Damn it! Let’s smash the darkness together!
Chapter 488 - 125 Good and Evil Have Their End, Eventually Comes the Abalone (Seeking Monthly Passes, 5K)

Chapter 488: Chapter 125 Good and Evil Have Their End, Eventually Comes the Abalone (Seeking Monthly Passes, 5K)

The building had stood strong until now, chosen by the Wasteland Wanderers at a glance to serve as their headquarters—a testament to its quality of construction, for shortcuts in the workmanship were certainly not taken.

Every pillar was driven a meter deep.

During the laying of the foundation, they must have thought the steel bars were free of charge.

Hence, the quality was excellent, the soundproofing, particularly strong.

No one knew that inside a room on the third floor, the soprano couldn’t resist bursting into song, her youthful fingers rhythmically strumming on the windowsill, lost in her music.

Beneath the table was a yellowed booklet that looked like a collection of ancient poems; she drew one out and began to play and sing along: "Year’s woes not yet quelled this night’s journey home—Lying awake, forlorn mirth scorned by Nan Liang—"

...

No one knew either that the 21st level Legendary Iron Armor, who had said he was going to sleep, had already stealthily taken a bath, lain on the bed, and adjusted the position of his Promotion Drive before setting his "new message alert" to vibrate.

Though he had used a special attack earlier that day on both Su and Fish Head Su, under the watchful eyes of all and flanked by a circle of women, he dared not truly indulge, instead ending up in an awkward and painful half-arousal.

Now, in the dead of night, when all was quiet, he could finally relish fully.

As strange "calls" came in, one after another, he softly chanted:

"At eighteen, I find myself an old man bowed with woe—Eyes brimming with sorrow, striking blows myself. Tonight, in a skiff, I come to upend thee—From now on, our destinies divide, east and west."

Biu~

...

The night was silently still, moonlight entangled.

The turbid moonlight spilled across the earth.

This night was too quiet.

And so, even more unknown to anyone, on the 13th floor of this "hotel" refuge, inside an old, unclean, dimly lit room, a group of people was secretly conducting some type of ceremony.

Men and women in equal number, they sat in a circle with candles lit; at first glance, there must have been no fewer than forty or fifty people.

Completely contrary to those on the third floor who sang and danced on their own, here on the thirteenth floor, despite the crowd, the atmosphere was terribly oppressive.

As if different floors were entirely different worlds.

Their hands held pitch-black books, covering their faces, swaying back and forth like wobbly punch dolls, chanting in synchrony with the flickering candle flames—performing some incomprehensible and sinister ceremony.

At the center, lay a young girl on a stretcher.

She appeared no more than seventeen or eighteen, suffering from severe albinism, every strand of hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, all of them white to near transparency.

Her body was thoroughly wrapped in bandages, resembling a mummy, smeared with a foul-smelling, white, fluff-like ointment, and covered by a white cloth that made her appear as if she were dead.

Only her squinting small eyes, clear and lucid, held a trace of consciousness, proving she was alive.

"It hurts... Mom... It hurts so much... It hurts inside my body..." the girl strained to look at the middle-aged woman beside the stretcher.

The intense pain seemed to have triggered a violent survival instinct, and she began to squirm slightly.

The woman beside the stretcher, with the book over her face, didn’t look at her but instead gripped the girl’s hand firmly to keep her from moving.

She continued to chant strange syllables in unison with her companions while muttering a curse under her breath:

"Foolish thing, silence! This isn’t pain, this is a blessing! Once you endure, you’ll be fine; your illness will be cured, and Ah Zhe will be able to return to us! Be sensible, follow the elder’s plans, do you hear me?"

"Okay..." After her mother suppressed her, the girl seemed to lose the last bit of strength, her head drooping, quietly watching the people around her act upon her.

The mother, slanting slightly, nodded approvingly towards the position of highest regard in the crowd, where a massive elder sat on the ground, surrounded like a moon by stars.

Seeing the elder’s encouraging gaze, the middle-aged woman’s heart bloomed with joy as she resumed her concentrated swaying.

Her voice, chanting the incomprehensible spell, grew louder, firmer.

Hours passed by, and with the continued chanting from those around her, her skin began to ooze a white, smeary substance from her pores, like squeezing a zit, speck by speck resembling blotchy white paint.

This paint-like substance quickly claimed her skin, spreading across her entire body.

It formed uncanny, special patterns that undulated like waves, layer upon layer, across the girl’s body, penetrating deep into her bones and making her appear to glow brightly, like a lotus about to bloom.

"Almost time to start. I can feel it now—the will of our Lord has descended, watching over us here."

The elder, disgustingly obese with at least three to four hundred pounds, buzzed as he clapped his hands.

Under his direction, several adult males stood and, working together, dragged over a large, black cloth-covered cage.

The dark cloth hid what was inside, leaving one unable to see.

But as the cage shook slightly, suppressed low growls could be heard from within, and the bars thick as a baby’s arm were full of white scratch marks.

This cage was pulled next to the girl’s stretcher, settling into place with a thud.

"Ptew!"

"Ptew!"

The men took up spears fashioned from steel pipes, stabbing repeatedly through the cloth and cage, puncturing whatever was inside.