Chapter 152: Not Yet Extinguished

"The big shot who ranks second on the hunting leaderboard!"

"Terrifying to behold!"

"Thank you, sir, for saving our lives! What, what should we do next?!"

"No matter what, we will follow you..."

A dozen surviving survivors cheered, but before long, the atmosphere turned inexplicably eerie and fanatical, with some even showing expressions of madness on their faces.

"To save more people, of course."

A tu wore a hearty and kind smile on her face, looking out over the gray-fog-shrouded land as if her sight was completely unimpeded.

Surrounded by the crowd, she spread her arms, inhaling the air mixed with blood and stench, and imagined the future.

"Go and save more people!"

"Let everyone break free from despair!"

"Make this world a better place! No disputes, no riots, where everyone can enjoy beauty!"

The woman spoke loudly like a celebrity politician.

Everyone was captivated by her "ideal."

However, at that moment, on the edge of the crowd, a survivor with a similarly frantic expression experienced a twist in his features.

For some reason, he suddenly felt his chest grow slightly warm, and he stopped praising the "big shot."

Because a small area on his chest was getting hotter and hotter...

An inexplicable power pulled him slightly out of a daze of chaotic confusion.

What was going on? A look of bewilderment crossed his face as he instinctively reached into his chest and pulled out the object that kept growing hot.

It was a necklace, a necklace set with a blood-red gemstone, and it was this blood-red gemstone that was generating the heat.

"What is this?"

Seeing it, the survivor was stunned, as if for a moment he couldn't remember what it was.

At that moment, his heart harbored only a frantic, morbid zeal for a certain existence.

Yet soon, in just the blink of an eye, he realized what this item was!

It was a blood-like stone he had managed to acquire on the first day.

It could provide a sort of early warning...

When it gave a warning, it would continuously heat up, usually felt as just a clearly perceptible warmth...

Previously, he had relied on this blood-red gemstone to keep his sanity and escape when encountering lord-grade aberrations...

However, weren't they safe now?

All the surrounding aberrations had been killed by the big shot ranked second...

Confusion washed over the survivor's heart.

Yet, incomprehensibly, the quail-egg-sized blood-red gemstone in his hand continued to heat up, radiating a special power that made him increasingly lucid.

The problem was, what was there to give a warning about?

Amidst his confusion, he wanted to raise his head and tell everyone that something might be wrong nearby...

Yet the very instant he raised his head, the survivor was suddenly gripped by an indescribable terror descending upon him.

The source of this extreme terror was that... big shot surrounded by the crowd?

The survivor's breathing quickened involuntarily...

Clutching the increasingly scalding blood-red gemstone, he couldn't help blinking, doubting whether he had seen wrong...

Yet after blinking, he suddenly felt his vision darken, as if invisible, transparent, chaotic entities were writhing all around.

And behind the woman who called herself the second-ranked "Atu Nyatoth," the survivor seemed to see a twisted, gigantic figure, its head writhing like tentacles, exuding an aura that drove one mad.

The blood-red gemstone in his hand grew even hotter, like a piece of red-hot iron, even burning his skin and emitting a faint smell of scorched flesh.

Yet he could no longer care about that; he simply stared blankly at the unspeakably horrifying scene before him, deeply shocked and unable to move.

The environment became increasingly indescribable...

Gradually, he made out the figure behind that woman—a massive monster composed of unspeakable black-green flesh and tentacles...

In this pale and eerie space, its tentacles vibrated with piercing screeches, radiating chaos as they writhed...

"Riot, fragmentation, disruption, this world is about to lose order..."

"Ah, this world is truly so wonderful..."

"Do you all think so too? Hhahahahahaha..."

The woman's voice emanated from it, yet it conveyed not a shred of beauty, only horrifying utterances...

Yet the surrounding people remained completely oblivious, and their figures grew increasingly faint, resembling blurred shadows...

What on earth was going on?

A chill suddenly struck the survivor's heart as he despairingly discovered that the woman's body had been torn into tattered remnants, entangled and brandished by tentacles...

Voices continued to issue from it...

The survivor seemed to realize something, blankly raising his line of sight a fraction, and his heart skipped a beat.

Atop its blood-red tentacle that served as a head, he saw the constantly speaking head of the silver-haired woman impaled...

Before such a terrifying entity, even with the protection of special power, his mind continued to waver...

Suddenly...

The man's heart abruptly stopped, his pupils constricted to pinpricks, as if he had ceased to breathe...

For the monster loudly conversing among the crowd had noticed him. The blood-red tentacle shifted slightly, and the speaking female head atop its peak turned to look at him...

...

...

...

Meanwhile, in the nitre mine, amidst the harrowing battlefield blanketed by choking odors, from a trench piled with earth and mutilated limbs, a hand stained with filth and blood suddenly reached out from the pit.

Shortly after, a servant, battered and bloody beyond recognition with hardly a patch of intact skin, yet whose physique barely revealed him to be a servant, struggled to crawl out.

Compared to ordinary servants, he looked sturdier, which indicated he was a tier-three servant...

More accurately, this seemed to be a former Lamp-bearer captain previously cataloged and numbered by Colin.

The battle seemed to be over...

No sooner had he crawled out than he moved toward a certain direction, his fingers digging into the dirt, dragging his body and crawling forward inch by inch.

He had been one of the five servants rescued by Colin at a "heavy cost," later promoted to "Lamp-bearer" of the twenty-first squad...

At this moment, within his blurred vision, a faint lamplight seemed to be burning...

He crawled forward unwaveringly toward that beacon of light.

Before long, he crawled to this spot, his shattered, exposed flesh, bone, and increasingly chilling body feeling warmth once again.

He felt warmth from that battered, scarred, yet still burning storm lantern...

For the very last time, the Lamp-bearer used his remaining strength to press the storm lantern into his arms to protect it.

"Wonderful... the lamp hasn't gone out."

Following the sudden darkness right before the night completely passed away, the horizon began to turn pale, and a hazy light spilled over this remaining upper half of a mutilated torso.

Dawn had arrived.