'Just what is behind these cracks?'
Meng Chao thought about it. The reason why the drainage pipes were abandoned was because after they were used for thousands of years, the sewage and underground water leaked out for a long period of time, causing the structure to become weak. Some of them collapsed and blocked all the pipes.
But aside from the collapsed pipes, the pipes deeper inside should still be in perfect condition.
The second collapse he created might allow him to clear the blocked pipes again.
At the very least, he could clear a few cracks that were the width of a palm.
'If that's the case, the secret hidden at the end of the pipes might be exposed.
'That's why the messenger of the Horned Rat God asked someone to cover up the cracks.'
With this thought in mind, Meng Chao raised the metal drill and gently pushed it into the cracks that had been patched up by someone between the broken walls.
The cracks were just patched up casually with mud. Even if they hardened, they were not really sturdy.
Besides, Meng Chao injected a wave of spirit energy into the metal drill and made the muscles in his arm vibrate at a high frequency.
When he moved the metal drill, it was like a really long impact drill. He easily pushed it into a depth of two to three meters.
It was not just the metal drill. Even half of Meng Chao's arm sank into the crack.
When he pulled the metal drill out, a hole appeared in the crack.
Meng Chao pressed his ear against the hole and pushed his spirit energy into his eardrums and cochlea. He held his breath and listened to every movement underground.
Just as he expected, he heard something.
Aside from the sound of a large number of scavengers working hard in the depths of the drainage pipes, he also heard faint and rhythmic tremors.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
"Is this … Is someone doing earthworks underground, digging a pipe?"
Meng Chao had become familiar with Lu Siya when he was in Dragon City, and he learned a lot of underground work skills from the veteran mine explorer.
He could immediately tell that it was the sound of continuous drilling and digging.
'How strange. I don't think there's a need to dig so hard just to clear the drainage pipes, right?'
Meng Chao narrowed his eyes and observed the collapsed ruins in front of him.
He had calculated the distribution of the broken fences and the angles at which they supported each other very clearly.
Then, he slowly dug out a hole that was about the size of a fist from the depths of the ruins.
His movements were gentle and careful. He moved each rock as carefully as if he were moving a crystal flower bud.
Every time he moved two or three pieces of rock, he had to stop and recalculate, and fill in new rocks around the hole to support the weak structure above.
Even if he had the fighting strength of someone at the peak of Earth Realm and the calculation of someone at the peak of Heaven Realm, he still spent more than half an hour to clear a hole that was three meters long in the depths of the ruins.
Meng Chao looked at the results of his labor in satisfaction. He sucked in a deep breath, and his bones let out faint cracking sounds as they shrank.
His entire body instantly shrunk, and he squeezed into the hole that was not much bigger than a fist, without leaving a single gap.
His arms were pulled back to his chest, and his pelvis to the tips of his feet were taut. He could not exert any strength in the main muscle groups in his body. He could only rely on the finest muscle fibers to move his hair, which was both tough and soft after it was infused with spirit energy. It trembled at a high frequency, and with a force that was like a wave, he sent himself inside.
It took him five minutes to crawl through a hole that was only two to three meters wide.
Meng Chao returned to normal and gasped for breath.
What he breathed in was a foul stench that had solidified into a solid form.
Even if Meng Chao had spirit energy protecting his body, he could not help it.
He still wanted to cough and vomit.
This stupid place was one hundred times dirtier than the underground drainage system in Dragon City and the nest of the Giant Sandworms.
Even he could not stand it. He really did not know how the rat people children, who had never cultivated spirit energy and did not even have a mask to protect themselves, managed to survive for a year and a half in this place as scavengers before they died quietly.
'Alright, let's not talk about whether Dragon City's civilization was good or bad in my previous life. At the very least, the destruction of the Turan civilization isn't something to be pitied about. Or rather, if this sort of' civilization 'didn't perish, it's practically illogical,' Meng Chao thought.
'It's a pity that the holy light camp that destroyed the Turan civilization isn't a good thing either. Besides, it's clearly a sin committed by the superior masters of the human race, but millions of innocent rat people had to die with them. In the end, they even dragged the innocent normal Dragon Citizens into the abyss!
'In this world, there's no one who can live alone. If I want to save all the innocent normal Dragon Citizens, I have to first save all the innocent rat people!'
He blinked and continuously dilated his pupils in the darkness to adjust his vision to the best state.
At the same time, he gathered up a ball of mud and used a chisel to send it to the exit of the hole. He blocked it up, and for the time being, he should not be discovered by the careless rat people.
Then, like a giant lizard that was born in a swamp, he used both his hands and feet to move silently on the rusty wall of the sewage pipe.
He went around a corner that had mostly collapsed.
A faint light appeared in front of him.
Since there was flammable and poisonous gas underground and the high-grade orcs did not have the technology to create electric lighting devices, the scavenger beetles carried wrinkled paper lanterns with them. They were filled with glowing insects that looked like fireflies, and they banged against the lanterns, making them crackle.
With the help of the dark light from the insects, Meng Chao saw dozens of children who were as thin as sticks and looked like wandering ghosts. They only used a cloth soaked in water to cover their mouths and noses while they swung simple tools made of Mandala tree branches and beast bones to dig and clear the pipes.
Most of them were less than ten years old.
Even if they looked slightly more mature, based on Dragon City's standards, they were severely malnourished. Their heads were big, and their bodies were small. They looked like skeletal versions of big-headed dolls.
Their limbs were so thin that they were completely disproportionate to the simple tools. Every time they swung a hammer or shovel, they felt as if they were sent flying by inertia. It made Meng Chao worry about whether they would fall into the smelly trash and fall asleep forever.
This scene was even more terrifying than the one in Leprosy Village in the depths of the lair, and it made Meng Chao's eyelids twitch.
It was especially so when he noticed that two of the children had a small and exquisite colored conch around their necks. It was so polluted that he could not see its color clearly. The flames in his eyes burned for a long time, and he could not calm down.
But he did not act rashly.
The experiences of fighting in Dragon City and the continuous awakening of the memories from his previous life had made him a Ghost Assassin who was ten times more outstanding than he was in his previous life.
He knew how to lurk quietly and patiently search for a chance. It was fine if he did not attack, but when he did, he had to cut his throat with one slash.
'These rat people children are doing the most normal clearing and cleaning work. Even if the warriors from the clan come here while enduring the stench, they won't notice anything abnormal. They're not the targets I'm looking for.'
Meng Chao pressed his ear against the wall of the pipe and listened. He noticed that the sounds of digging and the tremors came from deeper underground.
By the looks of it, he had not reached his destination yet.
This was a shallow part of the ground.
The drainage pipe was huge. Not only did it have a diameter of more than five meters, it was also big enough for bull-headed warriors or boar warriors to walk side by side.
It also extended in all directions and was very complicated. It was like an underground maze that spread to all the regions in Black Corner City.
Not all the pipes needed to be cleaned. Many of them were dark, and there were no scavengers working there.
Even if they were places where scavengers gathered, they would usually feel dizzy because of the noxious, poisonous gas, and they were tortured by the heavy work. Their gazes were only focused on the narrow space in front of them. They did not have the heart to pay attention to anything else, and it was impossible for them to see a shadow as thin as a cicada's wing moving swiftly in the darkness.
Meng Chao easily bypassed a few groups of scavengers.
Gradually, he went underground until he was around fifty meters deep.
The pipes were getting narrower, and the air was getting dirtier. After lurking for a long time, Meng Chao could see flickering fireflies.
Logically speaking, it did not seem like there was a large group of people working on the ground.
But Meng Chao managed to capture the unique presence on his cloak.
This meant that Half Face or someone else had sent the shredded cloth from his cloak to this place.
Meng Chao thought about it, then used a metal drill to dig three holes that formed the shape of a triangle on the soft, wet ground. They were a certain distance apart from each other.
Then, he scooped up a few handfuls of dirty water from a corner of the pipe and poured it into the holes until they were level with the ground.
He lay prone on the ground and observed the speed at which the liquid level fell and the bubbles that rose from the depths of the holes.
This was the skill Lu Siya had taught him to determine whether there was an underground hole underneath.
If this was the lowest level of the underground space, then the area below was a dense and uniform rock layer, then the speed at which the liquid level fell should be rather slow.
In that case, the speed at which the liquid level fell should be relatively slow. The speed at which the liquid level fell should be about the same for the three holes in different positions, so there shouldn't be too many bubbles coming out.
If the liquid level fell rather quickly and the speed at which the liquid level fell was uneven, then a lot of bubbles would come out, which meant that there might be a huge space underneath.
If the liquid level fell very quickly and there were no fatal rock layers around it, then there might be underground buildings made of reinforced concrete or even metal.
'I knew it, this isn't the deepest part of the underground.
'There's an even larger and more complicated underground space system under the drainage pipes.
'This is something that can be predicted.
'You have to understand that even the underground of Dragon City is hundreds of meters deep, and there are layers of underground space.
'Some of these places are military facilities built on Earth to prepare for the third world war.
'Some of these places are hive underground cities that have been continuously extending out of the ancient ruins after they transmigrated to the Other World.
'And Dragon City only has a short history of one thousand years. It only started building a large-scale modern city in the past two to three hundred years.
'The Turan civilization's most prosperous period was thousands of years ago. In fact, it was nearly ten thousand years ago.
'Ten million years ago, the ancestors of the Turan civilization were able to modify Mandala Trees and totem beasts as well as create super armor like totem armor. Just what sort of facilities did they build underground? I'm looking forward to it!'
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