Ashes Of Deep Sea Chapter 422

Chapter 422: Chapter 426: The Final Counterattack Chapter 422: Chapter 426: The Final Counterattack Sounds echoed in the depths of the corridor, yet they were indistinct and hard to discern.

Within them seemed to be the chilling whistling of the wind, the mumbled whispers, the rhythmically advancing footsteps, and the gunfire.

Everything was mixed together, boundaries had become blurred, and the entire world seemed to be steadily kneaded into a mass where there was no longer a past or present, no left or right–just like this hazy, fog-filled corridor that felt as though it could swallow everything.

The stooped old man, with faltering steps, slowly moved through the corridor, occasionally clanking his large wrench against the pipes on the walls, producing a low and strange clanging sound.

Who am I? Where am I? Where am I supposed to go? Why am I supposed to go there?

The attack had begun… At midnight, it was the Queen's Guard that launched the attack, but specifically, what was the target of the attack? And in which direction?

The old man's muddled mind sporadically churned out fragmented and disorderly thoughts, some faded memories from long ago, but soon, they all dissolved into the haze of his befuddled brain–occasionally, he felt as though he was treading two diverging paths, with chaos and entangled experiences contending within his body, yet at times, he believed he had been standing in the same spot, waiting for orders for fifty years.

The wrench struck something with a clang, and the old man, in his sluggish state, lowered his head to see a helmet–black, with a narrow rim and marked with the Queen's Guard emblem, something from fifty years ago that was no longer seen.

He stared blankly at the helmet, watched as it fell to the ground, rolling into a nearby drain, where something seemed to struggle to rise from the gutter, then quickly blended back into the surrounding darkness and disappeared.

He muttered indistinctly and continued to step toward the darkness, as if he were steadily walking deeper into a thick mass of black mire, and after an unknown span of time, he finally stopped at the end of the corridor.

Intertwined pipes, collapsed rubble, and the smoke and black matter surging through the stones–these obstacles impeded the old man's path, and he stopped, looking around in confusion.

He did not recognize this place and could not even recall such a place existing along the second waterway, but here he stopped, because… there was something waiting for him to accomplish.

The old ghost lowered his head and saw his puzzled eyes reflected in a puddle next to the rubble.

What was I supposed to do here?

Just then, an unfamiliar scene suddenly reflected in the puddle–
Queen's Guard soldiers broke through the endless stream of monsters in the corridor; their firearms and bayonets turned wave after wave of counterfeit monstrosities into cold, dried mud, and where they passed, the walls were no longer seeping with sludge, and even the dark of the corridors seemed to retreat.

Everything was as Lawrence had speculated: The very existence of the Queen's Guard was suppressing the “contamination” in the mirrored City-State.

If the events occurring in the City-State were seen as a clash between two forces, then the muddy monsters and the Queen's Guard were clearly the embodiment of these opposing forces–and such contention and turmoil might have been ongoing for half a century.

Lawrence's marine squad moved quickly through the corridors, following the path cleared by the Queen's Guard, covering in minutes distances that had taken hours to traverse before, and all along this path, Lawrence kept observing and thinking.

He was trying to understand the true nature of the Queen's Guard and also attempting to communicate with these phantoms–but all his attempts had failed.

The Queen's Guard could not see him, did not even notice the presence of these uninvited guests. These soldiers were like memories projected from a distant past, mechanically repeating a battle that happened decades ago, advancing, shooting, fighting, falling… and this cycle had most likely recurred every day for the past decades.

Martha's intel about the Queen's Guard was right, but not completely accurate.

He couldn't form an alliance with these “helpers.”

“Captain! They can't see us, what should we do?” A sailor came running over, shouting next to Lawrence, “Just following them with our dozen men doesn't seem to be helping much, does it?”

Lawrence's expression was complex as he subconsciously glanced at the small mirror on his chest, but Martha's voice came through first: “Don't ask me, I've got no idea what to do with this situation–I only knew of their existence, never interacted with them…”

During the conversation, the faint sounds of artillery fire echoed from the mirror: Martha was clearly busy, the situation no simpler than down in the sewers.

“The Queen's Guard has just been repeating this same battle all these years?” Lawrence raised his voice, “And the outcome of each battle is the same?!”

“Yes, the result is always the same. They appear at midnight and then fade away at the next hour mark. They've never been able to break through the barrier at the end!”

Never been able to break through the barrier at the end?

Upon hearing this, Lawrence instinctively looked up toward the direction where the phantom soldiers were charging.

Chapter end

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