Several blood extractors from the Blood Livestock Factory ran for their lives down the gloomy street.
The sky above was no longer a sky; it had turned into a massive, upside-down pool of blood. Dark red light seeped down from behind the clouds, dyeing the entire city in an ominous scarlet.
Under that light, the walls on both sides of the street took on a rust-like hue. Even their shadows were dragged out long and twisted, as if something was crawling out from the darkness.
They ran through an alley. Their boots stepped into puddles, splashing not water, but the fresh blood that was usually regarded as a commodity. Right now, however, no one was in the mood to collect it.
"Over here!"
The lizardman running at the very front turned into an even narrower alley, pushed open a half-closed iron door, and dodged inside.
The other few followed closely behind. The last one to enter was a Succubus; she turned around and closed the door. The muffled thud of the iron door shutting echoed in the narrow space for quite a while before dissipating.
This was a blood storage warehouse. The four walls were stacked high with sealed metal canisters. Pipes hung down from the ceiling, the needles at their ends still bearing dried, dark traces.
The group leaned against the wall and slowly slid down to sit, panting heavily. The lizardman was the first to catch his breath. His eyes darted rapidly in the dim light, sweeping over every face. "Does anyone know what those things are?"
The Succubus hugged her knees, her fingernails digging into her own arms, leaving several white marks.
"I... I just saw a thick fog roll in," her voice trembled, "and then the whole room went dark. By the time I opened my eyes again, the factory manager had already been dragged out the window by that thing. His leg was still caught on the window... I heard the sound of bones breaking, and the sound of him crying for help..."
Another tall, burly Horned Demon had a face as white as paper: "Those things... those things didn't come from outside. They grew right out of our factory. I saw it; they popped out from the shadows and kept getting bigger and bigger!"
"What about the soldiers?" the lizardman's voice was kept very low. "There are so many soldiers in the city, where did they all go?"
However, no one knew.
Right at this moment, the sound of heavy, slow footsteps came from outside the door. The footsteps were too heavy—so heavy that even the ground trembled slightly, so heavy that the metal canisters on the walls began to gently collide, emitting fine clinking sounds.
The Succubus shoved her fingers into her mouth, biting down to keep her teeth from chattering.
The lizardman pressed his hand against the dagger at his waist, his knuckles turning white.
The Horned Demon shrank his entire body into a corner, curling up into a ball.
The footsteps lingered outside for a long time. Sometimes they sounded close, as if right outside the door, and sometimes a bit further away, but they never left. It seemed to be searching for something, and all the demons present guessed what it was searching for—it was searching for them!
After a long time, the sound finally disappeared.
The Succubus slowly released the fingers she was biting, leaving a row of deep tooth marks on them.
She listened intently for a while. Only after confirming there was no more movement outside did she say in a voice that was almost a whisper, "That thing should have already..."
BANG!!!
The warehouse roof blasted open. Gravel and rubble rained down on their heads as a giant iron hook descended from the hole, piercing right through the Succubus's chest. She only had time to let out a short scream before her entire body was lifted up by that hook. With her limbs flailing weakly in the air, she disappeared from the other demons' sight.
The blood falling from the Succubus splattered onto the lizardman's face. The latter lunged fiercely toward the door, smashed the iron door open, and rushed out, with the others following closely behind. The lizardman running at the front took a few steps and finally couldn't help but look back.
He regretted it.
That thing was ten meters tall.
Its body was not flesh and blood, nor was it metal; it was a twisted monster formed from a mass of countless torture instruments piled together!
Whips lashed in the air like tentacles, pincers opened and closed emitting crisp clicking sounds, branding irons burned red-hot, and iron hooks protruded from all over its body.
The lizardman saw faces he recognized embedded within the monster.
Those colleagues who worked in the factory just like him—some had their necks wrapped in whips and were hung in midair; some had their waists clamped by pincers, their bodies folded up unnaturally; and others, like the Succubus, were skewered on hooks, swinging back and forth.
Tubes pierced into their bodies, frantically extracting their blood.
He also saw the factory manager.
That fat man with sadistic tendencies, who caused the deaths of several slaves every month, was currently embedded in the monster's chest.
His body was already completely shriveled, skin clinging tightly to his bones. His mouth was wide open, his eye sockets sunken deeply, and his two dried arms still maintained a forward-pushing posture—that was the trace of his final struggle before death.
The lizardman let out a scream, turned, and ran desperately for his life. He didn't dare to stop, nor did he dare to look back again.
And then he saw another one.
It turned out from around the corner, looking almost exactly identical to the one behind him. The only difference was that the ones embedded on this monster were the blood extractors from the neighboring factory.
The lizardman's legs went weak, leaving only one thought in his mind—it's over.
Two beams of light simultaneously tore through the dark red sky.
One was blindingly white, carrying a scorching aura like a line of fire drawn from the deepest core of the sun. It pierced through the first monster's chest, burning right through the factory manager who had already been drained into a mummy.
The other completely froze the second monster, turning it into a large ice sculpture.
The lizardman knelt on the ground and looked up, seeing the fluid humanoid walking out of the castle.
The Demon King frowned as he surveyed this hell-like scene.
"The Mist? No, although it's similarly a realistic illusion, the Mist is based on memories."
Looking at the "torture instrument monster" that was still struggling despite having a hole burned through it, this seemed more like something fabricated.
Furthermore, this environment seemed to be saturated with emotions of despair and hatred; it was very singular and absolutely not a normal memory.
Releasing mana from his hand, the Demon King expanded his reconnaissance range, and more information poured into his consciousness.
He saw the soldiers in the military camp on the north side of the city fighting monsters. He saw countless Demon-kin fleeing in terror, and he also saw at the port, countless comatose slaves being dragged by Puchis and tossed into a giant mushroom cap floating on the water.
Finally, he saw the source of it all.
In the center of the city was an emotionally broken, crazed slave who was laughing one moment and crying the next.
The source of the desperate mental fluctuations in the air lay upon him.
Wind kicked up beneath the Demon King's feet. In an extremely short amount of time, he arrived in front of the slave and grabbed the man, who was still roaring at the sky.
Seventh-tier magic—[Mind Seal]!
The instant the seal was applied, the man seemed to finally briefly sober up from his extreme emotions. Looking at the non-human entity before him, he revealed a smile full of pure hatred.
"You Empire demons deserve to die a thousand deaths by a thousand cuts. The great Fungal Lord has brought down a calamity. How many... can you... save..."
The seal took full effect. The man rolled his eyes back and fainted. The surrounding hell-like illusion also began to turn into pitch-black smoke and collapse bit by bit, revealing the original sky behind it.
The crisis in this city had been resolved, but the Demon King's face showed no joy whatsoever.
The giant Puchi loaded with slaves at the port had submerged into the seabed. And based on what this person had said, what was the situation in the other nearby cities right now?
(End of Chapter)
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