Chapter 323 The Bronze Pillar Incident

Rick looked at the green crystal in Klaus's hand and remained silent for two seconds.

"Did you leave tracking marks on them?"

Klaus nodded, his tone indifferent.

"The afterimage shattered into three pieces; there has to be some reward."

He leaned against the headboard, his face ashen, but his eyes were clear.

"I can forcibly activate something within their bodies, thereby locking their location for a period of time."

"The Gray Contracts have been hiding in Bronze City for so long." Klaus closed his eyes, his voice weary but deep at the end. "It's time for them to pay the price."

Lei Ke and Lu Yuan exchanged a glance.

During the process of being surrounded and killed by three fourth-tier enemies, Klaus did not hesitate to consume three afterimages in order to get close and grab "Ring" and "9", which was not just to seriously injure his opponents.

He was planning this from the very beginning.

Without saying much, Rex carefully put the green crystal away.

"This crystal doesn't have the ability to actively detect, but it can detect passively," Klaus said, closing his eyes. "While you're on your way through the pipeline, keep an eye out. If it lights up, it means the Gray Pact members are nearby."

"it is good."

Lu Yuan and Lei Ke turned and left the medical room.

"At the pipeline layer, are you sure you saw the fourth order?"

Lu Yuan looked at Lei Ke and asked.

"Hmm, the extremely strong kind. I might not be a match for them."

Rick didn't hide anything and spoke calmly.

"He was ready to make a move at the time, but gave up in the end. Looking back now, it was all to lure Klaus away from the Earl's mansion."

That's terrible.

Lu Yuan couldn't help but speak up.

"This means that there is another hostile fourth-tier enemy lurking in the shadows."

"Um."

Rick was also somewhat worried.

The two had just stepped out of the branch office and hadn't even reached the carriage when a carriage sped towards them from the direction of the outer city.

The car door was pushed open before the car had even come to a complete stop.

A night watchman with a short beard jumped down, his uniform stained with rust and dirt, clearly having come directly from the pipework level.

The moment he saw Rick, his anxiety intensified, and he rushed over.

"Captain Lei!" he whispered, but his voice trembled as he struggled to catch his breath. "No... something bad has happened."

Rick didn't speak, waiting for him to finish.

The night watchman swallowed hard and lowered his voice even further.

"The bronze pillars you asked me to keep an eye on before have been pushed out."

"What?" Lu Yuan was startled upon hearing this, immediately realizing the seriousness of the situation. "Are you sure you didn't misread it?"

The night watchman nodded vigorously.

"I didn't see wrong. I thought I was seeing things, so I marked the pillar. I checked again an hour later, and it had indeed grown. To make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I had other people watch it too, and that's for sure."

"And...and other bronze pillars also have this problem."

Lu Yuan and Lei Ke looked at each other again.

Neither of them spoke, but their eyes conveyed the same meaning.

Oh no.

"Go and report to Klaus alone, and bring all the specific times and data with you." Rex's tone left no room for argument.

The night watchman accepted the order and turned to run back to the branch office.

Reckel opened the carriage door.

"Walk."

The carriage sped towards the nearest pipe entrance to the bronze pillar.

There were still night watchmen stationed there, and the sentry at the entrance saw Rek and Lu Yuan and immediately let them pass.

The two walked briskly along the pipeline, the light from their marching lights casting rapidly flickering shadows on the copper walls.

It took about twenty minutes to walk.

The lights of the outpost appeared ahead.

Several watchmen were gathered around a bronze pillar, one of whom was squatting on the ground, holding a wooden stick and gesturing on the pillar.

This bronze pillar was originally buried deep in the mud wall of the pipe network layer. Previously, Beren's exploration team dug up to a height of half a person around it, revealing the pillar surface covered with inscriptions.

But at that moment, Lu Yuan immediately noticed something was wrong.

The pillar is taller than the last time I saw it.

It's definitely not an illusion.

Several ink marks left from the rubbing remain on the column surface, and those marks are noticeably higher than the previous ones.

Someone drew lines on the wall next to the column.

Not one, but three.

Each one is a little taller than the one before it.

The night watchman kept taking measurements.

Lu Yuan walked to the bronze pillar, and gray-white characters appeared at the edge of his vision.

[Detection target: Special structure (damaged)... Parsing failed... Insufficient knowledge...]

The same prompt as last time.

With no new information available, Lu Yuan had no better options.

If Buren were here, he might be able to say something, but he himself doesn't understand what happened right now.

The night watchman in charge of recording quickly stepped forward and opened the booklet.

"Everything was normal a few days ago, but the strange things started happening this morning." He pointed to the densely packed numbers in the booklet. "From this morning until now, in about two and a half hours, it has risen at least half the height of a little finger."

He closed the booklet, his voice very low.

"At this rate, it can sprout three fingers' width in a day."

No one responded.

After experiencing the ghoul uprising, the Night's Watch members present generally understood what the bronze pillars were related to.

The bronze pillars are the core structure of the Bronze City seal.

The copper pillar was bulging outwards, which meant that something was moving below, but whatever it was, no one wanted to face it.

Rick glanced secretly at the green crystal Klaus had given him.

It remained unlit the entire way.

In other words, none of the fourth-tier members of the Grey Pact Society are nearby.

That's actually worse.

If it was the Gray Pact that did it, at least there would be a clear enemy to deal with.

But if the reason is unknown...

Rick squatted in front of the bronze pillar and stared at its surface for a long time.

Then his expression darkened.

"It's still moving."

Lu Yuan saw it too.

It's almost imperceptible to the naked eye, but if you stare at the distance between a certain ink mark on the pillar and the line drawn on the wall, you can feel that the gap is widening at an extremely slow rate.

It looks like there's something on top of it from below.

Rex stood up and looked at Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan shook his head.

He had no idea what had happened.

But one thing is certain: the previously stalled diving plan is expected to be launched ahead of schedule in the next couple of days.

That will be another new variable, so it's best to eliminate all the members of the Gray Pact before diving, otherwise it will be very troublesome.

Rick turned around and gave a few instructions.

"Give me a copy of the pipeline exploration blueprints. Keep monitoring it, record the time and speed at which the pipelines emerge, and confirm whether it's constant or accelerating. Report back immediately if there are any changes."

The Night's Watchmen accepted the orders one by one.

Rex took a scroll of blueprints handed to him by a night watchman, checked the route with Lu Yuan, and then the two quickly walked deeper into the pipeline network.

The deeper you go into the pipeline, the better its condition becomes.

The copper plate is intact, with clear inscription patterns and occasional pulsations of light within the patterns, exhibiting a stable rhythm.

This section of the pipeline had been cleared before, and we didn't encounter any ghouls or see any other pollution along the way.

It took about forty minutes to walk.

The pipe network on the wall began to fade.

The copper pipes embedded in the walls were broken one after another, as if the builders of the entire bronze city had deliberately avoided the area in front when constructing the pipeline network.

Instead, inscriptions were created.

Numerous inscriptions began to emerge from the boundary where the pipeline network receded, covering the ground, walls, and overhead.

Lu Yuan's gray and white text appeared at the same time.

[Environmental Sensing: High-risk pollution source detected... Please stay away...]

Lu Yuan frowned slightly.

wrong.

The last time I came here with Buren, these inscriptions weren't located this far ahead. Back then, they walked a long way from the boundary where the pipe network receded before they saw the dense, eerie inscriptions.

Now, just as we turned the corner, the entire wall was covered in them.

The inscription is spreading outwards.

A sense of foreboding rose in Lu Yuan's heart.

Fortunately, Lu Yuan did not feel the overwhelming pressure he had experienced last time.

He subconsciously touched the silver pieces on his body, and quickly realized what was happening.

It must be because Buren left this thing to himself.

Lu Yuan took out a silver piece and handed it to Lei Ke.

"Putting it close to your body will reduce the oppressive atmosphere here."

As soon as Rick took it and pressed it to his chest, he felt a sudden lightness in his body.

The tentacles that had been huddled together around him now stretched out again, and their wriggling frequency returned to some extent.

"Good stuff." Rick didn't ask any further questions about its origin.

The two continued walking forward.

The inscriptions on the wall became increasingly dense.

Then Lu Yuan noticed what truly unsettled him.

The inscription is moving.

Not a metaphor.

It is moving in the literal sense.

The strange symbols engraved on the bronze wall are slowly moving across its surface.

The strokes twist, stretch, and recombine, like lurking snakes crawling on the stone wall.

When I last came here, these inscriptions were just quietly carved there.

Now they are alive.

[Detection Target: Mysterious Inscription (Ancient) (Abnormal Activity)]

[A special inscription targeting? can seal and extract? ...The inscription is spreading abnormally...]

Rick slowed his pace.

The tentacles that had extended from the sides of his body began to retract one by one.

"The suppression here is more than twice as strong as last time," Rick's voice came from the worm-like body, tinged with obvious discomfort. "My abilities are being compressed."

Lu Yuan glanced at him.

"You go to the back."

Rex is an eerie and extraordinary being. The deeper he goes into the copper wall area, the stronger the suppression becomes. If he walks in front, he will only be a burden.

Lu Yuan possesses extraordinary knowledge, and the inscriptions here suppress knowledge pathways far less than bizarre pathways.

"If I get into trouble, pull me away immediately, just like before."

Rex nodded, slowed his pace, and retreated to a position five or six meters behind Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan walked forward alone.

It grew darker and darker all around.

The range of the marching lights was compressed by some force; what used to illuminate more than ten meters was now reduced to five or six meters before being swallowed by darkness.

Lu Yuan used the aura brought by the Knowledge Insect to propel his vision forward.

In his perception, a grayish-gold aura permeated the entire pipeline network, with its concentration increasing the deeper one went.

Lu Yuan didn't see this overflowing aura when he came last time, but now the entire pipeline is filled with it.