Chapter 0 The Secret Passage

Deep within the secret passage connecting the Second Waterway, Nemo Wilkins led the way with a lantern in hand, his tone tinged with schadenfreude. "Our people have received word and evacuated, 'cleaning' up the traces down here. The Church is digging around in the central district and xC district's underground—let the encroaching darkness give them a headache for now."

"I was worried you'd take the opportunity to cause some damage," Duncan said casually. "After all, in the Second Waterway, you're the home team."

"We don't need to do that," Nemo shook his head. "We are loyal to Captain Tീയrian, and Captain Tീയrian never wanted to destroy this city-state—from the perspective of protecting the city-state, we have no conflict with the Church, or even the City Hall. Now that the Church is trying to eliminate the cultists in the city, we won't be so reckless as to help those cultists."

Duncan nodded, then asked with some curiosity, "Old Ghost didn't show up today?"

"Old Ghost, he…" Nemo hesitated, then sighed softly. "Old Ghost's mental state has become increasingly unstable recently. He's too old, and the Church's organized search of the Second Waterway has stimulated his nerves, reminding him of the battles in the sewers back then—to avoid problems, I had to let him rest in the tavern cellar."

The last warrior who once served the Queen ultimately could not escape the nightmare of decades ago—Duncan could only sigh at this, and silently went to the depths of the Second Waterway with Alice.

They passed through secret passages, through many secret doors and seemingly guarded intersections, and finally entered the Second Waterway through a completely different path than last time.

Obviously, in order to deal with the search operations of the Church and the authorities, the Sea Fog Fleet informants lurking in the city-state had activated a set of pre-prepared disguises and early warning systems.

Finally, Duncan and Alice returned to that corridor under Nemo's guidance—the place where Crow had his accident.

"I'll go back first," Nemo said to Duncan. "The city is tense these days, and there are more and more people watching. I have to keep an eye on the situation above. You have to be careful of the Church here…"

He wanted to remind Duncan to be careful and avoid encountering the Church's search teams here, but halfway through his words, he suddenly felt something was wrong, hesitated for a long time, and blurted out, "Be gentle, they're not bad people…"

Duncan couldn't help but laugh. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing—hurry back, you've been away from the tavern for too long."

"Okay."

Nemo left quickly, and the empty and cold underground waterway became quiet for a while.

Duncan looked up at the empty corridor ahead, his mind recalling the scene when he came here before.

The young man named "Crow" fell beside the sewage ditch not far ahead. He died on dry ground, but the cause of death was drowning in seawater, and in his pocket, there was a "sacred script" record copied from somewhere.

Now this corridor has been cleaned up – probably by Nemo and Old Ghost.

Duncan turned his head and saw Alice following him obediently, her eyes behind the veil showing a serious expression—but he knew that this doll was actually just spacing out, thinking about nothing.

Duncan certainly knew that he couldn't expect to discuss or reason anything with this doll. He brought Alice here because she could see those "lines"—even the "lines" that occasionally leaked due to the proximity of the mirrored world could not escape her eyes.

"If you see any 'lines' again, tell me immediately," Duncan said seriously.

"Okay!" Alice nodded immediately.

Duncan walked forward slowly.

His mind was still thinking about "Crow's" affairs.

At that time, he and Morris and others guessed that "Crow" had accidentally entered somewhere and encountered misfortune, but after searching the entire corridor, they could not find any clues, and the investigation fell into a stalemate. But now it seems… the place where Crow strayed into seems to have an answer.

Most likely, the mirror…

Like frost, there was a brief intersection between the frost in this corridor and the real frost. It might be a crack, or it might be a fleeting reflection in a pool of water—and Crow, passing by, unfortunately fell into it.

No matter how he crossed that boundary at the time, one thing is clear:

This corridor should be a weak point connecting the mirror image and reality.

Underground, cold and humid, the air is filled with a smell of decay and mildew, giving the feeling that the entire city-state is a corpse that is gradually rotting—and he is walking in the organs of this decaying corpse.

Footsteps echoed in the strange-smelling sewer corridor, sounding a little heavy. Agatha walked forward slowly, confirming the direction of advance through temporary divination and spiritual perception, while cautiously paying attention to the surrounding movements.

Her black clothes were badly damaged, the soft armor lining and the ritual bandages wrapped around her body were stained with more blood, and the damage to her body had exceeded the limit of self-repair. She could only stop the bleeding with divine magic, but had no time to consider flesh and blood restoration.

But the good news is that Agatha is increasingly sure that her direction of advance is correct—after eliminating more and more counterfeit freaks, and after repeatedly fighting with this malicious copy of the city-state, she has finally been able to more clearly "smell" the taste of those heretics.

She followed this smell through the streets and alleys of the lower city, through the empty and twisted subway passages, and into the collapsed and dilapidated sewers, and finally discovered this world located deep underground in the city-state, which had been abandoned for many years.

The vastness here exceeded the records she saw in the archives, exceeding her imagination after seeing those archives.

Agatha looked up, looking at the wide corridor ahead with dim lights. Old gas lamps were embedded on the walls on both sides of the corridor, the gas flames with insufficient gas supply flickered on and off, the light flickered and jumped in the glass罩, and the arc-shaped corridor dome could see criss-crossing pipes and supporting structures. Under the flickering gas lamps, everything cast swaying and distorted shadows, as if countless invisible things were wriggling in the dimness.

On both sides of the corridor's floor were ditches flowing with sewage, and disgusting black water flowed down from the grille openings on the walls and merged into those ditches, making a gurgling sound.

Agatha knew what this place was.

This is the "Second Waterway" under Frost—a place she originally planned to explore with a team.

The only difference from the plan is that she originally planned to explore the underground of the city-state in the real world, but at this moment she is trapped in a copied Frost.

Agatha closed her eyes slightly, carefully perceiving the flow of air, she shielded the turbid and foul smells, and relied on her spiritual intuition to search for the location of those heretics.

She could feel that as she stayed here longer and dealt with those freaks more, her "connection" with this counterfeit city was gradually being strengthened.

In front.

The doorkeeper opened her eyes, ignored the faint pain from the wounds all over her body, chose a fork in the road ahead, and continued to walk deeper into the corridor.

She suddenly remembered something.

Not long ago, she visited the existence that descended on Frost, suspected to be an ancient god or an incarnation of an ancient god. At that time, the other party hinted to her to go "underground" to find clues.

Now, she is constantly approaching the lair where those heretics are hiding under the guidance of breath.

Those heretics are really hiding underground in the city-state, hiding in this abandoned Second Waterway—but this "underground hiding place" is not in the real world's Frost City, but in a copied otherworld.

Agatha tugged at the corner of her mouth.

The road is tortuous, but it always returns to the origin.

She misunderstood the hint of the descender at the time, mistakenly thinking that the enemy was hiding in the Second Waterway in the real world, but now she has accidentally entered this copied city-state and found clues in the Second Waterway of this counterfeit.

Wandering in the fork and finally heading in the right direction—is this also a kind of luck?

Agatha observed the surrounding situation.

Although she had not deeply investigated the Second Waterway in the real world, she also knew some general information. She knew that the ancient sewer system had been completely abandoned and sealed off, and all the pipes, shafts, and drainage channels leading to the Second Waterway had been closed. In theory, it should be a dry or relatively dry place.

However, in the sewer corridor in front of her, sewage was flowing everywhere, and the sound of drainage could be heard from the surrounding pipes from time to time.

In this copied Frost city-state, the Second Waterway is in a state of being used all the time—is this also the difference between a counterfeit and a genuine product?

Agatha thought, then suddenly stopped.

A slimy and disgusting蠕动 sound came from around, and black泥浆 was constantly seeping out from the sewage outlet pipes and the surface of the walls covered with black pollutants.

Those lingering freaks are coming again.

The body is very tired, the wounds are aching, the ritual bandages are damaged, the blessing of the god of death is gradually weakening, and the weakness caused by blood loss has reached an unbearable level.

But Agatha just calmly raised her head and stared at the畸形 monsters that were gathering in front of her.

"Come on, meet your death."