Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 673: Chapter 556 Forebear’s Guidance_1

He started out feeling great, refreshed, and invigorated, as if his body had become two pounds lighter after his successful revenge. About three minutes later, he sneezed, possibly choked by dust, but it didn’t matter to him.

In the time that followed, Blood Kiss was in a state of indescribable excitement. It was as if he were fifteen again, holding a young lady’s hand as they walked into a small room together. Even within this gloomy and eerie castle, he couldn’t help but hum a tune while leading the way, smiling.

”What are you smiling about?” Liz asked, puzzled, after receiving temporary treatment.

Blood Kiss covered his mouth and shook his head. ”I remembered something happy.”

Beside him, the assistant bandaging him also let out a small laugh for no apparent reason.

When Liz looked over, the assistant was startled for a moment, then tried hard to compose himself and put on a serious face to prove his professionalism.

”Sorry,” he said. ”I also remembered something happy.”

Liz looked at him suspiciously, her expression gradually darkening.

Her hand rested on the Stone Tooth Sword beside her. She suddenly asked, ”You two... are you thinking of the same happy thing?”

”Hmm?” Blood Kiss was startled. ”What’s wrong? No, no, no, Ms. Liz, we aren’t mocking you. I was just—”

He grew a bit anxious and sneezed again.

Then he saw the expressions of several people from the Ivy League turn ugly. Those people backed away a few steps, their hands moving to their weapons.

”Hold on, is there some misunderstanding here?”

He raised his hands to show he was harmless and took a step forward to explain. But he saw Liz wave her hand, the Stone Tooth Sword scratching a straight line on the ground.

”Stay right there.” Liz’s expression was icy. ”Sit down, Samson. Don’t come any closer.”

”What’s going on? Why so serious all of a sudden?”

Blood Kiss was stunned for a moment before he couldn’t help but chuckle, laughing uncontrollably. Soon, he saw the assistant’s horrified gaze.

That person staggered backward, his expression disbelieving.

And on the assistant’s face, between his nose and mouth, a layer of dark green mycelia was quietly extending.

”Hey, your face!” Blood Kiss exclaimed, furrowing his brow and trying hard to stifle his smile. ”What’s wrong with your face!”

The assistant’s face grew paler as he stumbled backward, almost falling into a corner. ”You—you’re the one with a problem on your face!”

Blood Kiss froze.

Subconsciously, he pulled out the knife from his boot. Immediately, the smooth blade illuminated his own pathologically excited face: eyebrows struggling to furrow, a smile that could not be contained.

And countless mycelia, writhing like living things, emerged from around his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

They were of all colors: red, green, blue, white, black... and more red, red, red...

He moved his mouth stiffly. A crack formed on his increasingly numb face. From behind the crack, a dark fluid, like something wriggling in shadows, mixed with blood and gradually seeped out.

Like a nightmare, it swiftly vaporized, forming vague trails of black smoke.

And from the palm holding the dagger, mycelia quickly sprouted from under his fingernails. They entangled the blade, causing it to rapidly decay and crumble.

SNAP!

On the progressively decaying blade, the last reflection was of his shattered pupils.

His notoriously terrifying Evil Eyes were filled with an unnatural excitement, now nearly bursting with the brightness of the Sun.

The colors of myriad bubbles emerged from the light, rapidly multiplying until even his pupils couldn’t contain them. They burst his pupils and turned into a hallucinatory mist, rising from his shattered eyes.

”What... is happening...?”

Unable to control himself, Blood Kiss screamed, ”Save me! Save me!!!”

His skin, having lost its flexibility like poorly tanned leather, made tiny cracking sounds as he moved, splitting inch by inch.

Beneath the cracked skin, countless mycelia and black blood flowed out in a sticky trickle.

In the blood, tendrils the color of pitch-black ink rapidly spread, writhing. From the pool of blood, beads of darkness improbably separated themselves from the blood and defied gravity, hovering in the air.

One drop, another drop, and yet another, each as black as night.

It was like an endless nightmare.

Countless mycelia stretched out from the splits in his body, twisting around the black liquid. Shrouded by layers of these mycelia, Blood Kiss’s tragic screams finally burst forth.

As his blood boiled, countless Source Substances, infected by the nightmare and pathologically altered, thoroughly corroded his deformed Stigma. The vicious poison from the Rotten Dream rapidly transformed his body, consuming the pervasive sediment of Hell...

Pale vapor, filled with countless bubbles, then began to rise from his fragmented eyes.

He was about to erupt.

The Stone Tooth Sword roared.

A fleeting flash, and then—

The next instant, the pitch-black Abyss poison, the mycelia like flesh-eating maggots, and even Blood Kiss’s body—all were torn apart by that ferocious Power.

He disintegrated.

In the silence, Blood Kiss’s head fell from his neck, landing on the ground with an empty, echoing thud.

No blood spurted out.

Only countless rotten dreams, turning into black bubbles, rose from the cavity of his neck, rapidly dissipating into the air. In the air, illusory black feathers drifted down, landing on the ground and disappearing along with the bubbles.

He was dead.

But it was not the Stone Tooth Sword that had killed him.

Long before that, under the corrosion of the Abyss poison, his Stigma had already formed a Rotting Dream within him, one filled with countless venoms and resentments.

Surrounded by the numerous Curses and deadly poisons he had forged throughout his life, he had gradually mutated into a pitiful creature, tormented in nightmares, unable to even scream.

Ultimately, as the dream shattered, so too did he meet his death.

Fifteen minutes later, after inspecting the assistant who lay in Deep Sleep within the ice coffin, a Scholar from the Ivy League approached Liz.

”It’s poison,” the Scholar said.

The middle-aged man in the protective suit held up a vial. ”A cursed poison. Extremely violent in nature, yet very stable until activated. I’m quite curious which researcher could have crafted such an exquisite substance.”

Liz frowned. ”Exquisite?”

She looked down at the crystalline black droplet in the vial. It was a toxin extracted from the assistant’s body, put into Deep Sleep by the forced preservation of a Border Relic.

”Yes, exactly. Very exquisite,” the Scholar affirmed, narrowing his eyes. ”In the brief analysis I’ve just performed,” he continued, ”I’ve identified characteristics of more than forty different hellish toxins. With professional equipment, even more could surely be detected. But essentially, it more closely resembles a Source Curse that spreads and proliferates through blood, possessing a kind of transformative characteristic of a higher order.”

”Once activated, it starts to mutate and spread rapidly, manifesting different characteristics depending on the host. This level of invasiveness... it’s less like an infection and more like contamination.”

”Blood Kiss fell victim to this. By the time it was discovered, it was already beyond salvation—his body had too many traces of Curses and toxins. For this particular poison, he was an excellent breeding ground. If it were someone else... well, I can’t say there would be hope for a cure, but at least they wouldn’t have died so horribly.”

”Will our Antidote be of any use?” Liz asked.

”It would be useful, but I don’t recommend using it,” the Scholar replied. ”If the poison evolves resistance, that would be disastrous. Without proper medical facilities, it’s best to use suppressants to prevent it from entering a critical outbreak phase. We can attempt full treatment once we return to base.”

After glancing behind him, the Scholar looked at Liz. ”Fortunately, we brought plenty of other precautionary measures. Apart from you, Ms. Liz, everyone else will need to wear a Helmet.”

Liz leaned on her Stone Tooth Sword, her expression grave. ”Is there any more bad news? You might as well tell me all at once.”

”The drones we sent out have lost signal,” the Scholar replied. ”Our diviners attempted two divinations, but to no avail. I’m afraid the internal space here has been completely warped.”

”A maze?” Liz asked.

The Scholar nodded. ”Exactly that, yes.”

”Any other issues?” Liz asked.

The Scholar hesitated for a moment before speaking. ”Should we continue? After losing a leader, the members of the Eye of Nightmare are getting unruly. Some of them want to renegotiate the price with us.”

”...”

Liz furrowed her brows, clearly annoyed. After a long silence, she suddenly sighed. ”Quitting smoking is truly difficult, Mr. Rondo. Some problems in this world just can’t be solved.”

Rondo raised his eyebrows knowingly.

In the silence, Liz lowered her head to gaze at the Stone Tooth Sword in her hand. For some reason, she suddenly began to smile.

”Fortunately,” she murmured, ”there are always ways to solve the simpler problems.”

Fifteen minutes later, they continued on.

After witnessing the ”repose” promised by their god, no one dared to negotiate terms with the High Priest anymore.

「...」

Huai Shi saw Condra again.

As he walked through the maze’s intricate paths, among dead and desolate crossroads, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure in a passageway.

He paused, frowning.

Just a momentary daze? An illusion? he wondered.

”Did any of you see a figure?” Huai Shi asked, looking back at his Guard Team.

The members of the Guard Team glanced at each other, shook their heads in confusion, and then devoutly praised, ”Holy!”

Well, at least they shook their heads this time. That’s progress, Huai Shi thought.

He felt like he was losing hair from stress and rubbed his throbbing forehead. Am I under too much pressure? Seriously, why am I always dumped by unreliable leaders into all sorts of godforsaken places? Could it be Tong Ji wasn’t bluffing when she said, ”ladle out waters of the blue sea until exhausted”?

”Holy!”

The Paradise Guards repeated their devout praise. Huai Shi couldn’t tell if they were agreeing with him or not.

Huai Shi, the ultimate gofer, didn’t want to talk anymore.

He continued forward. But as he walked, he glanced back and saw Condra’s figure again.

It was still just a flash before it vanished.

Condra stood at the crossroads, his swollen figure hunched over as if waiting for something.

When Huai Shi tried to get a better look, the figure disappeared again.

There was no attack, no attempt at an ambush. It was as if Condra simply wanted to assert his presence and make Huai Shi’s heart pound.

”What in the Nine Hells are you up to?!” Huai Shi fumed. ”Did you get a kick out of scaring people after turning into a ghost?!”

Huai Shi was furious. He drew his sword and marched over, intending to catch the bastard and cut him down.

But when he returned to the fork in the road, he involuntarily glanced towards the end of the passage where Condra had appeared. A vague footprint remained on the ground there.

It looked like a marker.

Huai Shi scratched his head, stunned. He stood there for a while, somewhat in disbelief.

What was this?

Was that guy... guiding me?