Retreat

"Damn it." Hans gritted his teeth. "Pick up the pace! We have to find it before it spreads from the source!"

The team's pace visibly quickened.

This time, Lu Yuan did not need to lead the way. Everyone knew which direction to go.

Wherever the Corpse Moss was thickest, that was the way forward.

They walked for another quarter of an hour or so.

A strange sound suddenly came from the darkness ahead.

"Gurgle... gurgle..."

It sounded like some kind of soft-bodied creatures rubbing against each other.

Ed, who was walking at the front, suddenly stopped.

As if he had seen something utterly terrifying, his entire body froze in place.

Then he sharply signaled, Extreme danger. Stop advancing.

"What's going on?"

Hans lowered his voice and motioned for Ron and Gray to protect Lu Yuan. He himself hunched over and crept over to Ed's side.

After just one glance, even this battle-hardened Night Watcher captain could not help drawing a sharp breath.

At a huge drainage basin ahead, a mountain of bodies had piled up.

No, they could not entirely be called corpses.

They were the dozens of workers who had vanished from the Waterworks. Hans even spotted a familiar face among them.

They were not dead, but they could no longer be considered human either.

They had been stripped bare and wrapped in a thick, translucent membrane.

Their skin had taken on an Eerie translucence. What flowed through their veins was no longer bright red blood, but a viscous blackish-green fluid.

They were piled naked together like animals, tangled up in one another and clogging the entire drain.

Beneath them, in the sludge, countless fist-sized translucent eggs were densely arranged.

Whenever those eggs squirmed, the "people" let out a muffled, agonized groan, as though the eggs were draining away their life force bit by bit.

This was practically a living hatchery!

These people had all been turned into "hotbeds" that provided warmth and nutrients.

"These bastards..."

A vicious glint flashed through Hans's eyes, and the veins on the back of his hand bulged as he gripped his sword.

Just then, perhaps the flashlight's beam had provoked those things, or perhaps the scent of living people had disturbed them.

"Roar..."

One of the "people" at the very top of the body pile suddenly raised his head.

Half of his features had melted away, and his mouth had split all the way to his ears as he let out an inhuman shriek.

Then the entire pile of bodies began to tremble violently.

The water surface exploded with a crash.

Several black shadows shot out from beneath the water like arrows and landed in front of the body pile.

They were four enormous Mutated Creatures.

They looked somewhat like oversized skinned hounds. Their limbs were thick and powerful, sharp bone spurs covered their backs, and their mouths were packed with interlocking fangs dripping with slime.

[Witnessed Mutated Creature: Corrupted Hound (Mutant Variant)]

[Traits: Extremely agile. Its bites carry corrosive venom.]

[Weakness: Blunt weapons.]

That was not all.

A faint scuttling sound also came from the cracks in the previously silent walls.

Countless Mutant Rats, each only palm-sized but sporting human teeth, surged in from all directions. They were all mutated locals.

"We're surrounded! Retreat! Retreat first!"

Hans let out a furious roar, the savagery in his eyes instantly becoming resolute killing intent.

If they were surrounded in these narrow, deathly silent pipes and did not immediately tear open a path, all of them would become part of that mountain of bodies.

"Gray! Firebombs! Seal off the rear!"

"Ron! Protect Doctor Lu and move out first! Ed, follow!"

"I'll handle these dogs!"

As the orders fell, Hans did not retreat. Instead, he stepped forward.

The silver greatsword in his hand carved a shrill arc through the air, carrying a gale that seemed capable of tearing the air apart as it slashed viciously at the incoming Corrupted Hound.

"Splat!"

A bone-chilling sound of flesh and bone separating rang out.

The hound was still in midair and did not even have time to scream before the greatsword split it in two from head to tail.

Before its blackish-green blood could even spray out, Hans spun with the momentum and smashed the sword's pommel into another hound's skull, slamming it into the nearby wall.

"Move! Hurry!"

Hans kicked away a lunging hound, then pulled two Molotov Cocktails from his waist and hurled them viciously at the writhing mountain of bodies.

"Boom!"

Flames surged upward, instantly forming a wall of fire that temporarily forced back the Mutant Rats trying to swarm out.

"Retreat!"

Gray carried his tower shield, backing up while firing his blunderbuss behind him to suppress the rats trying to crawl over from the top of the pipe.

Lu Yuan was tightly shielded in the middle by Ron as they rapidly retreated.

But Lu Yuan was not focused solely on running.

He had noticed that beneath the murky sewage at their feet, an intense Black Qi, nearly solid in its density, was gathering wildly beneath the surface.

Like a massive vortex, it had silently drifted onto the team's only path.

That was something even more dangerous than the hounds!

"Stop! Don't step into the water!"

Lu Yuan suddenly grabbed Ed, who was about to wade forward. "There's something beneath the water!"

Ed staggered from the pull and instinctively withdrew the foot he had stepped out with.

At almost the exact same moment—

"Splash—!"

The previously calm water surface suddenly exploded.

A barbed tentacle as thick as an adult's thigh shot out from the depths, precisely piercing the spot where Ed had just been about to step and burying itself deep in the wall.

If Ed had not pulled back his foot, his leg would have been ruined by now.

"What... what the hell is that?!"

Ed's face turned deathly pale, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.

"Don't look! Keep running!"

Lu Yuan did not explain. He could see that mass of Black Qi still circling beneath the water, apparently seeking its next angle of attack.

"Head for higher ground! Stay away from the water!"

As he shouted, Lu Yuan raised the Silver-Plated Pistol in his hand and pulled the trigger at the tentacle struggling to pull itself free.

"Bang!"

The Silver-Plated Bullet struck the tentacle, scattering a burst of black sparks. The tentacle recoiled in pain and abruptly withdrew into the water, kicking up a spray.

"Listen to the deputy captain! Get onto the walkway!"

Hans fought as he retreated back toward them. He was covered in blood, and blackish-green slime still dripped from his greatsword.

"Gray! Use Mithril to stop the things behind us!"

"Understood!"

Gray answered, pulling an extremely brightly colored bottle from his pack.

Then he hurled it hard at the tide of rats surging toward them from behind.

"Boom—!"

A powerful explosion suddenly erupted, followed by silver flames that swallowed every Mutated Creature daring to touch them.

The silver fire rapidly faded at a visible rate, but it completely cut off the monsters' pursuit route.

Using the firelight as cover, the battered group of five finally rushed out of that death pipe and sprinted toward the exit.