The Blue Knight did not pause.
She flicked her rapier twice, shaking off the remaining blood from the blade, and glanced in the direction the white mist was rolling in from.
“The pipe network layer,” she said.
Margaret felt it too.
The pollution suppressed beneath the white mist was surging up from right under their feet.
Something was spewing out from a certain point in the pipe network layer. The aura was thick and chaotic, far more formidable than the ghouls they had just cleared.
The Blue Knight had already changed direction.
Paying no mind to the stray ghouls still scurrying through the streets, she headed straight for the nearest entrance to the pipe network layer.
“Keep up,” she called out to Margaret.
The two of them rushed all the way to the collapsed area contaminated by the pollution, which already connected to the pipe network layer below.
Descending through the sinkhole, a stuffy, dry stench wafted up, a scorched odor mingled with the smell of fire.
The lamps that originally lit the pipe network layer were completely extinguished, leaving only the faint shimmer radiating from the remaining bronze patterns overhead.
The further down they went, the thicker the pollution became.
The Blue Knight moved incredibly fast, the fine threads that had just regrown from the back of her cloak swaying gently behind her.
A faint, fleeting blue light flashed in her eyes as she pushed her sensory perception to its limit.
Rounding a corner, they spotted several people.
A few Nightwatchers leaned against the channel walls, most of them half-squatting or kneeling. The closest one clutched his head with both hands, his body trembling uncontrollably as he muttered something incoherent.
His eyes were wide with terror, a layer of swirling patterns floating on his eyeballs, slowly twisting.
The Blue Knight recognized it at a single glance—these men had been eroded by pollution.
They hadn't completely lost control yet, but they were very close.
The newly regrown threads from the back of her cloak spread from her shoulder blades, dividing into several strands that wrapped completely around the men.
The moment the threads touched them, a pale blue light flared up. The swirling aura on the Nightwatchers was suppressed slightly, and their trembling began to ease.
The Blue Knight stepped forward and delivered two sharp slaps right across the face of the nearest Nightwatcher.
The crisp sound echoed twice down the channel.
The Nightwatcher's head snapped to the side. The swirling patterns on his eyeballs suddenly froze, and his focus slowly returned.
Clutching his swollen cheek, he looked up to see the Blue Knight standing before him, radiating a chilling aura, her armor still stained with ghoul blood. He stared blankly for a good while before finally registering her presence.
“B-Blue Knight?”
The Blue Knight did not answer. She scanned the state of the remaining men, and once she was sure they wouldn't go berserk for the time being, her gaze settled back on the speaker.
“Where is your captain?”
The Nightwatcher's expression shifted. He struggled to stand up, only to realize he was bound by the threads and couldn't move.
“The Captain is still down there! He ordered us to retreat first and stayed inside alone! Please, save him! He can't hold out much longer!”
Without asking further, the Blue Knight turned to glance at Margaret.
Margaret's brow furrowed; she could also feel whatever was deeper inside the channel.
The pollution was so dense that her transcendent power was automatically warning her, every inch of her skin screaming at her to turn back.
“Your transcendent power hasn't recovered yet,” the Blue Knight said calmly. “Take them and retreat. Wait for me at the entrance.”
Margaret opened her mouth, wanting to say she could still fight, but she swallowed the words.
The Blue Knight was right. The hard battle in the Abyss had taken too much out of her; her current state could not handle a second round.
More importantly, her own pathway was already showing faint signs of abnormal activity.
“Do not follow me down,” the Blue Knight added.
She didn't look at Margaret again, turning to head deep into the channel.
Her footsteps echoed rhythmically in the stuffy air, quickly swallowed by the darkness.
Margaret stood where she was, watching her figure disappear.
The pale blue light from the threads wrapping the Nightwatchers was still flickering slightly. Even though the Blue Knight was gone, she had clearly left these threads behind, and they would last for a while.
“Let's go,” Margaret said, bending down to pull up the nearest Nightwatcher. “If you can move, walk on your own. If you can't, I'll carry you.”
Deeper in the pipe network layer.
The Blue Knight walked down alone, the surrounding light growing dimmer and dimmer.
The oil lamps that had been hanging at intervals were completely dark, and the bronze patterns overhead sank into the darkness section by section, leaving only the faint, pale blue shimmer around her.
The scorched smell in the air was thick enough to choke.
She passed several sections of blasted pipe walls. The cross-sections showed bronze and stone fused together with jagged fractures, and unused explosives lay scattered nearby.
Every so often, there was such a gap, the surrounding area charred black, with the remnants of fire still smoking.
This was the delaying tactic left by that Nightwatchers team. They had blasted the pipe walls section by section and set them on fire, using this crudest of methods to slow the spread of the inscriptions.
The Blue Knight understood their intent.
The walls of the pipe network layer were constructed from a mix of bronze and stone. The eerie inscriptions spread along the bronze, so blasting the bronze severed its path.
However, the distance between these gaps was growing shorter and shorter, indicating that the inscriptions were spreading faster, and the Nightwatchers' delaying efforts were becoming increasingly difficult.
Past the final gap, the walls on both sides of the channel suddenly changed.
Where the alternating patterns of bronze and stone had once been visible, everything from this point onward was entirely covered by a swirling inscription.
The inscriptions were embedded in the wall surface, spinning ring after ring, every curve sweeping toward her.
The Blue Knight's steps slowed.
Her transcendent power screamed in warning. Every thread across her body tensed to its limit, and a powerful sense of rejection surged within her armor, as if something were desperately trying to burrow into her body.
The world before her eyes shifted slightly with the rotation of the inscriptions. Her vision swam for a moment, and her mind buzzed with a sharp hum.
She grit her teeth, and the threads on her body suddenly tightened, forcefully repelling the invading force.
The shifting world stabilized, and her vision cleared.
The channel ahead seemed almost endless, the swirling inscriptions blanketing the ceiling and floor, growing denser the deeper they went, leaving not a single gap.
At the corner of the channel, the Blue Knight saw the man.
The rank 3 Grand Captain was half-kneeling in the middle of the channel, one hand supporting himself on the ground, the other still clutching a mithril bottle.
The exposed flesh of his arms, from his wrists to his elbows, was spinning, twisting strand by strand with a faint, creaking sound.
Blood seeped from the twisted fissures, yet he seemed completely oblivious to it. His eyes stared straight into the depths of the channel, the same swirling patterns floating over his pupils.
His lips were moving, his voice so faint it was barely audible.
The Blue Knight stepped closer, only then barely catching his words.
“...Can't let them spread any further... absolutely not...”
After a pause, another sentence drifted out.
“...No... down there... why is there light...”
He had already begun to babble.
The Blue Knight's gaze darkened. She wasted no words.
Her rapier cleared its scabbard. A crimson sword qi swept across, slicing away the entire layer of twisting flesh on both of his arms.
The Grand Captain groaned, his body slumping. The Blue Knight immediately reached out with her right hand and struck the back of his head.
The Grand Captain's eyes rolled back, the swirling patterns shattered, and his entire body went limp.
Reaching out, the Blue Knight hoisted him onto her shoulder.
She cast a glance back toward the deeper parts of the channel.
The swirling inscriptions were still spreading outward, slowly but without a moment's pause.
As the inscriptions crossed the spot where the Grand Captain had just been kneeling, they suddenly accelerated, surging toward her.
The Blue Knight did not linger.
Carrying the man, she bolted back the way she came without looking behind.
She dashed past the blasted gaps and the still-smoking, charred fractures, running all the way back to where Margaret and the others were waiting.
Margaret, who was half-squatting beside the Nightwatchers, immediately rushed forward upon seeing the Blue Knight return with the man on her shoulder.
The Blue Knight lowered the Grand Captain from her shoulder, laying him on the ground.
The Grand Captain had already passed out. Although large portions of flesh had been sliced from both arms, the exposed surfaces barely bled.
“The thing down there is a bit strange,” the Blue Knight said, her voice heavy. “Leave these people here for now. You can watch over them or take them back to the entrance.”
Margaret looked at her. “You're going back down?”
The Blue Knight nodded, sliding her rapier back into the scabbard at her waist.
“I have to go see what that thing actually is.”
Margaret stared at her for a couple of breaths, but she didn't try to stop her again.
The Blue Knight turned back toward the depths of the channel.
This time, her pace was slightly slower than before.
She pulled her threads back, pressing them tight against her armor, wrapping herself layer upon layer until she was completely sealed.
A pale blue light glowed in the depths of her eyes, shining brightly in the pitch-black channel.
“Is this the disaster the Grand Knight Commander warned about...”
Her voice was soft, and she shook her head right after speaking.
Whether it was or not, since she was here, she had to find out.
The Blue Knight's silhouette flickered at the corner of the channel. In the next instant, she vanished into the deep darkness.
By the time Kraus rushed out of the branch's main entrance, Lu Yuan was already following close behind him.
Before Glock could even reach the door, Kraus had already left him several paces behind.
Kraus didn't look back to explain anything. He led Lu Yuan directly toward the pipe network layer, a layer of bone armor already condensing over his chest.
The situation outside was even worse than what they had heard in the main hall.
The thick white mist was no longer just hugging the ground; it completely blanketed the outer city in vast swathes.
The buildings in the distance were blurred into mere outlines, and even the bronze oil lamps in front of the branch's entrance could only illuminate a tiny patch of space.
The shrieks of greater ghouls echoed from the mist, their directions completely jumbled, making it impossible to tell how many there were.
Kraus paused for a fraction of a second.
Lu Yuan saw his head tilt slightly as his eyes swept over the thick mist, his brow knit tightly.
This mist had shaved off most of his perception, and Lu Yuan could tell.
The greyish-white text at the edge of Lu Yuan's vision hadn't stopped since the moment they left the branch.
[Environmental Perception has detected a continuous rise in pollution concentration...]
[Warning: Relatively strong pollution source detected. Please stay away immediately...]
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