce battle and a trip to a ghoul nest, yet his Sanity status was healthier than the clerks in the rear.
Glock closed the logbook without saying anything.
But the way he looked at Lu Yuan now had an extra, unidentifiable layer to it.
The nuns did not participate in the testing.
The Church had its own assessment system.
Agnes led the two nuns directly out of the Alchemy Workshop, only giving Glock a nod before leaving as a way of signing off.
Bolen was the last to come out.
Lu Yuan did not see the old man's test results, but he could judge from the state he was in as he walked out.
His eyes were brighter than before he went in, he was muttering to himself, and his fingers were constantly tracing something in the air, as if sketching a line of inscriptions that only he could see.
Glock stood at the first-floor entrance, watching Bolen come down the stairs.
He took a few extra looks.
"Is the old man alright?" he asked Lu Yuan, tilting his head.
"Inscriptionists are all like this," Lu Yuan's tone was casual. "They get excited when they see good stuff."
Glock's gaze lingered on Bolen for another second before moving away.
Kail supported Bolen by the arm as they walked out, whispering a "thank you" as he passed Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan did not respond.
Glock called Lu Yuan over to the map table on the first floor.
"Talk. What's the situation down there?"
Lu Yuan started from the beginning.
His pace was not fast, and his phrasing was concise.
A bottom space twelve meters deep.
Extremely high density of scavenger fungus.
Five branching passages.
A large passage extending downward with an increasing incline.
"At the deepest point is a vertical void," Lu Yuan used his finger to indicate on the map.
"The depth is unknown. Holy light cannot reach the bottom. The walls of the void are covered in honeycomb-like caves, massive in number and layered from top to bottom. Each one is a passage leading to a deeper nest."
"What about the number of ghouls?"
"A portion was disturbed during our retreat," Lu Yuan paused for a moment.
"Judging by the speed and density with which they poured out of the various openings, the total number underground could be dozens of times what we've seen on the surface."
"Initial estimates suggest there are at least tens of thousands..."
Glock's expression did not change much.
It was as if he had already prepared himself mentally.
Or perhaps he was simply numb.
"Anything else?"
"We found a foundation-level copper conduction structure. The scale is massive. The conduction pathways on the surface are broken, and the root is much deeper."
Lu Yuan stopped there.
He did not mention the inscription artifact.
Nor did he mention that the copper pillars pointed toward the inner city.
Glock did not press further.
He was a tactical commander, not a scholar.
What he needed to know was "can we go down again" and "how dangerous is it down there."
"The conditions for a second dive do not exist in the short term," Lu Yuan gave his conclusion.
"The scale of the nest far exceeds expectations. Our numbers and firepower are insufficient, and our ability to go down this time was largely thanks to the nun."
"So all we can do for now is defend," Glock finished for him.
"Yes."
Glock was silent for a few seconds.
"I will submit the report."
Bo Er then supplemented the combat details.
The number, types, and attack methods of the ghouls encountered in the passage, as well as the ammunition consumption during the retreat.
His account was consistent with Lu Yuan's.
Bolen submitted a technical report on the inscriptions.
Lu Yuan glanced at it; it was full of professional jargon.
Things like "characteristics of the broken conduction pathway cross-sections," "differences in the standards between the foundation inscriptions and the city wall inscriptions," and "estimated age of corruption in the deep copper structures."
Even if Glock read it word for word, he likely wouldn't understand more than twenty percent of it.
But everything that needed to be said was said.
At least the testimony from the Nightwatchers' side was complete.
They couldn't control the nuns' side.
Agnes would certainly report to the Church, but the perspective she gained was different.
What she perceived was not "scale."
It was that "there is some kind of presence below."
From the same underground journey, each party had taken away different fragments.
As for what pattern those fragments would ultimately form.
That was not something Lu Yuan could control for now.
Rate on N.U.
