Damn it! Let’s smash the darkness together!
Chapter 326 - 71: Bizarre Death, A New Birth (6K for Monthly Pass)

Chapter 326: Chapter 71: Bizarre Death, A New Birth (6K for Monthly Pass)

"Song Qixing, Song Yao, Song Zhiyi, Song Jiayi, Tang Yuming, Gu Zhou, Gu Zheng...dead, they’re all dead, everyone’s dead!"

In the crumbling ruins, a faintly lit corner sheltered a narrow space where a group of people hid—it was a hunting team formed by the three great families of the Hunter Association.

However, they were all injured, looking utterly wretched. It was clear that the roles of the hunter and the hunted had swapped.

Weird "whoosh whoosh whoosh" noises echoed all around, like some enormous tentacle was constantly moving around what could hardly be called a safe house.

The Song Family’s sole survivor of this expedition—a "Hunter" of the First Rank named Song Ci—was now despondently sitting on the ground.

He held his head in his hands, mumbling to himself something like, "What doesn’t kill me is better off doing so."

Seeing the lost look in his eyes, it was apparent that he had lost the will to fight.

Someone glanced at him, initially wanting to scold him for his weakness, but then thought better of it and shut their mouth.

After all, it was best not to speak too soon— who knew who would be the next to become a walking corpse?

Moments ago, they encountered a large swarm of strange serpents and what appeared to be their own rotting corpses and bones at the inn.

The battle occurred in the blink of an eye.

They had assumed that with the combined strength of fifteen people, they would be able to break out of the serpents’ encirclement relatively easily.

But unexpectedly, besides the serpents, there was another creature lurking in the dark, showing only its tentacles.

One of its tentacles was as thick as a human body, and it was clearly at least a Second Rank monster, causing great losses to the hunting team.

Who would have imagined that a hunting team with three Second Order Masters and over ten First Rankers could be cornered and made to flee like dogs within the borderlines of the Wasteland? Of course, according to Song Qixing’s guess, although it appeared they were still in the Wasteland, they had inadvertently stumbled upon some special ruins.

The hunting team had escaped from the serpents, but at a dreadful cost.

All the accompanying assistants were killed, more than half the First Order Transcendents were dead, and even the Second Order Master of the Song Family died in battle. The healer, Gu Yue Ming, was ambushed and went missing, leaving their fate unknown— with one healer dead and another missing, an already stretched-thin team was pushed further to the brink.

The only fighting force left now comprised four First Rankers, and Tang Rou, a Second Rank "assassin" nearly at the end of her tether.

The situation was nothing short of disastrous!

It wasn’t that they were weak; the monsters were just too cunning, too powerful.

They seemed to have a hidden ace, that tentacle monster was probably at the pinnacle of the Second Rank.

The party fought as they retreated, barely finding shelter in this building half-above ground and half-buried underground, reminiscent of an ancient temple.

But it seemed only a matter of time before they would be discovered by that weird tentacle monster.

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh~"

"Rustle rustle rustle~"

The gigantic sounds like tentacles dragging along the ground grew increasingly louder.

Song Ci, who was already on the verge of a mental breakdown, painfully clutched his head, "No, do not come any closer! Just kill me, kill me!"

However, the others had no time to care about his fate.

Tang Rou, missing an entire left arm, with half her body covered in blood, forced herself to say, "Everyone, it’s life or death, this is our final stand!"

At this life-or-death moment, everyone clenched their teeth and became exceptionally vigilant, summoning every ounce of their spirit.

Among the five, only Gu Pan had slightly downcast eyes, feeling bewildered.

"Something’s off... why is it, compared to the monsters we remember encountering before, they are entirely different?"

She clearly recalled.

Each time she realized she was in a "loop," she could remember many details, though broken and fragmented, but she held many truths.

For instance, this gigantic Octopus Monster—it should be a Transcendent of a "foreign" sequence.

But the question was, why had it become so strong?

She only needed three moves to kill it before.

But now, it had ambushed and killed Song Qixing right away, knocked out Gu Yue Ming, and seriously injured Tang Rou.

It was precisely this creature’s intervention that completely turned the tide, plunging the hunting team into such a dire situation.

Why had it come to this?

Where exactly did the problem lie?

If she died this time, would she truly be dead, or continue to return to the loop and start over?

At this most critical juncture, countless thoughts flashed through Gu Pan’s mind.

The scrabbling noises outside grew louder, and everyone prepared to strike.

It was then that Song Ci, who had been resigned to death on the ground, suddenly chirped, pointing to the side and saying, "Look, quick look! What is that? Look, there’s something there!"

At such a crucial moment, nobody wanted to bother with that coward.

Yet, he had discovered something, and for their own safety, people spared a bit of attention and looked in the direction he was pointing.

It was a Buddha statue worshipped in this ancient temple.

It had six arms, one holding a Treasure Bead, another wielding a Magic Wand, and it possessed two faces, one angry and the other smiling. The entire statue looked very intricate, so much so that it was slightly eerie—as if it were alive.

"The Buddha statue..."

Gu Pan’s pupils dilated, about to say something when suddenly the whole ceiling was blown away, bathing them all in a blinding light.