Chapter 67: Chapter 71 Gathering in the Gutter
In the moment Duncan took out the Sun Amulet, there was a few seconds of silence on the scene—his phrase “one of our own” floated blandly in the air, resulting in a dozen pairs of eyes looking at each other with surprise and caution before the tall and skinny man who seemed like a leader suddenly lowered his voice and said urgently, “Put it away quickly! Beware of church spies nearby!”
The amulet actually worked? Did this thing really have such persuasive power among the Sun Cultists?
Duncan was amused inwardly but maintained his impassive and mysterious demeanor on the surface, half his face covered, as he put the amulet away and said indifferently, “If there really are church spies around here, your large gathering is much more conspicuous than my amulet.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a bearded man opposite him involuntarily exclaimed, “That won’t be the case. At most, gathering like this would only draw the attention of the city guards for disturbing the peace…”
“Shut up!” The tall and slender leader immediately silenced his subordinate’s pointless babble, then his gaze fell on Duncan, “This is necessary caution—after all, the city is not safe right now. Come over here, and don’t make any redundant movements.”
Duncan calmly walked towards the other side, and the man sized him up carefully. After a long look, the tall and skinny man asked in a low voice, “Are you a Believer living in this city?”
After thinking for a moment, Duncan nodded, “Yes.”
The original owner of this body did indeed live in the city, and he was living in the city now. On these patently obvious questions, he decided to tell the truth.
His plan was simple: to somehow blend in with these Heretics, then see if he could garner any news. Without exposure, he would listen and ask more; if exposed, he would have Ai Yi transform and dispatch them all.
The tall and skinny man seemed completely unaware of the dangerous thoughts tumbling around in the mind of the “church brother” before him but immediately followed up with another question, “As far as I know, the Deep Sea Church attacked…”
“The gathering in the sewers, where a Sun ritual was underway. The ceremony spun out of control, and we lost many people—but I escaped,” said Duncan, without any psychological burden, and at the same time, he paid attention to the reactions of the Sun Cultists around him. He could feel the tense atmosphere among these people had visibly relaxed, but the tall and skinny leader in front of him still maintained caution, “Three others escaped with me, but we got separated. Now, I have completely lost contact with the church—until I ran into you guys, the Sun has given me guidance.”
The tall and skinny man hummed noncommittally, then his gaze fell on Duncan’s shoulder, “What’s this?”
“My pet,” Duncan blurted out, “Can’t you tell? It’s just an ordinary pigeon.”
Ai Yi timely shook her head, letting out a loud “coo.”
“This pigeon sure has a loud voice…” The tall and skinny man seemed to finally let down his guard, probably subconsciously feeling that the strict and disciplined bunch from the church wouldn’t have the habit of wandering around the city with a bird; he nodded, “Follow me, it’s not safe to talk out here.”
Duncan felt a sigh of relief in his heart, thinking that the first step of muddying the waters had seemingly been successful.
Then he followed the group of Heretics, heading deeper into the alleyway.
This alleyway was deeper than he had imagined; it seemed to lead to the most forgotten and gloomy underbelly of the dilapidated district. The group of Heretics led Duncan through twists and turns, past old piping systems that continuously released steam, through filthy paths gushing with sewage, and eventually into a cluster of low and dilapidated buildings. The deeper they went to this prosperous steam capital, the darker and more ruined aspects of it became undeniably exposed before Duncan.
He had thought that the place he and Nina lived was already the bottom level community of the city, but now he realized with a sudden understanding that the rundown antique shop was actually a “respectable place” within the Lower City District.
In the row of dilapidated houses along the road, most seemed lifeless and appeared to have been abandoned for some time, but in the shadows of a few houses, one could sense numb or gloomy stares, as if the homeless were hiding in this forgotten district, indifferently watching the unwelcome guests entering their territory.
Ultimately, these grim gazes quickly withdrew—the ten or so people led by the tall and skinny man were evidently intimidating enough to instill fear in the squatters of this area.
“See that? This is the most prosperous City-State on the Endless Sea, Prand,” the black-clad man who first caught Duncan’s attention grumbled to himself, as if speaking to himself, yet seemingly for Duncan to hear, “It’s the same everywhere. Rensa is like this, Cold Harbor is the same, even the Elves’ so-called ‘Land of Peace and Justice’, Light Breeze Harbor, is just the same… They proclaim that their so-called ‘Sun’ fairly illuminates the world, bringing light and order to all things, but how much sunlight can there be to talk about in these gutters?”
Duncan did not respond, merely looked up, and saw steam and fuel pipelines from the Upper City District and industrial areas crisscrossing above the buildings overhead, with giant valves and pressure structures that resembled many bizarre and enormous creatures crouched atop the surrounding low and broken-down buildings. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in these pipelines, making the sewage between the buildings emit an unpleasant stench.
The polluted water was mostly condensation formed from leaking steam pipes nearby, accumulating day by day in the Lower City District, mixed with the chemical agents from the factories as the city functioned.
Duncan didn’t need to live in this city for long to roughly guess how such “city abscesses” appeared.
Duncan silently glanced at the irate man in black, his expression still indifferent.
Whether seduced by the progeny of the sun or driven by the harshness of life, the heretics’ existence indeed had its reasons—but what of it?
These heretics who believed they had been forced by the City-State to live in the gutters still ended up in the Lower City District, capturing the helpless poor to be used as live sacrifices—the countless ragged people in that cave, not a single one of them came from the respectable Upper City District.
As a “foreigner” still not quite familiar with this world, Duncan felt it unnecessary to comment too much on the City-State, but at least as a former sacrifice, he thought these heretics were quite despicable.
In silence, he finally reached the heretics’ stronghold.
The stronghold was underground at an abandoned factory.
These heretics, scurrying through the gutters, seemed to always find the right gutter to transform into their gathering place, or perhaps this prosperous steam metropolis itself was filled with countless gutters suitable for nurturing dark, blasphemous things.
A group of people crossed the partially collapsed perimeter wall of the factory and opened an iron door leading to the underground structure. Duncan originally planned to observe the situation within the factory to satisfy his curiosity about the “Steam Era”, but never found the opportunity. Instead, he was taken directly down an inclined staircase to the heretics’ “secret base”.
This place may have once been the warehouse of the factory, or perhaps some sort of machinery room, but now it was clearly emptied out, with only the residual piping system on the roof and the gas lamps on the walls, which could no longer be lit, remaining—the darkness was dangerous, even the heretics knew that, hence they lit oil lamps fueled by whale blubber all around underground. Under the glow of the numerous oil lamps, Duncan saw that there were still a dozen or so heretics gathered there.
After the Church had heavily struck a sacrifice site, there were still so many Sun Believers gathered together? Where did these heretics spring from? Could it be like mushrooms and moss, they simply grew out of any gutter available?
Duncan looked around the spacious underground room at the gathered figures with some surprise while the heretics watched him, a sudden stranger, with curiosity and caution. Then the tall, thin man approached, followed closely by several robust-looking followers, positioning themselves around Duncan.
Duncan frowned, “What, do I need to be searched again after entering? I wasn’t aware of this rule.”
“If you really are a spy from the Church, a search would be useless,” the tall, thin man said, extracting a strip of cloth from his embrace and handing it to Duncan, “Relax, it’s just a more rigorous verification, necessary caution—we’ve lost many brethren over the years for various reasons. Take it, and then follow my chant.”
Duncan glanced at the object handed to him and saw it was just a dirty cloth strip, seemingly torn from old clothes, with dark brown stains on it that resembled dried blood.
Was this another tool used by the Sun Believers to verify their brethren?
Duncan was inwardly surprised, thinking that these professionals who were constantly on the run did not seem to be very capable fighters, but their skills at preventing infiltration and internal betrayal were certainly maxed out.
He then took the object handed over and heard the tall, thin man begin to murmur some sentences, “In the name of the Sun, may the Lord’s brilliance shine upon all…”
Duncan immediately found it eerily familiar—he had just heard a heretic recite this to him not long ago!
That heretic had also given him an amulet.
Without any change in expression, Duncan slightly raised his hand, and a green flame, unnoticed, seeped into the seemingly ordinary cloth strip in his hand, after which he put on a straight face and followed the chant of the tall, thin man before him.
The cloth strip, which seemed to have been soaked in bloodstains, stayed complacently in his hand, showing no reaction.
The tall, thin man’s gaze rested on the cloth for a long time before he finally nodded slightly, smiling as he took back the strip from Duncan’s hand, saying, “Welcome back to the glory of the Lord, brethren.”