- Hell.

The citizens of the Phoenix Empire will never practice any religion.

This provision was written into the Empire's constitution on the first day of its establishment and will never be shaken as a fundamental law. The churches, Bibles, texts, sculptures, paintings, etc., that were left over from the old centuries on this land, as long as they were religious, no matter how valuable they were, were all destroyed.

About heaven and hell, saints and redemption, Randall only vaguely saw a faint shadow in his mother's story. His mother had heard from his grandmother the story of Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, and had relayed it to him when he was very young.

He can't remember the general content of the story and the scene where his mother told the story at that time, but he vaguely remembers the beginning of the story, so when Gabriel says that he will take him to hell, he subconsciously thinks of Gabriel as the poet Virgil who shows Dante the way in Dante's story.

And the killers, kidnappers and dangerous people all over the city correspond to the she-wolf, lion and leopard in the story.

I don't know if Gabriel has seen Dante's story, Randall stands in the dark and begins to think crankily.

"What's wrong?"

Gabriel was watching him. Although he couldn't see it, he could still feel a familiar gaze.

"No, it's nothing."

"You're laughing. You're weird enough to laugh at that.'"

"Ah, I'm laughing, no?"

He touched his face, and he didn't notice it at all.

Gabriel didn't seem interested in paying any more attention to him. The sound of metal scraping against the ground came in the darkness, and after a few minutes, there was a "bang!" There was a loud bang, and the alley returned to silence again.

"What are you doing?" Do you want me to help?'

"No, it's over. You can do it if you come to me slowly, right?"

"Hmm."

He followed the sound and began to move cautiously.

Walking in the dark is a very painful thing, and once you lose your eyes to rely on, you will fall into a sense of extreme insecurity. The brain was shouting, warning him that it was dangerous to move rashly at this time, but fortunately, the body could still obey the emotional command at this moment. He hadn't been walking long when he came across a hand that was guiding him and correcting him.

Warm hand, he knew it belonged to Gabriel.

"Alright, that's enough. Now there is a well without a manhole cover ten centimeters in front of your body, and now you can only rely on your feet to approximate its location, and where the stairs at its edge are, and I will wait for you below.'"

"Shall we go down here?"

"Yes."

"And what about the uncle? He seemed to be seriously injured. Shall we just leave him alone?'

Randall was referring to the man who had been injured by Gabriel and was now lying on the ground with too much blood and fainting.

"I don't think you have figured out the situation yet, he's a suspect who came to kidnap you, and you still have that American time to care about his life or death."

"But ......"

"Long-winded. If you really have compassion for him, you should give yourself a shot so that he can wake up and hold your corpse for reward.'"

Gabriel's voice began to blur and had already climbed down.

Randall swallowed. Gabriel's words are ugly, but they are true, he can't do anything at the moment, and it is useless to dwell on them. He prayed for the man for a moment in his heart, and then decided to kick the man's business out of his mind. He could not move Gabriel easily in the dark, and it took him nearly twenty minutes to feel the location of the well and the stairs from the darkness and climb down. Fortunately, under the well, Gabriel turned on the light function of the ID card, and the closer to the end, the brighter the light became, and the faster he was.

Smack.

As soon as your feet hit the ground, there is the sound of water.

The air was far better than expected, and though it smelled of decay, it was not suffocating. The drain buried in Area 13 was much thicker than Randall had thought, and the radius of the water pipe was between 1.5 and 2 meters, and he had to tilt his neck to see the top of the pipe. Electric lights had been placed on the top, and now only a simple lampshade made of wire remained, and the bulb in the middle had long since been broken, and the filament was exposed to the air and cobwebs.

In the middle of the water pipe is a dark river with a little garbage and green algae, and a platform has been built next to the dark river that is ten centimeters higher than the dark river. He and Gabriel were standing by the river, and Hermes had come down with them, and was now standing on Gabriel's left shoulder.

"Where are we going next?"

"Keep up with Hermes."

Hermes flapped his wings and Gabriel began to run.

The footsteps of the two echoed through the sewer pipes. There is standing water under his feet, and the perennial water has caused the bottom of the pipe to be almost completely encroached by green algae, and Randall only feels that the grip on the soles of his feet is about equal to zero, even if he is running, the speed is not much faster than walking. Fortunately, Hermes was not fast, and Gabriel was also willing to wait for him, so that he would not be completely unable to catch up with them.

The criss-crossing sewer pipes were like a giant spider's web buried deep underground, and Randall had been running for a long time without seeing anything resembling a sign, and he had now completely lost his sense of direction.

The scene on both sides is exactly the same no matter how you run, with stone gray and dark green pipe walls and a dark river floating with garbage.

They had been running for twenty minutes, and when he looked out of breath, Gabriel offered to rest for a while.

"Okay, thank you."

He leaned against the wall of the tube, gasping for air.

Gabriel took a few steps away and took out his ID card to make a call, Randall thought it was for Diana, and the 3D image that emerged belonged to the girl he had met not long ago.

It's Shirley.

She was wearing a baggy cotton shirt, her short hair was unkempt, and her face was tired.

『…… Who disturbed someone's sleep so late ......?'

"Yo, sorry to interrupt, it's me."

"Ga, Gabi!"

The tiredness on Shirley's face disappeared in an instant.

"What's going on, please?" It's rare for you to come to me so late. I heard Aunt Diana say that you and Randall went to the festival, and the news just came out that there was a riot and a shooting at the festival, and it was a mess, are you okay? Are you home?'

"There was an accident, I can't go back now, Mom, I want you to take care of me for a few days."

"What's wrong? What the hell is going on?'

"You don't have to care."

Shirley in the picture smiled wryly, nodded, and agreed to Gabriel's request.

"I'm going to take Randall there and show me the way, Shirley."

Shirley was silent for five minutes as she digested Gabriel's words, "Gabby, do you know what you're talking about?"

"I know very well."

"Not to mention that you brought an unrelated person there...... Uncle Julian hasn't been there lately, and even I don't know where he's gone, and besides, our contact seems to have been noticed, and recently the people in the "station" have been replaced one after another, and the monitoring system has all been updated and upgraded.

Gabriel glanced back at Randall.

Shirley's gaze followed him, and she quickly retracted it.

"I've heard that he's an A-class citizen, and it's been spread in the shadows. Did you decide to take him there to hide for a while to protect him?'

Gabriel shook his head.

"Nope. I'm not going to bother protecting anyone but my mother."

"In that case, you just have to leave him. Leave him, Gabby, and go back to Aunt Diana, now the people in the 'shadows' are all over the streets of the 13th arrondissement, as long as you leave him, you are safe."

Randall stared at Gabriel's back.

Shirley was right, he knew very well that as long as Gabriel left him, he would be safe. He had also persuaded Gabriel, but at the moment, he was a little afraid to hear any sound of agreement from Gabriel's mouth.

"I have my own plans."

Gabriel shook his head again, "I said one last time, I'm going over there and showing me the way. If you don't want to, you can hang up on me right away."

Shirley sighed and compromised without much struggle.

"You know there's no way I'm not going to talk to you without helping you, right? It's a bad idea.'" She bends down and reappears moments later with a laptop in her hand.

Like Gabriel's Hermes, laptops are something that individuals are not allowed to own in the D-class area.

"What are you going to trade for this time?"

"Wait, in addition to helping me show me the way, I'll send you a coordinates, and there's something for you to deal with, and I'll pay you the price of the two things together."

"Okay, the price will come back later."

Shirley nodded, her hands moving quickly on the keyboard. "I've received the coordinates from Hermes, the specific route...... All planning is complete, OK, the transfer is complete. Gabi, be sure to come back as soon as possible, it's definitely not a wise decision to go there at this time, the day of the cleaning is coming, even you ......

"I know, thank you."

Gabriel moved his finger to close the call.

Before Shirley's 3D portrait turned into a light and disappeared, Randall saw Shirley staring at him, silent, his lips moving and talking to him.

"Sure enough, I still hate you."

She seemed to say something like that.