The Laws of Werewolf Hunting

Chapter 595 Visitors from Underground
Last October, Clayton would probably have cursed and run away when faced with so many ghouls, but he's a different person now.

[The Builder] swept the sharp end of the hammer horizontally, slicing open the throats of the two ghouls that pounced on him as cleanly as a scythe cutting through wheat. Then came a side shoulder slam, sending the two dying monsters, weighing a total of 500 pounds, flying off the cement surface and scraping their already shattered skin to reveal the festering flesh beneath.

The third ghoul twisted and crawled out from between its two companions.

Its claws paddled frantically across the ground, propelling its body rapidly toward its prey as if swimming. Its ugly face, peering upwards, was filled with greedy eyes that could almost touch Clayton's face. But this enthusiasm was met with a merciless stomp the next moment.

The thick, heavy rubber soles of its boots left their imprints on its face, pinning its moving body to the spot.

After a barely perceptible pause, the ghoul's head, having borne the full force, shattered into a shapeless mass of flesh and blood, turning the rough, grayish-white surface into a smooth, blood-red mess.

The last ghoul, as thin as a child, was the most insidious. It climbed down from above the pipe, skillfully avoiding all sight, and only attacked when it believed its companions were all dead and the enemy was eager to turn around to support another. Its treatment was no better than the previous one.

The lieutenant's thick arms, wrapped in black dress sleeves, caught it in mid-air and snapped its neck as easily as snapping a flower branch.

Julius has also made great progress compared to last year. The ghoul that first charged at him had its senses extended by the Imperius School's Imperius spell, and its frozen body stopped its companion for a moment.

A dagger made of animal horn pierced through the eye socket, followed by a second one. The simple same trick was enough to deal with it, but just as he was about to thrust the dagger out a second time, another ghoul pounced. Julius had no time to deal with it and had to retreat, but the claws still tore through his pants, leaving a half-inch deep wound.

A surge of instinctive rage rose within him, and he thrust his wand downwards like a sword, simultaneously piercing the tip into the eye socket of the third ghoul as he cast the spell.

The skinned, blood-red body remained frozen in a crouching, power-gathering posture, like a rusty humanoid statue.

Clayton came up from behind, walked past them, and smashed the heads of the first two ghouls that Julius was dealing with, then turned around and smashed the head of the third ghoul as well.

Why do we have to do it again?

Julius kicked over the corpse in front of him in displeasure, then squatted down to clean the wound on his leg in preparation for bandaging:

“Your wand is too thin. I would feel more at ease if you could hold it and swirl it around in their brains a few times,” Clayton said. “Some people can still move even after having half their head blown off by a cannonball, so we have to be careful.”

He took a few more steps closer, looking at the wizard's wounds: "Take my advice, boy, stop wearing cotton. Cotton is nothing but a plant's poor imitation of sheep; wool is the truly great fabric. Haven't you heard? A good wool sweater offers the same protection as a thin leather armor."

“It sounds like something you just made up,” Julius said bluntly, but Clayton just smiled indifferently and turned to move the ghouls’ corpses together to examine the situation.

In early March, Fisher, the ghoul king of Sasha City, offered a bounty on his many offspring who lived in the sewers.
This group of ghouls had become beast-like because Fisher sacrificed their intelligence, and their strength was far inferior to that of normal ghouls. The snow from last winter had long since melted away, and apart from the lack of sunlight, the environment in the sewers wasn't bad.

The dwarves are well-informed. They sell the stolen goods that bounty hunters can't get rid of through the black market, so they definitely know about Fisher's bounty. Even if they can't handle it themselves, they can still make a fortune by selling information.

However, three weeks later, these ghouls were still living comfortably as the dwarves' neighbors.

Nothing could stop Clayton from being suspicious of them.

The ghoul's intestines were ripped open by the Builder's crow-beak, revealing their undigested contents.
Besides the filth, it also contained some pieces of fresh meat, so large that they didn't look like the kind of meat you'd find in a sewer.

“Could it be human?” Julius leaned closer, then shook his head, refuting himself: “No, if ghouls were hunting humans here, their stomachs would have more pieces of clothing, not just flesh.”

"It's also possible that they only eat naked carcasses. Look at their skin; before we damaged it, they all looked very intact, at least 60 percent of it was still preserved. As wild animals, they were so well-preserved, each one like Fisher."

“That makes sense, but don’t say things like that in front of Elder Fisher.” Julius applied some cooling medicine under his nose to mask the ambient smells.

"I will remember that."

Clayton kicked the body aside and walked ahead to lead the way.

His perception of the moon allowed him to determine that he was indeed getting closer and closer to the underground community of the Moriel, but the dwarves also anticipated that someone might break in from underground, so they built fortifications.

After a steep upward slope, the pipeline's path abruptly turns downward, like a narrow slide, and its color suddenly changes from grayish-white to ochre-red.

The texture is relatively new, but still rough, and the surface is covered with tiny, cold water droplets.

"This is fucking insane!"

This was Clayton's first thought after touching the wall.

He could tell at a glance that the steep upward slope he had just seen was actually a dam, designed to intercept rapidly accumulating rainwater and keep the area behind it dry. A sewer system primarily for drainage and sewage disposal had no need for such a design; the dwarves had built this area without authorization.

Apart from the dam section, the pipes, which are different colors, are all made of a different material: ceramic.

He saw no seams, not even within ten yards of his feet, which ruled out the possibility that they were completed on the surface and transported underground for assembly—they were fired as a whole right here.

Aside from those with extraordinary abilities who have mastered the Blade Secret Technique, no one could complete this project in such an environment.

The underground engineering skills of these dwarves have far surpassed those of their ancestors in Fairyland. This is not a matter of strength, but rather a technological gap that has existed between them for thousands of years.

“It’s quite shocking.” Julius tapped the wall with his wand. “Aside from the dwarves, there are probably no other forces that can mobilize a large number of Blademasters to dig holes underground and fire pottery.”

Despite the many unpleasant aspects of this group, they possess a very valuable culture that allows their extraordinary individuals to continue engaging in labor even after achieving great power—whether the nature of their labor is illegal is another matter.

Clayton listened carefully for a while, but there was no sound other than dripping water from the pipe.

"It should be safe to go down now, but stay alert. We just dealt with a few of Moril's watchdogs. Now we're really entering their territory."

Who knows how the dwarves will construct the space below? If they land on a road the dwarves use for smuggling, all the better. To improve transport efficiency, the width and height of the passageway will be appropriately increased; Clayton could probably walk through it even while bending over.

Conversely, if they landed in a pipe less than 1.4 meters above their heads, they would have to turn back.

Fortunately, the worst-case scenario didn't occur. After they slid down the pipe, the area below didn't narrow. The dwarves were probably worried that the dam wouldn't be effective enough, as there were still openings in the ground below to allow water to drain further down. Even a thin layer of water would be enough to submerge the dwarves' knees. Therefore, there was ample space on the path, and Clayton could easily walk forward by bending down.

The two men trudged through the cold, damp pipes, one after the other. The older man, with a hunched back, carried a large cane, while the younger man, with an injured leg, shuffled along with a small cane, like a father and son struggling to find water in the desert.

If their motives weren't impure, it would be worthwhile for a renowned painter to ensure that this scene of hardship and suffering is passed down to posterity.

The road ahead became increasingly winding and complicated, as if the dwarves had deliberately built forks to mislead outsiders.

The pipelines built by the Morielites were not a single, continuous serpent. Many of the government-built pipelines were left in place because they met the Morielites' needs, so they were not dismantled. Only the unnecessary parts were destroyed, and then the pipelines were connected together using homemade private pipes.

Beneath the community, the drastically altered sewer system resembles a tangled mass of ringed snakes.

Relying solely on the moon's intuition is no longer sufficient for the werewolf to find his way down below. Sometimes he feels that the path in front of him should lead to his goal, but when he actually enters it, he finds that the pipe twists and turns halfway down, taking a different angle. Every fork in the road is visibly off course, but whether this is part of a trap or another illusion to cover up the correct path, neither he nor the wizard can know.

However, this level of design can only put adventurers who can't remember where they came from in danger. Since the road is still passable, neither Clayton nor Julius is willing to turn back.

Their persistence paid off, and as they went deeper, they gradually began to hear some conversations.

Anxious and angry.

From above.

"Franklin has intensified his search for the dwarves," Clayton, with his enhanced hearing, relayed the information he had overheard to Julius.

"Because of the cheating incident at the horse racing event, church members also got involved in the investigation, though their numbers were small."

"The dwarves who believe in the Earth Mother refuse to acknowledge that the dwarves serving the race riders belong to this community, but Major Doron does not agree, and he is now leading his soldiers on a second search."

“There are some things on the surface that were brought up after the last search, such as plenty of food, cigarettes, and barrels of liquor, but because of the blockade, they shouldn’t theoretically be there. To avoid the soldiers finding them, the dwarves are now moving them back underground.”

“Our chance has come,” Clayton said to his assistant.

They stopped listening and quickened their pace, intending to find a path that would lead directly to the dwarves. They had gone too far along the outer routes and now needed to go up another level.

The dwarfs' pungent odor guided Clayton's movements, and they quickened their pace, soon arriving at a wide passage.

This is part of the original sewer system, and they can finally stand up straight.

This section of the pipeline originally had three entrances and exits, but now both ends were sealed off, leaving only the path they had come from open. In a dark corner lay several barrels containing short spears with their tips wrapped in waterproof cloth, bundles of crossbow bolts, and lead bullets resembling sheep droppings. Clearly, this was a storage location used by the dwarves for smuggled weapons.

The stench of dwarves was extremely strong here, indicating that dwarves must have been here not long ago, but they did not leave via the same route Clayton had taken.

The werewolves couldn't see an exit, nor could they smell their way through the stench that permeated the entire pipe. So they looked at the wizard, who was walking around between the two closed ends with his eyes closed. When he stopped, he pointed to a spot on the pipe.

Clayton casually pulled a short spear from a nearby bucket and threw it, which pierced through the area with remarkable ease and disappeared behind it.