Volume 1: Bo'an Awakening & The Calamity Storm
Chapter 34
Descending into the Underground Conduits
Nightfall descended, swallowing the last lingering embers of dusk along the western horizon of Bo’an City.
At the South Street intersection—the blighted junction bridging the squalid slums with the city’s decaying industrial factory district—antiquated mana-powered streetlamps cast a sickly, jaundiced amber glow, flickering like candles sputtering against the dying wind. Cold, nocturnal gusts sweeping down from the jagged peaks of Cang Lei Ridge funneled through the winding labyrinth of alleys, churning up gritty dust and the rancid, moldy stench of rotting refuse that stung the nostrils. Come nightfall, the district was utterly deserted. Not a single pedestrian dared wander these streets; only the sporadic, mournful howl of a stray dog echoed from the dilapidated, single-story tenements huddled in the distance.
Beneath the shadow of a decommissioned magi-technical transformer substation, five figures shrouded in dark combat fatigues assembled in absolute silence.
This was the Clear Wind Hunter Squad.
Standing at the center was their captain, Yang Zuo. A burly man in his early forties, he possessed a massive, square-shouldered frame built like a slab of weathered granite. Deep-set crags furrowed his bronze face, while a scruffy, salt-and-pepper beard lent him an aura of rugged, battle-tested seniority. He was encased in heavy beast-hide armor reinforced with cold-forged alloy plates guarding his elbows and knees. Strapped securely at his hip was a heavy round shield forged of dull gray metal, its surface etched with the muted runes of the Earth Element.
Flanking him were the other members: Qin Kui, a tall, gaunt Light Mage whose sharp, restless eyes constantly surveyed their perimeter; Ye Bin, a lithe Wind Mage youth sporting specialized soft-leather boots engineered to deaden the sound of his footsteps; and Liu Biyu—often called Caijie—a Water Mage in her early thirties with neatly cropped, shoulder-length hair and tranquil, observant eyes that spoke of a veteran who had stared down death on countless battlefields.
The fifth and final member stood slightly detached at the outer edge: Lin Feng.
At this moment, Lin Feng wore an ash-gray hooded trench coat, its wide brim pulled low over his brow. The upper half of his face was completely hidden beneath a mask of virgin silver, revealing only the chiseled ridge of his nose, thin lips set in a resolute line, and obsidian-black eyes as still and bottomless as an ancient well. The intricate, archaic cloud-and-dragon reliefs embossed across the polished silver surface caught the pale streetlamp glow, radiating a cold, impenetrable mystique.
Here, he walked under his freelance hunter alias: “Fan Chen.”
“Final gear check, everyone,” Yang Zuo said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble rising from his thick chest, sounding like two stones grinding together. His experienced gaze swept over each member in turn. “Magi-respirators, anti-corrosion boots, directional tracking runes—is everything in order?”
“Locked and loaded, Boss,” Ye Bin replied, patting the leather cross-body pouch at his waist with a cocky grin.
Liu Biyu gave a slight nod, her gloved fingers tightening around the grip of the short hunting blade sheathed at her hip. Yet her gaze instinctively drifted toward Lin Feng, a flicker of unresolved skepticism flashing across her eyes. Taking half a step forward, she lowered her voice and asked Yang Zuo:
“Captain, are we truly bringing this kid down into the tunnels? This sewer commission is designated as a Level 2 hazard. Subterranean quarters are suffocatingly cramped. If an unforeseen crisis erupts and our ranged artillery loses his head, stray fire could easily rupture the pressurized magi-gas conduits running along the vaulted ceiling.”
Her words carried no personal malice, but the pragmatic concern of a seasoned veteran was entirely justified. In the pitch-black claustrophobia of the underground, an inexperienced basic mage lacking live-combat baptism could easily crack under pressure. A single errant spell could bury the entire squad alive.
Qin Kui also frowned, casting a skeptical sidelong glance at Lin Feng. “She’s right, Captain. This afternoon at the training grounds, his Fire Burst was undeniably precise and ferocious, but blowing up static straw dummies in a controlled arena is a world apart from facing bloodthirsty beasts ripping flesh in the dark. He looks far too young. Does he truly have the stomach to handle the gory butcheries lurking beneath this city?”
Faced with the doubts leveled directly at him, Lin Feng remained motionless within the shadows of his cowl. His black-gloved hands hung loosely at his sides, devoid of any wasted twitch or nervous giveaway. Behind the silver visage, his eyes remained as placid as the surface of a frozen pond.
He did not waste a single breath offering explanations. In the ruthless fraternity of hunters, he understood the supreme rule: words spoken beneath the blade were the cheapest currency on earth; only battlefield performance carved out one’s true standing.
Yang Zuo stared intently at Lin Feng for several heartbeats. He observed that from start to finish, the young man’s breathing had remained at an extraordinarily rhythmic, unhurried cadence. His musculature appeared relaxed, yet possessed that coiled tension characteristic of an apex predator primed to strike at a microsecond’s notice. Anyone capable of maintaining such icy composure on the threshold of an operation was definitively no reckless amateur.
“Enough,” Yang Zuo cut in, raising a massive hand to silence his teammates. “I accepted this commission from the Hunter Union, and our tactical formation is missing a dedicated ranged artillery piece. Fan Chen passed my combat trial with flying colors; right now, he is a brother of Clear Wind. Once we drop into that shaft, everyone adheres strictly to my tactical commands. Move out!”
With that, Yang Zuo strode over to a gargantuan magi-alloy manhole cover set into the center of the intersection roundabout.
The iron plate spanned nearly two meters across and weighed over three hundred catties. Cast from heavy-duty pig iron infused with anti-corrosion mana ore, its perimeter was anchored into the pavement by four hefty mechanical latch-bolts. This was the primary ventilation and maintenance conduit for the southern municipal drainage network.
“Ye Bin, give me a hand.”
Yang Zuo drew two meter-long, heavy-duty alloy prybars from his harness, jamming their beveled tips into the narrow clearance notches along the lid’s rim.
“Heave!”
Both men leaned into the leverage simultaneously. Beneath his leather combat tunic, the knotted muscles of Yang Zuo’s arms swelled like ancient tree roots. A subtle, earthen-brown aura of Earth mana surged from his palms into the steel bar, reinforcing his brute physical leverage.
Clang... skrrrt... THUD!
The screech of tortured metal ripped through the dead silence of the night. The colossal iron slab was pried upward, screeching across the lip before slamming down onto the asphalt with an echoing, subterranean thud.
The moment the conduit yawned open, a gust of freezing, saturated air surged upward, rolling into the night like a noxious cloud. It carried the choking stench of centuries-old stagnant sludge mingled with the sharp, sulfuric bite of concentrated methane. Yet what caused every hunter present to snap taut with instinctive alarm was not the foul stench of sewer muck—it was an all-too-familiar, nauseatingly metallic odor interwoven into the draft.
The copper reek of fresh, vital blood!
Yang Zuo’s expression darkened instantly. He thrust out a calloused palm, signaling maximum alert. Leaning over the rim, he narrowed his eyes into the bottomless, lightless shaft below:
“The blood stench hasn’t dissipated... The whispers from the Municipal Works Bureau were true. Those three maintenance workers who vanished last week didn’t die from tunnel cave-ins or toxic asphyxiation.”
“Mother of God... this drainage nexus sits directly beneath the densely populated South Street...” Ye Bin swallowed hard, his fingers white-knuckling the wind throwing daggers at his hip. All traces of his earlier swagger had evaporated. “Have those abominations crawled this far into the inner city?”
“We’ll find out once our boots hit the bottom,” Yang Zuo replied grimly.
Turning back, the captain issued his orders with clipped precision: “Tactical marching order: I take point. Qin Kui takes second. Fan Chen holds the center. Caijie secures the right flank. Ye Bin locks down our six. Descend!”
Without a second’s hesitation, Yang Zuo grabbed the rusted U-shaped iron rungs anchored into the concrete well-casing, rapidly disappearing down the vertical shaft.
One by one, the hunters followed.
When his turn arrived, Lin Feng stepped to the edge and looked down. The drop spanned roughly thirty meters—a pitch-black throat resembling the gaping maw of an ancient subterranean leviathan waiting to swallow its prey. Reaching out, his gloved fingers clamped onto the cold, rusted rungs. With fluid, decisive economy of motion, he slipped over the edge. His boots found purchase on the rungs with featherlight grace, descending toward the depths without causing the slightest vibration against the concrete shaft.
In under thirty seconds, all five hunters had touched down upon the conduit floor.
The moment their specialized rubber soles made contact, they sank ankle-deep into a foul, viscous mire of accumulated sludge. Complete and utter darkness pressed against them from all sides—a darkness so thick, damp, and suffocating it felt like a tangible shroud, inducing the terrifying illusion of being sealed alive inside a colossal stone sarcophagus.
The subterranean air was so saturated that microscopic droplets of moisture condensed across their coats and masks within seconds. Along the central drainage culvert, an ink-black torrent of sewage rushed past with a violent, gurgling roar. From the distant, unseen reaches of the vaulted ceiling, intermittent plink... drip... plop... sounds echoed through the gloom, creating a monotonous, hair-raising rhythm that vibrated up their spines.
“Dahuang, light it up,” Yang Zuo commanded under his breath, his eyes straining to pierce the impenetrable dark ahead.
“Understood!”
Qin Kui snapped to attention, clasping his hands before his chest.
Deep within his consciousness, warm golden mana ignited. In the blink of an eye, seven brilliant golden-white Light Star Cores flared to life around his frame, resembling miniature celestial stars suspended within a pitch-black galaxy.
“Brilliant Light: Illumination!”
With a sharp sweep of Qin Kui’s fingers, a resplendent Star Path traced across the air. The seven Star Cores snapped into a blazing constellation, converging upon the tip of his index finger before solidifying into a radiant, fist-sized orb of golden-white luminescence.
The orb drifted upward, hovering three meters above the filthy catwalk, casting a soft yet intensely penetrating radiance that banished the suffocating gloom.
The sudden burst of light unveiled the colossal, archaic architecture of the century-old municipal drainage network.
The hunters swept their gazes across the subterranean chamber.
It was a gargantuan arched tunnel spanning more than five meters across, with a vaulted ceiling rising four meters overhead, constructed from monolithic slabs of reinforced concrete stained yellow and blackened by time. Running along both walls and the overhead arch was a tangled, sprawling arterial network of cast-iron conduits, clean water mains, and heavy-duty, rubber-jacketed mana transmission cables as thick as a man’s thigh. Fetid black moss and fungal blooms clung to every damp surface, contorting into grotesque, demonic grimaces beneath the flickering golden glare.
Beneath their boots ran a narrow concrete maintenance ledge barely half a meter wide, skirting the roaring canal of foul runoff. The churning black water foamed with greasy white scum, sweeping along organic refuse and toxic industrial chemical sludge dumped from the manufacturing plants above.
“What a monstrous rat’s nest...” Ye Bin muttered, tugging the high collar of his coat up over his nose to ward off the reeking fumes.
“Stay sharp,” Yang Zuo warned coldly. “Ye Bin, activate Wind Trail and scout two hundred meters ahead. Keep your eyes peeled for side conduits and storm overflow junctions. If you spot anything unnatural, fall back immediately. Do not engage alone.”
“Understood, Boss. Leave it to me.”
Drawing a deep breath, Ye Bin mobilized the mana in his spiritual sea. Two translucent wisps of emerald gale began to spiral tightly around his calves. Seven Wind Star Cores linked in seamless succession, carving an elegant, breezy Star Path:
“Wind Trail: Swiftness!”
Ye Bin’s frame seemed to shed all mortal weight, turning as light as a desiccated autumn leaf. With a spring of his heel, he skittered across the slime-slick concrete ledge at gale-force speed, dissolving into an azure-green afterimage that vanished into the darkness ahead without splashing a single drop of sludge.
The remaining four maintained a disciplined, measured pace, advancing step by step into the subterranean abyss along the conduit’s downstream flow.
After advancing roughly three hundred meters, the subterranean air turned even more stifling and frigid. Droplets leaking from structural fractures in the vaulted concrete pattered steadily against their armored pauldrons.
Suddenly, a sharp rush of wind whistled from the dark ahead. Ye Bin’s silhouette materialized out of the gloom, landing upon the ledge mere paces before Yang Zuo. The youth’s face was drained of all color, his chest heaving with ragged breaths:
“Captain... up ahead... a major discovery! Right at the hairpin U-bend!”
“What is it?” Yang Zuo tightened his grip on his heavy shield, eyes widening.
“Come see for yourself... It’s horrific!” Ye Bin gritted out through clenched teeth.
Guided by the scout, the squad quickened their pace. Navigating a treacherous, moss-slick bend where the rushing sewage converged into a frothing, deep whirlpool, they turned the corner.
Qin Kui immediately directed the hovering orb of Brilliant Light toward the stone wall.
Golden light flooded the recess, and the scene exposed beneath its glare caused every hunter to freeze dead in their tracks, an icy chill shooting straight up their spines!
Gouged into the reinforced concrete wall—a monolithic barrier over half a meter thick—were three gargantuan claw trenches, carved nearly ten centimeters deep into the stone! The load-bearing steel rebars embedded within, each as thick as a man’s big toe, had been violently bent and twisted by unimaginable brute strength. Several steel bars had been sheared clean in two, bearing jagged, crushed indentations that looked as though they had been mangled by industrial hydraulic shears!
Pulverized concrete fragments lay scattered across the base of the wall, churned into a hideous paste with the black mud.
Yet the true horror lay perched upon the narrow concrete ledge beside the waterline.
Draped limply over the curb was a shredded, high-visibility orange safety vest—the standard issue uniform of the Municipal Works Bureau. The fabric was soaked through and crusted black with coagulated blood, releasing an overpowering, sickeningly sweet stench of gore that turned their stomachs. Scattered around the ragged fabric were splintered fragments of human kneecaps, a torn work boot still attached to a gnawed, bloodless tibia picked clean of all muscle tissue, and clumps of human hair matted in the foul mire.
It was a slaughterhouse!
“Merciful heavens...” Qin Kui stumbled back half a step, the hand channeling the Light orb trembling so violently that the luminous sphere wobbled drunkenly in midair. “They... they were devoured! This wasn’t a cave-in... something tore them apart and ate them alive!”
Liu Biyu’s face had gone paper-white. Clamping a hand over her nose and mouth, her eyes remained locked on the gouges in the concrete. Sinking onto one knee, she drew her short blade to probe the grime coating the severed tibia, her voice trembling beneath forced restraint:
“Arc-shaped bite patterns... Canine teeth at least five inches long, backed by a crushing bite force capable of snapping dense bone like kindling. The blood on the cloth coagulated three to four days ago. This belonged to one of the missing maintenance workers... As for the rest of his remains... I fear they have already been digested within a monster’s belly.”
The ambient temperature within the conduit plunged instantly below freezing.
An invisible dread wrapped around their minds like freezing tentacles. This was no longer a routine reconnaissance walk—this was a bloody excursion into an active feeding ground, where they could be transformed into prey at any second!
Yang Zuo stepped forward, crouching down to run his calloused fingertips along the deep gouges in the concrete. The weathered, square face of the veteran captain hardened with unprecedented gravity. Sniffing the viscous black fluid adhering to the cracks, he rose to his feet. His booming, authoritative voice echoed down the tunnel, deliberately cutting through the rising terror to anchor his squad’s wavering morale:
“Get a grip on yourselves! We are the Clear Wind Hunter Squad, not a bunch of greenhorn brats fresh out of high school! Look at these marks... razor-sharp talons capable of scaling reinforced concrete, devastating jaw pressure, and an instinctual preference for dragging prey into dark recesses to butcher... These belong to an Ape Demon variant! And there is definitely more than one!”
“Ape Demons?!” Ye Bin blurted in disbelief. “Don’t those beasts typically nest in the dense, craggy caves deep within the wilds of Cang Lei Ridge? How in the world did they breach the inner city’s drainage system?!”
“Bo’an City was erected upon the ancient ruins of archaic magical architecture,” Yang Zuo explained with grim certainty. “Certain historical overflow spillways discharge directly into the ravines outside the city’s Defensive Barrier—conduits that were never fully mapped on modern municipal schematics. Those beasts undoubtedly followed the subterranean drainage conduits inland to establish a den!”
With a decisive motion, Yang Zuo unhitched his magical shield, slamming its steel-reinforced base into the concrete ledge with a resonant, ringing CLANG:
“Full squad, assume Tier 1 Combat Defense Formation! Move!”
The veteran captain’s bark instantly dispelled the creeping panic. The instincts of professional monster hunters kicked in, and the team swiftly shifted into textbook close-quarters combat positioning:
Yang Zuo held the vanguard, alloy shield raised in his left hand while Earth mana pooled in his right, primed to cast Earth Wave or Rock Barrier to blunt any sudden frontal charge.
Qin Kui reduced the Light orb’s diameter by half to conserve mana, anchoring it directly behind Yang Zuo’s shoulder to illuminate the ceiling and path ahead while preparing to blind any charging beasts.
Liu Biyu pressed her back against the right wall, her fingers weaving fluid motions as translucent droplets of azure Water mana began to coalesce around her fingertips. Her role was flank defense, ready to erect a Water Shield to absorb and disperse the kinetic impact of any flanking ambush.
Ye Bin assumed a mobile rear-guard position, hugging the corner of the bend to secure their retreat route and monitor auxiliary overflow pipes.
And occupying the central nexus—the safest position, yet the one carrying the squad’s sole ranged kill potential—was Lin Feng.
Standing directly behind Yang Zuo’s broad back, Lin Feng planted his boots shoulder-width apart, rooted as firm as an unyielding boulder. Behind the silver mask, his eyes took in the horrific carnage with an eerie, icy detachment. There was not a trace of revulsion or dread in his posture. His right hand rested casually at hip level, fingers slightly curved. Within the expanse of his spiritual sea, seven fiery-crimson Star Cores were already whirling along their designated celestial orbit at blistering speed!
Witnessing the masked youth’s flawless posture and absolute tranquility, Yang Zuo gave an appreciative nod, the remaining traces of apprehension in his heart evaporating:
“Fan Chen, listen closely! Subterranean beasts possess terrifying burst speed in the dark. Once combat erupts, I will use my shield and earth arts to bottle up their advance, while Caijie shuts down their flanking angles. Your sole mission is to lock onto their skulls and unleash Fire Burst to incinerate their brains! Under no circumstances are you to strike the metal gas pipes running along the ceiling! Do you hear me?!”
“Understood.”
Lin Feng replied with a single, clipped syllable. His voice was pitched low and raspy—a gravelly tone deliberately altered to disguise his true age. Brief as it was, it carried a chilling, undeniable weight of supreme confidence.
“Good! Advance! Maintain a one-meter interval between members. Watch every step!”
Yang Zuo waved his arm, leading the vanguard deeper into the suffocating darkness of the drainage tunnel.
The path ahead grew increasingly treacherous and grotesque.
The level of foul wastewater in the canal began to rise, deep enough to submerge a man’s thighs if one slipped from the curb. The concrete maintenance ledges on either side narrowed steadily, barely wide enough to accommodate the breadth of a single boot, slick with oily black slime. Across the walls, fresh gouges and claw rifts multiplied in frequency, alongside clumps of coarse, ash-gray fur encrusted with dried mineral mud clinging to rusted pipe rivets.
The squad moved in breath-held silence. Thirty meters beneath the heart of the city, the silence was agonizing—broken only by the rushing sewer current and the heavy, suppressed breathing of the four hunters.
They had pushed forward for more than a mile.
At that exact moment, Lin Feng—striding steadily at the squad’s center—abruptly checked his footing.
Beneath his heavy tactical coat, pressed flush against the skin of his chest, an intense, familiar scorching sensation suddenly erupted.
The Primordial Dragon Pendant, which had previously rested in quiet repose absorbing ambient world mana, suddenly began to shudder violently!
Thump... thump... thump...
It pulsed with rhythmic intensity, like the awakening heart of an ancient prehistoric titan shaking off ten thousand years of slumber! Waves of searing heat radiated from the jade dragon, cascading through Lin Feng’s meridians and flooding directly into his spiritual sea!
Within his vast mental cosmos, both the violet-black Lightning Stardust and the fiery-crimson Fire Stardust erupted with blinding brilliance simultaneously! The primordial dragon spirit slumbering within the pendant seemed to catch the intoxicating scent of familiar prey, transmitting a wild, predatory surge of bloodlust and an urgent, razor-sharp warning into Lin Feng’s consciousness!
Demonic beasts!
And what was more... they were swarming in massive numbers, lurking at point-blank range!
Without a fraction of a second’s hesitation, Lin Feng reached out and clamped a heavy hand onto Yang Zuo’s shoulder, pressing down with firm authority as he barked in a hushed, commanding tone:
“Stop!”
Lin Feng’s sharp command rang through the conduit, freezing the entire squad in their tracks. Yang Zuo whipped his head around, whispering urgently:
“Fan Chen, what is it? Did you spot something?”
Qin Kui and Liu Biyu tensed instantly, their fingers white-knuckling their respective magic implements.
Lin Feng did not reply immediately. Slowly raising his head, his gaze—honed like a pair of daggers through the eye-slits of the silver mask—pierced upward toward the pitch-black vaulted ceiling directly above their heads.
There, just beyond the outer periphery of the Light orb’s radiance, a dense shroud of absolute blackness blanketed the labyrinth of rusted cast-iron conduits.
“The water from the ceiling...” Lin Feng spoke, his voice dropping into a chilling monotone. “...it stopped dripping.”
Hearing his words, Yang Zuo and Liu Biyu blanched simultaneously!
It was true!
The monotonous, rhythmic dripping of water that had accompanied their march along the entire length of the tunnel had abruptly vanished into dead silence! It was as if something colossal had slithered across the overhead arch, sealing the weeping concrete fissures beneath its bulk!
Before anyone could utter another word, a wave of putrid, suffocating death stench—heavy with the stench of stagnant sewer muck and rotten, putrefying entrails—plunged downward from above, engulfing all five hunters!
And then, from within the pitch-black void of the vaulted ceiling, a horrific chorus of sounds began to scrape against the air:
Click-clack... screech... clatter-snap...
It was the sickening sound of dozens of razor-sharp, elongated fangs gnashing together in ravenous frenzy! The ear-splitting screech of metal being gouged echoed through the tunnel as razor-sharp claws dragged across the cast-iron surfaces of the pressurized magi-pipes!
“Dahuang! Cast the light to the ceiling! NOW!” Yang Zuo roared, thick veins bulging across his forehead like coiled earthworms.
Trembling, Qin Kui thrust his arms upward, channeling every ounce of his remaining mana to drive the floating Light orb skyward, illuminating the blind, shadowed expanse of the vaulted arch barely seven meters above their heads!
Blinding golden luminescence detonated against the darkness, shredding the shadows to ribbons.
And the horrific nightmare revealed overhead caused the pupils of every hunter in the Clear Wind Squad to violently contract in primal terror!
Across the vaulted ceiling, clinging to the thick black moss and tangled pipe conduits, the entire expanse was smothered by a writhing multitude of grotesque, nightmarish monstrosities!
They were ape-like beasts the size of fully grown men, their bodies covered in coarse, bristling gray fur encrusted with hardened mineral mud that resembled interlocking armor scales. Their misshapen heads were dominated by broad, fan-like bat ears that fluttered incessantly to catch the faintest sound, while their protruding, snout-like maws parted to reveal four curved, bloodstained yellow tusks. Their overlong arms hung past their knees, terminating in obsidian, razor-sharp claws anchored deep into the stone as their bodies dangled inverted like gargantuan bats!
One pair... three pairs... ten pairs... twenty pairs!
In the span of a single breath, dozens of pairs of oval, luminescent emerald eyes ignited within the gloom above—eyes burning with unbridled cruelty, savagery, and ravenous bloodlust, all locking onto the five humans below!
Poison-Clawed Apes!
An entire horde of advanced Servant-class Poison-Clawed Apes was suspended upside down from the ceiling, completely cutting off both their vanguard advance and their line of retreat!
“SKRRREEECH——GAAARGHH!!”
An ear-splitting shriek shattered the eardrums of the hunters as the horde bared their blood-dripping fangs, kicked off the reinforced concrete ceiling, and plummeted down like an avalanche of death!