Four or five days passed, leaving new marks on New Rivadin, a frontier fortress shrouded in the shadow of death.
Time and manpower were precisely converted into defensive power by Shen Mu.
The two watchtowers, east and north, rose from the sand like fangs, overlooking the constantly encroaching gray-yellow desert.
They were completed ahead of schedule under Aleron's almost harsh supervision, casting long shadows in the sunlight and becoming the extended eyes of the castle.
The city walls themselves were also reinforced.
More flagstones and sandbags were embedded into the outer edges of the original somewhat hastily constructed rammed earth and stone structure.
Outside, the second simple iron gate and horse trap, set up under Shen Mu's command, were already in place, their barbs glinting with an ominous glow in the sunlight.
Behind the battlements, the figures were noticeably denser.
Particularly striking were those figures clad in heavy lamellar armor and wielding composite bows—they were upgraded Vigia Sharpshooters.
They replaced some of the skirmisher archers, their eyes as sharp as eagles, their quivers filled with specialized, heavier, and sharper armor-piercing arrows.
Their breathing was steady, carrying the calm, deadly aura unique to veterans who had been screened by life and death.
Every breath seemed to be accumulating power for the impending twang of the bowstring.
The entire New Rivadin was like a giant beast whose muscles had tensed up from being pricked, lying dormant and vigilant at the edge of the scorching desert.
Every gaze from the city walls was like an invisible probe, constantly scanning the silent sand sea and the massive subway entrance that lay open like a wound on the earth.
It was on the fifth morning, when the defensive works were initially completed and the oppressive calm had almost solidified, that a Steppe Bandit responsible for monitoring the subway entrance brought news of a disturbance that broke the silence.
A Kujit Veteran Horse Archer galloped to the base of the main castle tower, reined in his restless warhorse, and dismounted with the agility characteristic of a plainsman, but his face was filled with shock and uncertainty: "Lord! Aleron!"
His voice was urgent, deliberately lowered, yet unable to conceal his tension, "Down by the entrance...there's movement! Not Skeleton, it's inside the subway tunnel!"
Aleron, who had just finished his morning patrol, was discussing deployment details with Shen Mu in front of the sand table, and both looked up almost simultaneously at the sound.
Shen Mu's gaze was as sharp as a blade: "Elaborate."
"It was shortly after the changing of the guard."
The Horse Archer spoke rapidly, pointing towards the subway station: "From very deep down, there was a sudden sound! At first it was very faint, like a mouse digging, but then it quickly changed...it was the sound of weapons clashing! Clanging, very dense! And...and vague roars, not the roars of living people, nor the scraping sound of Skeletons, but like...the roar of a wounded beast! It lasted for about half a pipe of tobacco, and the sound became more and more chaotic, as if two teams of people were fighting to the death deep in the tunnel!"
He licked his chapped lips: "Then the sound went deeper into the tunnel, and now it's silent again, but that bloody smell...I can faintly smell a wisp of it wafting up from a long distance away!"
Intense fighting from deep within the subway tunnel?
And from the description, it sounded more like a battle between living creatures?
This news was like a boulder thrown into still water!
This was not the style of the Skeleton Cavalry wandering outside or the Hell Devil that might be lurking below.
Undead's actions are cold and purposeful, while Hell Devil prefer ambush and attrition.
This kind of fierce close-quarters combat erupting in a dark tunnel revealed a completely different, primitive, and wild aura.
Shen Mu and Aleron's eyes met, and they instantly understood the cold probing intent in each other's eyes.
"Prepare the horses," Shen Mu's voice was without hesitation, like clashing steel: "Aleron, take your men, we'll go down and see."
"Yes!" Aleron immediately clasped his chest, his eyes burning with the warrior's aroused curiosity and vigilance: "I'll immediately gather men, picking the most elite infantry and archers."
A moment later, Shen Mu had mounted his magnificent Holy Tree Heavy Steed.
Behind him, in addition to the standard ten Fifth-Tier Holy Tree Knights, Aleron led fifteen elite heavy infantry and ten Vigia archers, also upgraded to Sharpshooters.
These archers carried powerful composite bows and heavy crossbows at their waists, their quivers filled with armor-piercing arrows, clearly prepared by Aleron to deal with armored targets they might encounter in the tunnel.
The group did not bring Khergit Mounted Archers; in the narrow tunnel, infantry and flexible but sustained-fire archers were more suitable.
They moved like a silent steel viper, quickly and orderly passing through the East Gate, sliding down the gentle slope, and arriving at the entrance of the massive, collapsed subway station ruins.
The Khergit Mounted Archer squad responsible for vigilance had already pulled back to both sides of the entrance, their faces showing unprecedented tension.
One of them pointed into the dark hole below, his voice tight: "Sir, the sound came from deep down, how far exactly...I can't tell, but it's definitely very deep! After that commotion passed, now down there...it's terrifyingly quiet again."
Below the entrance, accumulated sand piled up into a steep slope, leading into deeper darkness.
Air flowed here, bringing a faint but definite scent, mixed with rust and...fresh blood.
The darkness itself seemed to contain danger, swallowing light and sound.
The Mithril armor on the Holy Tree Knights emitted a slightly brighter, soft silver glow, dispelling the darkness within a few feet around them, but this light seemed like a drop in the bucket in the face of the deep tunnel.
The Vigia Sharpshooters lit torches wrapped in grease, their flickering flames illuminating the rough and uneven path ahead with difficulty.
Broken and twisted concrete blocks, exposed rebar like the ribs of a monster, and accumulated sand and stones created a complex terrain of gullies; the air was thick with dust and...that increasingly distinct sweet, fishy smell.
"Shields forward, bows in the middle, infantry protecting the flanks, advance in echelons," Shen Mu said in a deep voice after dismounting.
The orders were cold and concise; in this cramped and complex environment, formation was the guarantee of survival.
Three of the most robust Swadian Sergeants, wielding huge fan-shaped shields, immediately moved to the very front, their heavy shields forming a dense wall.
The Holy Tree Knights spread out on both sides and slightly behind, their armor's glow serving as the best warning light.
Aleron personally led the archers closely behind the shield wall, his sharp gaze piercing the darkness.
The remaining infantry, armed with spears and swords, vigilantly guarded the flanks and rear.
The team maintained maximum vigilance, slowly and heavily advancing deeper into the tunnel along the stairs.
Footsteps were amplified in the empty, silent tunnel, mixed with the faint scraping of chainmail and armor, making nerves taut.
The torchlight cast flickering, eerie shadows on the damp, pitted ground and the mold and moss-covered walls.
The railway tracks were long twisted or buried, the remaining sleepers decayed and broken, revealing dark holes.
That bloody smell...it grew heavier and heavier, like a slaughterhouse that had just been gutted.
"Stop!" A leading Holy Tree Knight suddenly whispered, raising his right arm with a clenched fist, the Holy Tree emblem subtly shimmering in the light.
The team instantly froze, like solidified sculptures.
The archers behind the shield wall immediately half-crouched, arrows notched, their arrowheads steadily pointing into the deep darkness.
Everyone's gaze followed the Holy Tree Knight's gesture and looked ahead.
Beyond a "bottleneck" area where the tunnel ahead had become extremely narrow and twisted due to collapse, traces of battle appeared—or rather, the remnants of a massacre.
The torchlight illuminated a scene like a human purgatory.
On the tunnel floor ahead, an astonishing number of shattered Skeletons were scattered!
Not the stark white bones found outside; these bones were a strange dark gray, even clinging with dark brown, dried muscle fibers!
The shattered bones were so numerous and so fine that they almost covered the entire section of ground within twenty paces ahead.
Clearly, not long ago, more than one Skeleton Warrior here was completely torn to pieces by some extremely violent force!
Even more startling, mixed among these dark gray Skeleton fragments were other things—sharp broken claws stained with a dark blue viscous liquid, fragments of carapaces that were broken and covered with obsidian-like scales, and even a few clumps of ominous dark purple fur!
This was definitely not from Undead or their known Hell Devil.
"Look over there!" Aleron, sharp-eyed, pointed to a corner of the wall a little further away.
Illuminated by the torchlight, a relatively intact "corpse" was clearly visible. But it was definitely not human or elf!
It was about half the height of an adult, prone, with a reptilian-like structure, but its body was covered with broken, thick, obsidian-like carapaces with sharp edges, as if formed from cooled lava.
Its four limbs were extremely short and thick, with large, broken, dark blue hooked claws at the ends of its forelimbs, still terrifying even broken.
There was no obvious head; the front of its torso was just a hideous, tooth-filled circular maw, with several thick tusks violently broken off, and the blue viscous fluid that flowed out had not yet coagulated.
Its entire body was covered with large lacerations and indentations caused by violent impacts—precisely the wounds caused by the shattered dark gray Skeleton spear tips!
"What in the world...what is this thing?" Aleron's voice was filled with shock and deep vigilance.
He had served in the military for many years, from the Vigia Ice Plains to Eight Mile River's Twilight Realm, and had never seen such a distorted creature.
A Vigia Sharpshooter carefully picked out a small fragment that seemed to be metal from the pile of shattered bones; it was clinging with some broken cloth strips and...dark purple fur.
"Sir, this...this looks like a fragment of some kind of emblem?" He handed the fragment to Aleron.
The fragment was small, twisted and dirty, with broken edges, making it barely possible to discern what appeared to be curved, abstract lines resembling thorns or beast claws.
The fabric material was quite fine, and the purple fur also appeared extremely tough.
Aleron couldn't identify it either, frowning as he handed it to Shen Mu.
Shen Mu did not take the sticky fragment; his gaze was like a cold probe, scanning inch by inch over this tragic battlefield.
Two completely different monsters perished together here? A third, unknown force?
He bent down and picked up an object significantly larger than the other bone fragments from the edge of a pile of dark gray bone shards—it was a broken spear tip dyed dark blue.
The spear shaft's material was that strange dark gray bone, heavy and with a cold metallic feel.
At the broken tip of the spear, the dark blue viscous fluid emitted an extremely faint odor, similar to ozone mixed with putridity.
"Power residue..." Shen Mu slowly uttered the words, his eyes as deep as an abyss, a cold glint flashing within them as he felt the faint but exceptionally pure destructive energy.
The nature of this energy had subtle differences from the black light previously unleashed by the Bone Armored Cavalry, but it was also a powerful external amplification!
These dark gray Skeleton Warriors clearly possessed similar, or even more formidable, extraordinary powers!
"Lord," another Holy Tree Knight pointed at the dark blue viscous fragments and purple fur on the ground: "Are these... 'dissolving'?"
Under everyone's astonished gaze, those non-Undead dead things—the dark blue hooked claw fragments, the scale-covered carapaces, the purple fur—were dissolving and vaporizing at a visible rate, as if thrown into strong acid!
It was as if their very existence was strongly repelled by the rules of this plane!
Conversely, the dark gray Skeletons and the obsidian carapace of the monster's remains, although emitting death aura, did not exhibit this abnormal change.
"Spirit Realm creations..." Shen Mu slowly uttered the phrase, his gaze as deep as an abyss, "That which does not belong here will eventually dissipate."
Did this explain their sudden appearance deep in the tunnel and the fierce battle with the mysterious Skeleton Warriors?
Were they swept in by Spirit Realm turbulence?
Or were they pursuing the Skeletons?
He looked again at the relatively intact corpse of the obsidian-carapaced monster on the ground—its shell seemed more "stable" and did not rapidly disappear.
"Target the carapace," Shen Mu pointed at the monster's remains: "Collect the most representative intact parts and take them for research. As for these Skeletons..." He looked coldly at the disappearing fragments on the ground: "Just record their morphological characteristics. It's not advisable to stay here long."
This brief but impactful investigation had yielded crucial information far exceeding expectations.
An unknown, powerful Undead Monster, and an equally powerful and hostile non-Undead otherworldly monster that had intruded due to spatial disturbance.
The secrets and dangers lurking deep within the tunnel far exceeded previous estimates when only facing Hell Devil.
"Notify above," Shen Mu's voice was cold: "Strengthen the subway entrance guard, especially at night! Assign more Holy Tree Knights to rotation. Aleron, have your Vigia archers increase their rocket supply during night duty. If a large-scale abnormal energy reaction or special disturbance occurs below, immediately raise the alarm!"
He took one last look at the tragic, "self-cleaning" battlefield.
At the end of the deep, dark tunnel, it was as if countless eyes were peering from the darkness, or like a giant monster, devouring all uninvited guests who intruded.
"Retreat!" Shen Mu ordered without hesitation.
New Rivadin's trial had just begun.
And the secrets deep underground, along with their accompanying dangers, had already opened their fanged maw to him.
They couldn't stay here long!
Anyway, as long as they occupied New Rivadin and firmly held their castle, they would be like a nail driven in here.
Controlling this place!
