Chapter 97: Sewer Cleanup Battle

The broad main sewer of Agrik was meant to carry the city’s wastewater, but now it reeked of thick, sulfurous, rotting swamp gas.

The once-hard stone bricks on the walls were now coated in a slimy, pulsating biological mat, as if the entire sewer had become the gut of some colossal living creature.

Yekemu, the cunning and cruel jackal-man War Banner, twitched his nose and gave a low command: “Three per group, back-to-back advance. Watch above and the sewage—they’re everywhere.”

Fighting had already erupted in narrow side channels; murky sewage exploded upward as several twisted Swamp Stalkers—hybrids of lizard and octopus, with sticky tentacles and sharp claws—lunged at the front jackal-man squad. Their goal: drag prey under and drown them in the sludge.

“Hold firm!” The squad leader’s roar echoed in the enclosed space. The jackal-men reacted instantly; rear-line warriors hurled fishing nets and grappling hooks, precisely entangling the demons and restraining their movement.

Front-line warriors swung specially crafted spears with barbed tips, driving them deep into the bound demons, pinning them to walls or dragging them ashore. Dark purple demonic blood instantly bloomed in the sewage.

Elsewhere, as the squad’s attention was drawn forward, several ghostly Shadow-Scale Demons slid silently down from the shadows above the pipes. They were nearly incorporeal, blending into darkness, their claws targeting throats and eyes.

But the platoon commander had anticipated this. “Torches!” he barked.

The prepped jackal-men instantly jammed torches soaked in alchemical oil into wall brackets; blinding light instantly shattered the thick darkness.

The Shadow-Scale Demons shrieked in agony under the light, their forms becoming clear and distorted. The waiting jackal-man crossbowmen pulled triggers; poisoned anti-magic bolts rained like a storm, turning the fragile assassins into sieves.

As they advanced, the squad reached a massive convergence pool. It had been transformed into a demon hatchery.

In the pool’s center, a massive, fleshy-and-mud mass—the Breeding Mother—pulsed, continuously birthing new Lesser Demons and Swamp Worms. Around the pool’s edges crawled armored Shell Demons, their shells as hard as iron, capable of withstanding ordinary blade strikes.

“Assault team forward! Burn that tumor!” Yekemu roared.

Jackal-men bearing massive shields stepped forward, absorbing the Shell Demons’ charges and the Breeding Mother’s acidic spittle. Rear-line warriors hurled prepped alchemical incendiary bottles at the Breeding Mother.

“Boom! Boom!”

Thick flames instantly engulfed the massive flesh mass, hissing and reeking. The Breeding Mother convulsed violently, emitting ear-splitting screams. Without its source, the surrounding minor demons grew even more frenzied—but were now split and blocked by the burning flames.

As if enraged by Yekemu’s actions, a colossal Abyssal Maw Demon—part giant crocodile, part worm—rose from the sewage, standing upright and lunging at Yekemu.

Yekemu’s eyes flashed cold. He ducked beneath the sweeping claws, his signature greatsword—etched with armor-piercing runes—sweeping out a streak of icy light.

“Slish!”

The greatsword sliced precisely into the Maw Demon’s relatively soft neck, nearly severing half its throat. Filthy blood gushed like a waterfall; the beast crashed down, splashing massive waves of sewage.

The battle gradually subsided after several hours. Yekemu stood beside the pool littered with demon carcasses and burn marks, shaking off the filth. The sewer fell temporarily silent, but the air still reeked of the Abyss.

“Fall back! Evacuate now!” He snapped his hand up, his roar like thunder. Years of Abyssal warfare had honed his instincts to scream warnings—the sulfur scent had spiked abnormally, the ground trembled with ominous vibrations. His gut screamed: lethal danger was approaching!

He ordered his troops to “retreat” along a pre-planned, labyrinthine route, deliberately leaving obvious traces—even abandoning damaged gear and several jackal-man corpses—to fully ignite the demons’ rage and contempt.

The pursuing demon Zhuli , mostly agile Swamp Stalkers and violent Shell Demons, were blinded by fury, desperate to tear apart these jackal-men who dared defy them and now fled in “disgrace.”

They roared through every branching passage, utterly unaware they were being lured toward a single, carefully chosen main drainage pipe. This channel was exceptionally wide, ending in a massive, long-abandoned ancient water treatment pool—Yekemu’s chosen slaughterhouse.

When the demon vanguard flooded into this relatively enclosed pool, they realized the “fleeing” jackal-men had vanished.

“Seal it!” Yekemu’s cold voice echoed from the dark maintenance platform above.

Instantly, heavy iron gates—etched with crude but functional runes—slammed shut at the demons’ entry point, cutting off all retreat. Simultaneously, jackal-man crossbowmen emerged from countless drainage vents high along the pool walls.

A dense storm of crossbow bolts rained down, targeting the heavily armored Shell Demons. Many arrowheads were bound with small alchemical explosives, detonating on impact or ground contact, creating further chaos and shrapnel damage.

Jackal-men pried open massive valves connected to the city’s abandoned grease processing system. Thick, highly flammable waste grease poured into the pool like a waterfall, trapping countless demons in sticky sludge.

Immediately after, thousands of flaming arrows shot in like falling stars.

“Boom—!”

A towering inferno instantly consumed the entire treatment pool, turning it into a massive incinerator! Demons screamed in the flames, frantically slamming against the gates and walls—but to no avail.

“Commander, your strategy remains unmatched. But it’s infuriating! If General Giske weren’t gone, we’d never be pushed to the margins! Now we have to prove our worth with ambushes like this—otherwise those high-ups wouldn’t even look our way!”

“Shut your stinking mouth! Who told you Giske is dead? He’s on a more critical mission!” Yekemu’s gaze cut like a blade. “We completed our mission with scarce gear and no support! Isn’t that the strongest proof of our strength?”

“But what exactly is General Giske…”

“Is that your business to ask?” Yekemu frowned, voice hardening. “Remember: your job and mine is to execute. We do as we’re ordered. When you sit in my chair, you’ll know everything you need to.”

“War Banner!” A blood-soaked jackal-man scout staggered up to Yekemu, wounds still oozing. “Ahead… five more hatcheries found! Three rated Level Three threats—but two others… their pulsing frequency and energy radiation have reached Level Five danger standards! Must be dealt with immediately!”

“Damn pests, breeding faster than maggots!” Yekemu punched the wall, shaking loose debris. “Luo Ge! Go fetch Lady Tali! Order every tunneling goblin under her command to assemble! I’m done—this time, we’re giving them a full purge!”

…………

At first, only a few pairs of flickering green eyes glowed in the shadows, like drifting ghost flames. Then came countless light, swift footsteps, accompanied by muffled, throaty whistles echoing through the labyrinthine pipe network.

They oozed from wall cracks and sewage shadows, gathering swiftly and silently.

These goblins were nothing like battlefield cannon fodder. They were lean and short, clad in hardened leather light armor painted with camouflage pigments to perfectly blend into the environment.

Nearly every goblin carried more than one weapon: poisoned blowpipes, explosive satchels, barbed short spears, and the signature matte-black serrated short knives.

They formed no neat formations, naturally organizing into squads of a few to a dozen, like disciplined wolf packs.

Some squads occupied high pipes and beams as observation and sniper posts; others clung to wall shadows, checking bizarre trap triggers. The air reeked of body odor, sulfur, and alchemical compounds.

No noise—only a suppressed, efficient silence, and pairs of eyes glowing with cunning and cruelty in the gloom. The most feared dark-ops claws of Chief Inspector Tali had arrived.

Behind those shadowy, silent guerrillas, another sound emerged in the sewer: heavy, synchronized footsteps, and the crisp clinks of metal against stone. Another entirely different goblin force marched in.

They were equally short, but stockier and more robust—clearly specially selected. Unlike the guerrillas’ light gear, these goblins wore uniform dark linen tunics, with full-face protective goggles and oversized ear guards.

On their shoulders rested the fearsome alchemical fireguns. These weapons were crude and practical: barrels far thicker than traditional firearms, forged from brass and dark metal, reinforced with crude but effective bands and cooling fins.

Key parts of the gun bodies were etched with faintly glowing stability runes; the muzzles were wide enough to fit a coin. Heavy ammunition belts at their waists held rows of differently colored alchemical rounds: unstable crimson explosive shells, icy-blue frost rounds, and viscous emerald-acid rounds.

They lacked the guerrillas’ loose cunning; instead, they radiated mechanical discipline. They deployed in standard battle formation: front row kneeling, rear row standing, movements synchronized, muzzles slightly forward, forming a lethal fire net over the main channel.

When their commander—a one-eyed veteran with counting notches carved into his gunstock—raised his hand, every muzzle adjusted in unison. A low, resonant hum vibrated through the air, like caged elemental beasts yearning to unleash.

“Surprised by these goblins’ gear?”

A cold female voice suddenly spoke, close as if right behind him. Yekemu nearly jumped out of his skin, sweat drenching his body instantly—someone had slipped within lethal range without his notice!

“Lady Tali?” Yekemu quickly suppressed his shock and saluted sharply. “I didn’t know you’d come personally. What are your orders?”

“Everyone says our Security Force is useless in battle, and now I can’t even speak up at the top. So I came to the frontlines myself. Don’t worry—I won’t interfere with command.

I saw those gnomes’ fireguns and thought they were interesting. Wanted to get a few for ourselves, but goblins can’t handle anything so refined. So we made them simple explosive rounds. Today’s the perfect chance to test them.”