Chapter 1 Ankatro's Territory

Like most other aberrant shelters, the Ankatro family's territory was hidden in a peculiar spatial rift, camouflaged and deflected by layers of mysterious technology. As the most mysterious of all aberrant families, the Ankatro territory was even more secretive than the Shadow Shelter, and the method to open it was only known to a few ancient families like the Waynes. After the incident a month ago, the Ankatro Secret Realm had been completely sealed off by the people inside, and the usual means of opening it had also become ineffective. Wayne Walter had to prepare some special items to help open this gate, and in order to open this gate, they had to go to a special location: underground.

Wayne Walter had visited the Ankatro family at the foot of this mountain town more than once, and he knew all the secret routes here like the back of his hand. Under the leadership of this vampire patriarch, Hao Ren and the others鑽 (zuan) into the town's underground sewer system.

This seemingly inconspicuous town had surprisingly intricate underground waterways. The wide sewers connected the underground part of the town like a maze, and a town of this size obviously did not need drainage facilities of this scale, so most of the sewer area was sealed off or semi-dry. Hao Ren followed behind Wayne and Hesperides, walking in a wide tunnel that looked like a subway passage. He saw that the surrounding area was a circular pipe supported by permanent concrete and a large steel inner shell. Dim lights were embedded on both sides of the pipe. The central sewer was almost dry, and the dark green moss on the guardrails on both sides of the sewer had severely eroded the steel and concrete structures. Judging from the surrounding lights, this place was still frequently maintained, and the builders of this place must be human beings, but why would a town of this size build sewers of this scale?

"This place used to be a battlefield many years ago, a military stronghold, during World War II," Wayne explained casually after hearing Hao Ren's question. His voice echoed loudly in the wide sewer pipe, "These underground facilities were originally tunnels and warehouses, so they were built extremely strong. After the war, the locals did not abandon these things, but instead strengthened and rebuilt them as sewers."

Lily wrinkled her nose and followed beside Hao Ren. These sewers had complete ventilation facilities and only a small part of them were actually used, so they didn't really have much of a smell, but Lily, as a canine animal, was a little allergic to the smell here: "I didn't expect to have to go through the sewers... How did the Ankatro family choose the entrance to be in this kind of place? How did they get in and out before this town was built?"

"Of course, there are other entrances and exits, but I chose the safest one this time," Wayne nodded lightly. "The entrance to the underground waterway was only stabilized decades ago. The entrances and exits of the Ankatro Secret Realm correspond to the position of the stars in the sky, so they change every once in a while, and each time they maintain four channels connected to the outside world at the same time. In this cycle of stars, it happens that one channel corresponds to a human town, which is something that cannot be avoided."

Lily gave an "oh" sound, feeling that this was quite magical: the entrance to the secret realm that constantly changed with the position of the stars, it sounded like a myth. Hao Ren next to him suddenly came up with a question: "Although it sounds quite safe, what if the stars happen to rotate and correspond the doorway to a septic tank?"

Wayne was walking ahead with a very graceful demeanor, but Hao Ren's words almost made him fall into the ditch on the side of the road: "Why are your thoughts so dirty?!"

Hao Ren scratched his face: "My thinking is quite normal, right? Has no one ever thought about this?"

Wayne was speechless, but Hesperides opened her mouth: "Hao Ren, if you encounter the Batania Witch Spirit family in West Africa in the future, don't mention this topic to them."

"Ah?"

"The exit of their family's secret realm also changes with the movement of the stars, and it really connected to a septic tank..."

This time everyone was speechless, until Elizabeth hugged her arms and sighed like a little adult: "So this kind of lost and out-of-control ancient technology is the most unreliable. They only thought about safety at the beginning, but now the descendants don't even know how to control the direction, right?"

"Ahem, it's not completely uncontrollable," Wayne explained with a strange expression, even a little incoherently, "Select a general connection range, you can fix the opening position in a relatively stable location, or calibrate the astrological chart... Forget it, can we not talk about this?"

"Then let's talk about the demon hunters?" Vivian blinked, "Wayne, you investigated early, what do you think about the disappearance of the demon hunters here a month ago?"

Wayne pondered slightly: "To be honest, I can't believe even a punctuation mark of what the demon hunters say, but if what that demon hunter named Bai Huo (White Fire) said is true, it can roughly correspond to the information I have. A considerable number of demon hunter groups did appear here a month ago, and their number was enough to make the werewolf warriors of the Hogwarf family run away, so they should not be the same group as the few demon hunters currently responsible for the investigation here. And according to the fragmented report of that crazy investigator, he did mention that there were demon hunters or something inside the Ankatro territory."

Hao Ren nodded and didn't say anything else.

This dim and narrow underground sewer was really not a good place to discuss things, and the team quickly lost interest in discussing the problem. They followed Wayne in silence, and after bypassing one pipe joint after another, they finally entered a place that looked like it had been abandoned for many years. No groundwater flow could be seen in this section of the tunnel, and the only light came from a fork in the road dozens of meters away.

Wayne finally stopped with everyone in front of a mottled and dirty cement wall: the entrance was in this place.

"It's impossible for that spiritual detective to find the Golden Manor in his lifetime," Hao Ren couldn't help muttering after seeing the entrance, "Its entrance is actually in this kind of place, it's completely out of touch with sunlight."

Wayne smiled: "The scene opposite this door will surprise you even more."

As he spoke, he took out a delicate thing from his suitcase.

It was a strange gadget like an old camera, but the structure was obviously different. It had a square main body wrapped in black leather, a hemispherical lens at the front of the "square box", and a series of lenses and crystals could be seen at the back of the "box". This prop couldn't help but remind people of the unreliable "spiritual machines" made by those mystical scholars more than a hundred years ago, those eerie cameras assembled with glass, crystal, and copper ore, trying to capture ghosts, and also reminded Hao Ren of the spiritual lens set in Pierre's hand. But the device in Wayne's hand was obviously different from those half-baked knockoffs. This device was inlaid with sparkling runes, and each of its lenses and crystals was not connected by any fixed objects, but was suspended in its respective position by magic. When Wayne pointed this device at the wall in front of him, all the lenses emitted a faint light.

The light of the lens group gradually increased, and the front of the device emitted a light like a slide, like a projection, these lights gradually outlined a series of complex lines on the cement wall. The image slowly changed, and Hao Ren finally saw that it was the shape of a door.

And the most amazing thing was: this door was indeed a simple image at first, but as the device in Wayne's hand continued to make creaking noises, the feeling of these images slowly changed. Hao Ren didn't know which step he missed, but when he realized this, the image on the wall had turned into a real door.

A door made of metal, inlaid with a large number of golden runes.

Wayne turned off the device, carefully put it back into his suitcase, and stepped forward to open the door: "Let's go, this door can only last for ten minutes. Afterwards, if all goes well, we can return to this world through the fixed channel set up by the Ankatro family."

Lily gave a long sigh of "wow oh", and then pushed Hao Ren into the door.

A moist and warm breath rushed towards them, Hao Ren clearly felt that he had passed through a barrier like a water curtain. He walked out of a door standing in the air out of nowhere and found himself standing in an unfamiliar place.

Endless chaotic fog enveloped the surroundings. No sun, moon, or stars could be seen in this space. Light of unknown origin shone down from above the fog, so that the world would not be completely dark. Hao Ren widened his eyes and tried to distinguish the surrounding scenery in the thick fog. He saw the scene of the Golden Manor as he wished: although there was thick fog to block it, he still saw a series of magnificent buildings vaguely appearing in his vision. The buildings were indeed almost completely made of pure gold as Pierre described, and even shrouded in thick fog, their brilliance was not diminished.

However, what shocked Hao Ren and his party after seeing these buildings was something else.

"Tanagース?!"