There was a sound echoing deep in the corridor, but it was mixed and vague and could not be distinguished.
There seemed to be the sound of cold wind, vague whispers, dense footsteps, and gunshots.
Everything was mixed together, everything had lost its obvious boundaries, and the whole world seemed to be gradually being crumpled into a ball, with no front or back, left or right, and no yesterday or today - just like the dark corridor filled with fog before one's eyes, so gloomy that it seemed to be able to swallow up everything.
The old man with a hunched back walked slowly in the corridor with staggering steps. The large wrench in his hand occasionally hit the pipes on the nearby wall, making a low and strange impact sound.
Who am I? Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I going there?
The attack began... At midnight, it was time for the Queen's Guard to launch the attack, but what exactly were they going to attack? And in which direction were they going to attack?
From time to time, some messy and fragmented thoughts and some long-faded memories popped up in the old ghost's drowsy mind, but soon, these things all melted in his muddled brain - he occasionally felt as if he was walking on two separate roads, with chaotic perceptions and experience memories entangled in this body, but sometimes, he felt that he had actually been staying in the same place, waiting for orders for fifty years.
The big wrench hit something with a clanking sound. The old ghost lowered his head slowly and saw that it was a helmet - black, with a narrow brim, and with the mark of the Queen's Guard. It was something from fifty years ago and is no longer seen now.
He stared blankly at the helmet, watching it fall to the ground and roll into the drain at the side. It seemed as if something was struggling to climb out of the drain, but it soon merged with the surrounding darkness and disappeared.
He murmured vaguely and continued to walk towards the darkness, as if he was gradually walking into the depths of a mass of condensed black mud. Then, after an unknown amount of time, he finally stopped at the end of the corridor.
Intertwined pipes, collapsed rubble, and smoke and black matter surging between the rubble - these things blocked the old man's way forward. He stopped here and looked around in some confusion.
He didn't recognize this place, and he didn't even remember that there was such a place in the Second Waterway, but he stopped here because... there was something waiting for him to accomplish here.
The old ghost lowered his head and looked at the pool of water next to the rubble. His confused eyes were reflected in the water.
What am I going to do here?
At this moment, a strange scene suddenly appeared in the stagnant water.
The soldiers of the Queen's Guard trampled through the endless monsters swarming in the corridor. The guns and bayonets in their hands turned wave after wave of fake monsters into cold, dry mud. Wherever they passed, the walls were no longer infiltrated by silt, and even the darkness in the corridor seemed to have subsided a lot.
Everything was just as Lawrence guessed: the very existence of the Queen's Guard was suppressing the "pollution" in this mirror city-state.
If what happened in this city-state was viewed as a confrontation between two forces, then the mud monsters and the Queen's Guards were obviously the embodiment of these two opposing forces respectively - and such confrontation and entanglement may have lasted for half a century.
The Marine team led by Lawrence was running quickly in the corridor, following the path opened up by the Queen's Guards. In just over ten minutes, they covered the distance that had been difficult to break through in the previous hours. And along the way, Lawrence was constantly observing and thinking.
He was trying to understand the nature of the Queen's Guard, and even more trying to establish communication with these phantoms - but all his attempts failed.
The Queen's Guards could not see him, and were not even aware of the existence of these uninvited guests. These soldiers were like a memory projected from distant history, mechanically repeating a battle that took place decades ago. They advanced, shot, fought, and fell... and all of this had probably happened every day in the past few decades.
Martha's intelligence about the Queen's Guard was correct, but obviously not entirely correct.
He was unable to establish cooperation with these "helpers".
“Captain! They can’t see us. What should we do?” A sailor ran over and shouted beside Lawrence. “It seems that we can’t help much with just a dozen of us running after them.”
Lawrence had a complicated expression, and subconsciously looked at the small mirror on his chest, but Martha's voice came out first: "Don't ask me, I don't know what to do with the current situation - I just know they exist, and I have never dealt with them..."
As they were talking, the faint sound of gunfire was heard from the mirror: Martha was obviously very busy over there, and the situation was not much simpler than that in the sewer.
"The Queen's Guard has been repeating this battle over the years?" Lawrence asked loudly, "And the result of each battle is the same?!"
"Yes, the result is always the same. They appear at midnight and then disappear at the next hour. They are unable to break through the obstacle at the end every time!"
Unable to break through the obstacle at the end?
Hearing this, Lawrence subconsciously looked up in the direction where the group of phantom soldiers were charging.
They were rushing towards the deepest part of the corridor. In that dark and chaotic space, the thick malice was surging in his perception like tangible mud.
"I see!" Lawrence suddenly said loudly.
Martha's voice came from the mirror: "What do you understand?!"
However, Lawrence had no time to answer the question of the man in the mirror. After vaguely realizing what he should do, he immediately led his subordinates and ran forward at a faster speed.
At the same time, the battle in the corridor was becoming increasingly fierce. The Queen's Guard was launching the final charge - countless warriors condensed from phantoms were roaring, and using the weapons in their hands to destroy the monsters blocking their way. Soldiers kept falling down and turned into bubbles that dissipated in the air, and monsters kept falling down and turned into mud flowing into the gutters on both sides. As the fierce battle continued, the entire assault team finally gradually reached the end of the corridor.
Lawrence finally saw the end of this fierce battle, and saw the obstacle that had blocked the Queen's Guard for half a century.
It was a big door, a door covered with countless thorns and dirty black mud, and its appearance was frightening and terrifying.
On the surface of the gate, the criss-crossing thorns looked like a crown of dry tree branches, and dim spots of light were wandering irregularly in the depths of the thorn bush. It seemed as if countless eyes were hidden in the depths of the thorn bush. Ordinary people would be gripped by fear and madness if they only looked in that direction.
Even Lawrence, who had now turned into a carrier of spiritual fire, couldn't help but feel a shock in his heart and a buzzing in his head when he saw the door blocked by the thorn bushes.
And that was the target of the Queen's Guard's attack.
In front of the gate, countless black muds were gathering, and countless monsters appeared in the mud - they crudely imitated the appearance of humans. There were soldiers wearing city-state guard uniforms and navy uniforms, pirates and armed citizens with a variety of equipment, and even... there were demon-like monsters made of old cannons and stacked skeletons.
These monsters relied on the crude fortifications in the hall to guard the thorn door, just like fanatics guarding their master.
The final battle begins.
The Queen's Guards poured all their firepower on the monster across the corridor, and the latter's counterattack shocked the entire Second Waterway. Both sides of the fierce battle lost more than half of their combat power in almost the blink of an eye, and Lawrence and the dozen or so sailors he brought with him could only try to find a hiding place on the edge of this devastating and tragic battlefield.
In such a dense firepower, even Lawrence, who was protected by the spiritual fire, did not dare to bet whether he would really not die.
But he wasn't just hiding—he was watching.
He was observing to what extent the Queen's Guards were able to perform in this battle.
As the battle continued and the number of men on both sides continued to decrease, the defense in front of the gate finally weakened - those deadly artillery and demonic creatures were torn to pieces, and gaps began to appear in the defense line in front of the thorns.
"Demolition team! Go!"
Lawrence, who was hiding next to the Queen's Guard's position, suddenly heard a voice, which was the voice of a commander of the guard.
The next second, out of the corner of his eye he spotted several figures crawling forward at the edge of the battlefield.
A small team broke away from the main position and entered the drainage ditch at the edge of the hall in the blind spot of the monsters, moving slowly along the ditch towards the hidden place on the side of the thorn door.
At the same time, the firepower from the front position suddenly increased, and dense bullets poured over, trying to suppress and attract the attention of the monsters in front of the gate.
Lawrence suddenly held his breath unconsciously - even though he knew that this might just be an illusion that would not be affected by the outside world, he still did it subconsciously.
But what he worried about still happened as expected.
The demolition team was spotted along the edge of the battlefield near the Thorn Gate.
A series of bullets hit the drainage ditch, and several soldiers carrying explosive devices fell into the ditch in an instant.
But almost at the same time, another demolition team entered the ditch on the other side of the hall and continued to crawl towards the thorn-covered door.
They were also discovered - the second demolition team fell only a dozen meters away from the thorn gate.
At this moment, a sailor's low cry suddenly reached Lawrence's ears: "They are disappearing!"
Lawrence immediately raised his head, and the scene in the corridor came into his sight——
The Queen's Guard is disappearing.
After the failure of the second demolition team's operation, all the guards suddenly stopped for a moment, and then the figures of each of them began to fade and dissipate. One third of them became like translucent phantoms in the blink of an eye!
Something Martha had said suddenly popped into Lawrence's mind:
[“…They were unable to break through the obstacle at the end every time…”]
Lawrence suddenly understood the meaning of this sentence, and understood the outcome of every battle - the Queen's Guard failed. Although they had been fighting and had been repeating themselves persistently, the unchangeable fact was that they had failed in this "last counterattack" at midnight.
This operation failed fifty years ago.
Every repetition after that is a repetition of this failure.
Lawrence was a little dazed for a moment, but at this moment, he suddenly saw another figure appear on the battlefield out of the corner of his eye.
It was a figure rushing out from the corner of the hall, an illusion that had not yet begun to dissipate.
Lawrence and all the sailors' attention were instantly attracted by that figure.
He was not a soldier, but a young man who looked like an army engineer. He was wearing a dark blue coarse cloth work suit and a slanted soft hat that was popular half a century ago. In addition to a pistol and a bullet bag, there was also a large wrench hanging on his belt.
He rushed to the ditch, towards the explosive device left by the second demolition team, and then hugged the wooden box full of explosives and quickly crawled towards the thorny door.
At this moment, Lawrence almost thought he was about to succeed.
However, a bullet flew over, and the young man was as if hit on the shoulder by a hammer. Half of his body shook violently, and he fell just a few meters away from the Thorn Gate.
The whole hall seemed to be quiet in an instant.
The final counterattack is over.
All the Queen's Guards began to dissipate at an accelerated rate, and this illusion that had been repeated for fifty years returned to the starting point.
Perhaps, this is also the last repetition.
Lawrence stared blankly at the young man who fell last.
The "last of the Queen's Guard", the last casualty, his fall seems to be a kind of "focus" of this repetitive battle.
But suddenly, Lawrence woke up from his trance.
He jumped out from his hiding place, and amid the gazes and exclamations of the sailors, the old captain ran like a gust of wind to the place where the last man fell.
The hall, which had fallen into silence, was "disturbed" by his sudden "intervention". The monsters that had not yet dispersed reacted almost instantly, and chaotic and noisy roars and the roar of weapons firing suddenly exploded!
The sailor's shout came from behind: "Cover the captain!"
However, Lawrence seemed to be unable to hear these sounds. He just lowered his head and rushed forward. He seemed to have been shot several times, but this was no longer a big deal to him. He rushed across half of the hall, jumped into the ditch, and pounced on the last explosive device, reaching out his hand towards it.
Then he passed his fingers through the box of explosives.
Lawrence fell into the ditch in a rather embarrassing manner, and looked at the scene in a daze.
Like the Queen's Guards around him, the box of explosives was also an illusion to him.
The explosive device that was not detonated fifty years ago cannot be detonated by him, a "latecomer" today.
Bullets whizzed and hit the ground nearby. The roar came from far away. Some mud monsters had rushed into the ditch and were about to tear themselves into pieces.
Lawrence still stared blankly at the box of explosives, feeling only great absurdity and mockery.
However, at this moment, something suddenly moved in the corner of his eye.
The old captain looked up in surprise and saw that the person who suddenly moved was the young man who had just fallen down.
The young man with a large wrench hanging on his waist trembled, slowly raised his head, and fixed his eyes on the man in front of him who was dressed as a captain and was wrapped in strange green flames.
Lawrence was stunned for a moment before he suddenly reacted: "Can you see me?!"
The young man seemed not to have heard the question. He just moved his lips and seemed to be repeating something very quickly. He repeated it several times before Lawrence could barely hear what he said.
"...I have seen it before. Yes, I have seen this flame before...I have seen it before..."
"Seen it? Flame? What are you talking about?"
Lawrence widened his eyes in surprise and couldn't help asking.
The young man didn't answer. He just kept repeating it over and over again. And during this repetition, he actually crawled up little by little, covered in blood, but slowly crawled up!
Under Lawrence's incredulous gaze, the blood-soaked young man picked up the last explosive device, groaned, and climbed up the guardrail beside the ramp. He kept muttering something while staggering towards the thorny door.
Lawrence heard what the other party was muttering, but he couldn't understand what was said. It sounded like a series of names -
"Nemo... General Tirian... Crow..."
The blood-soaked figure staggered and muttered.
But he didn't take even a few steps out.
Just as he climbed onto the flat ground, several gunshots were heard from the opposite side, and the blood-soaked figure fell down.
But almost at the moment he fell, an old, hunched figure suddenly stood up from where he fell.
Lawrence looked at the scene in disbelief. He saw the position where the old man appeared - he stood up from a pool of blood.
He was the reflection in the blood of the young man who died in battle.
"Ah, I'm finally here..."
The hunchbacked old man bent down and picked up the last box of explosives, and then an incomprehensible, extremely brilliant smile suddenly broke out on his face.
"I have arrived!"
He spoke loudly, he laughed loudly, he picked up the box of explosives, happily pulled its fuse, and then rushed towards the thorn door with it in his arms almost in ecstasy.
"I have arrived!
"Engineer Wilson reports for duty!
"Engineer Wilson requests to return to the team!
"I have arrived!"
"boom!!!"
The earth-shattering explosion shook the entire hall and every corridor connected to the hall.