"Captivity."
There was no metaphor intended.
The flames of the sandworm oil continued to burn upon the copper surface, casting a pale, moon-white light that illuminated the passage ahead.
Three 'face-hounds' (a name coined on the spot) paced at the edge of the firelight, their degenerated eyes narrowed into slits, cowed by the glare and not daring to draw closer.
But the two greater ghouls did not move.
They stood in the shadows barely touched by the light, their grey-red bodies half-concealed within the darkness.
They did not charge immediately.
Instead, they watched the group with a playful, mocking air.
One of them even lowered its head, nostrils flaring as if sniffing the condition of the face-hounds.
The other, a larger specimen, had its forelimbs pressed against something in the corner of the passage.
Lu Yuan squinted, peering through the firelight.
A humanoid silhouette was curled up in the corner.
It was not a face-hound.
It was a human who had not yet fully mutated.
Its torso had begun to elongate, the spine bulging beneath the skin, but the limb joints had not yet fully inverted.
Its mouth was only split halfway.
The person was still twitching.
The greater ghoul's forelimb pressed against the body, a layer of grey-red mucus oozing from its palm and slowly smearing onto the person's spine.
It was feeding.
Or rather, catalyzing.
【Bronze City Status: +1, 5/50】
Lu Yuan stared at the greater ghoul's actions, his mind suddenly clear; they truly possessed intelligence.
The greater ghouls on the surface were nothing like this.
Those that surged up from the collapses, even if larger in size, operated on a single behavioral mode; their combat was almost entirely instinctive, lacking coordination and devoid of strategy.
If burned by copper powder, they would roar; if their legs were shattered by bullets, they would crawl with their forelimbs; if they struck a barricade, they would use their bodies to pave the way.
They had only pure instinct.
But these two before him were different.
They used the secretions from their palms to catalyze another species.
They kept face-hounds pacing at their sides to serve as sentries.
They were both greater ghouls.
The ones on the surface were like beasts.
The ones in the pipe network were like herdsmen.
Where was the difference?
Was it the environment of the pipe network? The influence of the pollution source deeper down? Or perhaps some evolution that occurred after long-term consumption of polluted humans?
Lu Yuan did not know.
But he wanted to know.
He wanted to know very much.
If he could figure out how this intelligence came to be, he could infer the nature of the pollution source, and even deduce what was happening in the "middle layer" underground.
Most importantly, his Forbidden Lore was constantly encouraging him to seek out and understand these things.
As long as he compared them to the greater ghouls on the surface, the answer would lie within.
‘Take them away. Alive.’
The moment that thought formed, Lu Yuan made his decision.
Kill the face-hounds.
Disable the limbs and jaws of the greater ghouls.
Drag them back.
Study them.
Lu Yuan did not speak.
He focused his intent into his chest.
The Timekeeper was there, dormant within his thoracic cavity.
He triggered it.
Click.
A faint, precise mechanical sound.
【Timekeeper · Acceleration (Active)】
【Sanity Consumption: -1... -1...】
The world changed.
The flames of the sandworm oil froze in mid-air, every flickering contour revealed in stark detail.
Splashes of water rising from the puddles hung suspended at ankle height.
Beside him, Bo Er was turning his head slightly, lips parted, a word not yet squeezed from his throat.
Lu Yuan reached out with his right hand, fingers latching onto the hilt of the copper sword at Bo Er's waist.
He drew it.
The sound of the copper blade leaving its sheath was stretched into a long, resonant hum.
Bo Er's body swayed slightly as the sword was pulled away.
Grasping the blade, Lu Yuan walked forward.
His pace was steady, his stride even.
But in this slowed-down world, the distance of every step he took far exceeded the limits of a normal human.
At the edge of the firelight, the three face-hounds were struggling out of control due to the intense glare, clawing aimlessly at the copper surface.
As Lu Yuan approached, the nearest one finally reacted.
Its pupils were contracting, very, very slowly.
The muscles in its limbs were tensing; the motion of turning had just begun, its front claws having left the ground by less than a centimeter.
Too slow.
The copper sword cut in from the left, finding the junction between the cervical spine and the skull, and sliced through at the angle.
Crack.
The face-hound's head tilted to one side, its body still maintaining the posture of attempting to turn, its claws suspended in the air, before it collapsed limply into the water.
The second one.
Its mouth was opening, a thread of saliva stretching between its teeth.
Lu Yuan flicked the copper sword with a backhand motion.
The edge cut into its lower jaw, tracing along the windpipe all the way to the nape of its neck.
The thread of saliva snapped.
The third one was pressed against the wall base.
Its hind legs were already straightened, a leaping motion about one-fifth complete.
Lu Yuan moved lightly, bringing the copper sword down in a straight strike, hacking into the cervical spine; the face-hound was smashed back against the wall.
With those dealt with, the targets were the greater ghouls.
The smaller one finally finished the motion of lifting its head.
It saw Lu Yuan.
Something flickered in its degenerated eyes.
It was alertness.
An instinctive judgment of threat that only a creature possessing intelligence could produce.
Its forelimbs were lifting, its mouth opening, its three layers of teeth beginning to separate.
But all these actions felt as if they were being performed underwater.
Slow.
Too slow.
Lu Yuan was already pressed against its side.
He changed his grip on the copper sword, holding the hilt with both hands, the tip pointing downward.
He drove the tip into the elbow joint of its right forelimb.
The keratinous layer shattered like pottery under the power of the acceleration, the copper edge passing through the junction of tendon and bone, then dragging horizontally.
The entire forelimb was severed from the elbow.
Only then did the first syllable of a roar squeeze out from the greater ghoul's throat.
Lu Yuan had already circled to the other side.
The left forelimb.
Same position, same angle.
The copper edge embedded itself, he twisted with force, and the bone snapped.
Deprived of the support of its two forelimbs, the greater ghoul tipped forward.
The hind limbs.
Left knee joint, one slash.
Right knee joint, one slash.
All four limbs were disabled.
The greater ghoul sprawled into the water, its mouth finally opening fully, its three layers of teeth snapping shut in Lu Yuan's direction.
He aimed the copper sword at its lower jaw, stabbed in, and churned.
The mandible shattered, the three layers of teeth and half its jaw falling into the water, black blood and unknown fluids splattering everywhere.
Then, the larger one.
Its reaction was slightly faster, its front paw already swiping down.
In the accelerated vision, that massive grey-red claw descended slowly.
Lu Yuan sidestepped, the claw brushing past his shoulder to smash against the copper floor, causing the water to explode outward.
Lu Yuan slipped inside the inner side of its forelimb.
Under the greater ghoul's armpit, the area where the keratinous layer was thinnest.
The copper sword stabbed in, pushing and dragging, immediately rendering both of the greater ghoul's forelimbs useless.
He did not hack the joints of the hind limbs; the edge of the copper sword was already curled.
Using the spine of the blade, the only part still straight, he smashed it heavily against the left hind knee.
Snap.
The joint dislocated.
Right hind limb, same treatment.
The greater ghoul slowly toppled over.
Yet its massive mouth opened, still biting toward Lu Yuan, unwilling to give up.
He stabbed the copper sword into its lower jaw and pulverized it.
Half the jaw fell away.
Black blood splattered.
He deactivated Timekeeper.
【Sanity Consumption: -12... 89/120】
The world returned to normal speed.
All sounds rushed back at once.
The splashing of water, the low grunts of the greater ghouls, and the faint echo of dripping water in the distant passages.
And the hurried breathing of the men behind him.
Bo Er stood where he was.
His hand was still resting at his waist, right where the scabbard had been.
But it was empty.
His brain took about two seconds to process what had just happened.
One second to confirm the sword at his waist was gone.
One second to clearly see the scene before him.
Including the one Lu Yuan had shot dead earlier, all four face-hounds lay on the ground with massive neck wounds, black blood spreading across the copper floor.
The two greater ghouls, their four limbs all broken and their mandibles shattered, lay sprawled in the water, their grey-red torsos still twitching.
And Lu Yuan stood in the middle, holding his copper sword.
It was bent into a grotesque shape.
Bo Er's mouth opened and closed.
The veteran missing half a pinky finger froze with his dagger halfway through the air.
The young Nightwatcher's pupils were dilated.
Bolen leaned on his cane, eyes narrowing.
There was silence for several seconds.
Lu Yuan lowered his head and glanced at his right hand, which still gripped the sword.
His hand was shaking.
Not from fear.
But from the exertion.
Within those few seconds, Lu Yuan had hacked through the horrors before him.
Timekeeper could accelerate reflexes and movement, but it could not conjure physical strength or muscle endurance out of thin air; pulling a trigger was one thing, but the counter-shock from hacking a dozen times into keratinous layers had left his hand powerless.
His palm burned with pain.
The skin at the crook of his thumb had split, beads of blood seeping out and mixing with the black blood on the hilt.
His finger joints were stiff and aching; he clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking.
‘My constitution is still too poor.’
Lu Yuan thought silently to himself.
The bottleneck of Timekeeper was not Sanity; it was the body.
No matter how fast you are, if you cannot cut through, you cannot cut through.
Today's targets had relatively thin keratinous layers; if he had encountered the massive ones that only revealed their claws, he might have been completely helpless.
‘Either change weapons, or improve my constitution...’
He handed the copper sword toward Bo Er.
"Your sword."
Bo Er instinctively took it, glancing down.
The edge was twisted into a mess, and the once-straight blade was warped and crooked.
He looked up, lips moving as if to say something.
Lu Yuan had already turned away.
"Rope."
He looked toward the veteran missing the pinky finger, simultaneously flexing his stiff right-hand fingers.
"Bind these two things and take them away."
"Take... take them away?" The young Nightwatcher's voice trembled.
"The live ones are useful."
Lu Yuan did not explain further.
He crouched down and took a look at the smaller greater ghoul.
The muscle tissue at the severed limbs was still writhing, and among the grey-red fibers, a type of grey-green thread-like substance was intertwined.
It was the same color as the substance pouring in from the copper pipes.
‘As I thought.’
After dissection, the answer was there.
The veteran pulled two rolls of hemp rope from his pack.
Bo Er and the veteran threaded the ropes through the stumps of the greater ghouls' severed limbs, wrapped them around their torsos, and tied tight knots.
The greater ghouls were still struggling, but without forelimbs or hind limbs, they could only twist their torsos, splashing up water.
Their mouths couldn't bite anyone either; their shattered mandibles could only emit confused hissing sounds.
"Can you move them?" Lu Yuan glanced at them.
Bo Er tried dragging one.
It was quite heavy, but it wouldn't be an issue.
"No problem."
Just then.
【Environmental Perception: Large amount of pollution source detected... rapidly approaching... suggest immediate evacuation...】
It was a "large amount."
The commotion just now had stirred up things deeper in the pipe network.
Lu Yuan's expression shifted.
"Retreat! Retreat the way we came! Now!"
Bo Er did not ask why.
"Retreat! Quickly!"
The six of them turned and ran.
The sandworm oil flames were still burning on the ground, briefly sealing off the rear.
But that fire wouldn't last for more than a few minutes.
Bo Er and the veteran each dragged a greater ghoul, their torsos sliding across the copper surface with a harsh grating sound, leaving two trails of black blood behind them.
The route that had taken at least half an hour to cover on the way here now had to be run in a few minutes.
Lu Yuan's right hand hung at his side, the jolting of his run sending sharp stabs of pain through the split skin at his thumb.
Behind them, in the distant darkness, the sounds were in pursuit.
More and more, closer and closer, converging from every direction of the pipe network.
The entire network had been disturbed.
They passed through the 'living wall' area.
Those embedded people were all activated by the massive commotion, acting as if they had gone mad.
All the grey-white arms on both walls stretched out, each one flailing wildly; a dense grinding sound erupted from the brick crevices as the bodies fixed within the walls struggled desperately to break free.
One hand caught the hem of the young Nightwatcher's jacket.
The young man lost his footing for a moment and was yanked violently toward the wall.
Lu Yuan reacted quickly, firing his revolver directly, the enchanted flame effect blowing the arm apart right at the wrist.
The severed hand remained clenched on the jacket hem, its knuckles cracking.
The young man tore off the severed hand and continued running, his heart still pounding.
"Don't stop—"
When the dragged greater ghouls passed through the living wall area, those grey-white arms grabbed at them as well.
Several fingers embedded themselves into the keratinous layer, but unfortunately, the hands didn't have much strength, and the force of the hemp rope combined with the weight of the greater ghouls simply snapped those fingers right out of the brick crevices.
Grey-white severed fingers scattered into the standing water.
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