Chapter 317 Deep in the Second Waterway

Deep within the secret passage connecting to the Second Waterway, Nemo Wilkins held a lantern, leading the way with a hint of gloating in his voice. "Our people have already gotten word and evacuated, 'cleaning up' the traces down here. The Church is poking around in the central district and the underground of xC district – let the spreading darkness give them a headache now."

"I was worried you'd take the opportunity to cause some damage," Duncan said casually. "After all, in the Second Waterway, you're the home team."

"We don't need to do that," Nemo shook his head. "We're loyal to Captain Tyrian, and Captain Tyrian never wanted to destroy this city-state. From the perspective of protecting the city, we have no conflict with the Church or even the City Hall. Now that the Church is trying to eliminate the cultists in the city, we wouldn't be so petty as to do anything to help those cultists."

Duncan nodded, then asked with some curiosity, "Old Ghost didn't show up today?"

"Old Ghost…" Nemo hesitated, then sighed softly. "Old Ghost's mental state has been increasingly unstable lately. He's too old, and the Church's organized search for the Second Waterway has stimulated his nerves, reminding him of the battles in the sewers. To avoid any problems, I had to let him rest in the tavern cellar."

The last warrior who once served the Queen ultimately couldn't escape the nightmare of decades ago – Duncan could only sigh at this and went with Alice in silence to the depths of the Second Waterway.

They passed through secret passages, through many hidden doors and seemingly guarded intersections, and finally entered the Second Waterway via a completely different route than last time.

Obviously, in response to the Church and the authorities' search operations, the Sea Fog Fleet's informants lurking in the city-state had activated a set of pre-prepared camouflage and early warning systems.

Finally, Duncan and Alice, led by Nemo, returned to that corridor – the place where Crow had his accident.

"I'll go back first," Nemo said to Duncan. "The city's been tense lately, with more and more people watching. I have to keep an eye on the situation above. You should be careful of the Church's…"

He wanted to remind Duncan to be careful and watch out for the Church's search teams here, but halfway through, he suddenly felt something was wrong. He hesitated for a long time before blurting out, "Go easy on them, they're not all bad people…"

Duncan couldn't help but laugh. "Don't worry, I know where to draw the line – hurry back, you've been away from the tavern for too long."

"Okay."

Nemo quickly left, and the empty and cold underground waterway became quiet for a time.

Duncan looked up at the empty corridor ahead, but his mind recalled the scene when he had come here before.

The young man named "Crow" had collapsed not far ahead, next to the sewage ditch. He died on the dry ground, but the cause of death was drowning in seawater, and in his pocket, there was a "sacred text" record copied from who knows where.

Now, this corridor has been cleaned up – probably by Nemo and Old Ghost.

Duncan turned his head and saw Alice faithfully following beside him, her eyes behind the veil showing a serious expression – but he knew that this doll was actually just blanking out, thinking about nothing.

Of course, Duncan knew he couldn't expect to discuss or reason about anything with this doll. He brought Alice along because she could see those "lines" – even those "lines" that occasionally leaked over due to the proximity of the mirror world wouldn't escape her eyes.

"If you see any more 'lines,' tell me immediately," Duncan said seriously.

"Okay!" Alice nodded immediately.

Duncan slowly walked forward.

In his mind, he was still thinking about "Crow's" matter.

At the time, he and Maurice and others had guessed that "Crow" had accidentally entered some place and encountered misfortune, but they searched the entire corridor without finding any clues, and the investigation fell into a stalemate. But now it seems… there seems to be an answer to where Crow strayed at the time.

Most likely, it was the mirror.

Like the frost briefly intersecting with the real frost in this corridor, it may have been a crack, or it may have been a momentary reflection floating in some puddle – Crow, who was passing by, unfortunately fell into it.

No matter how he crossed that boundary at the time, one thing is clear:

This corridor should be a weak point connecting the mirror and reality.

Underground, cold and damp, the air was filled with a rotten, moldy smell, giving the feeling that the entire city-state was a corpse that was gradually rotting away – and he was walking in the organs of this corrupt corpse.

Footsteps echoed in the strange-smelling sewer corridor, sounding slightly heavy. Agatha walked forward slowly, confirming the direction of her progress through temporary divination and spiritual perception, while cautiously paying attention to the surrounding movements.

Her black robe was already badly damaged, the soft armor lining and the ritualistic bandages wrapped around her body were stained with more blood. The damage to her body had exceeded the critical point of self-repair. She could only stop the bleeding with divine spells, but had no time to consider the matter of flesh repair.

The good news, however, was that Agatha was increasingly certain that the direction she was heading was correct – after eliminating more and more counterfeit freaks, after repeatedly confronting this malicious replicated city-state, she was finally "smelling" the scent of those heretics more and more clearly.

Following this scent, she passed through the streets and alleys of the lower city, through the empty and twisted subway tunnels, and into the collapsed and dilapidated sewers. Finally, she discovered this world that had been abandoned for who knows how many years, located deep beneath the city-state.

The vastness here exceeded the records she had seen in the archives, exceeding her imagination after seeing those archives.

Agatha raised her head, looking at the dimly lit, wide corridor ahead. Old gas lamps were embedded in the walls on both sides of the corridor, and the gas flames, with insufficient gas supply, flickered on and off. The light swayed and danced in the glass罩, and the intersecting pipes and supporting structures could be seen on the arched ceiling of the corridor. Illuminated by the swaying gas lamps, everything cast shaking and twisted shadows, as if countless invisible things were wriggling in the dimness.

And on both sides of the corridor floor were ditches flowing with sewage. Disgusting black water flowed down from the grille openings on the walls, merging into those ditches, making a gurgling sound.

Agatha knew where this was.

This was the "Second Waterway" beneath Frost – the place she had originally planned to explore with her team.

The only difference from the plan was that she had intended to lead the team to explore the underground of the city-state in the real world, but at this moment, she was trapped in a replicated Frost.

Agatha closed her eyes slightly, carefully sensing the flow of air, shielding herself from the dirty and foul smells, and searching for the location of those heretics with her spiritual intuition.

She could feel that as she stayed here longer, and dealt with those freaks more often, the "connection" between herself and this counterfeit city was gradually being strengthened.

Ahead.

The gatekeeper opened her eyes, ignoring the faint pain from the wounds all over her body, chose a fork in the road ahead, and continued walking deep into the corridor.

She suddenly remembered something.

Not long ago, she had visited the existence that had descended upon Frost, suspected to be some ancient god or the incarnation of an ancient god. At the time, the other party had hinted to her to look for clues "underground."

Now, she was constantly approaching the lair where those heretics were hiding under the guidance of the aura.

Those heretics were indeed hiding underground in the city-state, hiding in this abandoned Second Waterway – only this "underground hideout" was not in the real world's Frost City, but in a replicated otherworld.

Agatha twitched the corner of her mouth.

The road is winding, but it returns to the origin.

At the time, she had misunderstood the hint from that descender, mistakenly believing that the enemy was hiding in the Second Waterway of the real world, but now she had mistakenly entered this replicated city-state and found clues in this replicated Second Waterway.

Wandering in the fork and finally heading in the right direction – is this also a kind of luck?

Agatha observed the surroundings.

Although she had not thoroughly investigated the Second Waterway in the real world, she knew some general information. She knew that the ancient sewer system had long been completely abandoned and sealed off, and all the pipes, shafts, and drainage channels leading to the Second Waterway had been closed. In theory, it should be a dry or relatively dry place.

But in the sewer corridor in front of her, sewage could be seen flowing everywhere, and the sound of drainage could be heard from the surrounding pipes from time to time.

In this replicated Frost city-state, the Second Waterway was presented in a state of being constantly used – is this also the difference between a counterfeit and the real thing?

Agatha pondered, then suddenly stopped.

A sticky, disgusting蠕动 sound came from around her. Black sludge was constantly seeping out of the sewage outlets and the surfaces of the walls covered with black pollutants.

Those haunting freaks were coming again.

Her body was very tired, her wounds were aching, the ritual bandages were damaged, and the blessing of the god of death was gradually weakening. The weakness caused by blood loss had reached a point where it could not be ignored.

But Agatha just calmly raised her head, watching the deformed monsters that were gathering in front of her.

"Come, meet your death."