Chapter 427: The Astounding Underground Rat Nest
Owen was able to draw this conclusion because he stood at a different level and possessed more information. For most of Mithril City’s residents, the response to an attack was much simpler and more straightforward: fight back.
However, this time the target was the street, not individuals. Therefore, Owen had the “honor” of participating in a street meeting and contributing his share, such as donating money and supplies. If you had nothing, you could also choose to contribute labor. The street encouraged everyone to participate enthusiastically.
This was all too familiar. Owen decisively paid to avoid trouble, preventing any future conflicts due to a transmigrator’s unsociable and stubborn nature, which would lead to all sorts of targeting, such as sanitation inspections, fire safety rectifications, and ultimately, losing his temper and causing a major incident.
Although they collected money, the street did get things done. They assembled a force of undead with remarkable efficiency to attack Rat Nest Street, drawing cheers from the residents of Bone Street.
This act wasn’t about occupation; it was just for fun. Mithril City prohibited any faction from encroaching on areas beyond their designated zones. In other words, the undead could only operate within Bone Street, and the ratmen could only dig holes in Rat Nest Street. Therefore, after the ratmen invaded Bone Street’s territory, Bone Street had the right to fight back, and this wouldn’t be stopped, as this was simply daily life in the Underground City.
Constantly testing the strength of your neighbors, always prepared for a fatal blow, constantly scheming to seize everything from others – this was the Underground City.
Therefore, no one questioned the motives behind Rat Nest Street’s invasion, and no one cared about Bone Street’s counterattack.
However, for Owen, this counterattack by Bone Street wasn’t the main point. What mattered was the excellent opportunity it provided him.
Seizing the moment, Owen, accompanied by Zombie Girl, followed the undead forces counterattacking Rat Nest Street, venturing deep into the underground of Rat Nest Street.
Zombie Girl didn’t understand why her shop owner had come here, but she didn’t voice any questions. She was a dead person, not a fool, and wouldn’t naively believe that her boss was just an ordinary necromancer. In fact, as her faith deepened, she felt her boss’s extraordinary nature even more. Especially after she once had a whim to pray to her boss, she understood something.
Otherwise, with Zombie Girl’s current reputation on Bone Street, why would she still be working at the shop to pay off her debt?
Having successfully infiltrated, Owen was venturing deeper underground. Based on the clues he had gathered, he knew that Rat Nest Street was actually divided into two parts. The street above was merely a facade; the true Rat Nest lay beneath.
Over the years, amidst the complex sewers and pipelines of Mithril City, the ratmen had created a world exclusively for themselves. Their vast numbers had long exceeded the limit that Mithril City could tolerate.
However, under Old One-Eye’s control, everything had been successfully concealed. Otherwise, the Drow Matriarchs who ruled Mithril City would have launched a brutal purge of the ratmen population before the Fel Skaven could even cause trouble. Their numbers were simply too great, to the extent that even the Drow Matriarchs felt uneasy.
Now, the vast forces hidden by Old One-Eye were in Owen’s sight, and his mood was worsening.
The sides of the sewer, as vast as a river, had been developed by the ratmen. Besides the living caves, there were farms dedicated to mushroom cultivation and snail breeding. Such scenes, large and small, were scattered throughout the entire sewer system, providing food to sustain the Rat Nest.
What was most impressive was that all the sections weren’t interconnected but independent. Therefore, even if one were discovered by chance, it wouldn’t easily attract the attention of Mithril City’s higher-ups, increasing secrecy.
And this was just a corner of the Rat Nest. Old One-Eye’s fearsome nature surprised even Owen and gave him a sense of kinship, after all, he also enjoyed digging holes.
“We need to go deeper.” Owen rubbed his forehead, speaking to Zombie Girl. Maintaining a wide-range shadow perception was putting some strain on his mind, but it was still within a bearable range, so he had no intention of resting.
Zombie Girl nodded in response. Although equally shocked by everything she saw in the Rat Nest, she skillfully adjusted her weapon, ready to strike at any moment.
“Shadow Cloak.” Owen made a gesture, and the surrounding shadows seemed to come alive, extending towards the two of them, gently enveloping them, merging them with the surrounding darkness.
After this period of familiarization, Owen had created several new divine techniques, and Shadow Cloak was a very practical one. As long as it wasn’t a place completely devoid of shadows, it could achieve good results, and the darker the environment, the better the effect. In a place like the Rat Nest, it could practically allow the user to completely blend in with the surroundings, and it also came with the function of concealing one’s aura.
With Shadow Cloak, coupled with the same-system divine techniques Shadow Night and True Phantom, Owen was practically moving through an uninhabited realm. Sometimes, even Zombie Girl, who was accompanying him, couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was fake, following him deeper into the Rat Nest in a daze.
The deeper he went, the more alarmed Owen became, because the Rat Nest wasn’t just one layer. In reality, the Rat Nest built around the sewers and pipelines was just a facade. If Owen hadn’t mastered the power of shadows, he might have been fooled too. After all, who could have imagined that the ratmen under Old One-Eye had practically hollowed out the underground of Mithril City? The second layer alone had already spread to the Lower District.
At this point, Owen also understood why the Fel Energy had spread so quickly. It was because of the constant supply of people from the Lower District serving as consumables.
Along the way, Owen also saw groups of ratmen soldiers undergoing training and a sizable weapon foundry. Clearly, Old One-Eye’s ambition wasn’t limited to being an intelligence chief. This old fellow truly had an unaging heart.
“Is Mithril City cursed? Even a ratman has such a hidden hand.” The more Owen saw, the colder his heart became. Even though the ratmen’s combat strength was weak, their sheer numbers couldn’t be ignored. Especially in familiar terrain and complex structures, the combat strength that ratmen could unleash was no less than that of an elite soldier.
“Is this about overthrowing Mithril’s higher-ups and becoming the ruler?” Owen couldn’t think of any other reason why Old One-Eye would make such extensive preparations.
However, relying on numbers alone in this world with supernatural powers was too unpredictable. That’s why Old One-Eye introduced Fel Energy. Unfortunately, he underestimated the invasive nature of Fel Energy. By the time he realized that Fel Energy was out of control, it was too late to back down. So he deliberately provoked incidents as an excuse to restrict the Fel Skaven. However, even Old One-Eye didn’t expect to involve a deity like Owen.
After using his means to transmit everything he saw and heard in the Rat Nest to his original body, Owen cautiously stepped into the third layer of the Rat Nest.
Compared to the meticulously concealed first layer and the carefully constructed second layer, the third layer of the Rat Nest was just Old One-Eye’s backup plan. He had neither the time nor the energy to build it, so he assigned it to the Fel Skaven. However, by now, this place had been thoroughly infiltrated by Fel Energy and had become the Fel Skaven’s territory, which was precisely what Old One-Eye couldn’t tolerate.
