Lake looked at the green crystal in Kraus's hand and remained silent for two seconds.
“You left a tracking marker on them?”
Kraus nodded, his tone flat.
“Three of my afterimages were destroyed; I had to get something in return.”
He leaned against the headboard, his face pale, but his gaze was clear.
“I can forcibly activate the things inside their bodies, allowing me to lock onto their positions for a period of time.”
“The Grey Covenant has been hiding in Bronze City for far too long.” Kraus closed his eyes, his voice weary but heavy. “It's time they paid the price.”
Lake and Lu Yuan exchanged a look.
While being besieged by three rank 4s, Kraus had sacrificed three afterimages to get close and seize Jie and Nine, not just to heavily wound them.
He had been laying out his pieces from the very beginning.
Lake said no more and carefully put away the green crystal.
“While this crystal doesn't have an active detection ability, it can detect passively,” Kraus said, closing his eyes. “On your way to the pipe network, keep an eye on it. If it lights up, it means members of the Grey Covenant are nearby.”
“Understood.”
Lu Yuan and Lake turned and left the medical room.
“In the pipe network layer, are you certain you saw a rank 4?”
Lu Yuan asked as he looked at Lake.
“Yes, an extremely powerful one. I might not necessarily be a match for them,” Lake replied plainly.
“They were prepared to strike at the time but ultimately backed off. Looking back now, it was to lure Kraus away from the Count's Mansion.”
“That's bad news then.”
Lu Yuan couldn't help but comment.
“It means there's another hostile rank 4 lurking in the shadows.”
“Yes.”
Lake also looked somewhat worried.
The two had just stepped out of the branch's main gate and hadn't even reached their carriage when another carriage came racing toward them from the direction of the outer city.
Before the carriage had even come to a full stop, the door was pushed open.
A short-bearded Nightwatcher jumped down, his uniform stained with copper rust and mud, clearly having rushed back directly from the pipe network layer.
The moment he saw Lake, the anxiety on his face intensified, and he rushed over.
“Captain Lake!” he whispered, his breath ragged and his voice trembling. “It... it's not good.”
Lake didn't speak, waiting for him to finish.
The Nightwatcher swallowed hard and lowered his voice even further.
“The bronze pillars you had me watch... they've been pushed up.”
“What?” Lu Yuan felt a jolt at these words, immediately realizing the gravity of the situation. “Are you sure you didn't see wrong?”
The Nightwatcher nodded vigorously.
“I didn't see wrong. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me at first, so I specifically made a mark on the pillar. When I checked an hour later, it had definitely grown. To make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I had the others watch with me. We're certain.”
“And... and the other bronze pillars are showing the same thing.”
Lu Yuan and Lake exchanged another look.
Neither of them spoke, but their eyes shared the same thought.
This was bad.
“Go report to Kraus privately. Bring all the specific times and data with you,” Lake said in a tone that allowed no argument.
The Nightwatcher took the order and turned to run back into the branch.
Lake pulled open the carriage door.
“Let's go.”
The carriage sped toward the pipe network entrance closest to the bronze pillars.
Nightwatchers were still stationed there, and the guards at the entrance post immediately let Lake and Lu Yuan through.
The two moved quickly along the pipe network tunnels, the light from their march lamps casting rapid, jumping shadows against the copper walls.
After walking for about twenty minutes, the lights of the guard post appeared ahead.
Several Nightwatchers were gathered around a bronze pillar. One was crouching on the ground, using a wooden stick to measure something on the pillar's surface.
This bronze pillar had originally been buried deep within the mud walls of the pipe network layer. Bolen's exploration team had previously excavated the area around it to about half a man's height, revealing the inscription-covered surface of the pillar.
But now, Lu Yuan saw the problem at a glance.
The pillar was taller than the last time he had seen it.
It definitely wasn't an illusion.
Several ink marks left over from the rubbings remained on the pillar's surface, and their positions were clearly a level higher than before.
Someone had drawn lines on the wall next to the pillar.
Not one line, but three.
Each was slightly higher than the one before it.
The Nightwatchers had been measuring it continuously.
Lu Yuan walked up to the bronze pillar, and grey-white text flickered at the edge of his vision.
【Target Detected: Special Structure (Damaged)... Analysis Failed... Insufficient Knowledge...】
The prompt was exactly the same as last time.
There was no new information, which left Lu Yuan with no better options.
If Bolen were here, he might be able to say something, but Lu Yuan couldn't figure out what was happening right now.
The Nightwatcher in charge of recording hurried forward and flipped open his notebook.
“Everything was normal for the past few days, but anomalies started appearing this morning.” He pointed at the dense rows of numbers in the notebook. “From this morning until now, in about two hours, it has risen by at least half the height of a pinky finger.”
He closed the notebook and whispered.
“At this rate, it could rise by three fingers' width in a single day.”
No one responded.
After experiencing the ghoul riots, the Nightwatchers present all roughly understood what the bronze pillars were connected to.
The copper pillars were the core structures of Bronze City's seal.
The pillars rising meant something was moving beneath them, but whatever it was, no one wanted to face it.
Lake secretly checked the green crystal Kraus had given him.
It hadn't lit up along the way.
That meant no rank 4 members of the Grey Covenant were nearby.
This was actually worse.
If it were the Grey Covenant's doing, there would at least be a clear enemy to deal with.
But if the cause was unknown...
Lake crouched before the bronze pillar, staring at its surface for a long time.
Then his expression darkened.
“It's still moving.”
Lu Yuan saw it too.
It was almost imperceptible to the naked eye, but if one focused on the distance between an ink mark on the pillar and a line on the wall, one could feel the gap widening at an extremely slow speed.
It was as if something was pushing from below.
Lake stood up and looked at Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan shook his head.
He couldn't figure out what was happening either.
But one thing was certain: the dive plan, which had been stalled, would likely have to be launched early within the next couple of days.
That would bring new variables. It would be best to deal with all the Grey Covenant members before the dive; otherwise, things would get very complicated.
Lake turned and gave several orders.
“Give me a copy of the pipe network exploration maps. Keep watching this. Record the time and speed of the rising, and confirm if it's constant or accelerating. Report any changes immediately.”
The Nightwatchers took their orders one by one.
Lake took a map scroll from a Nightwatcher, cross-referenced the route with Lu Yuan, and then the two of them walked quickly into the depths of the pipe network.
The further they went into the pipe network tunnels, the better the condition became.
The copper plates were intact, the inscription patterns were clear, and occasional glimmers pulsed within the lines at a steady rhythm.
This section of the pipe network had been cleared previously. They encountered no ghouls and saw no other contamination along the way.
After walking for about forty minutes, the pipes on the walls began to recede.
The copper conduits embedded in the walls cut off one by one, as if the builders of Bronze City had deliberately avoided the area ahead when constructing the pipe network.
In their place were inscriptions.
A massive number of inscriptions began to emerge from the boundary where the pipe network receded, covering the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
Lu Yuan's grey-white text jumped out at the same time.
【Environmental Perception: High-risk source of pollution detected... Please stay away...】
Lu Yuan frowned slightly.
Something was wrong.
When he had come here with Bolen last time, the position where these inscriptions appeared wasn't nearly this far forward. Back then, they had walked a long way past the pipe network boundary before seeing the dense eerie inscriptions.
Now, they had just come around the corner and the walls were already covered.
The inscriptions were spreading outward.
A sense of foreboding rose in Lu Yuan's heart.
On the bright side, Lu Yuan didn't feel the overwhelming pressure he had felt last time.
He instinctively touched the silver plates on his person and quickly realized why.
It must be because of the things Bolen had left him.
Lu Yuan took out an Inscription Silver Plate and handed it to Lake.
“Keep this close to you. It can weaken the suppression here.”
Lake took it, and the moment he placed it against his chest, his body suddenly felt lighter.
The tentacles wandering at his sides, which had shrunk into a ball, now extended again, their squirming frequency recovering somewhat.
“Good stuff.” Lake didn't ask where it came from.
The two continued forward.
The inscriptions on the walls grew denser and denser.
Then Lu Yuan noticed the thing that truly made him uneasy.
The inscriptions were moving.
Not metaphorically.
Literally moving.
The eerie symbols carved into the copper walls were slowly drifting across the surface.
The strokes twisted, stretched, and reorganized, like dormant snakes crawling across the stone walls.
The last time he was here, these inscriptions had just sat there quietly.
Now they were alive.
【Target Detected: Eerie Inscription (Ancient) (Abnormal Activity)】
【A type of special inscription used against ? capable of sealing and extracting ?... The inscriptions are abnormally spreading...】
Lake's pace slowed down.
The tentacles extending from the sides of his body began to retract one by one.
“The suppression here is more than twice as strong as last time.” Lake's voice came from within his worm-composed body, sounding clearly uncomfortable. “My abilities are being compressed.”
Lu Yuan glanced at him.
“You stay behind me.”
Lake was an eerie transcendent; the deeper they went into the copper wall area, the stronger the suppression became. Walking in front would only make him a liability.
Lu Yuan, however, was a Knowledge transcendent. The suppression from these inscriptions on the Knowledge Pathway was far less than on the Eerie Pathway.
“If something goes wrong with me, pull me away immediately, just like before.”
Lake nodded, slowed his pace, and retreated to a position five or six meters behind Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan walked forward alone.
The surroundings grew darker and darker.
The range of the march lamp's light was compressed by some force. The light that should have illuminated over ten meters was now swallowed by darkness after only five or six.
Lu Yuan pushed forward, relying on the breath-vision provided by the Knowledge Worm.
In his perception, a grey-gold aura permeated the entire pipe network, and the deeper they went, the higher the concentration became.
The last time he was here, Lu Yuan hadn't seen this overflowing aura, but now the entire pipe network was filled with it.
Rate on N.U.
