Chapter 13 The Queen's Guard

The enemy appeared suddenly after the crew entered a straight corridor leading into the depths of darkness—and their numbers seemed endless.

A sharp whooshing sound came from the side. A scimitar swung at his neck at a vicious angle. Lawrence leaned back at the critical moment and grabbed the arm wielding the blade. Eerie green flames instantly rose from the edge of his palm, burning a monster in a naval uniform with a vertically split head to ashes. Before he could react, several gunshots rang out from the opposite side.

The shots came from a crawling monster that suddenly emerged from a drain—the monster had a human-like upper body, but its lower body was a mass of writhing, undulating flesh that resembled a pile of deformed internal organs. It clutched a "rifle" that looked like it was pieced together from bones and flesh. The muzzle of the rifle, which looked like a complete abomination, spat fire.

Lawrence's gaze instantly focused, and time around him seemed to slow down. He felt his eyesight exceed that of ordinary people countless times at that moment, and he could even clearly see the trajectory of the bullets flying towards him—the next moment, he twisted his body, dodging the bullets flying towards him with unimaginable angles and postures.

He dodged three times and took six bullets.

"Fucking monsters!" A sharp pain shot through him, and the old captain cursed, then raised the revolver in his hand and fired two shots at the monster.

He looked down at his chest and saw several startling bullet holes tearing through the flesh there, but under the burning of the ghost fire, the translucent spirit flesh was healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Not fatal, but it will cause severe pain and fatigue. The power of the flames also seems to be gradually diminishing—it is still abundant at the moment, but it is hard to say whether it will run out.

Around Lawrence, fully armed subordinates were still fighting—these sailors, wrapped in ghostly flames, had already noticed their current temporary state of immortality, and their fighting style became more and more fierce. They used the guns, bayonets, and short swords in their hands to resist the endless stream of monsters, while trying their best to push forward into the depths of the corridor.

However, like Lawrence himself, everyone was still not used to their current "spiritual body" state, let alone manipulating those ghost flames. These sailors who had accidentally obtained immortality were just squandering their physical strength and firepower indiscriminately. The battle in the entire sewer corridor had become chaotic to the point of being unbearable to watch.

Therefore, even with regenerative bodies, they could only advance forward at an unbearably slow speed under the endless siege of monsters, and they could not see any hope of breaking through.

The only one on the scene not affected by the ghost flames was the mummy—Anomaly 077 was also fighting. He wielded two scimitars and moved through the battlefield with agility that was completely inconsistent with his mummy identity, charging back and forth like the wind. If his eyesight had not been greatly enhanced, Lawrence even suspected that he would not be able to keep up with the mummy's movements at all.

But now that his eyesight far exceeded that of ordinary people, Anomaly 077's speed seemed less outrageous in Lawrence's eyes. He could clearly see the mummy bypass every seemingly fierce monster, traveling through safe routes on the battlefield. The scimitars in his hands flew up and down, and after slashing for half an hour, they were still as good as new—the blades had not even touched anything.

"Sailor" was just running around in the corridor waving his knives, and only his shouts were louder than anyone else.

"I'm opening the way with my scimitars!" The mummy's broken gong voice echoed in the corridor, accompanied by the whistling sound of sharp blades cutting through the air. "These ugly blasphemies are no match for me!"

Lawrence took a big step forward and grabbed the neck of "Sailor," who was about to charge past him. His strength at this moment was astonishing, and he directly dragged the charging mummy by the neck to him. A hoarse voice accompanied by the crackling of flames exploding: "If you can't help, at least be quiet!"

Anomaly 077 was choked by the neck, and his shriveled head was only a few inches away from Lawrence's face, which made him shiver all over: "Yes... yes... yes! Captain!"

Lawrence raised his hand and threw the mummy ten meters away: "Go clear the way—if you can't get through today, I'll stuff you into the combustion chamber of the steam core!"

The mummy screamed strangely and was thrown out, finally entangled with the constantly emerging mud monsters, and a crew member carrying a rifle ran over from the side and shouted loudly beside Lawrence: "Captain! We're running out of bullets!"

Lawrence turned his head suddenly and saw that almost all the people he had brought were already fighting the monsters with cold weapons. They were completely relying on their immortal characteristics to persist in this corridor, but the overall progress of the team had obviously stopped.

They could no longer move forward.

There was no way to retreat either.

Chaotic shouts of killing and the chilling sounds of flesh collapsing and limbs breaking filled the corridor. The black mud on the surrounding walls and ceiling was still seeping out continuously. The spiritual body form subordinates were almost submerged by the endless stream of monsters. The weapons in their hands were running out of ammunition, and the spiritual flames on their bodies were still burning, but fatigue was accumulating. This sense of fatigue was even slowing down and interfering with his thinking.

In this chaotic sewer depths, Lawrence suddenly felt a little dazed and even began to feel that the whole world was unreal—

Who am I, where am I, what am I doing... There are endless monsters here, but the agreed midnight zero hour... how long will it take?

Just then, as if in response to his trance, Lawrence suddenly heard Martha's voice from the small mirror on his chest: "They're here."

The old captain was instantly awakened from his confusion. He hurriedly raised his hand, pulled out a short sword from his waist and pierced a monster that was pouncing on him. Then he retreated, avoiding the black mud that almost splashed on him, and quickly raised his head.

Footsteps appeared in the corridor—very, very many footsteps, as well as distant and ethereal shouts and the sound of passing orders. Then, these sounds approached rapidly, almost instantly reaching the area where Lawrence and the sailors were fighting hard.

Almost in the blink of an eye, countless figures appeared. As if appearing from old times, one shadow after another condensed in the air and turned into fully armed soldiers. They clutched old-fashioned rifles from half a century ago, and the bayonets on the muzzles flashed coldly in the dark corridor. They rushed from the darkness and into the next patch of darkness—the process of the figures condensing did not interrupt their charging pace at all, as if their battle had never stopped, only that at this moment, their figures could be observed.

The sailors fighting in the corridor were shocked by the scene suddenly appearing in front of them and stopped subconsciously. They watched the army rush in here, watched them shoot at the ubiquitous monsters here, watched them roar and throw themselves into battle. After several seconds, some sailors reacted and muttered to themselves in astonishment: "The Last Queen's Guard..."

Lawrence also reacted, and he subconsciously stepped forward, walking towards a young soldier who was loading a rifle—the soldier looked no more than twenty years old, and the old-era city-state guard uniform on his body was tattered, as if he had been crawling in this sewer for a long, long time.

"Hello, we are here to help..." Lawrence reached out and patted the young soldier's shoulder, but his words stopped abruptly halfway through.

His hand passed through the other person's figure.

Is this just an illusion?

Lawrence raised his head in astonishment, but saw that the illusion-like soldiers had already engaged in fierce fighting with the monsters in the corridor. The guns in their hands kept firing, and the humanoid creatures made of turbid mud fell one after another.

A tall soldier rushed from the other side. Lawrence dodged in a hurry, but he couldn't dodge in time. He watched the tall soldier run over as if he didn't see him, and passed through his body like a phantom—then, he was hit by a stray bullet from a monster, and his tall body crashed to the ground in the sewer.

The other Queen's Guard soldiers bypassed the corpse and continued running towards the depths of the corridor.

A sailor walked over from the side and muttered behind Lawrence: "They are phantoms..."

"But these phantoms can fight those monsters, they can even destroy them..." Lawrence said blankly, but still felt like he was dreaming.

"The monsters in the corridor are no longer increasing," another sailor said beside him.

Lawrence reacted instantly.

The number of monsters in the corridor had decreased for the first time—after the appearance of the Queen's Guard composed of phantoms, the black mud that had been constantly gushing out from the surrounding walls and ceiling finally stopped seeping out. The deformed freaks that could never be killed before were now truly being reduced in number!

Does the existence of the Queen's Guard inhibit the "regeneration" and "proliferation" of those monsters?

Countless questions filled Lawrence's mind, but rather than pursuing the answers to these questions, he knew that something was more important.

"Follow the Queen's Guard!" He raised his hand high and gave orders loudly. "Follow the path they open!"

"Yes, Captain!"