Retreat

"Damn it." Hans gritted his teeth. "Pick up the pace! We must find it before the source spreads!"

The team's speed increased significantly.

This time, no one needed Lu Yuan to lead the way; they all knew which direction to take.

Wherever the corpse moss was thickest, that was the way.

They walked for another fifteen minutes.

A strange sound suddenly echoed from the darkness ahead.

"Guji... guji..."

It sounded like soft-bodied mollusks rubbing against each other.

Ed, who was walking at the front, suddenly came to a halt.

It was as if he had seen something extremely terrifying; his entire body froze in place.

Then, he frantically signaled "extreme danger, stop advancing" with his hands.

"What's the matter?"

Hans lowered his voice and gestured for Ron and Gray to protect Lu Yuan, while he crouched and crept to Ed's side.

With just one look, even this battle-hardened Nightwatchers captain couldn't help but gasp.

In a massive catchment basin ahead, a mountain of corpses was piled up.

No, they couldn't exactly be called corpses.

They were the dozens of missing workers from the water plant, and Hans even recognized a familiar face among them.

They weren't dead, but they could no longer be considered human.

They had been stripped naked and were encased in a thick, semi-transparent film.

Their skin had taken on a bizarre translucency, and the liquid flowing through their veins was no longer bright red blood, but a thick, black-green slime.

They were currently piled and entangled together like animals, blocking the entire drainage outlet.

In the silt beneath them, countless fist-sized, semi-transparent eggs were arranged in a dense cluster.

Whenever those eggs wriggled, these "people" would let out a painful, muffled groan, as if their life force was being drained away bit by bit by the eggs.

This was nothing less than a living hatchery!

These people had all been turned into "nurseries" to provide body heat and nutrients.

"Those bastards..."

A flash of murderous intent crossed Hans's eyes, and the veins on the back of his hand gripping the sword bulged.

At that moment, perhaps the light from the flashlights stimulated those things, or perhaps the scent of living beings disturbed them.

"Roar..."

One of the "people" at the top of the corpse pile suddenly lifted his head.

His facial features had already partially melted, and his mouth was split all the way to his ears as he let out a non-human roar.

Immediately after, the entire mountain of bodies began to tremble violently.

The water surface exploded with a crash.

Several dark shadows shot out from beneath the water like sharp arrows, landing in front of the corpse pile.

They were four massive mutated creatures.

They looked somewhat like oversized, skinless hounds, with thick and powerful limbs, backs covered in sharp bone spikes, and mouths filled with interlocking fangs dripping with slime.

【Witnessed mutated creature: rotting hound (mutated species)】

【Characteristics: Extremely high agility; its bite carries a corrosive toxin.】

【Weakness: Blunt weapons.】

Furthermore...

A faint scuttling sound came from the cracks in the walls, which had previously been silent.

Countless mutated rats, only the size of a palm but possessing human teeth, began swarming from all directions. These were all mutated former inhabitants.

"We're surrounded! Retreat! Priority retreat!"

Hans let out a thunderous roar, the murderous intent in his eyes instantly turning into a look of resolute lethality.

In such a narrow and silent pipe, being surrounded meant they would all become part of that mountain of corpses if they didn't tear a hole in the encirclement immediately.

"Gray! Incendiaries! Block off the rear!"

"Ron! Protect Doctor Lu and leave first! Ed, follow them!"

"Leave these dogs to me!"

As the orders were issued, Hans did not retreat; instead, he took a step forward.

The silver greatsword in his hand carved a sharp arc through the air, carrying a wind pressure that seemed capable of tearing the air itself as it slashed fiercely toward the oncoming rotting hounds.

"Pshh!"

A sickening sound of bone and flesh being severed rang out.

The hound, still in mid-air, didn't even have time to scream before it was split in half from head to tail by the greatsword.

Before the black-green blood could even spray, Hans had already used the momentum to spin around, slamming the hilt of his sword heavily into the skull of another hound, smashing it into the adjacent wall.

"Go! Move now!"

Hans kicked away a hound that lunged at him, pulled two molotov cocktails from his waist, and hurled them at the writhing mountain of corpses.

"Boom!"

Flames rose, instantly forming a wall of fire that temporarily forced back the mutated rats trying to swarm out.

"Withdraw!"

Gray shouldered his tower shield, firing his musket backward as he retreated to suppress the rats trying to crawl across the top of the pipe.

Lu Yuan was guarded tightly in the middle by Ron as they quickly retreated.

But Lu Yuan didn't just focus on running.

Because Lu Yuan noticed that in the murky sewage beneath their feet, an intense, almost physical black aura was gathering frantically under the surface.

Like a massive whirlpool, it silently drifted toward the path the team had to take.

That was something even more dangerous than the hounds!

"Stop! Don't step in the water!"

Lu Yuan suddenly grabbed Ed, who was about to wade through the water ahead. "There's something under the water!"

Ed was pulled back with a stumble, instinctively withdrawing his foot.

Almost at the same instant...

"Splash—!"

The previously calm water surface exploded.

A tentacle covered in barbs and as thick as an adult's thigh shot out from the water, precisely piercing the spot where Ed was about to step and sinking deep into the wall.

If Ed hadn't pulled his foot back, his leg would have been destroyed by now.

"What... what the hell is that?!"

Ed's face turned pale, and cold sweat instantly soaked his back.

"Don't look! Keep running!"

Lu Yuan didn't explain. He could see that the black aura was still circling underwater, seemingly looking for the next angle of attack.

"Get to higher ground! Stay away from the water!"

As Lu Yuan shouted, he raised the silver-plated pistol in his hand and pulled the trigger at the tentacle that was trying to pull itself out.

"Bang!"

The silver-plated bullet hit the tentacle, causing a burst of black sparks. Feeling the pain, the tentacle snapped back into the water, kicking up a spray of waves.

"Everyone, listen to the vice-captain! Get on the walkway!"

Hans also fought his way back as he retreated. He was covered in blood, and black-green slime was still dripping from his greatsword.

"Gray! Use the mithril to stop those things behind us!"

"Understood!"

Gray responded, taking out a bottle with an exceptionally vibrant color from his pack.

Then, he smashed it hard toward the swarm of rats surging from behind.

"Boom—!"

A powerful explosion suddenly rang out, followed by a surge of silver flames that swallowed any mutated creature bold enough to touch it.

The silver fire dissipated at a visible rate, but it completely cut off the monsters' pursuit route.

Under the cover of the firelight, the five battered men finally rushed out of that pipe of death and sprinted toward the exit.