The grey-white text kept popping up continuously, but Lu Yuan forced himself to ignore them, pushing them to the very bottom of his vision as his feet closely followed Kraus.
But the moment they ran into the thick mist, he suddenly realized a new problem.
The connection between the first four fragments was constantly weakening.
The thin threads that had been tethering the fragments together seemed to be pressed down bit by bit by something, growing weaker and weaker.
Lu Yuan immediately realized that it was this mist—it was cutting off the resonance between the fragments.
His heart sank bit by bit.
It was true that this thing could shield perception, but he hadn't expected it to suppress even the extremely subtle connection between the fragments.
If this mist continued to spread, would he still be able to find the fifth fragment? Ever since he came up from the Abyss, that fifth fragment had felt as if it had vanished into thin air.
Before he could think further, a rancid wind blew out from the alley on their right.
A greater ghoul roared and charged at Lu Yuan.
Without even turning his head, Kraus released a dark green crystalline fragment from his body, which instantly pinned the creature's head and slammed its entire body into the wall.
After a dull thud, the thing stopped moving.
Kraus continued to rush forward without saying a word.
The two of them quickly traversed several narrow alleys in the outer city. Just as they neared the passage leading to the entrance of the pipe network layer, Kraus suddenly stopped.
Lu Yuan couldn't stop in time and almost crashed into his back.
Kraus pressed a hand to his side, gesturing for Lu Yuan to stay still.
His bone armor had already enveloped his entire body, with green light flickering dimly through the gaps in the plates.
At the same time, the grey-white text in Lu Yuan's vision popped up with a new prompt.
【High-risk pollution source detected. Please stay away immediately.】
Lu Yuan looked ahead.
The mist was incredibly thick; he couldn't see anything more than three or five paces away.
But right in the middle of that white mist, there was a pair of eyes.
They were pale white, almost completely blending with the mist. It was impossible to make them out without looking closely.
The eyes hung in midair, at a height of about two adult men stacked together, quietly gazing in their direction without blinking.
It was right there, about ten paces away from them.
Kraus's breath stopped completely at this moment, and Lu Yuan could feel his body tensing up.
The eyes lingered in the thick mist for a few breaths.
Its gaze slowly swept past Kraus and landed on Lu Yuan behind him, pausing for a brief moment longer.
It did nothing.
The pale white eyes turned slightly to the left, shifting in the direction of the inner city.
The mist surged around it. Before Lu Yuan could even get a clear look at its full form, it sank into the deeper white mist.
It was the passenger in the mist.
Lu Yuan recognized it as the very entity he had encountered on his way back to the city.
The passenger in the mist was gone.
Kraus stared stiffly in the direction it had vanished for a moment before his tense body finally relaxed.
This was the first time Lu Yuan had seen him like this.
He knew in his heart that Kraus had truly felt the sheer power of that entity.
It would be strange if a peak Rank 4 Vice Director didn't feel tense when running into a true high-level entity.
Standing behind him, Lu Yuan felt absolutely nothing from head to toe, save for the prompt from the grey-white text.
The two men's perception of that thing was on entirely different levels.
Kraus did not mention what had just happened.
He took a deep breath, suppressed his aura, and raised a hand to signal Lu Yuan to follow.
Lu Yuan kept pace with him, but his mind was spinning with another matter.
The direction the passenger in the mist had departed was toward the inner city, and what was suppressed beneath the inner city was precisely that piece of flesh that had surged with rage in the Abyss.
When he met it on the way back to the city, it had left behind the words, “Something is about to wake up.” Could it have been referring to this piece of flesh?
Lu Yuan did not make a sound; there was no need for him to say anything about this piece of information right now.
The special existence in the mist had already manifested, and Kraus would have his own way of dealing with it. As for the flesh beneath the ground, did Kraus even need him to point it out?
Kraus led Lu Yuan around the last alley, where the pollution was at its thickest.
He plunged straight into the sinkhole.
Lu Yuan followed closely behind, catching the scorched odor the moment he entered.
After walking down no more than dozens of paces, the light ahead dimmed.
The bronze patterns that should have been lit in the pipe network layer were mostly extinguished, with only a few sections near the entrance still flickering intermittently.
Looking deeper, it was pitch-black, with only the occasional faint, dark red shimmer reflecting in the darkness.
Margaret was not far below.
She was half-squatting by the edge of the channel, with several Nightwatchers lying beside her.
Two of them had already woken up, sitting against the wall with pale blue threads wrapped around them, their eyes somewhat hollow. The others were still unconscious, bound by the same threads.
The person closest to her was the most severely injured.
Large chunks of flesh were missing from both arms below the elbows, and the blue-grey bone was visible at the cross-sections, yet barely any blood seeped out.
That was the Rank 3 Grand Captain.
Kraus swept his eyes over the people on the ground, his gaze darkening slightly as it fell on Margaret's face. “Where is the Blue Knight?”
Margaret stood up and pointed into the deeper darkness. “She went down alone.”
Kraus pursed his lips. “You didn't follow her?”
“I tried.” Margaret's voice carried a hint of frustration. “The pollution from whatever is spreading down there is too strong. My transcendent power couldn't handle it.”
Kraus did not press further.
He stepped around the Nightwatchers on the ground and strode a few paces deeper into the channel.
Lu Yuan followed behind him, his eyes scanning the Nightwatchers who had been rescued by the Blue Knight.
He didn't know exactly what had happened here, but it was clear from those wounds alone that this pollution could erode even human flesh.
Kraus stopped in the depths of the channel.
In front of him, at the junction of the stone wall and the bronze, several swirling patterns were slowly spreading along the remaining bronze.
The speed wasn't fast, but they could be seen moving with the naked eye.
Kraus's brow furrowed tightly.
A dark green afterimage rose behind him, bone armor spreading down from his right arm, wrapping his palm in green light.
He bent slightly and reached out to touch the swirling inscriptions.
The moment the green light touched the inscriptions, Lu Yuan witnessed something he had never seen before.
The green light on Kraus's hand began to warp.
The layer of transcendent power enveloping his palm seemed to be stirred from within by something. The green light swirled uncontrollably on his hand, its color gradually turning turbid.
The swirling inscriptions climbed backward along the green light toward the back of his hand at an incredibly rapid speed.
Kraus's expression shifted.
The bone armor on his right arm instantly condensed into dark green crystals, sealing away that section of polluted power.
In the next instant, he flung his arm outward with force. The solidified crystal, along with the swirling inscriptions attached to it, broke away from his arm and shattered into several pieces on the ground with a sharp crack.
Once the fragments hit the ground, they did not disappear; instead, they continued to twist and warp.
Kraus looked down at his right hand, where remnants of that strange power still lingered on his palm.
A breath later, and this thing would have burrowed into his body.
“What on earth is this thing?” His voice carried a hint of confusion he had never shown before.
Lu Yuan did not answer. In his line of sight, the grey-white text had already popped up.
【You have come into contact with an unknown eerie inscription. Analysis failed.】
【Some kind of mutated eerie inscription... Perhaps this is the true eerie inscription.】
Yet another piece of knowledge that surpassed his understanding.
Before he could ponder further, Kraus stood up straight, staring at the swirling, spreading inscriptions with an extremely grim expression.
He couldn't go down.
His transcendent pathway was far too sensitive to this kind of pollution. He couldn't even protect himself upon contact, so going down would be entirely pointless.
Having rushed all the way here, he was utterly powerless.
Looking at Kraus's expression, Lu Yuan understood immediately.
But instead of backing away, he squatted down slightly, reached out his left hand, and gently touched the nearest inscription.
Kraus's gaze snapped over.
Lu Yuan's fingertips had already made contact with the inscription.
Nothing happened.
There was not a single trace of the bone-deep, marrow-penetrating sensation of pollution that should have occurred. The inscriptions were still swirling, and he could feel an extremely faint vibration beneath his fingertips, but other than a brief wave of dizziness when his gaze fell upon them, there was nothing else.
When the swirling patterns touched his finger, they actually bypassed it, sliding past both sides of his fingertips to continue spreading forward.
Lu Yuan had a rough idea of why he was unaffected.
He simply pressed his entire palm against them.
The swirling inscriptions surged beneath his palm, flowing around the edges of his hand, resolutely refusing to climb onto him.
His Forbidden Pathway remained completely quiet, and the grey-white text popped up with nothing other than that "analysis failed" prompt. His Sanity did not drop, and his body felt no discomfort whatsoever.
Kraus stared at him intently.
“It can't pollute you?”
Lu Yuan raised his hand and looked at his palm.
“As things stand, it indeed cannot pollute me,” Lu Yuan continued. “Other than a bit of dizziness when looking directly at it, I don't feel anything else.”
Kraus fell silent for a few breaths, his gaze shifting back and forth between Lu Yuan's hand and the swirling inscriptions, unable to make sense of it for the moment.
Lu Yuan naturally knew what he was thinking.
A Rank 4 transcendent was eroded upon contact, yet a Rank 2 was completely fine. This defied all logic.
But he had no intention of explaining. He had known for a while that these things couldn't pollute us, most likely because of the Key to the Sea of Knowledge in his left eye—that Authority.
This had been tested long ago, which was precisely where he got the confidence to touch them directly.
“I'll go down and take a look,” Lu Yuan said.
Kraus looked at him, his lips moving slightly, but he didn't make a sound for a moment.
Lu Yuan could tell what he was thinking.
He didn't want to let a Rank 2 take such a risk, but he couldn't go down himself, and the Blue Knight was down there alone with her situation unknown.
If the seal on the pipe network layer truly collapsed, the entire city would be dragged down with it. Things had already gotten as bad as they could get. Most importantly, Lu Yuan suspected that the final fragment was either behind the copper wall, with that piece of flesh, or in the hands of The Man on the Wall—since only they could sever the connection.
Therefore, no matter what, Lu Yuan had to make this trip in person.
“Give me a march lamp,” Lu Yuan added. “I need some light.”
Kraus asked one of the Nightwatchers for a march lamp and handed it over. It was filled with sandworm oil, which was the only thing that could still burn in a place like this.
The flame wasn't very bright, barely illuminating a few paces ahead.
Kraus fell silent for a brief moment.
Of the three afterimages behind him, the foremost one suddenly detached from his body, floated in front of Lu Yuan, solidified behind him, and then faded from view.
“This afterimage can block one hit for you,” Kraus said. “Only once. If it shatters, retreat as fast as you can.”
Rate on N.U.
