Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 415

Chapter 415: Chapter 419: Is this road impassable? Chapter 415: Chapter 419: Is this road impassable? The fog had gradually invaded the Second Waterway, where the hazy, chaotic mists floated near the ceiling of the sewer corridor like veils, giving the impression that the deep and thick roofs had disappeared and that the sky was slowly engulfing the Second Waterway.

The short man wrapped in an old coat hurried through the strange and silent corridors of the sewers–decades had eroded his body, and for many years, he had been unable to move swiftly as he was doing now. Yet for some reason, on this very day, at this very moment, he felt his body lighten again as if youth had returned to his frame, and the aches in his joints and the weakness of his muscles had vanished.

He picked up the pace, the large wrench in his hand no longer as heavy as it was at the start. He quickly passed through corridors and crossroads from his memory, racing determinedly toward a direction he could no longer clearly recall but one that felt unmistakably familiar.

He had to catch up with the main force, as the time for assembly was nearly upon them.

A pile of collapsed rubble suddenly blocked the old ghost's way.

“There's no way through…no way through?” the old man stopped, muttering to himself in astonishment as he looked at the pile of collapsed stones before him. His confused memories hazily reassembled in his mind, trying to explain the existence of the collapsed area, and he seemed to remember something–
Ah, yes, the explosives. The guard had retreated through the connecting wells then detonated the explosives laid in the corridor to block off the invading rebels in the sewers…

But that wasn't quite right. There was more to this collapsed section than just stopping the rebels. Many years earlier, when that young soldier ignited the explosives… the corridor collapsed, blocking off something else…

The old ghost stood bewildered in front of the blocked passage, bending down to tap the stones in front of him with his wrench, mumbling indistinctly.

This path should be open; it had to be for him to reach the assembly point. But it had collapsed. What could be done? The wrench couldn't fix the fallen stones…

A shroud of mist suddenly appeared before him. The old ghost, who was tapping the stones, looked up blankly and took half a step back instinctively. He saw strands of mist leaking out from the gaps in the rubble, slowly filling the entire corridor, engulfing his vision.

He heard distant whispers and roars coming from the fog, followed by a hoarse voice shouting, “Is this reasonable?!”

But no one appeared in the fog. As the mists drifted, the old ghost saw the rubble that had been blocking the path disappear.

The previously blocked corridor was now passable; the gas lamps embedded in the opposite wall emitted a dim light, and deep in the murky corridor, he could barely make out the black mud that seemed to have been dry for decades, quietly lying asleep in the similarly dry drainage channel.

“The path is open…it's good that it's open…”

The old ghost felt a moment of haze in his head, as if he wanted to ponder why the pile of stones had suddenly disappeared, but this line of thought quickly vanished amidst his entangled and confused memories. Without hesitation, he stepped forward into the dimly lit corridor.

Agatha suddenly looked up, and the guardians and clergy, including the nuns following her, also stopped immediately. Everyone tensed up, on the lookout for any noise in the mist.

“Did you hear footsteps?” After two or three seconds, Agatha suddenly broke the silence, “Footsteps other than our own.”

“Yes,” said a nun with a slight nod, “just a moment ago, very faint, but close, as if…”

“As if they overlapped with ours that closely,” Agatha said with a serious expression, while her gaze slowly scanned the nearby mine tunnel.

They were deep in the Boiling Gold Mine, and following the direction indicated by “Sergeant Braid,” Agatha and her troop had reached this mine tunnel from the only passageway in this direction. Even this deep, the fog was omnipresent.

The lighting system was still working normally; the dim yellow light illuminated the supports in the mine and the track structure under their feet. And in the hazy, overlapping shadows, there seemed to be some anomalies.

Agatha saw two identical support columns appear on the opposite side wall–the two columns were a mirror image of each other, from the pattern on the surface to the position of the stains.

In another direction, she saw several crossbeams piled on top of one another, their intersections seemingly fused together.

A priest from the troop lifted his lantern and approached one of the oddly structured supports. After a tense examination, he spoke in a quiet voice, “Gatekeeper…”

“I see it,” Agatha cut off the priest, her tone still calm, “Clearly, the space occupied by the 'Replications' is overlapping with our reality.”

“The space of the Replications?” a guardian repeated subconsciously.

Agatha fell silent for a moment as if she again felt that annoying sense of fog, then raised her hand to her forehead, “Yes, all Replications likely come from an abnormal space-time, and now all evidence indicates that this abnormal space-time is gradually drawing closer to our reality, perhaps… perhaps we can call it a 'mirror image'…”

Her voice had a hint of hesitation, as if certain knowledge naturally surfaced in her mind. She spoke these details subconsciously and suddenly felt an odd sensation in her body–
Cold, endless cold, as if she was standing in an immensely frigid corridor, her blood in her veins long devoid of warmth.

But in the next moment, that strange feeling disappeared, the illusion of being in a cold and lonely corridor evaporated, and she felt a haze lift from her mind, seeing her faithful followers still surrounding her, the light from the lanterns and gas lamps quickly dispelling the cold residue in her consciousness.

“`
“…Is it because time is running out… or because it's too close…” Agatha murmured subconsciously.

Nearby subordinates, however, didn't catch her muttering.

A guard, lifting a lantern to look around, seemed to find something suddenly, “There's a man lying here!”

Agatha quickly came back to her senses, her expression solidified, and she hurried to where the soldier had made the discovery.

A warrior dressed in the City-State's elite guard gear lay in the mine tunnel, looking long dead.

The black combat coat, covered by a metal breastplate and steam-engine-driven power bracers, a Steam Backpack on his back, and a thick breathing mask over his face.

Agatha bent down and wiped the blood from the nameplate on the soldier's chest with her finger, staring silently at the name for a few seconds.

“It's Sergeant Braid,” she whispered, breaking the silence.

“The blood is red, the body shows no signs of disintegration or dissolving,” the accompanying priest said, “this is the 'real deal'.”

Agatha was silent for a moment.

The situation was as she had surmised: the real Sergeant Braid had fallen in this mining tunnel, while his Replication appeared before the church's exploration team under the effect of the dense fog–the fake was fraudulent, but the intelligence was real.

“There are bodies here too!”

Soon after, another guard lifting a lantern called out as he probed ahead.

More bodies appeared in the subsequent mine tunnels.

Agatha quickly led her team forward, discovering more and more fallen warriors deeper within the mine–all members of the City-State's elite guard, Governor Winston's loyal soldiers.

Their causes of death varied: there were lacerations from blades, blunt force traumas, and even gunshot wounds.

Near these corpses, Agatha and her subordinates also found patches of dried black mud, which if put together as humans, would likely far outnumber the fallen guards.

“…A long, harsh battle; this unit encountered enemies far outnumbering them in the mine tunnels, yet they continued to press on for hundreds of meters in the midst of combat… Most of the soldiers had used up their bullets, in the end they fought with bayonets and steam gauntlets.”

Agatha examined the nearest few bodies, making judgments based on the residual traces on them and the situation at the scene, while her heart was filled with growing unease.

Many soldiers had fallen, and the team led by Governor Winston was apparently in a dire situation, and this battle could have erupted just hours prior–after so long, was the Governor still alive?

As if responding to the unease in her heart, a guard forging ahead suddenly stopped.

“Gatekeeper, there's no way forward!”

“No way forward?” Agatha startled and immediately got up to walk forward.

Just as that guard had said.

The team arrived at the end of the mine tunnel, only to face a smooth, sturdy wall; a dead-end.

But this was clearly not normal.

Agatha turned quickly to look back the way they had come, seeing the fallen guards lying quietly in the darkness, and among these corpses, Governor Winston was nowhere to be seen.

“Perhaps the Governor took his team in a different direction after finding this passage blocked,” the accompanying priest speculated.

“There's only one way,” Agatha immediately shook her head, “And from the traces left at the scene, I don't think Governor Winston had the chance to find another path with his remaining guards here.”

The priest frowned tightly, “But this is blocked…”

Agatha ignored him, turned around, and walked slowly towards the smooth, sturdy wall.

After a moment of hesitation, she reached out to touch the wall.

Her fingers went straight through it.

Chapter end

Report