Sewer

Before leaving the cave where he had temporarily hidden, Duncan first tore some rags from nearby corpses and wrapped them around himself.

It was not because he could not bear the cave's chill, but to at least cover up his exposed heart—although the hole in his chest had not affected Duncan's "survival" at all, as a normal person at heart, walking around with a freezing draft blowing straight through him was simply far too unsettling. Putting something on at least offered a little psychological comfort and reduced the bizarre sensation of that "cross-breeze."

Besides, Duncan had considered the possibility of running into someone while moving through this underground space—by common sense, having a gaping hole in his chest probably would not help when talking to strangers...

After simply tending to his "wound," Duncan cautiously left the damp, eerie cave. He entered a passage connected to it and slowly headed deeper inside.

This body he had temporarily occupied was hardly "convenient." It was not just the fatal damage to its chest that affected his mobility; Duncan could clearly feel how frail it was. Its excessively thin limbs could not even walk quickly, making it utterly incomparable to the Ghost Captain's body, which was so powerful it had plainly surpassed mortal limits.

Duncan could not see this body's full appearance, but judging from the parts he could see, he guessed it belonged to a teenage boy—a boy weakened by long-term severe malnutrition. Though the soul controlling this body was that of a powerful Ghost Captain, strength of the soul apparently could not overcome the physical limits imposed by such a feeble body.

Unfortunately, he had no other choice. Duncan could only control this barely usable body as he slowly explored the deep passage. He knew that in this temporary body's condition, he would likely be helpless in the face of any danger. He could only pray that this shell would remain usable a little longer.

The passage was deep, damp, and dark, yet hidden vents seemed to exist somewhere within it. A faint current of air constantly flowed nearby, and every so often, he saw torches or oil lamps mounted on the walls. Their presence proved that people had been active here all along.

After walking a considerable distance farther down the passage, Duncan suddenly found the path ahead opening up. Signs of artificial construction began to appear in his sight—at the end of the passage was a fork, and the roads branching from it had smooth walls and high semicircular vaults. The brick-paved floor was pitch-black and damp, while two channels ran along either side, carrying nauseating sewage.

On the walls lining both sides of the road were openings resembling drainpipes. Sewage flowed from some of these outlets into the channels below, running off into even darker depths.

"...A sewer?"

Duncan quickly realized that what lay before him was clearly some large-scale sewer system, while the place that had concealed so many bodies seemed to be a natural cave formation that happened to connect to the sewers.

A massive sewer system, natural caverns connected to the sewers, and hidden corpses.

Countless theories sprang into Duncan's mind in an instant, but even as speculation after speculation emerged, he carefully observed every detail of this "sewer."

It was enormous and superbly constructed. Its primary supporting sections appeared to use reinforced concrete, and if necessary, it might even be sufficient for use as some sort of underground shelter.

If the city above this sewer could construct something on this scale, it had to be fairly large, and its various technologies must have reached a certain level of development as well.

Technology could not exist in isolation. Behind every engineering product stood the simultaneous support of countless related industries and technologies. Even a mere sewer could reveal to Duncan the construction, planning, materials, maintenance standards, and corresponding attitudes toward daily life behind it.

This was enough to provide Duncan, who was currently suffering from a severe lack of intelligence, with some precious information from the civilized world.

Duncan walked forward along the sewer, but after only a short distance, he suddenly stopped. His gaze fell upon a nearby wall.

A lamp was embedded in that wall—a glass-cased fixture enclosed within what looked like a rather sturdy metal cage.

Compared with the torches and oil lamps in the cave, this wall-mounted lamp was clearly brighter. A bright flame burned steadily inside its frosted glass casing, casting enough light to illuminate a considerable stretch of the sewer.

Duncan leaned closer to examine it carefully. To him now, everything from outside the Lost Homeland, especially creations of modern civilization, held tremendous appeal.

After studying it for quite some time, Duncan finally figured out what the light source before him was—it was a gas lamp.

Yet this gas lamp seemed somewhat different from those he had seen in reference materials. Aside from differences in style, the most obvious thing was the several slender symbols he saw on the lamp's glass cover.

The symbols seemed to have been added when the lamp casing was first manufactured. Twisting and winding, they resembled pictographs. Duncan did not recognize them, but they immediately reminded him of the mysterious runes he had seen on that Mechanical Ship and on Alice's "coffin."

Though their contents differed, they all possessed a similar... "quality."

They were something sanctified, something ritualistic.

Duncan stepped back slightly and looked farther into the sewer. Every so often along the walls, he saw a gas lamp burning brightly.

For an underground facility that almost no one would visit aside from necessary maintenance, the lighting in this sewer seemed almost excessive. And the casing of every gas lamp might bear similar mysterious "runes."

It gave Duncan the feeling that these densely distributed gas lamps were actually fighting something in this unvisited underground darkness—that the "human civilized world" they represented was fighting something.

Duncan walked along the path illuminated by the gas lamps, his eyes simultaneously watching for any valuable clues on the surrounding walls, floor, and vaulted ceiling. Then, all of a sudden, something unusual caught the corner of his eye.

He stopped between two gas lamps. This was a relatively dim stretch of the sewer. Looking upward at an angle, he saw something painted in dark red high on the wall, near the sewer's vaulted ceiling.

Duncan narrowed his eyes and struggled to make it out for a long time before finally discerning the image outlined by those crude strokes—he saw pairs of hands reaching toward the sky, as though worshipping something, while in the direction toward which those hands gathered hung a sphere radiating boundless light.

Beneath that image of worship and adoration was a crooked line of writing. Its strokes trembled as if they contained intense fanaticism and anticipation. The letters were not any language from Earth, yet Duncan understood them naturally—

"The False Sun shall eventually fall, and the true Sun God shall rise again from blood and fire! All life belongs to the sun, all order belongs to the sun!"

Duncan stood quietly in the sewer, looking up at the dimmest boundary between the gas lamps' light. He watched the dark red graffiti, watched that sun seemingly soaked in blood, radiating boundless light and fervently worshipped by people.

As if he were gazing at another world for a long, long time.

He stared at it for a long while, until a burst of noise suddenly came from the depths of the sewer and several sets of footsteps reached Duncan's ears.

He abruptly raised his head toward the source of the sound, only to see several figures in robes approaching from ahead. Their heads and faces were shrouded in the shadows of their hoods as they emerged from the depths of the filthy sewer like sinister ghosts.

Duncan did not hide—in fact, there was barely anywhere to hide in this straight stretch of sewer, and his cumbersome temporary body could not pull off advanced maneuvers like darting into blind spots. After thinking it over briefly, he simply stood openly in the middle of the sewer, calmly watching the hooded figures approaching from ahead, who looked suspicious no matter how one viewed them.

Since this body could not run away anyway and was destined to be a disposable one-use item, he might as well trade it for a little more information before the end.

The next second, the hooded figures emerging from the depths of the sewer noticed Duncan's presence.

Oh my God!