Under the night, the remains of the viaduct loomed like the broken skeleton of a giant beast, letting out one final wail before collapsing with a thunderous crash. Valerius' taunting voice still echoed in his ears, yet it was swiftly swallowed up by the immense roar of water rising from the abyss below.
Jin Wanchao held little Axing tightly in his arms. The howling wind and deafening rush of water blared in his ears as his body plummeted rapidly through the darkness. Cold, foul-smelling liquid submerged them in an instant, its brutal force threatening to tear him apart from the inside out. He clung fiercely to the child in his embrace, struggling with all his might in the murky sewage.
Splash!
Jin Wanchao and Axing crashed heavily into the water, sending up a huge spray mixed with a nauseating stench of chemicals and rust. He barely surfaced, gasping for air, his throat burning with the rank sewage. Little Axing lay limp in his arms, eyes tightly shut, pale as a sheet, clinging to him like a rag doll.
Jin Wanchao's "flame" was suppressed to its limit by the icy water, flickering feebly like a candle in the wind. He could only vaguely "see" blurry energy clusters around him—his scattered team, torn apart and swept away in the filthy current. He could not even tell up from down, relying purely on instinct to steady himself and avoid being dragged away by the violent flow.
The powerful current carried all manner of debris, slamming into them again and again. Sharp metal fragments, caked with industrial waste, sliced past their bodies; Jin Wanchao could even "see" their jagged edges glinting ominously beneath the water.
"Ah Huo! Lao Zhong! Ban Shou!" Jin Wanchao shouted with every ounce of strength, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the water, small and helpless.
He could "see" Ah Huo's wild flame bobbing up and down not far away, with several others seemingly protected beside him. Ban Shou's restrained yet formidable energy glowed farther off, like will-o'-the-wisps in the dark. But the other "flames" flickered out one by one like shooting stars, or scattered in the current, vanishing into the depths of the darkness.
"Wanchao! Over here!" Ah Huo's yell cut through the thunder of the water. Jin Wanchao turned toward the sound; the flame was leading a small group toward a relatively calm nook along the waterway's edge.
Gritting his teeth, Jin Wanchao held Axing close and swam with all his strength toward Ah Huo. The resistance of the current was overwhelming; every inch forward felt like fighting against the whole world.
At last, he reached the inner wall of the waterway, where a dilapidated maintenance platform jutted out. Slippery as it was, it offered enough footing to stand. Ah Huo and several members of the Fire Worship Cult clambered up one after another, soaked to the bone and pale-faced.
"How many are left?" Jin Wanchao asked, his voice hoarse.
Ah Huo wiped the sewage from his face, pain flashing in his eyes. "I don't know… The current's too strong. Too many of us were swept away."
Just then, Ban Shou arrived with her band of scavengers, having struggled ashore downstream. Her leather jacket clung to her body, soaked through, making her look disheveled, yet her gaze remained sharp. Her numbers were also drastically reduced, every face etched with shock and disbelief.
"Dammit! You called this a way out?" one scavenger muttered under his breath. "This is just suicide!"
"Shut up!" Ban Shou snapped sharply, but her eyes fell on Jin Wanchao, heavy with exhaustion and a trace of resentment. Her "flame" burned dimmer than usual; the trust forged by their cooperation was wavering in the face of such heavy losses.
Jin Wanchao paid no mind to the complaints. He knew this was the price of his misjudgment. Slowly closing his eyes, he focused his mind, and his inner "flame" began to probe downward once more, slow and laborious.
He could "see" several cold clusters of black energy closing in rapidly several hundred meters upstream—the Black Iron Guard. Valerius had not expected them to leap into the sewers, but he had clearly caught on quickly and sent men in pursuit.
Along the inner wall of the waterway lay abandoned valves and control levers, rusted and forgotten for years. Yet through Jin Wanchao's vision of Divine Revelation, they still held faint energy currents, hinting that they were not entirely defunct.
He spotted an unremarkable sluice gate. Its control hub was mostly damaged, but its core energy pathways remained intact.
"Ah Huo, Lao Zhong, with me!" Jin Wanchao pointed toward the sluice, his voice firm and urgent. "We need a barrier!"
He rushed toward the gate, with Ah Huo and Lao Zhong close behind. Placing his hand on the rusted control console, Jin Wanchao unleashed his inner flame in a sudden surge, forcibly linking it to the sluice's remaining energy pathways. In his "vision," the gate turned transparent at once, revealing every crack, break, and usable part within.
"Lao Zhong, the main gear is stuck! Pry it loose with this tool!" Jin Wanchao pointed out a critical spot without delay.
Lao Zhong, experienced as ever, took the tool and set to work without hesitation. Ah Huo connected his steam gauntlet to the sluice's drive shaft, attempting to lend external force.
Creak… Boom!
With a bone-chilling scrape and a thunderous rumble, the long-silent sluice gate shuddered to life under their combined effort. The murky sewage was blocked instantly, forming a temporary "water wall" that held back the pursuers upstream for the moment.
Jin Wanchao's body jolted violently. His inner flame was all but spent, and he nearly collapsed. Gasping for breath, he stared at the water wall, knowing it was only a temporary measure, one that would not hold for long.
The group finally had a relatively safe moment to catch their breath. Following the maintenance passage beside the sluice, they wound their way to an abandoned underground relay station. It was comparatively dry, with enough space for everyone.
Torches were relit, their dim glow illuminating the exhausted, hopeless faces of the survivors.
They began to count their numbers. The result hit them like molten iron, extinguishing the faint spark of hope that had just flickered in their hearts.
One hundred and twenty-seven.
In a single escape, they had lost nearly a third of their brothers and sisters. The number hung over every survivor like an invisible mountain, crushing them until they could barely breathe.
Groans from the wounded, stifled sobs, and open curses from several scavengers echoed through the relay station. Morale had plummeted to rock bottom.