Chapter 522 - 2: Nightmare Body
"Yes, Supervisor," the middle-aged official said with a nod, his fingers flying across the control console.
He issued a few commands. The recently received encrypted message was completely erased, the related log entries were modified, and a standard "No Anomalies" report was automatically generated and filed away.
...
「Deep within the Continent.」
The Crimson sword flash, having broken free of the net of light and torn across the sky, swiftly dimmed after exhausting its final burst of power. It coalesced back into a faint ball of Energy, half Crimson and half Dark Gold.
This ball of Energy did not stop. Carried by its own momentum, it continued its flight toward the heart of the Western Continent.
It flew for an unknown length of time—perhaps several days and nights, perhaps even longer.
Shrouded in a layer of gray Energy, the ball was like common air, imperceptible to any conventional means of detection.
It flew over barren hills, skimmed across silent forests, and drifted past villages with curling plumes of cooking smoke.
Finally, the silhouette of a metropolis of unimaginable scale appeared on the horizon.
Countless towering spires, magnificent domes, and wide, crisscrossing streets, along with the unique aura hanging over the city—a product of innumerable chimneys and Magic Workshops—all attested to its extraordinary vitality.
By the time it reached the city, the ball of Energy seemed to have exhausted its strength, its altitude dropping without notice.
Like a withered leaf brushed from a branch, it drifted silently toward a corner of the massive city.
There were no gleaming spires here—only low, dense buildings, narrow alleyways, and the faint, drifting stench of various foul and strange odors.
Finally, the ball of Energy followed a drainage grate and slipped into a deep, damp city sewer reeking of decay and excrement.
It drifted on and on, for who knows how long, through the pipes. At last, the moment it touched the stagnant sewage covering the floor, the dim, gray light gave a faint flicker.
Light and shadow twisted and warped. A figure gradually took shape in the dim sewer.
It was a young man who looked to be about seventeen or eighteen. He had a tall, slender frame and was dressed in an archaic black robe that was utterly out of place in his surroundings.
He had long, ink-black hair that was now slightly disheveled and splayed across his shoulders.
His features were refined, but his eyes were shut tight. His face was pale from excessive exertion, and his breathing was so faint as to be inaudible.
He lay perfectly still on the cold, damp brick floor, blending into the sewer’s surroundings.
An unknown amount of time passed.
TAP TAP TAP!
The sound of footsteps, drawing closer, shattered the dead silence deep within the pipe.
Two oil lamps, casting a dim yellow light and belching black smoke, barely managed to drive away a small patch of the darkness ahead.
"Look! Over here!" a hoarse voice cried out, filled with the excitement of spotting prey.
The speaker was a young man of about twenty-five or twenty-six. He was pointing at the black figure in the corner, his hand trembling slightly.
Close behind him was a middle-aged man with a stubbled face and puffy bags under his eyes.
At these words, the middle-aged man’s murky eyes narrowed. He hurried forward to get a closer look by the light of the lamp.
"Tch, I’ll be damned..." The middle-aged man clicked his tongue, a phlegmy rattle in his throat. "A corpse. And a fresh one, by the looks of it. We’re gonna be rich, kid!"
A greedy smile spread across his face, revealing several yellowed teeth.
The younger man, however, was hesitant. His gaze lingered on the black robe—its style was strange, but the quality was clearly high. "His... his clothes are so nice. The fabric looks expensive... He couldn’t be some lost noble’s son, could he? If so, we..."
"A noble?" The middle-aged man scoffed, hawking a thick glob of phlegm into the sewage. "Would some noble lord come down to the sewers to smell shit and piss? They wouldn’t even deign to look at this district! I tell you, he’s probably just some petty thief!"
The young man listened. He took another careful look at the figure’s profile—impossibly fair and handsome even in the filthy light—and nodded, his voice growing firmer. "Uncle Scar is right. With a pretty face like that, you can tell he’s not one for honest work. Yep, definitely a thief!"
"Then what are we waiting for!" A vicious glint flashed in the eyes of the man called Uncle Scar. He rubbed his hands together. "Let’s move the ’merchandise,’ quick."
No longer hesitating, the two men worked together to haul the unconscious young man out of the sewage and hoist him onto their shoulders.
The young man was surprisingly light, weighing almost nothing. This gave Uncle Scar a moment of pause, but greed quickly overwhelmed his doubt.
They walked for a long time along the winding sewer, finally pushing open a rust-spotted iron gate and squeezing into an underground space that reeked of mildew and iron.
The space was even more unsettling on the inside.
The air was thick, a putrid mixture of blood, decay, and the acrid smell of cheap disinfectant.
The walls and floor were covered in dark red stains that were impossible to wash, some of which had blackened with age.
On shelves against the wall and on a dilapidated wooden table lay a scattered assortment of tools: knives, saws, hooks, and chisels of various sizes, all bearing suspicious stains. There were also some bottles and jars of unknown purpose.
This was clearly a place for processing "special cargo."
The two men tossed the young man onto an equally stained stone slab.
Uncle Scar caught his breath and began rummaging through a pile of tools, while the younger man dragged a filthy wooden basin out of a corner.
"The market for ’legs’ has been booming lately," Uncle Scar remarked, clicking his tongue as he oiled a reasonably sharp-looking meat cleaver. "Don’t know what new fad the nobles upstairs have cooked up, but the price for ’material’ is up nearly thirty percent from last month."