CHAPTER 20: THE ECHO IN THE SEWER
Night fell quietly over Bo City.
Xu Mang stood at the metal grate leading down into the southern sewer line, a place normally patrolled only by the city's maintenance crews and the lower-ranked Hunter teams. He inhaled once, letting the damp smell of rust and stagnant water settle into his senses. The Frost Star Wolf crouched beside him, its tiny body radiating a cold that curled wisps of frost across the stone.
Lu Jun stopped at the stairwell above them. "You sure you don't want backup?"
Xu Mang shook his head. "I need to see what an actual battlefield is like. And Wolfie needs real pressure."
Lu Jun didn't argue. "Just don't go too deep. If it's anything above standard Warrior…"
"I'll retreat." Xu Mang said. "Promise."
Neither of them believed that promise.
Xu Mang descended.
The steel walkway trembled faintly beneath his steps, each echo bouncing along the tunnel until it dissolved into the distance. The Frost Star Wolf's eyes gleamed icy blue, lighting the dark ahead.
They walked for minutes.
The smell changed first—sharper, metallic, wrong.
Then the sound followed.
Scratching. Wet dragging. Something breathing too heavily.
Xu Mang's eyes narrowed. "Warrior-tier activity?"
He placed a hand on the cold railing. The Summoning Stars formed smoothly within him. Lightning stars flickered into readiness. He signaled the wolf with two taps on the rail.
The Frost Wolf nodded, its crown glowing faintly.
The tunnel ahead shifted—no, the darkness moved.
"…There."
A creature pulled itself from a broken drainage canal—long, slick, covered in layers of bruised-grey flesh and writhing tendrils. It had no proper skull, only a pulsing sack of swollen crimson eyes that blinked in random patterns.
Xu Mang recognized it immediately.
"Giant-Eyed Ratts mutation… no. That's not a minion."
The Frost Wolf's fur stood on end.
A second creature slid out behind it—bigger, sharper, a chain of bone plates lining its back.
An Evolving Warrior-Tier Sewer Abomination.
The kind created when multiple sewer species cannibalized each other during mana surges.
The kind that shouldn't exist in a mid-sized city like Bo.
Xu Mang exhaled slowly. "So this is what Lu Mei's report meant by 'anomaly.'"
The first creature screeched, neck extending unnaturally, eyes firing two beams of blood-colored light.
"Wolfie!"
The Frost Wolf darted left and the beams carved a smoking trench into the steel walkway.
Xu Mang swept his hand upward. His lightning stars aligned and a crackling arc of electricity shot through the tunnel. The bolt struck the creature cleanly—
—but the monster barely staggered.
Xu Mang felt his stomach drop.
"That didn't even scratch it…"
The second abomination lunged.
Its claws smashed into the steel floor, sending shards flying. Xu Mang ducked, rolling against the railing. He grabbed the Frost Wolf and flickered backward with a telekinetic push. Not elegant, but it bought him space.
The first creature screeched again, neck splitting open sideways to reveal rows of flat rotating teeth like a grinder. The Frost Wolf snarled and unleashed a burst of extreme frost. Splinters of absolute cold shot across the tunnel and froze half its extended throat.
The monster shrieked, shaking its head violently.
The second abomination didn't wait.
It crashed forward, its entire body whiplashing like a giant armored centipede. Xu Mang crossed his arms and reinforced himself with lightning mana, but the impact still hurled him into the concrete wall. His breath left him in a single ragged gasp.
Wolfie launched itself onto the monster's back, biting down hard, icy runes erupting—
—only for the creature to twist violently.
Wolfie was thrown off, slamming into a broken pipe.
"Wolfie!"
The Frost Star Wolf staggered, crown flickering.
The first monster fired a volley of blood-beams straight toward them.
Xu Mang forced lightning through his meridians, but his body wasn't strong enough yet to withstand another full-power strike. His stars trembled at the edges, unstable from the recoil of the earlier hit.
The beams closed in.
He reached for Summoning—
the silver crescent formed—
but the tunnel shook violently as the monsters pressed in from both sides.
Not enough time.
Xu Mang clenched his teeth.
Too early.
Too weak.
This wasn't the Arctic where his pendant shielded him.
This wasn't the Summoning Plane where he had leverage.
This was the real world.
The monsters were faster.
Stronger.
Closer.
"Wolfie—behind me!"
He threw himself in front of the wolf—
A roar of surging Wind shook the entire tunnel.
A spinning vortex of high-pressure wind slammed downward from above, smashing both abominations into the concrete floor like rag dolls. The Wind didn't stop there—Lu Mei twisted her wrist and the whirlpool compressed, becoming a razor-thin jet.
One sweep.
One line.
Both monsters were sliced into three clean pieces.
The remains hit the water with loud splashes.
The tunnel went silent except for the settling echoes.
Lu Mei's boots clanged lightly as she approached, Wind swirling lazily behind her fingertips, still radiating the force of a mid-tier level 3 Wind spell.
"You two," she said calmly, "are idiots."
Xu Mang exhaled, wiping the blood from the side of his mouth.
"Senior Lu Mei… thank you."
The Frost Star Wolf limped to Xu Mang's side, growling in humiliation.
Lu Mei looked between them, expression softening slightly. "An Evolving Warrior is not something novices handle. That thing could injure even a mid-tier mage if careless."
Xu Mang nodded, jaw tight.
"We underestimated it."
"Yes," Lu Mei said. "You did."
She crouched, looked at the corpse pieces, and traced a line through the air with a small stream of wind. "This mutation… it's too organized. Something drove these things upward."
Her eyes shifted toward Xu Mang.
"You weren't wrong to check the tunnels. But next time—call me first."
Xu Mang didn't argue.
He looked down at Wolfie, who seemed both ashamed and angry, frost steaming off its fur.
Lu Mei stood. "Come on. I'll escort you both out. And tomorrow, both of you are reporting for healing and diagnostics."
She turned and walked ahead.
Xu Mang followed quietly.
Wolfie walked at his heel, paws leaving small prints of pale frost on the floor.
Only when they reached the ladder did Xu Mang speak softly, barely above a whisper.
"We're too weak."
Wolfie's ears drooped.
Xu Mang placed a hand on its icy crown.
"We'll fix that."
He stepped out into the cold night air, breathing deeply.
The sewer stench faded behind him.
But the memory of those monsters didn't.
He imagined the Bo City Disaster—the hordes, the fog, the walls collapsing, the undead pouring through the streets.
Tonight, he couldn't handle a single Evolving Warrior alone.
He had a long way to go.
Tomorrow, they would begin again.