Truth and Side Quest

As they crawled into the hole and descended a few steps, the darkness, like the maw of a giant beast, instantly swallowed them both.

Down here, their only source of light was that flashlight.

To be safe, following veteran Yu Yan's advice, they did not each carry one flashlight. Instead, they used only a single one to extend their total illumination time.

This vertical passage was undoubtedly deeper and more dilapidated than Li Ce had imagined.

The old welded steel ladder was rough and icy, with many sections already showing signs of coming loose. Their clothes kept scraping against the shaft walls as well, so they had to be extremely careful to avoid falling.

The beam from the flashlight clenched between Yu Yan's teeth swayed constantly through the narrow space, illuminating the shaft walls covered in thick moss and unknown slime.

But the farther down they went, the familiar strange stench of blood and rust seemed to drift up again!

An ordinary person's nose might not have detected it clearly, but Li Ce was obviously not among them.

The discovery made his heart sink.

Could this place, like that abnormal branch pipe earlier, also be an Alien activity zone?

After descending some twenty meters, their feet finally touched solid ground. Once they released the ladder, they discovered that they were standing in an even narrower old drainage channel that had clearly been abandoned long ago.

The channel was only a little over a meter high, and its ceiling was likewise covered in thick moss. Judging from the actual space, both of them had to bend over noticeably to move through it.

There was no rushing sewage at the bottom now, only a layer of sludge so viscous it had nearly solidified.

Yu Yan spat out the flashlight, caught it in