Before leaving the temporary hiding place of the cave, Duncan wrapped some torn cloth from nearby corpses around himself.
It wasn't that he couldn't bear the chill of the cave, but to block, to some extent, his exposed heart—though the hole in his chest didn't affect Duncan's "survival," as a normal person at heart, wandering around in a chilling breeze was too bizarre, and putting something on provided some mental comfort and reduced the eerie sensation of the "draft."
Furthermore, Duncan had considered the possibility of suddenly bumping into other people while moving around in this underground space—logically speaking, having a gaping hole in your chest might not be conducive to starting a conversation with strangers...
This way, after Duncan had taken care of his "wound," he cautiously left the gloomy, damp cave and entered a tunnel connected to it, slowly making his way deeper.
This temporarily occupied body was not "convenient." It wasn't just the fatal rupture at the chest that affected his mobility, but also because Duncan could clearly sense the weakness of this body—its limbs were too thin and frail to walk quickly, completely incomparable to the "Ghost Ship Captain's" physique, which was obviously much stronger than that of an ordinary person.
Duncan couldn't see the full extent of the body he occupied now, but from the parts he could see, he guessed this must be a young man, a youth weakened by severe, chronic malnutrition—although at the moment, a strong spirit of the Ghost Ship Captain maneuvered this body, it seemed that the spiritual strength could not break through the physical limitations brought by this feeble body.
Regrettably, there was no choice now. Duncan could only control this barely functional body and slowly explore the deep and dark tunnel, knowing that in case of any danger, this temporary body would likely be powerless, so he could only pray that the shell would last a bit longer.
The tunnel was deep, moist and dark, but there seemed to be hidden ventilation openings, as a faint breeze constantly passed by. At intervals, one could also see torches or oil lamps hung on the walls, suggesting that people were active here.
After walking along the tunnel for quite some distance, Duncan suddenly noticed that the path ahead abruptly opened up, and traces of human construction began to appear in his view—he saw a fork at the end of the tunnel with connected pathways that had flat walls and high semi-circular arches overhead, dark and wet brick floors, and two waterways running along both sides of the ground, carrying nauseating sewage.
On the walls along the pathways, there were openings reminiscent of drainage pipes, some of which were discharging wastewater into the waterways below, flowing towards the darker parts beyond.
"... A sewer?"
Duncan quickly realized that what he saw was clearly a large sewer system, and the place he had hidden before with many abandoned corpses seemed like a natural cave that happened to connect to the sewer.
A sprawling sewer system, connected to a natural cave, and hidden corpses.
Countless guesses popped up in Duncan's mind in an instant, and at the same time, he speculated, he also observed various details of this "sewer" in front of him.
The construction was massive, the craftsmanship was excellent, the main supporting structure appeared to be made of reinforced concrete, and it could even potentially be used as a type of underground bunker if necessary.
To construct something of this magnitude, the city above the sewer must also be quite large, and the technology must have developed to a certain degree.
Technology cannot exist in isolation; behind every piece of engineering, there must be the simultaneous support of countless related industries and technologies. Even a sewer could reveal to Duncan the levels of construction, planning, materials, maintenance, and the living concepts of the residents it served.
This was enough to give Duncan, who was severely lacking in intelligence, some precious information from the civilized world.
Duncan walked forward along the sewer, but after a short distance, he suddenly stopped, his gaze falling on a nearby wall.
Embedded in the wall was a lamp—a light fixture with a glass enclosure, protected by what looked like a sturdy metal cage.
Compared to the torches and oil lamps from the cave earlier, the lamp set in the wall was visibly brighter, with a matte glass shell enclosing a steadily burning bright flame, illuminating a considerable stretch of the sewer.
Duncan leaned in to carefully observe. For him, at this moment, anything from outside Homeloss, especially the products of modern civilization, held an enormous allure.
After observing for a long while, Duncan finally realized what this source of light was—a gas lamp.
But this gas lamp seemed somewhat different from those he had seen in records, aside from the difference in style, the most noticeable was the several delicate symbols he saw on the lamp's glass covering.
It appeared that these symbols had been added when the lamp was manufactured, curving and twisting in shapes resembling hieroglyphs. Duncan didn't recognize the symbols, but his mind immediately went to the mysterious runes he had encountered before on that mechanical boat, as well as on Alice's "coffin."
Though the content was different, they both possessed a similar… "aura."
It was something sacralized, ceremonial.
Duncan stepped back a bit and looked up deeper into the sewer and saw gas lamps on the wall glowing brightly at regular intervals.
For an underground facility that was visited only for necessary maintenance, there seemed to be an excessive number of lighting installations, and perhaps each of those gas lamps had similar mysterious "runes" on their casings.
This gave Duncan a feeling as if these densely distributed gas lamps were actually combating something in this unvisited darkness— behind them, the "world of human civilization" they represented, was confronting something.
Duncan walked along the path illuminated by the gas lamps, simultaneously scanning for any valuable clues that appeared on the walls, ground, and arches around him, when suddenly, something caught his eye.
He stopped between two gas lamps in an area that was relatively dim in the sewer. He looked up at an angle and saw something painted with dark red pigment near the top of the wall, near where the sewer's arch began.
Narrowing his eyes, Duncan strained and finally made out the rough lines of the depiction—he saw hands reaching toward the sky, as if in worship of something, and in the direction surrounded by these hands, a sphere emitting immense luminosity was suspended.
Below this worship and surrounding, there was a line of shaky, skewed writing. The strokes of the writing trembled, seemingly filled with intense fervor and anticipation. The letters were none that could be found on Earth, but Duncan instinctively knew—
"The false sun shall fall, and the true Sun God shall resurrect from blood and fire! Life returns to the Sun, and order returns to the Sun!"
Duncan stood quietly in the sewer, looking up at the dimmest intersection of the gas lamps' light, at those dark red graffiti, at that sun drenched in blood and fervently worshipped, emanating endless light.
As if gazing for a long time into another world.
He stood that way for quite a while until a noise suddenly came from deep within the sewer, and footsteps reached Duncan's ears.
He abruptly looked in the direction of the sound and saw several figures in cloaks coming towards him. The cloaked figures had their heads and faces shrouded in hooded shadows, appearing like sinister specters in the depths of the filthy sewer.
Duncan didn't hide—indeed, this straight stretch of sewer had almost nowhere to hide, and his temporary, cumbersome body wasn't capable of advanced maneuvers like "blind spot running." So, after a brief consideration, he simply stood brazenly in the middle of the sewer, very openly watching those suspicious hooded individuals approaching from ahead.
Since his body couldn't run and was destined to be expendable, he might as well exchange his capture for some intelligence.
The next second, the hooded figures emerging from the depths of the sewer took notice of Duncan's presence.
(Oh shit!)