Chapter 1

Before leaving the cave that had served as his temporary shelter, Duncan tore some rags from nearby corpses and wrapped them around himself.

This wasn't because he couldn't stand the cave's coldness, but rather to shield his exposed chest as much as possible—although the gaping hole there didn't seem to affect Duncan's "survival" at all. As a normal person at heart, walking around with a hole through his chest was just too bizarre. Wrapping something around himself offered a bit of psychological comfort and reduced the eerie sensation of the "through draft."

Besides, Duncan also considered the possibility of bumping into others while moving around in this underground space. Common sense suggested that a gaping hole in his chest might not be conducive to conversations with strangers…

And so, after a simple "treatment" of his wound, Duncan cautiously left the damp, gloomy cave, entering a tunnel that connected to it and slowly heading deeper.

This temporarily occupied body wasn't "convenient." Not only did the fatal wound in his chest affect his mobility, but Duncan could also clearly feel the weakness of this body. Its overly thin limbs couldn't even walk quickly. It was nothing like the "Ghost Captain's" powerful, superhuman frame.

Duncan couldn't see the entirety of his current body, but judging from what he could see, he guessed it was a young man, one weakened by long-term, severe malnutrition—although it was a powerful Ghost Captain's soul operating this body, it seemed that even such a soul couldn't overcome the physical limitations of this frail form.

Unfortunately, he had no choice. Duncan could only control this barely usable body, slowly exploring the dark tunnel. He knew that in this temporary body's condition, he would be helpless against any danger. He could only pray that this shell would last a little longer.

The tunnel was deep, damp, and dark, but there seemed to be hidden vents. A slight breeze flowed through it. At regular intervals, torches or oil lamps hung on the walls, proving that people had been active here.

After walking a long distance along the tunnel, Duncan suddenly found the path ahead opening up, and signs of artificial construction came into view. He saw a fork in the tunnel, the intersecting paths having smooth walls and high, semi-circular arches. The brick floor was black and damp, with two waterways flowing along the sides, carrying nauseating sewage.

On the walls along the road, openings like drainage pipes could be seen. Sewage flowed from some of these outlets into the waterways below, flowing into the darker distance.

"...Sewers?"

Duncan quickly realized that what he was seeing was a large-scale sewer system, and the place where the many corpses had been hidden was like a natural cave structure connected to the sewer.

A massive sewer, a natural cave connected to it, and concealed bodies.

Countless guesses popped into Duncan's mind in an instant, and while these speculations arose, he carefully observed the various details of the "sewer" before him.

Large-scale, well-constructed, using what appeared to be reinforced concrete for the main support, and possibly even capable of being used as some kind of underground shelter in necessary situations.

To build something of this size, the city above this sewer must also be quite large, and its technology must have developed to a certain level.

Technology cannot exist in isolation. Every engineering product must be supported by countless related industries and technologies. Even a sewer could reveal to Duncan the level of construction, planning, materials, and maintenance behind it, as well as the corresponding concepts of the residents.

This was enough to provide Duncan, who currently lacked information, with some valuable data from the civilized world.

Duncan walked forward along the sewer, stopping after a short distance, his gaze falling on a nearby wall.

A lamp was embedded in the wall—a glass-encased lamp, covered with what appeared to be a sturdy metal cage.

Compared to the torches and oil lamps in the previous cave, this lamp embedded in the wall was clearly brighter. Inside the frosted glass shell was a steadily burning bright flame, emitting enough light to illuminate a considerable distance in the sewer.

Duncan went closer to observe carefully. For him now, anything from beyond the *Vanishing Hitchhiker*, especially creations of modern civilization, were extremely attractive.

After observing for a long time, Duncan finally figured out what this light source was—a gas lamp.

But this gas lamp seemed different from what he had seen in the data. Apart from the difference in style, the most obvious thing was that he saw several slender symbols on the glass cover of the lamp.

The symbols seemed to have been added when the lamp cover was first produced, curved and shaped like pictographs. Duncan didn't recognize these symbols, but he immediately thought of the mysterious runes he had seen on the mechanical ship and on Alice's "coffin."

Although the content was different, they all had a similar..."temperament."

It was something sanctified, ritualistic.

Duncan stepped back a little and looked deeper into the sewer, seeing a brightly burning gas lamp on the wall every so often.

As an underground facility that almost no one would visit except for necessary maintenance, the lighting in this sewer even seemed a bit excessive, and perhaps each of those gas lamps had similar mysterious "runes" on its outer shell.

This gave Duncan the feeling that these densely distributed gas lamps were actually fighting against something in this dark, uninhabited underground—that the "human civilized world" they represented was fighting against something.

Duncan walked forward along the road illuminated by the gas lamps, paying attention to any valuable clues on the surrounding walls, floor, and arches. Suddenly, he caught sight of something unusual.

He stopped between two gas lamps, in a relatively dim section of the sewer. He looked up diagonally, seeing something painted in dark red pigment high on the wall, near the sewer's arched ceiling.

Duncan squinted, trying to make it out for a long time, finally discerning the scene outlined by the rough lines—he saw a pair of hands reaching towards the sky, as if worshiping something, and in the direction those hands were clustered, a sphere emitting infinite light hung high.

Beneath this scene of worship and adulation was a line of crooked text. The strokes of the text trembled, as if containing intense fanaticism and expectation. The letters were not any language on Earth, but Duncan naturally understood—

"The False Sun will fall, and the true Sun God will be resurrected from blood and fire! All life returns to the Sun, all order returns to the Sun!"

Duncan stood quietly in the sewer, looking up at the darkest intersection of the gas lamp's light, at the dark red graffiti, at that blood-soaked, radiant, and fanatically worshiped sun.

As if staring at another world for a long time.

He looked for a long time, until a noise suddenly came from the depths of the sewer, and several footsteps reached Duncan's ears.

He suddenly looked up in the direction of the sound, only to see several figures in robes walking towards him. The faces of those figures were shrouded in the shadows of their hoods, appearing in the depths of this filthy sewer like sinister ghosts.

Duncan didn't hide—in fact, this straight section of the sewer offered almost no place to hide, and his inconvenient temporary body couldn't perform high-end maneuvers like "running into a blind spot." So, after a moment's thought, he simply stood in the middle of the sewer, quite calmly watching the hooded figures walking towards him, who looked suspicious no matter how you looked at it.

Since this body couldn't run away and was destined to be a disposable item, he might as well exchange it for some information in the end.

The next second, the hooded figures walking out of the depths of the sewer noticed Duncan's presence.

(Oh my!)