Lost

After dealing with the Steel-Claw Spider, Lu Heng didn't linger and continued deeper into the sewers.

The underground network of pipes is like an endless maze.

The concrete corridors branched out and converged, the walls covered with blackish-green mold, and murky water dripped from the seeping surfaces. Stagnant water of varying depths covered the ground, with gravel and rotting garbage at the bottom, making it slippery and difficult to walk on.

All around were identical passageways, without signs or any special landmarks; every corner looked exactly the same. The incessant dripping of water from the broken pipes overhead echoed repeatedly in the enclosed, empty pipes, making the deathly silence of the entire space even more so.

The deeper Lu Heng went, the clearer it became that he had completely lost his way.

He didn't know where he was in the city, nor could he pinpoint the source of the gathering blood energy hidden in any particular pipe. Wandering aimlessly would never lead him to his true destination. To break through this underground fog, he needed to find a complete map of the entire sewer network.

The cold, dripping sound echoed back and forth in the sealed pipes, the air filled with a mixture of musty smells, stagnant water odors, and a faint trace of blood.

He walked slowly forward along the main passage, holding the Rat King Bone Knife in his hand, the nicks and nicks on the blade still clearly visible.

The threat lurking in the shadows has never disappeared.

From time to time, a single, mutated creature would emerge from the cracks in the pipes, from the stagnant corners where water had accumulated, and from the shadows cast by the ceiling overhead.

Giant sewage rats of the Black Iron Tier, with rotten fur and exposed fangs, pounce from the shadows; small lurking spiders move swiftly along the damp rock walls, waiting for an opportunity to ambush; occasionally, strangely shaped mutated reptiles will dart out, wriggling rapidly in the puddles.

These monsters all act alone, their individual mental cores are very weak, their consciousness is simple and brutal, and they only have the instinct to hunt.

Lu Heng did not intend to engage in close combat with them, thus wasting the already damaged bone knife.

As soon as the monster launched a surprise attack, he activated his Mind Spike. The invisible shockwave pierced the monster's mind, instantly obliterating its consciousness. The monster's body froze, losing its ability to move, and Lu Heng would then step forward and deliver a quick finishing blow, thus ending the battle completely.

This combat mode proved highly efficient along the way, eliminating threats one by one.

As Lu Heng passed by the Aberrant corpses, he didn't pause for a moment, nor did he reach out to touch them, much less put them into his Wristband Space.

The foreign control thread he had detected while examining the Steel-Claw Spider's corpse kept swirling in his mind. He wasn't sure if these dead, deformed bodies retained any strange parasitic marks, or if they harbored unseen insect eggs. Bringing these corpses back to the Lakeside Base might very well bring an unknown threat with them.

If the risk is too high, the loot is meaningless.

He only cared about eliminating threats, never touching a single corpse.

After turning into a wider, stagnant ditch, the sight ahead made Lu Heng suddenly stop in his tracks.

The edge of the water's surface at the bottom of the culvert was densely packed with deformed worms.

Countless slender insects piled up in layers, intertwined and wriggling, a dark mass covering a large area of the ground, their sheer number shocking. They tumbled and twisted in the murky water, emitting a nauseating, putrid stench.

The individual worms also have very weak consciousness, but their numbers are so vast that they are scattered throughout the entire area.

Mind Spike can only target a single target and cannot cover such a large Insect Swarm at once. Stinging them one by one would only waste a lot of mental energy and would be counterproductive.

Lu Heng scanned the passage behind him with his mental senses. From the depths of the passage he had come from, faint, wriggling sounds were closing in from multiple directions—his escape route had been quietly cut off by another Insect Swarm.

With a swarm of insects in front and the road behind blocked, this underground canal is a dead end.

Lu Heng's eyes narrowed, and he unleashed his Talent.

A scorching power erupted from his body, spreading outwards from him to the entire area where the worms had gathered, causing the local temperature to rise sharply.

The high temperature enveloped the Insect Swarm.

The densely packed worm bodies were instantly enveloped by the heat wave, and the moisture inside their bodies was rapidly evaporated. The worms continued to curl up and shrivel, turning into wrinkled, dry shells, and all of them died under the high temperature.

As the heatwave subsided, only the dried remains of insects remained on the ground.

Continuously activating his Talent had clearly depleted his mental energy. Lu Heng's temples throbbed, and a slight dizziness washed over him. He closed his eyes briefly, took a moment to regulate his breathing, and suppressed the fatigue.

The ground was covered with the dried corpses of worms, but he still didn't approach them or collect them.

No one knows whether the corpses of these gregarious, mutated creatures also carry that unknown parasitic power.

Lu Heng looked around.

In all directions, there were endless, dark forks in the road, and all the paths looked exactly the same.

Single monsters can be quickly dealt with using Mind Spike, and hordes of Aberrant can be suppressed using the High-Temperature Talent. But even if all threats along the way are cleared, without a map of the underground pipe network, it is still impossible to find the core where the blood energy converges.

He stood at a crossroads where roads led in all directions, the deep pipes stretching endlessly into the distance in the darkness.

Blindly exploring is no longer a viable approach.

To uncover the mastermind hidden underground, finding the overall map of the sewer system is the only way out at present.