Bronze Sin

Bolen's hand touched the surface of the Copper Pillar.

My fingers moved slowly along the metal texture.

Then he stopped moving.

"There are Inscription." His finger hovered over the surface of the Copper Wall, his fingertips trembling slightly.

He used a copper bristle brush to clean the column surface more carefully.

The Carrion Fungus peel away layer by layer, revealing the underlying texture.

Inscription.

But Lu Yuan noticed that these Inscription were different from those on the city wall.

The lines are rougher, the engravings are deeper, as if they were carved out with brute force rather than finely sculpted.

The characters also have different styles; some strokes lack the smooth curves of the inscriptions Inscription the city walls at their turns.

More primitive.

"Foundation," Bolen murmured. "This is a foundation-level conductive structure."

His fingers touched a spot where the Inscription was interrupted.

The characters stop abruptly here, and the edges of the engravings appear to have been torn by external force.

"The break is here." Bolen stood up, his gaze following the direction the Copper Pillar extended into the depths of the mud wall. "This pillar continues downwards, and so does the break."

He turned to look at Lu Yuan.

Can we continue?

Lu Yuan did not answer immediately.

He squatted down and placed his hands on the Copper Pillar.

The metal is cold.

The surface is rough.

But what he felt was more than just temperature and touch.

At the edge of my field of vision, grayish-white text began to flicker.

[Detection target: Special structure (damaged)... Parsing failed... Insufficient knowledge...]

[Forbidden Studies - Seeker: +0.2...13.0/100]

Lu Yuan silently withdrew his hand after seeing the pop-up gray notification and stood up.

"Continue."

The passage leads deeper and deeper.

The slope is increasing.

The air is changing too.

The putrid smell was still there, but a new odor had appeared.

It has a damp, mineral smell.

We walked for about ten more minutes.

Lu Yuan noticed something.

The Carrion Fungus are thinning.

It wasn't Purification.

It thins naturally.

The material of the passage walls gradually changed from soil to rock, interspersed with fragments of copper structures.

Carrion Fungus adhere to rock surfaces much less strongly than soil, forming only a thin layer, and in some places even leaving the bare rock exposed.

"The Carrion Fungus can't take root anymore," Boer also noticed.

"Because of copper," Bolen said without turning his head. "The deeper you go, the denser the copper structure becomes. Carrion Fungus are naturally suppressed by copper, but the copper at the top has become ineffective and can no longer suppress them."

However, the deeper the site, the higher the copper concentration, and the more difficult it is for bacteria to survive.

This is good news.

But Lu Yuan's attention was not on the Carrion Fungus.

He heard the change in the echo.

Previously, in the tunnel, the sound was muffled, as most of it was absorbed by the bacterial layer.

But now, the footsteps are beginning to Echo.

Moreover, the Echo grew longer and longer.

The space is getting bigger.

"Everyone, slow down," Lu Yuan said in a low voice.

The team's speed slowed down.

An arched opening appeared at the end of the passage.

It was three times wider than the passageway itself.

The orb of light on the nun's shoulder did not illuminate the wall on the other side of the opening.

The light shone in, as if it were swallowed up.

Lu Yuan walked to the opening and stopped.

Wind.

It wasn't the lifeless, stagnant airflow you'd find in a passageway.

It was a real wind, blowing up from below, carrying the scent of dampness and minerals.

There was also an extremely faint humming sound.

The low, sustained tone sounded like something enormous resonating.

Lu Yuan took out a Copper Powder pellet from his waist and threw it into the darkness ahead.

The bullet traced an arc.

Then it began to fall.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

There was no sound of it hitting the ground.

Boer's expression changed.

"Agnes," Lu Yuan turned his head, "Could you turn the light up?"

Agnes did not speak.

She walked to the opening, clasped her hands together, and the Holy Light in her palms suddenly intensified.

A golden sphere of light rose from her shoulder, expanding like a miniature sun blooming in the darkness.

The light shone outwards.

Ten meters.

Twenty meters.

Fifty meters.

The darkness receded piece by piece.

The scene gradually emerged at the edge of the light.

Everyone fell silent.

They were standing on the edge of a cliff.

Beneath our feet was a huge, almost vertical hole.

The Holy Light cannot reach the bottom.

Light begins to attenuate after traveling fifty or sixty meters, and is swallowed up by darkness any further.

However, judging from the airflow and the intervals between echoes, the depth of this cavity is far greater than imagined.

The cliff face is covered with countless cave entrances.

Big ones, small ones.

Regular, irregular.

Layer upon layer, extending downwards.

Like Hive.

Each opening is a passageway.

Leading to more nests.

Lu Yuan's gaze followed the cliff face to the opposite side.

It's about eighty meters away across the street.

The Holy Light barely illuminated the outline.

Copper Pillar.

It extends out from the cliff face.

It plunged diagonally into the Abyss.

Not just one.

It's a row.

Some are straight, some are curved.

The largest one requires at least dozens of people to encircle it.

It emerges from the rock strata overhead, sloping down the cliff face and extending into the depths where the Holy Light cannot reach.

The surface is densely covered with Inscription.

Under the Holy Light, the Inscription did not glow, nor did they exhibit any energy fluctuations.

But their presence is extremely strong.

Each engraving extends at least two fingers deep into the bronze.

The spacing between the lines is incredibly precise.

This is not engraving on metal.

This transforms an entire Copper Pillar into an Inscription artifact.

Bolen stood on the edge of the cliff, his body stiff.

His cane fell to the ground.

Her lips trembled slightly.

His fingers unconsciously stretched out, towards the direction of those Copper Pillar.

"This isn't a conductive structure." His voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible.

The Wall Runes on the ground... are just the tip of the iceberg.

"This is the heart."

Kael walked to his side and whispered, "Teacher?"

Bolen did not hear.

His entire attention was drawn to those Copper Pillar.

Lu Yuan did not interrupt him.

Because he was watching it himself.

The gray-white text at the edge of my field of vision was jumping wildly.

[Detection Target: Bronze Sin (Special Bronze Artifacts)]

[Perhaps this is the Last Bronze Inscription Artifact...]

[Forbidden Studies - Seeker: +0.5...13.5/100]

It jumped by 0.5.

But Lu Yuan noticed more than just experience points.

At the very end of that long string of text, there was one more line.

[... a trace resonance response was detected...]

[Environmental Perception: Numerous Source of Pollution detected...]

Resonance?

Agnes said that word on the ground.

Lu Yuan immediately looked away.

I stopped looking at the Copper Pillar.

He turned to Agnes.

The nun's expression remained calm, but her gaze was not on the Copper Pillar.

She was looking down into the Abyss.

"What did you feel?" Lu Yuan stared at her face.

Agnes was silent for two seconds.

"There's something down there." Her voice was soft. "Large, but not Ghoul."

She turned to look at Lu Yuan, her gaze more serious than ever before.

"We shouldn't go any further."

Lu Yuan nodded.

He hadn't planned to go any further.

The objective today is reconnaissance, not attack.

"Bolen," he called out.

The old man did not respond.

"Bolen!" Lu Yuan raised his voice.

Bolen seemed to be jolted awake from a dream. "Huh? What?"

"Remember what you saw. We should go."

Bolen's expression showed a moment of struggle.

He glanced greedily at the Copper Pillar one last time, then bent down to pick up his cane and let out a long sigh.

"... I've got it."

He turned and walked back, still muttering to himself.

"A perfect creation... truly a perfect creation... How did they do it? How could the rumors of thirty years be so true... There's more to this than meets the eye..."

Kael took his arm and glanced back at the Abyss as they walked.

The young man's face turned deathly pale.

But this angle allowed Lu Yuan to see something else.

Looking up from the Abyss, one can vaguely discern the location where the Copper Pillar penetrates the rock strata.

That direction.

It's the inner city.

The inner city was not built on the ground.

It was built on top of these pillars.

It was built on the lid of the Abyss.

The group began to turn around.

Just then, Agnes's Holy Light began to recede.

The light sphere shrank, its brightness decreased, and the illumination range rapidly contracted from fifty or sixty meters to twenty or ten meters.

The Abyss was swallowed by darkness once more.

But in that instant before the light completely faded.

[Environmental Perception: Massive Source of Pollution detected... Move away immediately...]

At the same time, Lu Yuan saw it.

Something is moving inside those Hive -shaped holes on the opposite cliff face.

It's not a hole.

There are many.

A grayish-red figure peeked out from the edge of the cave entrance, as if startled by something.

They did not roar.

They simply crawled out of their respective caves quietly, pressed themselves against the cliff face, and looked this way.

The grayish-white eyes, devoid of irises, reflected a faint glow in the last ray of Holy Light.

A dozen or so pairs.

Dozens of pairs.

Then the light went out completely.

In the darkness, those eyes also disappeared.

But the sound did not disappear.

The sounds coming from the Abyss were no longer buzzing or the wind.

It's not claws.

The sound of countless claws scraping against the rock face.

It magnifies rapidly in the darkness.

They climbed toward the edge of the cliff where they were.

"Let's go!" Lu Yuan said without hesitation. "Let's go now!"

The eight people turned around at the same time and rushed into the passageway they had come from.

Behind them, the first roar came from the edge of the cliff.

Then comes the second tone.

Third tone.

The sounds rose and fell, like lit fuses, traveling from one cave entrance to another, from one side of the cliff to the other.

The entire the Abyss resounded.

Agnes's Holy Light shone again, but it was dimmer than when she arrived.

The continuous Purification had already consumed a significant amount of her power.

The Purification radius of each pushout has been reduced to less than two meters.

Carrion Fungus have re-covered the path from which they came.

It wasn't thick, but it was thick enough that every step was accompanied by the hissing sound of the soles being corroded by acid.

The roars from the passage behind them grew closer.

But the two sides are even more troublesome.

Hive -shaped openings covered the entire cliff face, and the passages connected to these openings were interconnected with the one they were walking on.

The Ghoul that are disturbed in the Abyss will not only chase after you from behind.

They can emerge from any exit of the entire nesting network.

The first Ghoul squeezed out from a crack on the right side.

It was going very fast, almost skimming the ground.

Its skin is grayish-white, and it is not large in size; it is a low-level pioneer type.

The rear Night Watcher turned, raised his gun, and fired.

The roar of the Short Shotgun of jets exploded in the tunnel, the bullets striking the Ghoul in the chest and knocking it to the ground.

But it's still moving.

Having lost one forelimb, it continued crawling forward using its remaining three legs.

"There are some ahead too!" Lu Yuan, who was walking at the front, shouted.

Two Ghoul emerged from around the corner of the passage ahead.

Lu Yuan had already raised his Revolver.

Two shots.

Two gunshots rang out.

The first one was hit in the eye socket and fell backward.

He was hit in the front knee a second time, staggered, but immediately got back up.

Lu Yuan did not fire a second shot.

He pulled the Copper Powder can from his waist, unscrewed the lid, and splashed it forward.

Hiss hiss hiss...

It rolled on the ground, screeching.

Lu Yuan ran past it.

"Keep up!"

The team sped through that passage.

The voices behind them grew louder and louder.

The sound of claws scraping against the stone blended into a continuous rustling sound, surging in from all directions.

"The fork in the road is just ahead!" Boer shouted.

Lu Yuan has already seen it.

The outline of the fork appeared at the edge of the Holy Light.

The two remaining Night Watcher are still there.

They heard the gunshots, raised their weapons, and stood back to back facing the five passageways.

"There's movement in several directions?" Lu Yuan asked in a low voice as he rushed over.

"Three." The Night Watcher with half a little finger spoke in a steady voice. "The biggest one has the most."

The tripwire bell hasn't rung yet.

This means that no Ghoul have reached the entrance of the passage yet.

But the roar was already close.

"Go. Let's go now."

The ten people regrouped and retreated in the direction they had come from.

Behind me, a bell rang.

More than one channel is triggered simultaneously.

Boer looked back.

"They're out!"

At the fork in the road, at least seven or eight Ghoul emerged simultaneously from different passages, their feet emitting white smoke as they stepped over the Copper Powder barrier, but they did not stop.

They surged forward, stepping on the Copper Powder.

The Night Watcher at the rear turned and fired two shots.

One was knocked down, the other was hit in the shoulder but kept moving forward.

"Don't linger!" Lu Yuan's voice was barely audible, muffled by the Fungal Carpet on the cave wall.

The queue entered the upward passage.

The slope began to slow everyone down.

Instead, Bolen and Kael were in the lead.

Seeing that the Ghoul behind him was increasing, Boer took the initiative to retreat to the back of the group, holding his bronze sword horizontally in front of him.

Another Ghoul caught up.

Larger than the previous ones.

There are dark, keratinous bumps on my shoulders and back.

Not Great Ghoul, but not an ordinary vanguard either.

It crawls on all fours with its back arched, moving much faster than a person through the tunnel.

He rushed to Boer within three seconds.

Boer slashed horizontally with his sword.

The bronze sword struck its forearm, cutting through the skin, but got stuck in the stratum corneum.

The Ghoul howled in pain and swung its other claw toward Boer's face.

Boer dodged to the side, his knee striking the Ghoul's jaw. As the ghoul's head tilted back, he drew his bronze sword and plunged it into its throat.

The burning copper exploded inside the wound.

The Ghoul's scream turned into a muffled whimper, its body twitched twice, and it collapsed to the ground.

Just then, two Ghoul squeezed out of a crack in the left wall.

There was no warning whatsoever.

Agnes moved.

"Angel Gate."

She didn't turn around.

Turn your left hand over so that your palm faces backward and your fingers are spread.

A beam of Holy Light shot out from his palm.

It was a wall of blazing white light.

It spans the entire width between the crack opening and the channel wall.

The Ghoul charging ahead couldn't stop themselves.

Its front half crashed into the wall of light.

Laugh...

The instant the Ghoul touched the wall of light.

The forelimbs and half of the face turned into grayish-white powder the moment they came into contact with the wall of light, scattering on the ground like sand.

The remaining half of his body lay on the ground, his limbs still twitching.