Chapter 2397: War and Peace

Director Anluosi had no objection to Xia De wanting to help. The middle-aged man with an unremarkable appearance revealed a troubled look on his face:

"What other clues could there be? The person who wanted to trade with us probably saw through the situation and left after wandering nearby. After we tracked them here, we found this house. The other party is definitely not an ordinary person; this looks like an agent's safe house no matter how you look at it."

"I suspect that person went out from the back of the house and entered the sewer. But there isn't enough manpower here, and it's too dangerous to rashly send people into the sewer. I will continue to stay here to search the house; if you are interested, go take a look in the sewer."

"Oh, be careful of the Grey Gloves and the city gangs; the former are looking for those documents, and the latter are looking for that card."

"Mr. Watson, who exactly are you?"

When Xia De and Mr. Albert arrived at the sewer entrance behind the house, the coroner finally couldn't help but ask.

Xia De glanced at him:

"Just making a living. After all, people with our status don't spend every day fighting or selling magic potions on the black market."

"But you..."

"Although you are not an ordinary person either, you are still a coroner and still know many ordinary people. I am the same as you. When I first met you, I didn't expect you to be the leader of 【Eternal Light】."

Xia De directly stated the matter that both of them tacitly understood:

"Everyone's past experiences affect what they do now. But look, you can rely on your secret identity to help us quickly find clues, and I can rely on my identity to easily ask for answers from people who would never have spoken otherwise. In this respect, we are indeed the same."

"No, no, I can't compare to you."

Mr. Albert shook his head, watching Xia De open the sewer cover, and the two turned into a red butterfly and a bat respectively and flew down.

"I first came into contact with 【Eternal Light】 when I was frustrated and received help from a member of this organization. At that time, they were just a small organization and had no Ringed Shushi. Later, I learned about their ideals and methods and thought this organization was quite good. My life felt like it was being fooled by fate, and at that time I was thinking: maybe I should do something."

There was extremely thin fog in the sewer, and there was almost no light in the fog, which made Xia De, who was accustomed to the thick fog of Moon Bay, feel somewhat uncomfortable. There was a slight echo when the two spoke, and the stench of the entire sewer was truly exaggerated.

Xia De listened to the heartbeats and confirmed there was no one nearby before continuing:

"Speaking of which, I only realized one thing recently: whenever the Viscount and I want to focus our investigation on 【Eternal Light】, you are always able to find new directions for us to investigate, making us do other things."

The coroner in the hooded robe smiled helplessly:

"Your and his ability to act is just too strong, and I didn't want to expose my identity in front of you. After all, at that time, the 【Eternal Light】 in your hearts was not a good organization. Remember? You discovered that almost everyone who intended to leave 【Eternal Light】 a while ago had their heads exploded into light."

He explained without waiting for Xia De to ask:

"It wasn't us, and we don't have that ability. It was the 【Light-Chaser Seminar】 attempting to force us to become part of their organization in this way."

Mr. Albert stopped Xia De from trying to observe the footprints in the sewer and narrowed his eyes. Thus, the eyes of this blood-born creature in the darkness lit up with a faint white light:

"You should understand that once we are completely pushed toward the 'villain' direction, it would be impossible for us not to become part of the 【Light-Chaser Seminar】. After all, sometimes our actions are indeed very radical, and the official perception of us has always been bad. But fortunately, I successfully found the 'Light-Chaser' alone before the situation escalated further..."

"You beat him?"

Xia De looked at the coroner in surprise, and the latter immediately shook his head:

"Of course not, but at least I showed that I am not afraid of their light. Later we reached a deal: 【Eternal Light】 cannot cooperate with the 【Dragon-Feast Cult】, and the 【Light-Chaser Seminar】 will also give up on making us join them. Thinking about it now, this should be a method to try to weaken the 【Dragon-Feast Cult】 and make the matter of the Chosen One more complicated."

It seems Ptolemy Albert also understands the matter of the Chosen One:

"My eyes can capture the traces left by light in space. In this dark sewer, the light remaining on them as they walked out of the fog just now is very obvious. Follow me, Mr. Watson, but be careful of the monsters lurking in the sewer now."

In addition to monsters produced by the mutation of light, the invasion of death, and the filth of the earth, there are now quite a few blood-sucking monsters and monsters mixed with dragon blood under Moon Bay.

Xia De was very worried about whether Mr. Fellinger and Miss Brown would have an accident because of this, because in the process of moving forward in the stinking sewer with the coroner, he even encountered water ghosts that usually only move in large lakes and the sea:

"This thing wouldn't have crawled in from the sewer's sea entrance, would it?"

In short, moving forward all the way, Xia De and Mr. Albert finally stopped next to an upward iron ladder.

The two climbed out one after another. Xia De just took a look around and recognized where this was:

"The Parsifal Club is one street away. Did they go there?"

Everyone had come here when looking for Captain Rudolph, so Mr. Albert also knew that not-so-proper place. So he casually cast a spell to clean the smell off the two, narrowed his eyes, and looked again:

"Looking at the direction, they went to the club. Let's go..."

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

At the intersection obscured by the diffuse fog ahead, continuous gunshots rang out. Xia De immediately took out his pistol from his pocket, then discovered that Mr. Albert was also carrying a gun.

"I have been active in the Lower City for years; how could I not carry a gun?"

The coroner explained, so the two quickly approached the intersection ahead under the cover of the fog.

This is the main road of the city, a relatively complex "Y"-shaped three-way intersection. At this moment, under the cover of carriages, sandbags, tables, and chairs, three different groups of people were shooting from three directions at the intersection.

Among them, there were more than ten people in the direction where Xia De and Mr. Albert were, which was also the group with the most people. They were definitely local city gangs; one could tell from their clothing and the models of firearms they used.

The red butterfly and the bat flew to the top of the Moon Bay City Bank building on the east side of the three-way intersection, standing on the spire-style roof looking at the battle situation below:

"City gangs, Grey Gloves, and Intelligence Agency agents are fighting."

The coroner said softly, and looking at the situation, it was obvious that the city gangs had the advantage; the two groups of agents combined were less than ten people.

"This is probably the mode of future wars in the Old Continent."

Xia De also looked below:

"The South and the North are fighting, and there are third-party forces trying to get rid of the order of the two major kingdoms acting in the dark."

"Mr. Watson, from the perspective of justice, who do you think we should support?"

Mr. Albert asked again. Xia De glanced at him:

"Are you talking about the people below?"

"No, I mean the future wars."

"If I had my own country, I would think my country is just. But I am sorry, I do not identify with the status of any country, so... this is just a part of the progress of civilization. If I saw soldiers murdering civilians, I would stop them; if I saw the flames of war spreading to a village, I would help them escape. But I will not help any army defeat another; this is not my responsibility."

"So, is the progress of civilization itself unjust? Just like the appearance of steam factories promoted the progress of social productivity, but also caused a lot of social problems."

The coroner asked again, which made Xia De suspect whether he had a sociology degree in addition to a medical degree.

"You seem to be trying to convince me, to let me understand the core ideals of your organization."

The Outlander took a deep breath in the fog:

"Civilization itself is barbaric and absurd. We are standing on the top of a bank in a developed big city, laughing at the absurdity of the people in the era of castles, knights, and lords;"

"But in the future, that more civilized generation will also stand on the top of even taller buildings, looking at the glass plates in their hands while laughing at us in this era as evil."

"Mr. Albert, give time to civilization, and also give civilization to time. Do not evaluate civilization over a span of decades; after all, compared to ethnic groups and civilizations, we who have only lived for less than fifty years are really too small."

Mr. Albert nodded slowly and stopped discussing this topic:

"Let's go, the people we are looking for are not here. They avoided the Parsifal Club and went in the opposite direction."

The red butterfly and the bat swarm flew into the distance in the fog. With the increase in the number of times Xia De used his miracles and his... relationship progress with the Grace and Helen sisters, he was now more handy at using the "Red Butterfly Avatar." In the past, he still had to worry about mental breakdown due to using miracles for a long time, but now it was no problem as long as it wasn't for an excessively long time.

Mr. Albert occasionally turned back into human form to conduct reconnaissance in the fog, so the two moved forward all the way, finally arriving at the riverbank street of the Taton River. Fortunately, this time it was not that Moon Bay Bridge that had not yet been completed.

Arriving here, the continuous gunshots became loud again. The people chasing that box of documents and that card met here again and started to exchange fire. The two bypassed the crowd fighting in the fog and continued forward, finally seeing Mr. Fellinger carrying a suitcase and Miss Brown, who had been shot in the arm but still insisted on moving forward, on the riverbank not long after.

They were both wearing ordinary civilian clothes. Mr. Fellinger was in overalls and a black jacket, while Miss Brown was in a floral dress and a beige hat. They hadn't seen each other for half a year, and their physical changes were not big, but they had both changed their hairstyles, and at this moment they were both covering the lower half of their faces with black cloth, which was a very good way to hide their identities in the fog. ===== CHAPTER 2398 =====