I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

We discovered many traces of daily life along the way.

The water is mainly concentrated in the slightly elevated depressions on both sides of the passage, where water is less likely to accumulate and is suitable for settling down.

In the first recessed space, there was a moldy blanket, a rusty iron kettle, and several broken ceramic bowls.

Newspapers and rags were piled up in the corner.

The date is blurry, but it looks recent.

Someone used to live here.

Beside these traces of life was a large patch of dark brown stains.

Bloodstains.

It extends from the corner of the recess all the way to the main passage, then turns into the darkness.

Someone bled a lot here. Then they were dragged away.

The second place is further away.

It was also a recessed area, containing blankets and iron kettles.

But on the wall here, someone carved a few lines of words with something sharp.

The light shone on it...

The handwriting was crooked and messy, becoming increasingly illegible towards the bottom.

Someone has gone missing.

"Damn city hall, they actually kicked us out?!"

The last line contains only two characters, with extremely deep engravings that almost pierce through the wall bricks.

"Help."

Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze.

Behind him, the veteran, missing half a little finger, muttered a curse.

No one responded.

These people are homeless people, residents seeking refuge from the collapse.

After the lighting system was destroyed by ghouls, they were trapped in a completely dark pipe network.

Then, in the darkness, something else appeared.

Moreover, judging from the carrion fungi at the entrance at that time, even if they wanted to run away, it would have been too late.

Keep going.

The water here varies in depth, reaching up to ankle level at its deepest point.

The walls were covered with putrefactive fungi.

However, the fungal layer is almost invisible in the sections where the copper frame is intact, but it thickens immediately where the copper frame is broken.

It took about five minutes to walk.

The passage branched out for the first time.

Beren placed his palms on the ground, and light flashed across his body and hands.

"Go to the right."

The team continued.

A while later.

At the edge of Lu Yuan's vision, the gray-white text flickered.

[Environmental Sensing: Weak pollution sources detected... number increasing...]

Lu Yuan raised his left hand.

stop.

The light from the sandworm oil lamp cast a swaying reflection on the puddles.

The surroundings were so quiet that the only sound was the flowing water.

Lu Yuan slowly raised the lamp.

The area of ​​illumination has expanded.

About fifteen meters ahead.

There was something stuck to the wall on the right side of the passage.

Two meters above the ground.

A grayish-white outline.

The limbs were coiled up in a way that was completely contrary to human anatomy.

With knees pointing upwards and elbows pointing outwards, it resembles a giant gecko.

The spine bulges outward, with each vertebra protruding from the skin's surface, creating a row of jagged shadows under the light.

It didn't move.

Lu Yuan slowly moved the light over.

The light hit its head.

A face.

A grayish-white, wet human face.

The eyes have degenerated into two sunken pits.

But his mouth was strangely odd.

The mouth split open from ear root to ear root, forming a huge arc, and was densely packed with tiny, inward-curving teeth.

[Detection Target: Unnamed variant (pipeline-adapted)]

[Status: A human mutant created after being contaminated in a dark, enclosed environment. Its limb joints softened and remodeled due to the contamination by carrion-eating bacteria, adapting to climbing the tube walls. Its face retains most of the human skeletal structure and it has completely lost its fatal weaknesses. Note: It feeds on the bacterial flora of the tubes.]

Weakness: Light source.

[Taboo Studies - Seeker of Knowledge: +0.1...13.1/100]

The moment the light shone on it, its mouth slowly closed a little.

It looked like they were cowering in fear.

Moreover, under the light, it wasn't just one bird climbing on the wall.

Bohr's lights swept to the other side.

again.

There are two more on the ceiling further away.

Four grayish-white mutated creatures clung to the walls and ceiling of the passage, their limbs bent backwards, motionless.

Fragments of clothing remained on the torso of the second creature.

It was a thick cotton-padded coat so dirty that its original color was no longer discernible, the cuffs were worn to shreds, and a rusted iron brooch was pinned to the front.

Former residents of the pipeline network.

It turned into this thing in darkness and pollution.

The third one was huddled in the vaulted ceiling.

Head down.

That gaping mouth, splitting all the way to the ears, was facing the passageway.

If someone were to walk past underneath in the dark... it probably wouldn't recommend eating meat.

The fourth one is the smallest.

Its body size is only two-thirds that of an adult.

The pieces of clothing on his body were unidentifiable.

But judging from the skeletal structure...

Lu Yuan ignored him.

"Don't stop!" he whispered.

"Raise the lights, walk together, and don't go near them!"

These things are afraid of light.

They dare not move as long as the light remains on.

Lu Yuan had no intention of making a move, because judging from the text prompts, this thing seemed difficult to kill, and most importantly, it didn't pose much of a threat.

The six people compressed their formation and quickly passed through the center of the passage.

The grayish-white figure on the wall curled up slightly as the light passed over it, emitting a very faint hissing sound.

But none of them dared to come down.

After passing through, Lu Yuan looked back.

The light can't reach that far anymore.

But on the edge of darkness, those figures began to move slowly.

I changed my position and stuck myself back against the wall.

Keep going.

The path begins to descend, at a shallow angle but continuously.

The water level dropped, and the water flowed down the slope to a lower area.

The surrounding putrefactive fungi are thinning.

The copper frame went from appearing occasionally to appearing continuously.

The putrid smell in the air was diminishing, replaced by a cold, metallic scent.

Continue moving forward for a while.

The walls on both sides of the passage began to change.

There was something grayish-white embedded in the cracks between the bricks.

It's a finger.

Human fingers.

Grayish-white, withered fingers emerged from the cracks in the brickwork.

Only one or two finger bones are exposed, the nails have fallen off, and the skin at the fingertips has fused with the surrounding fungal layer.

When the light swept across the walls, there was one every few meters on both sides.

Some are fingers.

Some are half a palm.

Some had a small patch of grayish-white facial skin squeezed out from the cracks in the bricks, with sunken eye sockets and shrunken lips.

Those were human faces embedded in the wall.

Lu Yuan stopped, and the light slowly swept across the right wall.

One, two, three.

At a height of half a meter to one and a half meters above the ground, there were more than a dozen gray-white faces.

Most of it has been completely petrified and has become one with the wall.

But there are a few...

There's a face whose eyeballs are still there.

Two grayish-white spheres without pupils are embedded in sunken eye sockets.

The moment the light shone on them, the two eyeballs moved.

They turned towards the direction of the lights.

At the same time, a grayish-white arm suddenly stretched out from the crack in the brickwork.

He spread his five fingers and reached for the calf of the nearest young watchman.

"Get out of the way!"

Lu Yuan reacted quickly, pulling the young man towards the center of the passage.

The grayish-white fingers grasped at nothing in the air, paused for a second, and slowly retracted into the crack between the bricks.

[Detection Target: Wall-dwelling metamorphs (passive type)]

[Status: Human remains permanently fixed within the vascular structure by saprophytic fungi. The hyphae have penetrated and replaced the nervous system, granting some limbs extremely limited autonomous responsiveness; they are unable to move and only exhibit a grasping reflex upon sensing the presence of a living being.]

Weakness: Fire.

[Taboo Studies - Seeker of Knowledge: +0.1...13.2/100]

"What the hell is this thing?"

The young night watchman was clearly quite frightened, and a somewhat restrained voice echoed through the pipes.

"Captain, should we get rid of this thing?"

"That's what Bo said at this moment."

Clearly, the separate pieces of wall-grown aliens on the pipe walls in front of him left Bor at a loss for what to do.

"Ignore it, this thing poses very little threat, not even as much as the others we saw earlier."

"Besides, we don't have enough stuff to clean up this much. Stay in the middle, don't touch the walls, let's go."

After Lu Yuan finished speaking, he walked at the front.

Buren and Karl stayed quietly behind Lu Yuan.

The six of them jogged through the area, hugging the center of the passage.

Behind him, the grayish-white fingers slowly retracted into the brick seam.

Those eyeballs without pupils continued to stare in the direction where the light disappeared in the darkness.

Only then did those lifeless, decaying eyeballs return to their original state.

Pass through the region of the wall-grown alien body.

A large space appeared ahead, which was either a water collection chamber or some kind of maintenance junction.

The water collection room is about ten square meters in size, with an opening on each of the three walls.

They came in from the left.

The main passage continues directly ahead.

The opening on the right is smaller and narrower, and the sound of running water can be heard coming from inside.

Just as Lu Yuan was about to signal to continue through the main passage, he caught something out of the corner of his eye.

It refers to the walls surrounding the entrance to the passageway.

Something is clinging to the wall.

A slender, moist vine spread out from the depths of the passageway.

They spread outwards along the edge of the passageway, clinging tightly to the brick and stone surface.

The surface of the vines was wet and covered with a thin layer of slime.

At the tips of some vines...

Lu Yuan saw it.

eye.

It is not a human eye.

It is a gray-green sphere, about the size of a pea, embedded at the tip of the vine, slowly rotating.

They were watching their group.

But the vines did not extend beyond the entrance of the passage.

They stopped at the edge, as if something was preventing them from entering the catchment area.

It is clearly copper.

The entire frame of the water collection chamber is made of copper.

They were blocked in that passage by copper.

We just observed from a distance.

[Environmental Sensing: Abnormal biological activity detected... It is recommended to stay away...]

"biology?"

Lu Yuan remained silent.

He simply moved the light away from that direction slowly.

Then gesture to everyone to not look in that direction. Do not make a sound.

Take the main passage.

Bor didn't see the vines.

But he saw Lu Yuan's gesture.

Without saying a word, he turned and walked toward the main passage.

The six people silently passed through the water collection room and entered the main passage directly ahead.

No one looked back.

Behind them, deep within the passageway, the gray-green eyeballs at the tips of the vines slowly closed in the darkness.

The main channel continues downwards.

The slope has increased.

The water began to flow.

A faint stream of water flowed from behind.

After entering, Buren kept his distance from the right wall, his fingers never leaving the wall.

Let's continue on this path for a while.

[Environmental Sensing: A small amount of pollution source detected....]

At the same time, strange figures appeared ahead.

It was the sound of claws scraping against a copper surface.

Sizzle... sizzle...

Lu Yuan lowered the light.

Everyone crouched down against the left wall of the passage.

The sound was getting closer.

Then, at the edge of the light barely reaching the edge of the sandworm oil lamp, a figure emerged from the darkness.

Get on all fours.

The size is similar to that of a large dog.

But that wasn't a dog.

The torso is human, elongated and flattened, with each vertebra protruding from the skin.

The limbs are also human arms and legs, but all the joints are bent in the opposite direction, adapting to quadrupedal walking in a strange posture.

The palms and soles of the feet become wider and thicker, the nails fall off and are replaced by a thick layer of keratin, making a hissing sound when stepped on the copper surface.

It lowered its head and sniffed something along the right wall of the passage.

Then it raised its head.

The light shone on his face.

A human face.

A complete human face.

It grows on a canine-shaped body.

His expression froze, devoid of any emotion.

The only thing that can move is its mouth.

His mouth was slightly open, his tongue was sticking out, and he was panting like a dog.

It saw the lights.

They didn't pounce.

Frozen in place, his degenerated eyes squinted.

Then it turned its head and made a sound into the darkness behind it.

It wasn't a dog barking.

It was the sound of a human crying, squeezed from deep within the throat.

It was intermittent, as if the vocal cords had forgotten how to produce sound normally.

Lu Yuan realized it the moment it howled.

What does this thing want to do? Fire its revolver.

"Bang!"

The silver-plated bullet precisely pierced a hole in its head.

Black blood was mixed with other unidentified liquids splashing around.

But this thing didn't fall down; instead, it revealed a fierce look on its face.

Meanwhile, outside the dark pipes, it was met with even more similar sounds.

It came from the darkness ahead.

Two sounds, three sounds.

And it's not just the strangeness in front of us.

Further away, mixed in with the crying, was another sound.

hiss...

There are also ghouls.

[Detection Target: Unnamed variant (captive/social)]

[Status: Humans deliberately contaminated, their brains damaged to the point of only retaining hunting instincts. Due to their higher facial bone hardness, they retain the most human features and live in groups.]

[Weaknesses: Holy light, bronze weapons, neck.]

[Taboo Studies - Seeker of Knowledge: +0.1...13.3/100]

"Turn on the neck! Turn on the light first!"

At Lu Yuan's command, the revolver was pulled again.

This time, the strange thing in front of him suddenly exploded in his neck, letting out a whimper before collapsing to the ground.

But Bor reacted extremely quickly, spilling sandworm oil on the copper surface and throwing away a match...

boom.

The pale white flames spread out, leaving nowhere to hide in the narrow pipe.

Three eerie creatures with human faces, followed by two ghouls.

Unlike the skinny skeletons on the ground, these two were enormous, with intact grayish-red flesh membranes and covered with a layer of red keratin.

Inside the enormous mouth, three layers of teeth gleamed with an eerie luster.

It's a giant ghoul!

Moreover, there is no shortage of "food" in the pipeline network; the people who once lived here were their "food".

But that's not the key point. The key point is that Lu Yuan saw it.

The eerie creature with a human face in front of them was now like a 'domestic dog,' hovering beside the giant ghoul.

"They are wise!"

Lu Yuan's heart tightened as he suddenly realized what the gray-white prompt meant.