Starting as dockworkers, they swept through Chongqing.

Xilun opened his eyes and his gaze fell on the two people's backs.

Just then, a middle-aged train conductor came over to check tickets. As soon as he reached Xilun, his steps involuntarily slowed down.

The young man in front of me had such a calm demeanor, unlike that of an ordinary passenger. Especially the gun case, which was lying heavily beside his legs, made it clear at a glance that it contained more than just a hunting rifle.

Xilun handed over the ticket and casually asked, "Can I still get off at Linhai Station?"

The train conductor took the ticket, glanced at it, and then replied:

"You can get off, but it might be difficult to get around outside the station. The roads along the coast are flooded and cars can't move. If you're not in a hurry, it's best to wait until daytime."

"Is there any clearance from the docks tonight?"

The train conductor paused, then looked him over carefully: "Are you going to the ocean liner port?"

Xilun hummed in agreement.

The train conductor hesitated for a moment, then lowered his voice:

"If you really want to go there, you should go to the patrol point north of the station to ask after you get off the train. I heard that the Seventh Wharf area has been sealed off and even the telegraph line has been cut off."

Also... don't go near cold storage room number three, that place is going to be dangerous tonight.

"How exactly is it not peaceful?"

The train conductor's face twitched: "People go in alive, and when they come out, they can't even speak."

After saying that, as if afraid of getting involved with something, he quickly handed the ticket back and turned to leave.

Xilun lightly twirled the corner of the ticket with his fingertip, without saying a word.

The carriage shook violently, and as the train passed under the bridge, a pale white flash of lightning suddenly lit up the distance.

The light illuminated half the sky, and what flashed past the glass was no longer the ordinary fields and roads, but patches of mixed forests and marshes bent by the torrential rain, and in the distance, a dark sea that seemed to be roaring.

And on that beach—

Lund has already made his move in the basement of Cold Storage No. 3.

With a jolt, the black steel spear slid in a cold arc across his palm, and in the next instant, he was already treading on the water!

laugh--

The first shot was as fast as a red line streaking across the night.

The spearhead pierced the forehead of the composite face at the front, the force was not fancy, but clean, direct, and ruthless, as if it wanted to nail down everything in its way.

The man's face snapped back against the spear tip, but instead of spraying out like a living thing, the black water burst open with a "whoosh," revealing more of his pale arms behind him.

"Is that all you've got? You think you can act like a god?"

Lund sneered, twisted his wrist, and the gun instantly spun out a circle of fiery red afterimages.

boom! boom! boom!

Three bursts of black water exploded in mid-air in succession, and the pale hand that had just emerged from the water was shattered into fine droplets by the spearhead.

That crimson hue wasn't a real flame; it was more like the sharp afterglow of a spear thrust to its limit, bursting out like starlight in the darkness, incredibly sharp.

Sarah felt a chill run down her spine watching from behind.

This wasn't the first time she'd seen Lund make a move, but this time was completely different from the past.

This man's marksmanship used to be ruthless, accurate, and direct, carrying the flavor of the streets and the battlefield.

But tonight, the gun seemed to come alive. With each thrust and flick, the red light connected, as if compressed stars were exploding along the spine of the gun, growing brighter and brighter, and more dangerous with each explosion.

Pete exclaimed, "The Crimson Star..."

Sarah looked at him sharply: "What?"

"Three years ago, someone in the South China Sea patrol unit called his gun that." Pete swallowed hard. "I thought it was just a nickname..."

Deep in the black water, the pale, mangled limb paused for a moment.

The eye in the palm of his hand slowly opened a crack.

"Red...star..."

The overlapping sounds in the water seemed to be chewing on this word, low, viscous, and tinged with an extremely incongruous sense of bewilderment: "A being with such an aura as you can also sting me?"

Lund flicked the tip of his spear, shaking off the black liquid, his eyes filled with even more mockery: "It sounds like you've been beaten quite a bit before."

As soon as he finished speaking, he stomped his foot and lunged forward again.

This time, the gunfire was even fiercer!

The spear shot out like a falling star, a single point of crimson light arriving first, followed by a line of crimson shadows spreading out.

The abandoned maintenance line was already narrow and cold, but when pressed down by this relentless, sharp force, it somehow managed to create a feeling of intense heat.

The black water churned ahead, and before the floating sheets could fully solidify, they were pierced, torn apart, and scattered by the spearhead.

Lund has never been one to test the waters.

Since this thing is trying to crawl out of the sea, let's give it a good beating first.

However, this time, when he thrust his spear straight at the severed limb, the spearhead seemed to hit some kind of invisible barrier, making a strange "clang" sound.

It wasn't like metal clashing; it was more like the entire space caved inward when something was plunged into extremely deep water pressure.

Lund's arm muscles tensed suddenly, and the black steel gun barrel bent into a dangerous arc in an instant.

The next second, the white eye of the palm opened wide!

Whoosh!

The entire ditch erupted with black water, and dozens of long ropes twisted from water and resentment rolled in simultaneously, like countless dead people's hairs being gripped tightly by a giant hand and whipped hard at the faces of the living.

Lund's face turned cold, and instead of retreating, he advanced with his spear. A crimson light shot from his wrist and arm all the way to the tip of the spear, and he pointed it sharply!

"Open it!"

boom!

A point of crimson light exploded into a half-circle of blood-red starlight, and the several black ropes at the forefront shattered in response, tearing a brief vacuum into the surrounding water.

Before Sarah could even catch her breath, a dense chorus of cries, curses, pleas for help, and prayers erupted from the deeper waters.

Like something that had been submerged at the bottom of the sea for ten years, it opened its mouth all at once at this moment.

The severed limb hung in the middle of the black water, and for the first time, the voice no longer contained only resentment and venom, but instead revealed an ancient, sluggish coldness.

"I have watched over the returning tide, rescued the drowning, and shut the mouth of the seabed..."

"It was you who threw in the corpses, the disease, the secrets, and the prayers."

"It was you who buried me under the railroad tracks and coal dust for ten years."

"I just want to bring them all back."

Sarah felt a chill run down her spine.

She suddenly realized that this thing wasn't just talking nonsense.

It truly remembers, truly resents, and even—it truly has its own "reason."

But what it wants to bring back is not the peace of the dead, but the lives of all the living.

Lund simply scoffed, "That sounds convincing."

He raised his left hand and pulled out the broken half of the knife from behind his waist. The blade was broken and the edges were blackened, but it still exuded a kind of hardness that refused to break even after being washed by time and blood.

"If you've truly been protecting anything, then why don't you remember who you were when you reached out and grabbed a child ten years ago?"

Blackwater suddenly paused.

He turned his palm and glared at the broken knife.

In an instant, the temperature of the entire ditch seemed to drop.

"That knife..." Its voice changed, becoming thinner and sharper, "I remember this taste."

Lund laughed, but there was no warmth in his smile.

"That's right."

"My father failed to kill you ten years ago, so tonight I'll finish you off with this shot."

He charged forward again, his momentum even stronger than before.

But at that moment, the severed limb suddenly pressed down, and something seemed to gently turn around in the depths of the white eye. The next moment, all the sounds changed.

It wasn't crying, it wasn't shouting.

It is chanting.

Extremely soft, extremely slow, as if someone were whispering a prayer into each person's earlobe, word by word.

Lund frowned sharply.

Sarah, behind him, let out a muffled groan, nearly dropping her pistol. Pete slammed into his knees in the water, clutching his head and letting out a muffled scream of pain.

"Don't listen!" Lund shouted, slamming the butt of his gun into the ground, making the rails rattle.

But the chanting couldn't be heard with the ears at all.

It seemed to rise from the black water beneath our feet, or perhaps it grew from within everyone's chest. Wisps of grayish-black resentment climbed up the churning water, clinging to the soles of our shoes, our trouser legs, our wounds, and finally seeping deeper into our flesh and blood.

As Lund slowed his thrust, a cold, numbing pain suddenly shot through the cut on his left arm that had been torn by the black rope.

His expression changed slightly.

Pollution!

This damn thing has finally stopped relying solely on water and force to suppress people and has released something even more troublesome.

She stared at him with her palm white, her eyes filled with the malice of countless drowning victims piled together, and said in a low voice, "Your blood is very similar to that child's."

"They're all equally stubborn, and equally afraid."

"Let me see just how much better you are than him."

Lund grinned, and instead of backing down, he gripped the gun even tighter.

"You talk too much nonsense."

Although he spoke toughly, his heart had already sank a bit.

Because he knew that this was only the initial stage of recovery.

Meanwhile—

The train finally arrived at Linhai Station.

As soon as the car door opened, a gust of wind mixed with heavy rain rushed in.

The lights on the platform flickered, the announcements came and went, and patrolmen in raincoats ran back and forth, their boots splashing loudly in the puddles. The whole station was in complete chaos.

As soon as I stepped off the train in Xilun onto the platform, I was hit by an unusually strong smell of the sea.

It's not your average trendy smell.

The smell also carried a faint hint of rust, rotten wood, and a kind of cold, gray odor, like the afterglow of extinguished incense.

His gaze darkened slightly as he carried the gun case straight toward the north patrol post.

But after walking only a few steps, two armed patrolmen raised their hands to stop them: "Halt! The area ahead is blocked off—"

They had barely finished speaking when they met Xilun's eyes, and their voices inexplicably paused.

Without a word, Celen simply lifted the inside of his coat, revealing his Brotherhood Governor's Medal and the North District Governor's badge, and asked in a calm voice, "Which road at the Ocean Terminal is still passable?"

The patrolman's expression changed, and he quickly holstered his gun: "Sir, the seven-yard section is blocked off; vehicles can't pass. We can only detour via the old embankment road, but two sections of that road have just collapsed..."

"Has anyone retreated from the direction of Pier 3?"

"Yes, there is a woman with an injured arm. She said her companion is still downstairs in cold storage room number three."

The patrolman thought for a moment, then quickly added, "The person is in the makeshift first-aid tent up ahead!"

Xilun's eyes narrowed, and he turned to leave.

The rain is getting heavier.

And the darkness on the other side of the sea is getting closer and closer.

The makeshift medical tent was erected under the eaves of the old warehouse, its canvas billowing back and forth in the wind like a tattered sail that could be torn at any moment.

Inside, two kerosene lamps were lit, their wicks flickering wildly, making everything appear to light up and then dim.

When Xilun lifted the curtain and went in, the first person he saw was Sarah.

One of her shoulders was soaked through, and her coat was ripped open by the bullet belt, revealing bandages that had long since turned gray from being soaked in blood and black water.

She sat by the wooden crate, still gripping the gun tightly in her hand. Even though her face was deathly pale, the intensity in her eyes remained undiminished.

Upon seeing someone enter, she instinctively raised her gun.

But when she saw that the person who came was Xilun, her tense shoulders and back finally relaxed a little.

"You actually came." Sarah's voice was hoarse, as if it had been worn down by the sea breeze and rain.

Xilun walked closer, glanced at her wound to make sure there wasn't a large area of ​​black lines spreading, and then asked, "Where is Mr. Lund?"

"It's still down there." Sarah wiped the rain from her face, her eyes darkening. "The underground maintenance line of Cold Storage No. 3 connects to the bottom of the old approach bridge, which is where it collapsed ten years ago. Not long after we went in, the black water started to rise, and then... that thing woke up."

"What is it like?"

Sarah paused for two seconds, then whispered:

"Like a severed arm of a deity, or some other weird thing."

"The palm of your hand has eyes; the water is full of dead faces. Bullets can't disperse them, and explosives can only repel them a little."

Xilun's eyes narrowed slightly.

The statue's arms have eyes growing from their palms.

The active contamination found in the Black Pigeon Church well is not simply a matter of the same kind.

"Lund forced Pete and me out of there." Sarah gritted her teeth, the veins on the back of her hand bulging.

"He said that once that thing fully emerges, anyone going in will only be throwing their life away, and he told me to stay outside, block the roads if I could, and evacuate people if I could. But I know he was just afraid we'd cause him trouble."

As she finished speaking, a flash of anger suddenly crossed her eyes.

I don't know if I'm annoyed by that thing or by Lund.

"What's his condition now?" Xilun asked.

Sarah stared at him, her voice even lower: "Oh no, that thing can chant things, like prayers or curses."

After listening for a long time, other people's voices will appear in your mind—dead people, living people, crying people, laughing people, all mixed together.

Lund's arm was already scraped, and I was worried about contamination getting into the wound.

Without further hesitation, Xilun tossed her the small bottle of Tranquility potion he had brought:

"Drink half, and give the other half to Pete. If Lund and I haven't come out in half an hour, blow up the entire supply line immediately, and don't let anything leave Pier Seven."

Sarah caught the medicine bottle, her pupils contracting slightly: "You're going in alone?"

"Having more people doesn't make a difference."

Do you know what you're about to face?

Xilun glanced at the torrential rain outside, which seemed to form an endless wall, and calmly said, "I don't know, so we need to hurry."

After saying that, he turned and left.

Sarah jumped to her feet, pulling at her wound and turning pale with pain, but she still called out from behind, "If he really died down there, you might not be able to bring him back!"

Xilun didn't stop walking, only replying, "Then bring the live ones up first."

As soon as he finished speaking, he disappeared into the rain.

The Seventh Wharf has completely changed.

The towering crane groaned in the howling wind, its chains and hooks clanging and rattling against each other.

The old wooden boardwalk was tilted and bent by the seawater, the doors of the rows of warehouses were banging incessantly, and in the distance, the pale white flashes of lightning would occasionally illuminate the entire dock like a dead day.

The water level had reached up to the calves.

What's truly unsettling isn't the depth of the water, but rather the "things" in it.

As soon as Xilun walked across a section of broken pier, the echo chamber suddenly trembled, and something was crawling in the water beneath his feet.

It's not a fish, and it's not floating debris.

They were streaks of humanoid shadows darting along the water's surface, like drowned corpses stripped of their flesh, leaving only blurry outlines. They were silent, yet each one had its face raised, staring intently at the ankles of the living.

The next instant, the shadow at the very front suddenly raised its hand!

Whoosh!