mijobooks Chapter 392: The Ace Gatekeepers
Chapter 392: The Ace Gatekeepers
After withdrawing from the abandoned brewery in the Whitechapel District, Lin Jie, William, and Julian once again dove into the intricate sewer network.
That was Pip's territory and currently the only safe passage to avoid Ackerman's surveillance.
Under the cover of sludge and sewage, they crept towards the direction of the British Museum.
William led the way. This veteran who had served in the London Branch knew every ventilation shaft and passage of the Underground City like the back of his hand.
The light from his lantern was dimmed to the lowest setting, illuminating only the small, slippery patch of brick beneath their feet.
"B7 zone is just ahead."
William stopped and pointed at a brick wall ahead that seemed to have no gaps whatsoever.
"That used to be the supply channel responsible for transporting coal and food to the Underground City. It was abandoned later due to a gas leak accident, but according to the blueprints, it still connects to the logistics warehouse in the hunter rest area."
William pulled an old-fashioned entrenching tool from his backpack and skillfully pried loose a few wall bricks.
As a cloud of dust fell, a narrow opening just wide enough for one person to pass through was revealed.Lin Jie was the first to squeeze through.
The passage carried a stale smell of machine oil and dry dust.
After crawling for about five minutes, the space ahead suddenly opened up.
They entered a warehouse piled high with crates and old equipment.
This was the fringe area of the Underground City.
Lin Jie carefully pushed open the warehouse door and peered outside. The sight before him made him slightly surprised.
The Underground City, which in his memory was always bustling, filled with the roar of steam and the loud conversations of hunters, now appeared somewhat desolate.
The massive central square was empty, with only a few gas lamps burning in lonely solitude.
The once-bustling taverns and equipment shops were closed tight, even the neon lights on their signs were extinguished.
"The main force has been transferred away."
Lin Jie said in a low voice, his gaze sweeping over several sentry posts at the edge of the square.
A few fully armed guards still stood there, but their expressions were weary, and their posture lacked the usual uprightness. It seemed more like they were just going through the motions.
"To suppress the Whitechapel riots, they've almost drained the military force from here."
"But that doesn't mean this place is safe."
Julian observed the surroundings warily.
"The hawks definitely left behind die-hard loyalists."
Using the shadows as cover, the three of them avoided the main thoroughfare and moved quickly along a small path connecting the rest area and the maintenance room.
"Hey, you rats over there."
Just as they were about to round a street corner, a slightly hoarse yet exceptionally familiar voice suddenly came from the shadows beside them.
Lin Jie abruptly halted, his short knife instantly drawn from its sheath. William's gun muzzle was also aimed at the source of the voice in the same instant.
In a corner piled with old gun barrels and ammunition boxes sat a one-eyed old man.
He wore a leather apron stained with grease, held a bottle of cheap gin in his hand, and his single eye sparkled with a worldly, mocking glint.
Quartermaster Old Tom.
The veteran who, during Lin Jie's first mission, had given him special ammunition despite his sharp tongue.
"Don't be nervous, lads."
Old Tom shook the bottle in his hand, not touching the shotgun placed beside him.
"If I wanted to sound the alarm, I would have done it back when your big friend got his arse stuck in the pipe."
William lowered his gun slightly but remained on guard.
"Tom, what are you doing here? Where else would I be?"
Old Tom snorted with a laugh and took a swig of his drink.
"The Underground City nowadays doesn't even have a decent place to drink."
"Those hawk fanatics have turned this place into a barracks, requisitioned all the good booze, saying it's to 'maintain combat readiness'."
"Combat readiness my arse."
Old Tom spat, his eyes filled with disdain.
"They've made a right mess of this place."
"Forcibly conscripting freelance hunters, confiscating equipment from dissenters, even trying to implement 'ideological screenings'."
"This place has long since fallen into disarray."
He pointed towards the other end of the square.
"Last night, half the freelance hunters refused Ackerman's conscription order and left London outright."
"We're hunters. We kill monsters for money and that damn sense of honor, not to serve as someone's private army slaughtering our own comrades."
Lin Jie sheathed his knife and stepped forward.
He heard extremely important information in Old Tom's words. Ackerman's extreme dictatorial methods were inciting a backlash.
"Tom, do you know the situation in Geneva?" Lin Jie probed.
"Geneva?"
Old Tom narrowed his single eye, sizing up Lin Jie.
"You're asking about Sir Henderson, aren't you? Seems your information is quite sharp."
Old Tom lowered his voice, his expression turning a bit more serious.
"That old fox isn't so easy to topple. I heard from a few old friends just back from Europe that Henderson is gathering strength."
"Not just the moderates within the Association. I heard he's also contacted high-level government officials from several major nations."
"They plan to formally initiate an impeachment at next week's Geneva Round Table meeting."
"Impeach those elders who support Ackerman."
This statement was like a shot of adrenaline, instantly invigorating the spirits of Lin Jie and his two companions.
It completely aligned with the content of Barton's telegram.
"So, we need that thing."
Lin Jie looked into Old Tom's eyes, not hiding his intent.
"We need the Knight Protocol. Only by obtaining it can Henderson's impeachment succeed and this ridiculous farce end."
Old Tom fell silent for a moment.
He gave Lin Jie a deep look, then glanced at William and Julian standing behind him.
"I knew you madmen coming back meant no good."
Old Tom sighed and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his chest pocket.
"Take it. It's the new security layout map."
"That bastard Ackerman not only transferred the troops away, he also locked down all the passages leading to the bottom-level archives."
"Only one heavy-duty hydraulic elevator is still operational. That's the backdoor they left for their own people to transport confidential documents."
Old Tom pointed to a red dot on the map.
"Right at the end of Zone C. That cargo elevator used to transport large containment objects."
"But..."
Old Tom's tone grew heavier.
"There might not be a large garrison there, but the ones left guarding the door aren't your ordinary guard dogs."
"They're two genuine wolves."
"I know." Lin Jie nodded. "We're prepared."
"Be careful."
Old Tom patted Lin Jie's shoulder and stuffed the map into his hand.
"Don't die. I'm still waiting for someone to buy my wares in the future."
After bidding farewell to Old Tom, the three followed the map's guidance, moving like shadows through the empty maintenance zone.
Finally, they reached the end of Zone C.
This was a massive circular loading platform.
In the center of the platform stood a heavy elevator door forged from brass and steel.
The door was engraved with the I.A.R.C.'s scales emblem and a prominent warning sign: "Kingdom-class Restricted Zone, Unauthorized Entry Prohibited".
To the right of the door was an extremely complex mechanical keyhole.
Lin Jie pulled out the Signet Ring, still carrying the scent of blood, from his chest.
"Ready?" Lin Jie looked back at his teammates.
William pulled the bolt of his gun. The sound of a round being chambered was crisp and pleasing to the ear.
Julian pushed up his glasses. The cap of the potion bottle in his hand was already unscrewed.
"Let's begin."
Lin Jie took a deep breath and pressed the Signet Ring into the indentation.
"Click."
The elevator door, which had been sealed shut for who knows how long, slowly slid open to both sides, revealing the spacious cabin within.
The three quickly entered the elevator.
As Lin Jie pressed the button for the fifth underground floor, the hydraulic system began to operate.
With a heart-pounding sense of weightlessness, the elevator began a rapid descent. The feeling was like falling into an abyss.
The floor numbers on the digital display jumped rapidly.
-1.
-2.
-3.
-4.
...
"Ding."
With a crisp chime, the elevator finally stopped.
This was the deepest part of the Underground City, the secret core of the Association.
The elevator doors slowly opened.
Cold, dry air heavy with the scent of old books rushed towards them. Before their eyes was a massive circular hall.
The hall's floor was paved with black and white marble, forming a giant hexagram pattern.
Countless enormous bookshelves were embedded in the rock walls surrounding them, filled with all kinds of dossiers and archive boxes.
Directly opposite the hall stood a bronze door five meters high.
That door was closed, carved with a relief depicting the oath-taking ceremony of the Original Round Table Knights.
Behind it was the location of the Knight Protocol.
But.
The path to that door was not unobstructed.
In the center of the hall stood two people.
The two sat at a temporarily moved table, seemingly waiting for something.
The person on the left was a giant of an extremely burly build.
He wore a set of incredibly heavy-looking, full-body steam-powered armor forged from some kind of black alloy.
The surface of the armor was covered in scratches and dents, medals from numerous battles.
He wasn't wearing a helmet, revealing a face full of coarse flesh and a thick beard. He held a bottle of vodka in his hand, tilting his head back for a big gulp.
At his feet lay a vicious-looking heavy flail.
The person on the right was the complete opposite.
He was slender, dressed in tight-fitting black leather, with a half-mask of metal covering his mouth and nose.
He crouched on the chair like a leopard ready to pounce, toying with two oddly shaped daggers in his hands.
The blades of those daggers had a semi-transparent quality, as if forged from solidified light.
The moment the elevator doors opened.
Both men turned their heads simultaneously, looking at Lin Jie and the other two.
"I knew it."
The giant put down his bottle, letting out a thunderous snort of laughter.
He stood up, his heavy armor emitting a grating metal sound.
"Anvil Gareth."
Julian looked at the giant, his expression turning extremely grim.
"You're from the Paris Branch... Why are you here?"
Gareth grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.
"Well, if it isn't our great scholar Julian? What, tired of the library, come here looking for some excitement?"
"As for why I'm here..."
Gareth cracked his neck, producing crisp popping sounds.
"Obviously because the price Ackerman offered was high enough. And, I'm very interested in traitors trying to overthrow the Association."
His gaze passed over Julian and landed on Lin Jie.
"That's you, right? The rookie named Lin Jie? Heard you beat that sissy Galliard?"
"Not bad."
Gareth bent down, single-handedly lifting the flail weighing several hundred pounds as if it were a straw.
"But he's just a magician playing tricks."
"And me... I'm a blacksmith. A blacksmith specializing in crushing hard bones."
On the other side, the masked assassin also jumped down from his chair.
His movements were as light as a feather, landing without making a sound.
"Cutter Corvo."
William muttered the other's codename under his breath, his gun muzzle raising slightly.
"Ranked thirty-third on the Hunter Ranking. Also one of Ackerman's most trusted executioners."
"I hear those cut by his blade become cripples even if the wounds heal."
Corvo didn't speak. He quietly watched the three, his twin daggers spinning rapidly between his fingertips, tracing deadly arcs.
His eyes were as cold as ice. That look was familiar to Lin Jie; it was the look of a pure killer.
"So this is the final checkpoint?"
Lin Jie took a step forward, exiting the elevator, his hands hanging naturally at his sides.
"We don't want to kill anyone."
Lin Jie looked at Gareth, his tone calm.
"We're just here to retrieve something that originally belongs to everyone. That protocol concerns everyone's fate, including yours."
"Spare me the grand speeches."
Gareth impatiently cut Lin Jie off.
"I only recognize orders, and money. And..."
He gave a fierce grin and raised his flail.
"I also want to see just how much substance the hotshot new Scalpel has. Whether he's really as sharp as the rumors say."
As his words fell, an extremely violent surge of spiritual nature erupted from his body.
The flail in his hand began to spin.
The surrounding air seemed to be pulled by some immense suction force, frantically converging towards the hammerhead.
The originally formless air, under that terrifying compression, actually began to show a visible, almost tangible distortion.
"Corvo, move."
Gareth growled. The assassin, who had been silent until now, instantly vanished from his spot.
His speed was astonishing, leaving an afterimage on the retina.
But he didn't attack directly. Instead, he charged towards the bronze door.
"Want to go in?"
Corvo's voice came from behind the mask, carrying a metallic coldness.
"The door's locked."
His twin daggers stabbed fiercely into the control consoles on either side of the giant door.
"Zzzzt—"
A burst of sparks flashed. The control consoles were destroyed.
Simultaneously, Gareth's flail smashed viciously into the ground.
"Boom!"
A thunderous crash.
Between Lin Jie's trio and the bronze door, a semi-transparent yet incredibly hard "air wall" two meters high materialized out of thin air.
It was a barrier of air compressed to its extreme.
"This path is closed."
Gareth stood behind the air wall like an insurmountable mountain.
"Want to get past? Unless you can step over my corpse."
Lin Jie sighed. When facing such veteran hunters, there was only one universal language: violence.