It was different from last time.
Behind “Parasitizing,” there was now an additional word: “Growing.” And “some unknown change” had turned into “seems to have found a path forward.”
It had swallowed something. The resentment, the unwillingness of the corpses in the inn, or perhaps something else, had been consumed by it, allowing it to find a path.
What path it was, the grey-white text did not specify.
Lu Yuan's gaze darkened.
He channeled the key deep within his left eye.
The moment the aura of Authority surged from his eye, the pale face trembled violently.
It felt it.
Within its hollow black sockets, the trace of “Essence” that had just begun to coalesce dispersed completely. It shook its head, and the overflowing black aura retracted instantly, shrinking from its expanded boundaries back to its original size. The entire face pressed flat against the skin of his left leg, remaining absolutely motionless.
Clearly, it was afraid.
The Authority could suppress it, just as he had expected. The moment the key moved, it became obedient.
But that was also where the problem lay.
It could not speak. Lu Yuan poked it, threatened it, but could not get a single word out of it. Whether it was good or bad, where that “path” led, or how much it intended to grow—he knew absolutely nothing.
Pull it out by force? Lu Yuan thought about it and dismissed the idea. The Suspended Drowner was adhered to his left leg, close to his skin and blood vessels. If he forced it and accidentally triggered the key or the Knowledge Worm in his left eye, the resulting mishap would be far more troublesome than just leaving it alone. Besides, the grey-white text had never displayed a danger warning.
He withdrew the aura of Authority.
The pale face remained pressed flat for several breaths. Only after confirming that the pressure overhead had truly dissipated did it slowly return to its original state. The black aura spread outward again slightly, but it was much more restrained than before, no longer creeping below his knee.
Lu Yuan stared at it for a long time.
Letting it be was the only viable option for now. While Authority could suppress it temporarily, it was still growing and seeking its “path.” He would just have to take it one step at a time.
He withdrew his focus, and the light of the Knowledge Worm dimmed. The patches of color faded, and his left leg returned to normal.
Lu Yuan rolled his pant leg down.
The line of grey-white text still hovered in the corner of his vision.
【It seems to have found a path forward.】
Night fell, and he walked to the window.
The lights of Oakwood City flickered on one by one, their warm yellow glow radiating from the depths of the streets and alleys, carrying a comforting sense of mundane life. Unlike the oppressive night that hung beneath the lights of Bronze City, the night here was truly quiet.
His gaze swept over the rooftops, looking toward the west.
Two days.
He could only wait for two days.
Lu Yuan stood by the window for a moment, then withdrew his gaze and walked back to the bed.
When Lu Yuan woke up, it was already broad daylight outside.
On his second morning in Oakwood City, the two potted plants on the windowsill were wet with dew. The wind blew in through the gaps, carrying the sweet scent of vegetation. In the distance, someone was shouting on the ridges of the fields, their voice carrying across half the city, faint and indistinct.
He lay there for a while, in no hurry to get up. His mind was clear, and he lacked for nothing, but this very sense of security and completeness made him feel uneasy instead.
He hadn't felt it when his Sanity was hitting rock bottom and his nerves were taut day and night, but now that he was idle for these two days, a powerless anxiety began to seep from the marrow of his bones.
Under the very same sky, another kind of fire was burning in Bronze City.
Bronze City, Nightwatchers branch.
Kraus closed the third urgent report in his hand and set it on top of the pile of booklets stacking higher and higher on the corner of his desk.
The office was unlit, relying only on the dim, grey daylight filtering through the window. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples with the heels of his palms. A dull ache radiated from deep within his brow, making the words before him blur. He had barely closed his eyes over the past few days.
The three urgent reports on the desk all brought bad news.
The situation underground was shifting. The greater ghouls polluted by the Forest Seed were no longer rushing upward. During the first two days, they had poured out of the sinkholes wave after wave. The Nightwatchers and the Holy Armored Army had used copper-cased incendiary rounds combined with mithril to repeatedly burn them, clearing away the spreading scavenger fungus along with them. The corpses were processed on the spot and sent to the logistics department to be exchanged for points.
By the third day of the battle, those things had simply retreated.
Once they retreated, they changed their tactics, thrashing back and forth within the underground pipe network layer, repeatedly battering the existing collapsed areas while digging toward weak spots. Those sinkholes, after all, had been gnawed out by them one by one in the first place.
The Nightwatchers and the Holy Armored Army stationed men above the sinkholes. Whenever they threw weapons down, the creatures would dodge and scatter.
If they didn't, the creatures would linger below, clusters of eerie green eyes staring upward, their malice so thick that it suffocated anyone even ten meters away. The situation was currently deadlocked, and there was no immediate way to deal with them.
The noble private soldiers had been integrated into the Nightwatchers squads over the past two days to patrol, scout, and resist any overflows together. While their numbers had indeed increased, bad news followed.
Yesterday, another sinkhole had opened.
The nearby Nightwatchers still had enough manpower, and together with the newly joined private soldiers, they managed to plug the gap.
However, the Nightwatchers' Rank 4 combatants were completely insufficient. Each collapse required at least one Rank 4 to oversee it. With all the Rank 4 captains deployed across the various openings, some spots had to be held by Rank 3s putting up a desperate defense.
The nights were even harder to endure. The polluted greater ghouls preferred night raids, slipping up from the edges of the sinkholes in small groups of three to five, striking once before retreating, only to target a different opening next time.
They lost a person or two each time. While the casualties weren't massive, this constant attrition went on day and night, slowly grinding down the Nightwatchers' condition. If this dragged on, they would break sooner or later.
Kraus opened the final loss manifest and scanned it line by line. The Nightwatchers had recently lost another seven or eight brothers, all of whom were capable fighters. The noble private soldiers had lost over a dozen, but their quality was a step below the Nightwatchers. It was easy to fill numbers, but very few could actually hold the line.
Relying on this alone wouldn't hold. People from the Church would also be heading to the underground pipe network layer to help over the next two days, but the Church's manpower in Bronze City was already limited, and they could only spare so many.
As for the Ascension Society, their Descendants were the main force, but their bodies contained a large amount of copper components. The Forest Seed devoured copper; this was a consensus reached after discussions among those who had personally experienced the first dive.
Sending the Descendants to fight those things was equivalent to feeding them nutrients. The Ascension Society could not participate.
Fortunately, his own preparations had been thorough enough. Supplies were stockpiled in the branch's warehouse—copper-cased incendiary rounds, mithril, and Sanity potions. Holding out for a while wouldn't be an issue, and external aid was already on the way, with new personnel expected to arrive soon.
The forge was also making adjustments. Most of the original copper weapons were being phased out and recast in silver.
Silver had a natural counter-effect against ghouls, dealing far more lethal damage than copper. The only issue was the cost.
But they couldn't worry about that now. The greater ghouls polluted by the Forest Seed could devour copper; when struck by a copper sword, they would simply open their mouths and bite it. The wear and tear was too rapid. Switching to silver would at least stop feeding them.
Kraus closed the loss manifest and set it on the corner of his desk. He stood up and walked to the window. Down in the courtyard, several Nightwatchers were carrying crates toward the warehouse, their steps hurried and heavy. The branch's lights had been lit since dawn and had not been extinguished once.
Ascension Society, research lab.
A mechanical apparatus that occupied half the room hummed deeply, the sound of interlocking gears echoing from deep within the conduits, muffled and dense. In the exact center of the console, a severed segment of a Serpentine Amalgamation was clamped onto a silver fixing frame.
The segment was not long, about two arm-lengths, its surface covered in a layer of greyish-green scaly bark. At the severed end, tangled wooden fibers and flesh tendons could be seen inside.
This thing had been cut from the Serpentine Amalgamation during the first dive. After so many days, it should have been long dead, but the bark-like crust still twitched slightly on occasion, and the mucus seeping from the cut end still retained a faint warmth.
The Great Ascendant stood beside the console, his mechanical eye staring unblinkingly at the severed segment. He had repeatedly cut, sampled, and tested it with various methods. The conclusions formed one by one, and not a single one was reassuring.
This thing was born specifically to target copper, feeding on it as nourishment. Once removed from copper, it withered significantly, but the withering stopped after reaching a certain point. Even after a dozen days, there were still no signs of death. It could indeed consume copper—slowly, but surely.
The conclusion drawn from this was the most fatal: any existence polluted by the Forest Seed would have its vitality significantly enhanced. If this thing truly took root beneath Bronze City and used the entire city's copper as nourishment, the more it swallowed, the faster it would grow, making it almost impossible to deal with.
The Great Ascendant flipped through the old files on hand obtained from the Grey Covenant.
Combining this with his current research, one thing was already certain: the Forest Seed was something created by the Grey Covenant. He did not dig any deeper; confirming the source was enough. What was more urgent now was how to deal with it.
The Great Ascendant turned off the apparatus and walked out of the research lab.
Nightwatchers branch, Kraus's office.
When the Great Ascendant pushed the door open and entered, Kraus was standing by the window.
“The results are out,” the Great Ascendant's voice rasped from his mechanical vocal cords, flat and devoid of fluctuation. “Born for copper, withering without it, but it cannot die. The severed limb is still alive after more than ten days, possessing extremely tenacious vitality. If you let it take root beneath this city of yours...”
He did not finish the sentence, but Kraus turned around and glanced at him. There was no need to finish; he understood.
“What does the Ascension Society plan to do?”
“The Ascension Society will not participate directly in this battle,” the Great Ascendant's mechanical eye whirred slightly. “The Descendants are our main force, and their bodies contain a large amount of copper. Letting them fight those things will only result in their copper components being completely devoured, sending them to their deaths for nothing. The Ascension Society cannot accept this cost.”
“Even other models are the same.”
He paused, then shifted his tone.
“But I can help you myself. I am immune to these things. At the same time, I need to collect more samples, which will require the Nightwatchers' assistance in capturing more ghouls polluted by the Forest Seed—alive. As for logistics and surface construction, the Ascension Society can provide manpower and transport.”
Everything they could offer was laid out.
After listening, Kraus did not respond immediately. He walked back to his desk, sat down, and tapped his fingers on the tabletop in a slow, steady rhythm.
The Ascension Society not taking the field meant losing one of the forces most capable of fighting tough battles.
The Nightwatchers, the Holy Armored Army, the Iron Guard, the Church, plus the newly integrated noble private soldiers—with only this much manpower, pushing underground would be difficult, but not impossible.
He suddenly realized something. The reason the greater ghouls were delaying their direct charge upward was because they were gathering strength below, constantly converting more ordinary ghouls into Forest Seed ghouls, feeding themselves to become fatter and stronger.
The longer they waited, the worse it would get. Once they felt they had enough and truly swarmed up, the manpower on the surface would not be able to stop them.
Kraus's fingers stopped tapping.
“We can't wait any longer,” he spoke, his voice low. “We must take the initiative to strike, force a path down, and stop that thing from developing comfortably below.”
The Great Ascendant glanced at him. “As you wish. After all, you are the Vice Director.”
Rate on N.U.
