Chapter 731 - 720: Shared Despair
Chapter 731: Chapter 720: Shared Despair
Several blood extractors from the Blood Beast Factory were fleeing for their lives down the eerie street.
The sky above was no longer a sky; it had transformed into a gigantic inverted blood pool, with ominous red light seeping from behind the clouds, painting the entire city an ominous crimson.
The walls on either side of the street reflected a rusty hue in the light, with shadows stretched long and twisted, as if something was crawling out of the darkness.
They raced through an alley, their boots splashing in the puddles, not water, but blood once considered merchandise, though now no one had the mind to collect it.
"This way!"
The Lizardman at the front turned into an even narrower alley, pushed open a half-closed iron door, and slipped inside.
The others followed closely, and the last to enter was an Enchanting Demon, who turned around and shut the door, the dull thud of the closing iron reverberating for a long time in the confined space before fading away.
This was a blood storage warehouse. The walls were filled with sealed metal cans, with pipes hanging from the ceiling, their tips bearing dry dark stains.
A few people slid down the wall slowly and sat gasping for air. The Lizardman recovered first, his eyeballs darting quickly in the dim light, scanning every face. "Who knows what that thing is?"
The Enchanting Demon hugged her knees, her nails digging into her arm, leaving white marks.
"I... I just saw a mist coming," her voice shaking, "and the whole room went dark. When I opened my eyes again, the factory manager had already been dragged out through the window by that thing. His leg was still hanging on the window sill, and I heard the sound of bones breaking and his cries for help..."
Another tall and muscular Horned Demon, his face pale as paper: "That thing... it didn’t come from outside. It grew out of our factory. I saw it, emerging from the shadows, growing larger!"
"And the soldiers?" The Lizardman’s voice was very low, "Where have all the soldiers in the city gone?"
Yet no one knew.
Just then, slow, heavy footsteps sounded outside the door, so heavy that the ground trembled slightly, causing the metal cans on the walls to gently clink together.
The Enchanting Demon stuffed her fingers into her mouth, biting down to prevent her teeth from chattering.
The Lizardman gripped the dagger at his waist, his knuckles turning white.
The Horned Demon curled his whole body into a corner, huddling into a ball.
The footsteps lingered outside for a long while, sometimes close enough to seem right outside the door, and sometimes a bit farther away, but they never left; they seemed to be searching for something, and all the demons present guessed what it was searching for—them!
After a long time, the sound finally disappeared.
The Enchanting Demon slowly released her bitten fingers, leaving deep tooth marks on her lips.
She listened attentively for a moment, confirming there was no movement outside anymore, then spoke in a voice barely above a whisper: "That thing should have already..."
Bang—!!!
The warehouse roof exploded, debris and rubble raining down on them, and a massive iron hook descended from the broken ceiling, piercing through the Enchanting Demon’s chest.
She could only emit a short scream before being lifted by the hook, her limbs flailing powerlessly in the air, disappearing from the demons’ sight.
The blood spilled from the Enchanting Demon splashed onto the Lizardman’s face, and he darted towards the door, shoving the iron door open and rushing out, with the others close behind.
The Lizardman at the front ran a few steps, finally unable to resist looking back.
He regretted it.
That thing was ten meters tall.
Its body wasn’t flesh, wasn’t metal, but a twisted monster formed from countless torture devices stacked together!
Whips swung in the air like tentacles, pliers snapped open and shut with a crisp click, branding irons glowed red-hot, and hooks protruded from various parts of its body.
The Lizardman saw familiar faces on the monster’s body.
Those fellow workers from the factory were held by whips at the neck, dangling in the air; some had their waists clamped by pliers, their bodies folding unnaturally; others like the Enchanting Demon, swayed back and forth on hooks.
Pipes were inserted into their bodies, frantically extracting blood.
He also saw the factory manager.
The sadistic fat man, who caused several slave deaths every month, was now embedded in the monster’s chest.
His body was completely shriveled, skin tightly wrapped around bones, mouth agape, eye sockets sunken, and his dry arms still maintained a pushing posture—that was his last struggle before death.
The Lizardman let out a scream and ran desperately, not daring to stop or look back again.
And then he saw another one.
It turned around from the corner, almost identical to the one behind, the only difference was, this monster had the blood extractors from the neighboring factory embedded within it.
The Lizardman’s legs went weak, with only one thought left in his mind—it’s over.
Two beams of light simultaneously tore through the crimson sky.
One was fiery white, carrying a scorching aura, like a fire line drawn from the depths of the sun, piercing through the chest of the first monster, scorching through along with the factory manager turned corpse.
The other beam froze the second monster entirely, turning it into a large ice sculpture.
The Lizardman knelt on the ground, looking up, seeing the Slime Man emerging from the castle.
The Demon King frowned at the hellish scene.
"Mist? No, though it’s a similar real illusion, mist is based on memory."
Looking at the "torture monster" that was burnt through but still struggling, it seemed more like something fictional.
Moreover, the environment seemed saturated with despair and hatred, exceedingly singular, definitely not normal memory.
Magic Power emanated from his hands, the Demon King expanded his scouting range, more information flooding into his consciousness.
He saw soldiers in the northern city camp engaged in battle with monsters, saw countless demons fleeing in terror, and saw at the port, numerous unconscious slaves being dragged and thrown into a giant mushroom hat floating on the water by Puki.
Finally, he found the source of it all.
In the city center, a frenzied slave was emotionally breaking down, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.
The source of despairing Spirit fluctuations in the air was on him.
Wind flew beneath the Demon King’s feet, arriving in front of the slave in an instant, grabbing the man who was howling skywards.
Tier Seven Magic—Spiritual Lock!
At the moment of lock-in, the man seemed briefly lucid from extreme emotion, giving the non-human in front of him a smile full of hatred.
"Demon Race of the Empire deserves to be torn to pieces, the great Mushroom Lord has descended calamity, how many can you save..."
The lock was fully effective, the man rolled his eyes and passed out, the hellish illusion realm around them also began to crumble into dark mist, bit by bit revealing the original sky behind.
The city’s crisis was lifted, but the Demon King’s face bore no trace of joy.
The large Puki containing slaves sank beneath the sea, and according to what this man said, what is the situation in the nearby cities now?