Sounds echoed through the depths of the corridor, mixed and indistinct.

There seemed to be a chilling wind, muffled whispers, the rapid thud of footsteps, and gunfire.

Everything was jumbled together, all distinct boundaries lost. The whole world felt as if it was gradually being kneaded into a ball, with no front, back, left, or right, no yesterday or today—just like the dim, misty corridor before him, drowsy and seemingly able to swallow all things.

A hunched old man shuffled along the corridor, the large wrench in his hand occasionally hitting the pipes on the nearby walls, producing a low, strange clang.

Who am I? Where is this? Where am I going? And why am I going there?

The attack has begun… At midnight, the Queen's Guard would launch their attack, but what exactly were they attacking? And in what direction?

Disordered, fragmented thoughts, long-ago faded memories, occasionally surfaced in Old Ghost's muddled mind, but they quickly dissolved back into his confused brain—sometimes he felt as if he were walking on two diverging paths, chaotic perceptions and experiences memories intertwined within his body, but sometimes he felt that he had been standing still, waiting for orders for fifty years.

The large wrench struck something with a clang. Old Ghost slowly lowered his head and saw a helmet—black, narrow-brimmed, with the insignia of the Queen's Guard, a relic from fifty years ago, now rarely seen.

He stared blankly at the helmet, watching it fall to the ground and roll into the drainage ditch to the side. Something seemed to struggle to climb out of the ditch, but it quickly merged with the surrounding darkness and disappeared.

He made a muffled grunt and continued to walk into the darkness, as if gradually entering a mass of congealed black sludge, and then, after who knows how long, he finally stopped at the end of the corridor.

Intertwined pipes, collapsed rubble, and smoke and black matter surging between the stones—these things blocked the old man's path forward. He stopped here, looking around with some confusion.

He didn't recognize this place, didn't even remember there being such a place in the Second Waterway, but he had stopped here because… there was something here waiting for him to complete.

Old Ghost lowered his head, looking at a pool of water beside the rubble, his bewildered eyes reflected in it.

What am I here to do?

Just then, the water suddenly reflected a strange scene—

Queen's Guard soldiers trampled through the endless swarm of monsters in the corridor, their guns and bayonets turning wave after wave of counterfeit freaks into cold, dry mud, and where they passed, the walls were no longer seeping with sludge, and even the darkness in the corridor seemed to recede.

Everything was as Laurence had guessed: the existence of the Queen's Guard itself was suppressing the "pollution" in this mirror city-state.

If the events in this city-state were seen as a confrontation between two forces, then the sludge monsters and the Queen's Guard were clearly the manifestations of these two opposing forces—and such opposition and entanglement may have lasted for half a century.

Laurence led his Marine squad, running quickly through the corridor, following the path opened by the Queen's Guard. In a dozen minutes, they covered a distance that had previously taken them hours to break through, and along the way, Laurence was constantly observing and thinking.

He was trying to figure out the essence of this Queen's Guard, and even more so, he was trying to establish communication with these phantoms, but all his attempts failed.

The Queen's Guard couldn't see him, didn't even notice the existence of these uninvited guests. These soldiers were like a memory projected from a distant history, mechanically repeating a battle that had taken place decades ago. They advanced, shot, fought, fell… and all of this had probably been happening every day for the past few decades.

Martha's intelligence about the Queen's Guard was correct, but obviously not entirely correct.

He couldn't establish cooperation with these "helpers."

"Captain! They can't see us, what should we do?" a sailor ran over and said loudly beside Laurence, "Just running along with a dozen of us doesn't seem to be of much help, does it?"

Laurence's expression was somewhat complicated. He subconsciously looked at the small mirror on his chest, but Martha's voice came from inside first: "Don't ask me, I don't know what to do about the situation in front of me—I just know about their existence, I haven't dealt with them…"

While speaking, faint sounds of artillery fire came from the mirror: Martha's side was obviously busy, and the situation was no less simple than on the sewer side.

"The Queen's Guard has just been repeating this battle all these years?" Laurence said loudly, "Then is the result of each battle the same?!"

"Yes, the result is the same every time. They appear at midnight and retreat at the next hour. They can never break through the barrier at the end each time!"

Can't break through the barrier at the end?

Hearing this, Laurence subconsciously looked up, looking in the direction the phantom soldiers were charging.

They were charging into the deepest part of the corridor, and in that dark, chaotic space, the dense malice surged in his perception like a tangible sludge.

"I understand!" Laurence suddenly said loudly.

Martha's voice came from the mirror: "What do you understand?!"

However, Laurence couldn't bother answering the questions of the person in the mirror. After vaguely realizing what he should do, he immediately took his men and ran forward faster.

At the same time, the battle in the corridor was also becoming more intense. The Queen's Guard was launching a final charge—countless warriors condensed from phantoms roared, using the weapons in their hands to eliminate the monsters blocking their path. Warriors constantly fell, turning into bubbles dissipating in the air, and monsters constantly fell, turning into sludge flowing into the drainage ditches on both sides. As this fierce battle continued, the entire assault team gradually reached the end of the corridor.

Laurence finally saw the end of this fierce battle, saw the obstacle that had been blocking the Queen's Guard for half a century—

It was a door, a door covered with countless overgrown thorns and turbid black mud, its appearance chilling and frightening.

On the surface of the door, the crisscrossing thorns were like a crown formed by withered branches, and dim spots of light wandered irregularly deep in the thorn bushes, as if countless eyes were hidden deep in the thorn bushes. Ordinary people would have their hearts seized by fear and madness with just one glance in that direction.

Even Laurence, who had now transformed into a spirit-fire carrier, couldn't help but feel a shock in his mind and a roar in his head when he saw the door blocked by the thorn bushes.

And that was the target of the Queen's Guard's attack.

In front of the door, countless black mud was gathering, and countless monsters were appearing in the mud—they clumsily imitated the appearance of humans, including soldiers wearing city-state guard uniforms and navy uniforms, as well as pirates and armed citizens with various equipment, and even… old-fashioned cannons and demon-like monsters piled up from bones.

These monsters relied on the simple fortifications in the hall, guarding the thorn gate, like fanatical believers guarding their master.

The final battle began.

The Queen's Guard poured all their firepower onto the monsters on the opposite side of the corridor, and the latter's counterattack shook the entire Second Waterway. Both sides lost more than half of their combat power in almost the blink of an eye, and Laurence and the mere dozen sailors he had brought could only try to find hidden places on the edge of this devastating and tragic battlefield.

In such a density of firepower, even Laurence, protected by the spirit-fire, didn't dare to gamble on whether he really wouldn't die.

But he wasn't just hiding—he was observing.

He was observing the extent of what the Queen's Guard had accomplished in this battle.

As the battle continued, as the combatants on both sides continued to decrease, the defensive forces in front of the gate finally weakened—those deadly cannons and demon creatures were torn to pieces, and gaps began to appear in the defense line in front of the thorns.

"Demolition team! Go!"

Laurence, hiding next to the Queen's Guard's position, suddenly heard a voice, the voice of a certain commander of the Guard.

The next second, the corner of his eye caught a few figures crawling forward on the edge of the battlefield.

A squad broke away from the main position and entered the drainage ditch on the edge of the hall in the blind spots of those monsters, moving little by little along the ditch towards the hidden place on the side of the thorn gate.

At the same time, the firepower from the front position suddenly intensified, and dense bullets poured over, trying to suppress and attract the attention of the monsters in front of the gate.

Laurence suddenly held his breath involuntarily—even though he knew that this might just be a phantom that would not be affected by the outside world, he still did it subconsciously.

But the things he was worried about still happened as expected.

The demolition team approaching the thorn gate along the edge of the battlefield was discovered.

A series of bullets hit the drainage ditch, and several soldiers carrying demolition devices fell into the ditch in an instant.

But almost at the same time, another demolition team entered the dark slot in the ditch on the other side of the hall and continued to climb towards the door covered with thorns.

They were also discovered—the second demolition team fell a dozen meters away from the thorn gate.

Just then, a sailor's low call suddenly entered Laurence's ears: "They're disappearing!"

Laurence immediately raised his head, and the scene in the corridor came into his eyes—

The Queen's Guard was disappearing.

After the second demolition team's action failed, all the Guard soldiers suddenly froze for a moment, and then each of their figures began to fade and dissipate. A third of them had already become translucent phantoms in the blink of an eye!

Martha's words suddenly appeared in Laurence's mind:

"...They can never break through the barrier at the end..."

Laurence suddenly understood the meaning of this sentence, understood the ending of this battle every time—the Queen's Guard had failed. Despite fighting all the time, despite persisting obsessively, the unchangeable fact was that in this "final counterattack" at midnight, they had failed.

This operation failed fifty years ago.

Every repetition after that was repeating this failure.

Laurence was in a daze for a while, but just then, the corner of his eye suddenly saw another figure appearing on the battlefield.

It was a figure rushing out from the corner of the hall, a phantom that had not yet begun to dissipate.

Laurence and all the sailors' eyes were instantly attracted by that figure.

He was not a soldier, but a young man who looked like an army engineer, wearing deep blue coarse cloth overalls and a slanted soft hat that was popular half a century ago. On his belt, in addition to a pistol and bullet bag, hung a large wrench.

He rushed to the ditch, rushed to the explosive device left by the second demolition team, and then, holding the wooden box filled with explosives, quickly climbed towards the thorn gate.

In that instant, Laurence almost thought he was going to succeed.

However, a bullet flew and the young man seemed to be hit hard on the shoulder by an iron hammer. Half of his body shook violently and he fell a few meters away from the thorn gate.

The entire hall seemed to quiet down in an instant.

The final counterattack was over.

All the Queen's Guard soldiers began to accelerate their dissipation, and the phantoms that had been repeating for fifty years also returned to their origin.

Perhaps, this was the last repetition.

Laurence stared blankly at the last young man who fell.

The "last Queen's Guard," the last fallen soldier, his fall seemed to be some kind of "focus" of this constantly repeating battle.

But suddenly, Laurence woke up from his daze.

He jumped out of the place where he was hiding, and under the gaze and exclamations of the sailors, the old captain ran like a gust of wind towards the place where the last person had fallen.

The hall, which had been silent, was "disturbed" by his sudden "intervention," and those monsters that had not yet dissipated reacted almost instantly. The chaotic and noisy roars and the roar of weapons firing suddenly exploded!

The sailors' shouts came from behind: "Cover the captain!"

However, Laurence seemed to have been unable to hear these sounds. He just rushed forward with his head down. He seemed to have been shot a few times, but that was irrelevant to him. He rushed through half the hall, jumped into the ditch, and lunged at the last explosive device, reaching out his hand to it—

Then, his fingers passed through the box of explosives.

Laurence fell into the ditch in embarrassment, looking at the scene in front of him in a daze.

Like the surrounding Queen's Guard, the box of explosives was also a phantom to him.

The explosive device that had not been detonated fifty years ago could not be detonated by him, a "latecomer," today.

Bullets whizzed past, hitting the ground nearby, and roars came from near and far. Some sludge monsters had rushed into the ditch to tear him to pieces.

Laurence was still staring blankly at the box of explosives, feeling only a huge absurdity and mockery.

But at that moment, something suddenly moved in the corner of his eye.

The old captain raised his head in astonishment and saw that it was the young man who had just fallen that was moving.

The young man with a large wrench hanging from his waist trembled, slowly raised his head, and his eyes fixed on the person in front of him, dressed as a captain, covered in strange green flames.

Laurence was stunned for a moment before he suddenly realized: "You can see me?!"

The young man, however, seemed not to have heard the question, his lips moving, seemingly repeating something quickly. He repeated it several times before Laurence barely heard what he was saying—

"...Seen it, that's right, I've seen this flame... I've seen it..."

"Seen it? Flame? What are you talking about?"

Laurence stared in astonishment, unable to help asking.

The young man did not answer. He just kept repeating, kept repeating, and in the midst of this repetition, he actually got up little by little, covered in blood, but slowly got up!

Under Laurence's incredulous gaze, the young man covered in blood picked up the last demolition device, and then grunted as he climbed up the retaining wall beside the slope, while constantly muttering something, staggering towards the thorn gate.

Laurence heard what the other party was muttering, but it was all content he couldn't understand. It sounded like a series of names—

"Nemo... General Tyrian... Raven..."

The blood-soaked figure staggered and muttered like that.

But he didn't take a few steps at all.

Just as he climbed onto the flat ground, several gunshots came from the opposite side, and the blood-soaked figure fell as if he had been struck by a hammer.

But almost the moment he fell, an old, hunched figure suddenly stood up from the place where he fell.

Laurence watched this scene in disbelief. He saw the position where the old man appeared—he stood up from a pool of blood.

He was the reflection of the young man's blood when he died.

"Ah, I've finally arrived..."

The hunched old man bent down, picked up the last box of explosives, and then a smile suddenly bloomed on his face, a smile that was incomprehensible and extremely brilliant.

"I've arrived!"

He said loudly, he laughed loudly, he picked up the box of explosives, happily lit its fuse, and then rushed towards the thorn gate almost gleefully holding it.

"I've arrived!"

"Engineer Wilson reporting for duty!"

"Engineer Wilson requesting to return to the team!"

"I've arrived!"

"Boom!!!"

The earth-shattering explosion shook the entire hall and every corridor connected to the hall.