Sewers and Mechanical Spirits

The underground world of London is a vast, rotting interior beneath the polished, glamorous skin of this great city.

Designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette, this engineering marvel—the pride of the Victorian era—is like a network of capillaries deep beneath the earth, carrying away the filth of the surface while nurturing countless unknown darknesses.

As Sergeant William used a crowbar to violently and efficiently pry open the rusted iron grate of the sewer, a gust of stale, foul air erupted from the pitch-black opening.

Marcus, who had been following behind to "observe," couldn't help but frown when he caught the scent.

"Hell, it seems this insurance money isn't easy to earn. That guy Barton set me up again," he muttered, though he dutifully stood guard outside the entrance.

His task was to provide support on the surface and prevent their movements from being discovered by any idlers from the Surface World.

Lin Jie, without hesitation, was the first to light his portable carbide lamp.

A steady, bright white beam pierced the darkness, illuminating a narrow passage that only allowed one person to pass by stooping.

The walls of the passage were covered in green moss and some kind of slimy fungus, while a layer of foul-smelling sewage flowed across the ground.

"I'll take the lead," William, who had been silent, said in a concise tone, then took the carbide lamp from Lin Jie's hand.

Holding the lamp in one hand and his long-barreled Colt Revolver in the other, he bent down and crawled into the opening first.

Lin Jie followed closely behind, gripping his Heart of Serenity tightly.

The moment his body fully entered the passage, a bone-chilling cold from deep underground seeped through his clothes, invading every inch of his skin.

The darkness here was different from the night on the surface.

It was purer, more oppressive.

The two moved one after the other, slowly advancing through the labyrinthine sewer.

William was responsible for scouting and vigilance; his eyes, sharpened on the battlefield, could spot any unusual trace.

As for Lin Jie, he immersed his mind completely in the unique perception granted by his Touch of Afterimage, acting like a mobile sonar, tracking the increasingly clear "echo of will" coming from the Gremlin nest.

"The fork on the left," Lin Jie's voice echoed in the narrow passage. "That 'will'... that desire to 'build,' is coming from this direction."

Hearing this, William did not doubt him in the slightest and immediately turned into the left fork.

After the verification in the warehouse, he had developed an instinctive trust in Lin Jie's miraculous "intuition."

In this unknown underground world, this young man's "perception" was far more reliable than his own naked eyes.

As they ventured deeper, the surrounding environment became increasingly complex.

They passed through a main drainage pipe as large as a cathedral dome, where the rushing sewage could submerge a person's calves.

Some giant mutant rats living underground occasionally darted past their feet, emitting heart-stopping squeaks.

When passing a corner, William's hand holding the lamp suddenly stopped, and he made a tactical "stop" gesture.

Lin Jie immediately held his breath.

He followed William's beam of light and saw some fabric scraps on the ground ahead, soaked in sewage until their original colors were unrecognizable, along with a corroded brass button.

William crouched down and carefully pushed aside the fabric scraps with his gun barrel.

Beneath the scraps were several long-dried, dark brown bloodstains and some white bones gnawed down to mere remnants.

"It's Billy," William said, pointing to the button. "A uniform button from a Night Watcher of the United Spice and Textile Company. We've found the first missing person."

Lin Jie looked at the pile of pathetic remains, feeling a sense of heaviness in his heart.

This proved his speculation: those missing Night Watchers had been dragged into their underground kingdom by these Gremlins, becoming some sort of sacrifice, or perhaps just "obstacles" they had casually cleared away.

"They aren't carnivorous UMA," Lin Jie said, observing the fine gnaw marks on the white bones and analyzing calmly. "These marks look more like they were left by the mutant rats underground. The Gremlins just killed him and then abandoned him here."

William nodded in agreement.

The young man's calmness left a deep impression on him once again.

After seeing such a tragic sight, not only was he free of fear or discomfort, but he was also able to extract valuable intelligence and perform logical analysis immediately.

This kind of mental fortitude was not like that of a greenhorn.

"He should have something on him that we're interested in," Lin Jie said.

He put on a leather glove he had requested from Barton and began to rummage cautiously through the remains.

Soon, he found what he was looking for—a set of keys that had malfunctioned from being soaked in sewage, and a tattered, equally soaked notebook.

Lin Jie opened the notebook; the handwriting inside was already blurred, but he still found a line of scribbled text on the footer of a page, preserved because the pen had pressed so deeply: "...noisy monkeys... thieves who steal clocks... they are afraid of... grandpa's..."

The subsequent handwriting was completely illegible.

"Grandpa's?" Lin Jie frowned. What did this mean?

"Music box," William suddenly spoke up.

Lin Jie looked at him, puzzled.

"When I was young, I worked as a porter on the docks for a few years," William's voice carried a hint of distant memory. "The old men in that area, especially those old sailors who had participated in the Battle of Trafalgar, all liked to carry a music box shaped like an anchor."

"It was their honor and their only solace in their later years. They called that kind of music box the 'Old Captain's Lullaby.' I think what Billy meant by 'grandpa's' is likely that very thing."

Lin Jie's eyes lit up suddenly.

William's seemingly casual addition perfectly corroborated the weakness mentioned in the I.A.R.C. manual regarding how Gremlins "loathe rhythmic sounds"!

Billy, that poor Night Watcher, had likely discovered the secret of these monsters in his final moments, yet he hadn't been able to pass it on.

And now, this long-buried clue had been unearthed by them once again.

"We've found our 'Silver Bullet' for dealing with them." Lin Jie solemnly tucked away the tattered notebook; it might play an unexpected role at a critical moment.

They continued forward, the surrounding environment becoming increasingly bizarre.

Strange, nonsensical "totems" constructed from brass, tin scraps, and various metal waste began to appear on the walls.

Disassembled clock parts, scattered and broken, "grew" out of the cracks in the walls like vines.

They also saw a massive mechanical construct, composed of countless interlocking gears, slowly rotating and powered entirely by the underground water flow.

The air here was thick with that intense "construction" desire characteristic of Gremlins.

Lin Jie knew they were very close to the heart of the nest.

Just then, Lin Jie's unique Afterimage perception suddenly caught a hint of something unusual.

It didn't come from a Gremlin, but was a strong, negative human emotion representing "resentment" and "unwillingness"!

"Wait!" Lin Jie abruptly called out to William, who was walking in front. "There's something ahead. It's not a Gremlin, it's something else. I can feel... immense malice."

Upon hearing this, William immediately raised his gun in alert, casting the beam of his Carbide Lamp into the unknown darkness.

At the end of the passage ahead, sitting atop a massive "Throne" piled high with scrap parts and metal refuse, were... no, three humanoid objects bound tightly together with metal wire.

They were the other missing Night Watchers.

However, they were no longer alive.

Their bodies had been subjected to inhumane "mechanical modification" by the crazed Gremlins.

Their arms had been replaced with twisted brass pipes, their chests had been sliced open and stuffed with ticking clock parts, and their eyes had been swapped for two crystal lenses glowing with an eerie red light.

They were dead, but their souls, trapped within their mechanical husks, had been transformed by immense pain and resentment into something even more terrifying and dangerous.

A "Mechanical Wraith," filled with a dual hatred for both the living and machines, driven by clockwork and spite!

When the light of the Carbide Lamp shone upon them, the three modified corpses stiffened and lifted their heads in unison.

From their crystal-modified eyes, they projected pain, along with an undisguised murderous intent toward the two intruders, Lin Jie and William.