Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 691: Chapter 569 Key_1

Even in prison, with no knowledge of the outside world, Huai Shi could guess what had happened.

When strategic weapons like Abnormal Hell· Teralocan and Dome Giant· Astra appeared, it signaled that the conflict between the Iron Crystal Throne and the Ivy League had entered another phase.

The two sides began to engage in substantial confrontations, striving for control over every inch of territory and doing everything in their power to delay each other’s operational efficiency.

With advanced technical abilities, both had decrypted the outer defenses of the Town of Dusk, firmly rooting themselves into its system as if they were tenacious squatters.

Having such access, even without entering the high tower’s core, locating the remaining sub-control centers posed no problem.

Each sub-control center represented further control over the Town of Dusk, and also implied that a new Curse would be injected into this Hell...

Such cunningly laid traps were designed to maximally weaken the enemy while keeping the limits within a range their own people could withstand.

Reduced sanity, toxic air, halved physical strength, weakened state, incessant bleeding, accelerated decay, aging rain, Burning Wind, sediment tide...

To this day, Huai Shi couldn’t imagine what the outside world had become; it was simply filled with countless debuffs—nightmarish even to contemplate.

In fact, this level of restraint would move even a war history teacher to tears.

Whether it was the Iron Crystal Throne or the Ivy League, both possessed the technological capability to easily destroy this part of Hell—even if only through Curses, there were a hundred thousand options more vicious than the current ones.

But neither the Iron Crystal Throne nor the Ivy League would cause significant destruction to this Hell before thoroughly investigating the Central District.

This wasn’t just because the Town of Dusk possessed immense productive capacity, but also because of what this capacity represented.

Even though the Town of Dusk had once brought disaster upon itself, one fact remained undeniable.

The miracles they created were real, not fictitious.

This wasn’t limited to the insane history recorded in the ruins—tales of recreating worlds, suns, moons, the heavens and earth, and all living things—nor just dangerous experiments like the Eternal Life Machine. It referred to actual Divine Artifacts, truly unique and magnificent creations!

—Eternal Frozen Heart!

This supreme achievement left by the Forgers was unknown and uncelebrated until just before the last war of worlds.

It made only a single appearance, during the Hell Workshop Master’s decisive battle against the Sea of Titans, yet it had once shattered the equilibrium of the Depth Area and dictated the war’s trajectory.

Its function was brutishly simple.

In a nutshell, it was a ’Super Gigantic Perpetual Motion Machine’.

According to records from the Iron Crystal Throne, its power output was sufficient to drive an entire Hell indefinitely, supply the energy consumption of numerous Authority Relics, and continue until the end of time...

To think that, possessing such power, they still lost to the Sea of Titans—one can only wonder what kind of incompetent fools the Hell Workshop Masters of that era truly were.

Such a treasure, with even the mere possibility of its existence within the Town of Dusk, was enough to make both sides wary, compelling them to restrain each other and avoid irreversible damage and losses.

Now, while Huai Shi was comfortably slacking off in solitary confinement, there was undoubtedly a fierce battle raging outside.

Meanwhile, Huai Shi was enjoying meticulously cooked three meals a day, thorough physical examinations and care, and an unlimited supply of happy water... He even began a new business in prison, becoming the soothing Soloist Huai Shi, making an indelible contribution to the mental health of Ivy League members.

If it were anyone else in this position, accused of not having defected, Huai Shi himself wouldn’t believe their innocence!

He had unwittingly become the ’Second fifth’.

And he hadn’t even found an opportunity to betray the organization...

In reality, neither Huai Shi nor the Ivy League had intended for things to turn out this way.

Initially, they had wanted Huai Shi to perform hard labor, to serve as a sort of warm-up, and they planned to record it and send it to the Great Grandmaster to humiliate the Ivory Tower.

But after all the hassle, they found that Huai Shi was utterly useless—good for nothing but eating.

He couldn’t do any work, was of no help, and even picking vegetables from the kitchen could cause collective diarrhea the next day, yet all evidence showed it had absolutely nothing to do with Huai Shi...

He couldn’t be beaten, couldn’t be scolded, couldn’t be released—what the hell were they supposed to do with him?

While others worked, he watched. While others stood, he sat. This wasn’t a captive; this was a lordly supervisor!

With no other choice, the Colonel kicked him into solitary confinement. ’Just stay there quietly,’ he must have thought. ’Don’t come out and be an eyesore, getting in everyone’s way.’

As a result, it became Liz’s turn to have a headache, as she was in charge of internal security.

She was so frustrated she lost several strands of hair.

Liz was startled to discover for the first time that Sublimators could also lose hair! Could the rumor of the ’bald agent’ from the Astronomical Society be true?

After the routine tranquilizer injection, Huai Shi’s tracking Bracelet and the miniaturized bomb collar around his neck were reattached.

Huai Shi lay in bed until three o’clock in the afternoon before he finally recovered his breath. Suddenly, his fingers twitched.

But amidst the drowsiness and stupor, darkness suddenly fell before his eyes.

Curse.

He felt someone cursing him.

Even using something closely associated with him as a medium... In the irregularity of his heartbeat, he could discern the trend of his blood running out of control.

But unfortunately, it was useless.

Even during his confinement, Huai Shi’s Soul resistance remained abnormally high. Otherwise, the Ivy League wouldn’t have needed such extensive security measures. A simple Idiotic Curse would have been enough to leave Huai Shi drooling peacefully until the war ended. However, a curse that was too powerful, while potentially effective, risked turning him into a genuine idiot, making it difficult to provide an explanation to the various parties involved.

In the encroaching darkness before his eyes, he felt as if he were being dragged into a shadowy forest. But he quickly broke free.

On one hand, it was due to his astonishing resistance; on the other hand, it was because... the other party didn’t seem to actually want to harm him.

In a fleeting moment of daze, he saw a familiar figure.

Wood Cottage.

Little Nineteen stood within that darkness, shouting something at him, but the curse was too weak; the message couldn’t be transmitted.

Then he awoke. A slight pain twisted in his stomach, and he discovered that the key, which had been missing for so long, had reappeared at this moment.

Huai Shi could feel that the Dream Cage was rapidly drawing near.

All signs indicated one thing.

Perhaps, after being passive for so long, it was time for him to make a move?

”Escape... huh?” Huai Shi murmured to himself, twisting his neck on the bed, his peripheral vision catching the surveillance camera constantly aimed at him.

This could be tricky...

His fingers tapped silently on the edge of the bed as he closed his eyes.

He recollected the fragmented intelligence pieced together over these past days.

A structure with four subterranean levels and three above-ground levels. The total space was roughly the size of a residential block, perhaps even larger than the interior of the Iron Crystal Throne.

But he was certain that he was within an Airship of the Ivy League.

His captors had used some technology to create this small-scale ecosystem within the Airship, sealed internally and externally, with only two exits being the Airship’s outer armor plating and the main gate.

Within it, important machinery like gyroscopes and the laboratories were concentrated on the upper levels, while the subterranean levels housed dormitories, storage areas, the Eye of Nightmare’s station, and Huai Shi’s current prison.

Directly above him was the Eye of Nightmare’s stationed area.

To get out, he had to somehow bypass the Ivy League’s layered security, break through the Eye of Nightmare’s encirclement, and pass through the heavily guarded main gate. And if he wanted to retrieve his equipment, he would even need to enter the restricted area on the second above-ground floor and open his storage container. Otherwise, he could say goodbye to his cello, saddlebags, and Beelzebub.

Of course, the first task was to deal with his Bracelet and the Explosion Collar.

Otherwise, an explosion would greet him the moment he stepped out the door.

This was incredibly difficult.

The Guard rotation times, his own daily routine, even the fragmented bits of information—true or false—overheard from others...

A thousand loose ends, all tangled together—enough to make one’s head spin.

Yet, things had to be done bit by bit.

First, he had to find a way to undo the Source Substance seal on him.

This was, in fact, the easiest to handle.

Accompanied by the churning of his intestines and spasms in his esophagus, a dull pain from a scratch, and the sour taste of stomach acid, the key materialized in Huai Shi’s mouth.

Like a ruminant, he brought the piece of metal hidden in his stomach back up to his mouth, clenching it between his teeth.

Thanks to Luo Lao’s teachings, thanks to his senior sister’s training... Huai Shi had now managed to flexibly control the Overload State formed by the combination of the Drummer and the Yu Step.

A minimal activation, purely using the experience and techniques of muscle coordination, was enough to control his internal organ movements, and achieving this was effortless.

As the key rotated in his mouth, already aimed towards his palate, the countless tiny metal fragments on its teeth rapidly shifted and reconfigured, ultimately forming an entirely different outline. Pushed by his tongue, it silently pierced into his skull.

As if inserted into a lock.

In an instance of Source Materialization, it wedged into Huai Shi’s Soul and Stigma.

HISS!

Huai Shi drew in a sharp breath.

Agonizing pain swept through his body, but under the control of the Overload State, only his little finger twitched slightly; even his heartbeat remained unchanged.

Everything was normal.

Then, amidst excruciating pain magnified a thousandfold, he raised his hand to his mouth, grasped the key firmly as one might casually pick at a tooth, and twisted.

It was as if he had unlocked an invisible door.

Within the layers of seals binding him, he had opened a minuscule crack. His power, suppressed and dormant for so long, instantly surged, trying to break through the remaining seals and return to his body, but Huai Shi forcefully restrained it.

The crack was too small to retrieve much.

At this moment, the one thing that could offer him the greatest advantage was the Buried Sacred Place of Soloist!

As Huai Shi’s will focused, a dark fissure reappeared on his chest beneath his prison uniform. Within his body, the roiling darkness of the Buried Sacred Place instantly unfurled.

Using the Dream World as an intermediary, he instantly connected to the Dream Cage, which was gradually moving into his range of perception.

In that instant, the escape had begun.