The Heretics in the Water Tower
The scene continued to flash and advance, Eli saw many familiar comrades lying in pools of blood. Even the unfathomable Astrologer Grand Knight Commander was suspended high in the sky by countless invisible, eerie Black Line, hanging to his death in mid-air. The once brilliant starlight on his body had been completely extinguished.
Looking further into the distance, the Northern Territory Knight Academy, which stood at the pinnacle of the Northern Territory and symbolized the highest military power in the Northern Territory, had been completely razed to the ground, with countless Academy dying in the ruins.
A gigantic, unimaginably large, horrific corpse stood atop the ruins of the Knight Academy, pinned there by a blurry figure.
As the scene shifts further, the entire Northern Territory has fallen. At the border between the desolate Snow Mountain- capped mountains and the Land of the Dead Silence, a continuous stream of figures with strange luster on their bodies, dressed in unfamiliar clothing that Eli had never seen before, surges wildly from the border.
The final scene returned to the summit of the Northern Territory, the very mountain Eli was currently observing. A colossal, viscous liquid, carrying some terrifying Contamination, poured down from the sky, obscuring the sun and collapsing Watch City and another massive city in the Northern Territory. The scene depicted a devastating apocalyptic catastrophe, the end of all things.
In the final moments before the image shattered, Eli saw a colorful light surge and flow across the sky... Before Eli could see it clearly, the apocalyptic spectacle vanished completely in an instant.
At the same time, a huge ball of colored light had already entered Eli's head...
Our gaze shifted from the Northern Territory peaks back to Iron Furnace Street in Watch City. Hundreds of miles away, above Watch City, thick, leaden-gray snow clouds still stubbornly obscured the night sky, not a single star could be seen.
Outside the back street of the heavy steam forging workshop on Iron Furnace Street, several steam carriages were lined up and parked by the roadside, with hot White Mist billowing from the small steam furnaces at the rear of the carriages swirling and spreading in the biting cold wind.
Having finalized the city-wide rapid search route with Lin En, Lu Yuan tightened his coat, stepped out of the workshop, boarded the steam carriages parked by the roadside, and rode with Lin En's seven-person team into the howling night.
Several steam-powered carriages sped along the newly arranged express route, their wheels rolling over the snow-covered cobblestone streets. They first went to check the two key heating boiler rooms and the sealed drinking water main pipeline nodes.
At this moment, the City Hall's orders to strictly prohibit shutdowns and strengthen patrols have taken full effect, and fully armed city defense Patrol and guards can be seen everywhere along the streets.
Lu Yuan sat by the car window, looking around. The buildings in the first two locations were clean and there was no trace of black energy.
After confirming that there were no abnormalities at the first two points, everyone in the carriage breathed a slight sigh of relief.
At least the current situation is not as bad as it seems; at least there is still room for maneuver.
As the steam-powered carriages sped to the third checkpoint and slowed down outside an old water storage station in the western district, Lu Yuan glanced out the window, his brows furrowing slightly. He immediately spoke:
"Stop the car; there's a lingering black aura here."
Lin En was in the same car, felt a chill and immediately pushed open the car door, leading the team out of the car. They drew their weapons and rushed into the old water storage station to conduct an inspection.
When everyone rushed into the dark room on the bottom floor of the water storage station, the room was already empty. Only a ring of damp Fungal Hyphae, which had just been uprooted, remained on the floor tiles. In the shadows of a corner lay the bodies of two workers who had been silenced not long ago.
Lin En quickly stepped forward, knelt down, and touched the still-warm neck of the corpse. His face instantly turned extremely ugly, and he gritted his teeth and said in a deep voice:
"The body was still warm, and its contents had been moved away less than half an hour ago!"
"Tonight we went to the City Hall Castle to capture Herbert, retrieve the files, and just now we forced the City Hall to issue a citywide ban on machine shutdowns. We barely left before these Heretic got wind of it. Sure enough, there's a mole within the City Hall's upper echelons tipping them off!"
Lu Yuan, who followed into the dark room, paid no attention to the two corpses on the ground. In his field of vision, a gray-black aura, several times denser than before, was extending out from the back door of the dark room, stretching along the back streets and alleys where the wind and snow were howling, all the way to the northern part of the western district, and it did not dissipate.
Lu Yuan walked to the back door of the dark room, looked towards the distant snowstorm following the direction of the gray-black aura, and said to Lin En:
"The black aura left by the people who moved the belongings was very strong, extending along the back streets and alleys all the way to the northern part of the western district; the traces haven't dissipated yet."
Following Lu Yuan's pointing finger towards the northern street, Lin En pondered for a moment, then her pupils suddenly contracted, and she exclaimed in surprise:
"There is only one large Waterworks Hub in the northern part of Xicheng District, which is the West District Second Waterworks built on the Northern Highlands. The booster tower on top is one of the highest points in the entire Xicheng District, and the sealed main pipe below directly connects to the inner city edge and the drinking water network of most of the residents in Xicheng District!"
"It's several blocks from here to the Second Waterworks in the Northern Highlands. There are armed patrols on all the main roads tonight, so they had to take the backstreets and alleys to carry that enormous, mature fungus. They must have just arrived at the Second Waterworks!"
"They're transporting the mature, Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom there in an attempt to breach the high-pressure main pipe of the Second Waterworks and poison half the city. Everyone, get in the trucks immediately and follow the trail!"
The seven-man team dared not delay for a moment. They immediately rushed out of the dark room and boarded the steam carriages outside. They pushed the steam valves all the way down, and a huge hum of steam came from them, increasing their speed.
At this moment, Lu Yuan sat by the front carriage window, guiding the direction of the gray-black aura. Several steam carriages raced against the howling blizzard for nearly twenty minutes, passing through several blocks in the northern part of the West District, and finally rushed up the Northern Highlands where the Second Waterworks was located.
Meanwhile, inside the main hall of the West District Second Waterworks's core pressurization tower, the towering water storage tower gates had been completely closed, and a muffled rumbling sound of water being stored and pressurized was constantly coming from inside the tower overhead.
The massive, lead-sealed main pipe in the center of the hall, which connects to half of the city's water Pipe Network, is normally completely sealed with a thick, leak-proof lead shell and cast iron, and there is no ready-made "feeding port."
A Heretic leader of the Withered Glory Society, a Third Order Believer Transcendent and an extraordinary figure, was surrounded above the lead-sealed main pipe with three Second Order and Third Order heretical core members. Two fully mature Void- Heretic Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom were placed on an iron rack at their feet, with viscous gray-black spore liquid constantly seeping from the surface of their caps.