Chapter 1022 - The Deeper Part of the Underground City
Chapter 1022: The Deeper Part of the Underground City
“What’s behind these cracks?”
Meng Chao thought for a moment. The reason why these sewage pipes were abandoned was that after hundreds or thousands of years of use, the sewage and groundwater had been leaking for a long time, resulting in a weak structure. Some of them had collapsed and blocked all the pipes.
However, other than the collapsed section of the pipes, the pipes farther down should still be intact.
The second collapse that he had created was very likely to unblock the blocked pipe.
At the very least, it would open up a few palm-sized cracks.
If that was the case, the secret hidden deep underground at the end of the pipe might be exposed.
Hence, the Rat God’s emissary had asked someone to patch up the cracks.
Thinking of this, Meng Chao raised the iron rod and inserted it into the cracks that had just been patched between the broken walls.
The gaps were simply covered with mud. Even if they were hardened, they would not be very solid.
Moreover, Meng Chao had injected a stream of spirit energy into the iron rod, which caused the muscles of his arms to vibrate at a high frequency.
The driving iron rod was like an extremely long impact drill, which could be easily inserted into a depth of two to three meters.
Not only the iron rod, but half of Meng Chao’s arms were also stuck in the gaps.
When the iron rod was pulled out, a hole appeared in the crack.
Meng Chao stuck his ear to the hole and injected his spirit energy into his eardrums and cochlea, holding his breath to collect every movement underground.
As he expected, he heard sounds.
Other than the sound of a lot of “garbage bugs” working hard in the depths of the sewage pipes, there was also an extremely subtle and regular vibration.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding…
“Is this… Is someone excavating underground?”
When Meng Chao was in Dragon City, he had gotten familiar with Lu Siya. He had learned a lot about underground operations from this senior prospector.
He immediately recognized that it was the sound of continuous drilling and digging.
“This is really strange. There’s no need to dig so hard to clean up the sewage pipes, right?”
Meng Chao narrowed his eyes and observed the collapsed ruins in front of him.
He had calculated the distribution of the broken walls and the angle at which they supported each other.
Then, he slowly dug out a hole that was not much bigger than a fist in the depths of the ruins.
His movements were gentle and careful. When he moved each rock, he was as careful as he was when he moved a flower bud carved out of crystal.
Every time he moved two or three rocks, he would have to stop and calculate again. Moreover, he would fill in new rocks around the hole to support the fragile structure above.
Even with peak Earth Realm combat ability and the peak Heaven Realm calculation ability, it still took him more than half an hour to open a two- or three-meter-long hole in the depths of the ruins.
Meng Chao looked at the results of his labor with satisfaction. He took a deep breath, and the bones all over his body contracted with a weak crackling sound.
His body instantly shrank, and he crawled into the hole that was not much bigger than his fist.
His arms had shrunk to his chest. From his pelvis to the tip of his feet, they were all stretched straight. The major muscles all over his body could not exert any force. He could only rely on the tiniest muscle fibers to drive himself into the hole after he had injected spirit energy into it. His hair, which was both firm and soft, vibrated at an extremely high frequency, and he was sent into the hole with the strength of the waves.
It took him five minutes to crawl into the hole that was only two to three meters long.
Meng Chao recovered his body and panted heavily.
What he inhaled, however, was the stench that had condensed into a solid body.
Even though Meng Chao had spirit energy to protect his body…
He still could not help but want to cough and vomit.
The d*mn place was a hundred times dirtier than Dragon City’s underground sewage system and the Giant Sandworms’ nests.
Even he could not stand it. He really did not know how those rat children, who had never trained their spirit energy and did not even have a mask as a shield, survived there for a year and a half as “garbage bugs” before they died in silence.
Alright, regardless of whether Dragon City’s civilization in his previous life was good or bad, at the very least, there was nothing to regret over when it came to the Turan civilization’s destruction. In other words, it was simply intolerable that such a “civilization” did not perish
Meng Chao thought to himself, “It’s a pity that the Holy Light faction’s destruction of the Turan civilization was not a good thing. Moreover, it was clearly the sins of the high and mighty clan elders, yet thousands of Dragon City’s innocent citizens were buried along with them. In the end, even the purer ones in Dragon City were dragged into the abyss!
“In this world, no one can be an isolated island. If you want to save every innocent citizen of Dragon City, it seems that you have to save every innocent rat citizen first!”
He blinked his eyes, and his pupils kept dilating in the darkness, adjusting to the best visual mode.
At the same time, a lump of mud was sent to the exit of the hole with a metal rod, and the hole was barely blocked. In a short while, it should not be discoverable by the careless rat citizens.
Then, like a giant lizard born in a swamp, he used his hands and feet to sneak silently along the rusty pipe walls of the sewage pipe.
He went around a corner that had collapsed.
Then, a faint light appeared in front of him.
Since the underground was filled with flammable and explosive methane gas and poisonous gas, plus the advanced orcs lacked the technology to make electric lighting equipment, the “garbage bugs” carried crumpled paper lanterns with them. They were filled with luminous insects similar to fireflies, which made the lanterns crackle.
With the help of the dim light emitted by the insects, Meng Chao saw dozens of skinny children, who looked like ghosts. They simply covered their mouths and noses with strips of cloth dipped in water. They were using simple tools made from the branches of the mandrake tree and the bones of wild beasts to dig as well as dredge with all their might.
Most of them were under ten years old.
Even if they looked slightly mature, they were still severely malnourished by Dragon City’s standards. Their heads were big, and their bodies were small, like a skeleton version of a big-headed doll.
Their limbs were so slender that they were completely out of proportion to the simple tools. Every time they swung a hammer or shovel, they felt as if they were being carried away by inertia. It made people worry whether they would fall into the smelly garbage and sleep forever.
The sight was even more appalling than Leprosy Village in the depths of the Lair. It caused the corners of Meng Chao’s eyes to twitch slightly, especially when he found that two children were wearing a small and exquisite colored snail on their necks.
However, the color was so polluted that it was no longer very visible. The flames that suddenly erupted from the depths of his eyes could not be quenched for a long time.
But he did not act impulsively.
His experience of the fierce battle in Dragon City and the continuous awakening of the memory fragments of his previous life had made him grow into a Ghost Assassin who was ten times better now than in his previous life.
He knew how to lie low in silence and patiently look for opportunities. It was fine if he did not make a move, but if he did, he had to cut his throat.
“These rat children are doing the most common dredging and cleaning work. Even if the clan warriors can endure the stench and come here, they won’t find anything unusual. They aren’t the targets I’m looking for.”
Meng Chao pressed his ear against the wall of the pipe and listened for a while. He found that the sound and vibration of the excavation came from deeper underground.
It seemed that he had not reached his destination.
This was the shallow surface.
The scale of the sewage pipes was huge. Not only was the diameter more than three to five meters, it was enough to accommodate Minotaur warriors or wild boar warriors.
Moreover, it was connected in all directions and complicated. It was like an underground maze, spreading to every area of Black-corner City.
Not all the pipes needed to be cleaned. Many places were dark and void of working “garbage bugs.”
Even in places where “garbage bugs” gathered, they would often be dizzy from the stench of the poisonous gas. They were tortured to death by the heavy work. Their eyes were only focus on a very narrow space in front of them. They did not have the mood to pay attention to it, and it was impossible to see a shadow as thin as a cicada’s wings move quickly in the darkness.
Meng Chao easily bypassed several groups of “garbage bugs.”
He gradually dived into the ground to a depth of thirty to fifty meters.
The pipes there became narrower, while the air became more polluted. After a long time of stealth, he could finally see the flickering fireflies.
Logically speaking, it didn’t seem like there was a large group of people working on the soil.
However, Meng Chao once again caught the unique aura on his cloak.
That meant Half Face or someone else had delivered the torn cloth from his cloak to this place.
Meng Chao thought for a moment and used a metal rod to drill three vertical holes on the wet and soft ground.
Then, he scooped up a few handfuls of sewage waste from the corner of the pipe and poured it into the hole until it was level with the ground.
He lay on the ground and carefully observed the speed at which the liquid level was falling and the bubbles that were coming out from the depths of the hole.
It was a technique that Lu Siya had taught him to determine whether there was an underground hole below.
If this was the lowest level of the underground space, there would be tight and even layers of rock below.
Then the speed at which the liquid level was falling should be relatively slow. The speed at which the liquid level was falling at the three holes at different locations should be about the same, so there would not be too many bubbles coming out.
If the rate of the liquid level descending was relatively fast, and the rate of the liquid level descending in the three holes was uneven, and a large number of bubbles were gushing out. It meant that there might still be a huge space below.
If the rate of the liquid level descending was extremely fast, and there were no fatal rock layers around, then there might be underground buildings made of reinforced concrete or even metal.
“As expected, this is not the deepest part of the underground.
“Below these sewage pipes, there is an even larger and more complicated underground space system.
“This is something predictable.
“You should know that even the underground of dragon city is hundreds of meters deep, with layers of underground space.
“Some places are military facilities built in the Earth era to prevent the World War III.
“Some places were honeycomb underground cities that extended out of the ancient ruins after transmigrating to the Other World.
“Dragon City, on the other hand, only had a history of a thousand years. It was only in the last two or three hundred years that a large-scale modern city was built.
“The peak period of the Turan civilization’s prosperity was thousands of years ago, or even tens of thousands of years ago.
“Tens of thousands of years ago, the Turan ancestors, who were able to refine the mandrake trees and totem beasts, created super armor such as totem armors and built an underground area? What kind of facilities did they have? I’m really looking forward to it!”