Chapter 94

Wen Yu: [The guards concentrated in the fire area.]

Jia Lan: [The perimeter guards at the prison have been drawn away. Estimated round trip: ten minutes. There are still two inside.]

It was now.

The three people quickly buried themselves in the thick darkness, crossed the empty plaza, reached the West District, and immediately slipped into the shadows.

Most of the Aliens had their attention drawn to the fire. They went to the scene or flew toward the East District amid the smoke, a flurry of wingbeats passing overhead.

Chaos.

“I’ll go in first in a bit.” Horne said in a low voice.

There were still two Aliens inside, but the Tower was in complete disarray at the moment. With good luck, he could take them out instantly without drawing attention. With bad luck…

Hels nodded lightly. “I’ll follow you.”

The prison area was an extremely small spired castle that looked more like decoration. Horne had never quite understood the architectural tastes of the Aliens—icy Alien tech in the East District, medieval castles in the West District.

In the center of the West District, the spire of the main cathedral pointed straight at the heavens. It was like the Pope’s century-long rule, a deliberate manipulation of human psychology, or an imitation and mockery of old-era symbols of authority.

“I’ll be at the door. You two go in.” You Wenjie said.

At the iron gate, You Wenjie concealed himself directly in the dark corner outside, serving as the first line of close-range defense.

Horne and Hels exchanged a glance.

Bang! A gunshot pierced the iron lock, and the lock fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

A shrill screech pierced from inside out almost instantly.

Bad luck—the Alien was right at the door.

The instant it burst out, Horne didn’t hesitate at all. He pulled the trigger at its head, instant kill, and it vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Come in.” Hels quickly entered the passageway, and the two figures disappeared.

The firelight stopped abruptly at the doorway. Inside was a staircase—the castle’s spiral stairs, narrow and damp, leading downward.

Dark red liquid dripped on the marble, long since dried. It seemed this prison area wasn’t built for the Aliens but for imprisoning humans.

Loch City had prisons. Why the Aliens had cleared out an entire building in the Tower District specifically for human prisoners was unknown.

The two sets of footsteps were cautious and light, racing against time.

The rotten stench in the air grew thicker.

The deeper they went, the narrower the stairs became. The spiral descent made their heads spin, but the entire spiral staircase had no windows, only a few red candles providing faint illumination. Their shadows twisted and intertwined, swaying step by step in the filthy firelight.

After descending more than ten meters, the stairs narrowed to the point where only one person could pass at a time.

Horne frowned and slowly held his breath. The prolonged downward spiral gave him a moment of dizziness. The instant his elbow touched the wall, he felt a cold, sticky sensation.

“Do you smell that?” Horne asked softly. The moment he spoke, the firelight on the wall flickered.

“Yeah, something rotten.”

The farther they got from open air, the stranger the smell became—a damp, cold rot wrapped around it, like a corpse with maggots breeding deep in the lungs, long decayed and untreated.

“We should be near the bottom soon.” Hels judged from the spatial echoes. He saw Horne walking faster and reminded him, “Be careful.”

Horne ignored the reminder. They only had ten minutes; they couldn’t waste time when they could control it.

The castle’s weathered stairs offered no respite. At the bottom, by the red candlelight, Horne made out the things on either side of the steps—rotten meat.

Every few steps, some appeared: blackened, whitened, crawling with maggots and reeking of acid.

Horne fought back nausea and was about to speak when his footstep halted.

They had reached the bottom.

At the end of the endless spiral stairs was a sealed stone chamber, about one square meter, cramped beyond endurance. The only light source was still the red candle on the wall, eerie and sinister.

The opposite wall…

Horne froze for a moment.

The Last Supper

Screeeech—

The decayed wood scraped as the well cover slowly lifted. Horne’s muscles tensed, and the gun barrel instantly pointed downward.

Below was pitch black.

No sound.

Silence.

Deafening silence.

At some point, the sharp rescue noises from above had stopped. In the depths of the castle, even breaths were infinitely amplified in the silence.

At the same time, their sense of smell was infinitely heightened. With the wooden board open, even breathing felt like atonement.

Horne lightly tapped Hels’s arm.

Very short, very light.

—Presence.

Did this place even exist? Was Jia Lan’s intel wrong? Was this a prison or a corpse dump?

But in that moment, Hels only thought of how Horne had said a few days ago that he hadn’t recovered his memories. So he lightly tapped back in their encrypted code, playfully: one long, two short, one long.

—I’m scared.

Horne: “…”

Horne completely ignored his bad joke and pointed expressionlessly downward—should they go down?

Nothing was visible below, unknown depth. No one had anticipated the prison being like this. Jumping down like that was too risky.

Hels looked around, took a few steps back, and locked his gaze on the marble stairs. Moments later, he squatted and pried off a small stone from the loose marble edge.

He tossed the small stone into the darkness. One second later, plink, a crisp landing sound.

At most five meters.

Horne nodded to him, half-kneeled at the edge, but before jumping, Hels stopped him and pointed to himself.

He leaped down lightly and deftly. Horne followed right after. Half a second later, the two figures landed silently.

Only after landing did Horne realize there was light below—it was just at the other end of the darkness, about thirty meters away. The maximum range a red candle could illuminate began there.

It was a corner, and opposite the corner was the first cell in a row.

Inside was a skeleton, padded underneath with straw.

Horne had never seen a prison like this—like an imitation of the Pope, or allegiance to him.

With extremely light footsteps, the two hugged the wall, treading carefully as they slowly made their way toward the candlelight.

Horne sent You Wenjie a message preparing for pickup.

Skeleton, wooden bucket, gibbet. The corner grew closer. Just a few steps before stepping into the candlelight, Horne stepped on something very soft—so soft he staggered, then steadied himself.

He reacted instantly—meat.

In the unlit areas, there was a lot of piled-up rotten meat everywhere. Horne stepped back, intending to go around, when a voice exploded from below: “Up top, how’s it going.”

Horne held his breath instantly. Hels froze too.

A humanoid Alien, hiding in the darkness, sitting on the ground. Horne realized immediately: he had stepped on it, and it thought they were friendlies.

Without hesitation, he squatted down to its level and said softly, “Up top, all dead.”

Bang! A bullet pierced its skull, half-illuminated particle cloud in the candlelight.

Horne stood, calmly holstering his gun. The whole process was clean and efficient.

“Whoa.” Hels sighed softly, even pretending to clap.

Only two Aliens below, both dealt with. Next, just find Ains.

Horne let out a breath of relief and turned, about to speak.

In that instant, wind surged from behind. A massive screech echoed in the narrow prison. Hels reacted extremely quickly, grabbing Horne and rolling to the side.

Thud!

Horne was flung against the prison iron door, his back slamming with a huge clang. He fell to the ground and scrambled up immediately.

Another ferocious assault. The wooden bucket on the ground was kicked over, rolling far before crunch—reduced to powder under the Alien.

Bang!

Horne slammed sideways into the wall. The Alien bone frame’s tip grazed his neck skin and embedded in the marble.

Before he could move, his wrist was seized with irresistible force. He was yanked backward, back slamming into the wall corner.

Hels stood in front of him, raising his gun from the darkness.

One second of stillness.

Bang!

All went quiet. Particles dispersed.

He lowered the gun, his tense muscles relaxing.

In the darkness, all sounds returned to calm, as if nothing had happened.

The silence lasted several seconds. Horne grabbed him and asked lowly, “Not hurt?”

“No.” Hels’s face was cold as frost, but the instant he turned, his expression softened completely. He touched Horne’s face; wetness immediately stained his fingers. His voice deepened. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s fine. Save the person first.” Horne pushed him away.

Any longer, and the other three might come down. No time for who-cares-more drama.

Eyes blind, but they could make out the rough direction of the cell doors. The two quickly headed to the corner, one behind the other, much faster this time.

Unknown how deep the corridor after the corner went, unknown if more Aliens lurked. If there were, the gunshots should have drawn them already. No movement now meant temporary safety.

Thinking of this, Horne suddenly asked, “How’d you do it?”

“Hm?”

Hels didn’t get it at first, then chuckled lowly. “Colonel, if you check the old Military District target range records, you’ll see in the top red-heart hits at 200 kph… there’s a note.”

“Blind sniping.”

Their footsteps crossed the corner. The two figures entered the prison corridor. After not two steps, Hels halted ahead for an instant. The next second, a hand grabbed Horne’s wrist, fingertips tapping lightly on his skin.

—Don’t speak.