Where there is light, there is darkness.
Before the Lower City came into being, the sins of Old Dunling spread through every shadowed corner. No matter how many soldiers the Iron Serpents carried, no matter how many corpses were dumped into the Thames, nothing changed.
Steam towers, carrying the world’s most advanced technology, pierced the clouds, while the darkest evils fermented in the mist below. With the emergence of the Lower City, these uncontainable sins finally had an outlet, gathering in that filthy place while the rest of Old Dunling lived in false purity.
The Lower City was so unique that it couldn’t help but seem mysterious.
Due to this uniqueness, Su Yalan Hall had unspoken rules, one of which was that officers were forbidden to enter the Lower City. Those desperate criminals cared nothing for their own lives; for a certain amount of wealth, they would casually kill any officer who dared to enter.
The mounted police dared not enter rashly; they were waiting for further orders.
Burton was far from comfortable in this situation. It was clear that these people were here for the suspects. A perfect coordination: no matter how much chaos they caused in the Outer City to cover their tracks, once they entered the Lower City, the cavalry would have to let them go with so many desperate criminals watching.
It had been a standoff, but from the moment Eve killed that gang member, a firefight was imminent.
“Run!”
In the urgency, Burton could only shout this one word before the deafening gunfire rang out.
The gangsters opened fire with a mishmash of weapons, mostly homemade, bullets flying in all directions.
Eve dived and rolled behind the Iron Serpent’s wreckage, her ears filled with the sound of metal impacting, tearing at her eardrums.
Burton had taken cover behind the Iron Serpent before her; he was a man of action, his words always following his deeds.
“What do we do?!”
The young detective was clearly panicked, never expecting her first day on the job to be this intense.
“Wait. When I tell you to run, you run! Understand?”
Burton shouted, straining to make his voice clear over the gunfire. Eve was still useful to him; he couldn’t let her die.
Pointing to the line of cavalry behind them, he shouted, “Run there! You’re a detective—they won’t let you die. Once you cross that line, these thugs won’t dare lay a hand on you!”
This was another rule: those from the Lower City were not allowed to enter the Outer City. In Old Dunling’s eyes, they were nothing but illegal immigrants, and by law, all detectives had the right to shoot any thug who entered the Outer City without permission.
Chaos reigned, yet it was bound by iron laws.
Boro had said it: the Lower City existed because Old Dunling needed it. Old Dunling was a vast, mad city, prosperous and beautiful, but it always had trash to dispose of. Once scattered in every corner, now it was concentrated in the Lower City—a trash can.
Burton’s gray-blue eyes held many secrets; he was a man entwined with the mysterious.
“Run, girl!”
He slapped her back, too urgent to notice the softness, and stepped out with his shotgun.
Pulling the trigger was like firing a starting pistol.
Without realizing it, Eve had begun to trust Burton. As he stepped forward with his gun, she ran backward, a new round of chaos unfolding with gunfire and whistles.
A bullet pierced a skull, and shattered shrapnel knocked down several nearby men, blood splattering in a gruesome display.
The thugs rushed forward with rusted blades. Burton barely dodged, then the Winchester roared, tearing apart the man’s upper body.
They were not like Vohl; their bodies had not undergone that eerie transformation. Ordinary flesh and blood couldn’t withstand this shot—after all, this weapon had never been designed for killing humans in the first place.
It was a familiar and exhilarating feeling, the unique smell of blood filling the dirty street, as if he were being awakened, his own blood feeling like it was boiling.
Gunfire continued nonstop.
Burton had never considered himself a good person, a conclusion reached during his late-night reflections, so he showed no mercy in his actions.
The continuous whistles of Su Yalan Hall’s special iron whistles cut through the air, capable of emitting different frequency scales. In emergencies, these mounted police used them for communication, like a simple Morse code, conveying important messages through different sequences of whistles.
They were communicating frequently.
Burton had spent a long time learning this top-secret communication method. While he couldn’t fully decipher it, he could now barely understand some simple commands.
After a series of urgent short whistles came a long trill. Burton blew apart the burly man’s skull in front of him, then felt a surge of pressure.
He understood the whistle: reinforcements were about to arrive.
Price gripped the reins, facing the wind with a troubled expression.
He was leading the follow-up cavalry to the Lower City at high speed. At this moment, Price didn’t care about the case; more important than the case was Eve.
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As Burton had guessed, Eve was from a noble family. As a senior detective ordered to mentor such a rookie, Price could tell Eve’s identity was extraordinary.
Eve couldn’t die. If she did, those damned nobles would skin him alive.
Of course, Price had a bigger worry in his heart: Burton.
He felt like he had seen this detective somewhere before. After struggling to recall, a familiar figure gradually emerged in his mind, and just the thought of it sent a chill down his spine.
Price dared not confirm his inference, but he also couldn’t deceive himself. His rifle, already loaded with bullets, hung by his side, and a fully loaded revolver was tucked into his waist. He felt as if he were going into battle.
After all, if he might be facing one of the Lower City’s monstrosities, no amount of preparation was too much.
Even now, Price considered it the most vicious case he had ever experienced: in the mist, blood soaked the ground, and the Thames was filled with bodies and blood.
Price would never forget that figure: one of the main players in the Red River Massacre, Butcherbird’s Iron Thorn.
With rough hands, he slowly picked up his rifle. The blocked cavalry was already visible in the distance; Price knew he was almost there.
So he put the iron whistle to his lips, and a loud, piercing trill cut through the red sunset.
At the sound of the whistle, the cavalry that had been watching coldly raised their guns in unison, the black muzzles forming a wall of death.
Eve had not looked back since she started running, her ears filled with the roar of bullets. She didn’t know why she trusted Burton, but like following her instincts, she had obeyed and was still alive.
The last rays of the setting sun spilled from the horizon, bathing everything in a crimson hue. Eve couldn’t make out the faces of the cavalry; they stood with their backs to the afterglow, like dark silhouettes.
After the whistle, gunfire rang out in unison.
For a moment, Eve thought she was going to die, but the bullets whizzed past her side, shooting toward the chaos. Then the cavalry began to advance, their tall warhorses passing by her, heading toward the filthy area.
“Eve!”
Suddenly someone called her name, a dark shadow running through the afterglow to her side.
“Officer Price!”
Seeing the familiar face, Eve finally relaxed, but then she realized the trouble she was in; with so much happening, she was sure to be scolded.
“Fall back. This is no place for you now.”
Price’s expression was grave, holding his rifle, and although he was speaking to Eve, his gaze remained fixed ahead, fixed on the scene in front of him.
“I—”
Eve tried to say something, but Price interrupted her.
“That man might be the Iron Thorn. Not a case for a rookie like you. Move aside!”
Iron Thorn?
Something seemed to stir in Eve’s memory; she thought she remembered the term, but she couldn’t recall what it meant for a moment. Then Price pushed past her, shouldering his rifle, and the muzzle flared with fire.
No matter how violent the thugs were, they were no match for the regular army’s firepower. The battle ended quickly, and the entire area was cleared, with arrested thugs tied up on the side.
This incident had a bigger impact than anyone imagined: Victoria Central Hospital had been set on fire, a steam tram had derailed, and now this firefight.
Night had fallen, and huge Zeppelins moved through the sky, casting light on the dark area.
Price sat on his horse, gripping his gun, scanning the arrested thugs.
“Found him yet?”
Another mounted police officer approached slowly, speaking to Price.
“No… Sergeant Donas.”
There was disappointment and self-blame in Price’s eyes.
“Sorry for deploying so much police force based on my hunch.”
“It’s fine. A firefight of this size justifies the deployment. Too bad we didn’t catch the Iron Thorn,” Sergeant Donas said slowly.
“But Price, according to our intelligence, the Iron Thorn disappeared after the Red River Massacre. Some say he died in that case, but we never found his body; others say Butcherbird sent him out of Inverweg.”
“He’s still here. I’ve always felt it,” Price said firmly in response to the sergeant’s question.
After a moment of silence, the sergeant chose to trust Price’s intuition.
“Then what is he here for this time?”
Sergeant Donas was confused. For years, the Red River Massacre had been a dark cloud over Su Yalan Hall, tarnishing their so-called honor. They had never given up tracking the Iron Thorn but had found nothing. He was almost forgotten, but now he was back.
“I don’t know, Sergeant, but I’ve always had this feeling,” Price said, his usual laziness gone, more serious than ever.
“He’s been in Old Dunling all along, just too crafty to be noticed, even if he walked right past us.”
