91: Chapter 91 The torch is lit here, all things return to order!

Santa Monica

The sky was a murky blood-red, pressing down low like an inverted iron pot.

The distant sea no longer had the sound of waves; there was only a viscous, rhythmic swallowing sound, as if a giant beast were breathing in the darkness.

A yellow school bus lay overturned in the center of Palm Avenue, its windows shattered.

The carriage was empty, and cartoon backpacks featuring Spider-Man and Princess Elsa were still scattered on the seats.

Shadow Erosion Beasts wandered among the ruins.

Four articulated legs stepped over broken glass, making a crunching sound.

It was not in a hurry; black mist diffused from its body. A lamppost hissed and smoked in the mist, bending after three seconds.

The black mist floated past a basement vent.

Behind the grate, a man covered his five-year-old daughter's mouth tightly, and the child's fingernails dug into the back of his hand.

The mother used her body to block the gap in the door, keeping her heartbeat to a minimum, her breathing almost stopped.

The black mist paused in front of the grate for two seconds, then receded.

The mother opened her mouth silently, her chest heaving violently, and sweat dripped from her forehead.

In the distant sea, the tentacles of the Abyssal Tide Beast swam slowly, its scales scraping against the glass curtain wall of an office building, the friction sound sharp and piercing.

That flat, round, gigantic head floated in the near sea, its vertical pupils half-closed.

It was lazy, satisfied, like a python that had eaten its fill.

Jason was still alive.

He was lying under the chassis of an overturned SUV, his right leg twisted at a strange angle.

Engine oil and blood mixed together, plastering half his face in a dark red.

He had survived by using two lives.

The first was Mark's.

When the Shadow Erosion Beast chased them, he tripped on broken bricks, and his right leg broke with a 'snap.'

Mark turned back to pull him up, but he grabbed Mark's wrist and, the moment he used the leverage to stand up, pushed him violently forward.

Mark stumbled into the path of the Shadow Erosion Beast.

He looked back at Jason; there was no fear in those eyes, only pure disbelief.

Until the black mist swallowed him.

Jason didn't look back; he dragged his broken leg and crawled under the car.

The second life was Anna's.

He saw Anna sprain her ankle and squat behind a pickup truck to catch her breath, and he also saw another Shadow Erosion Beast approaching.

He picked up a broken brick and threw it in Anna's direction.

The sound exploded in the dead silence.

The dark red light points of the Shadow Erosion Beast immediately turned to the source of the sound.

Anna's scream was torn to shreds in the darkness.

Jason lay under the car, covering his ears tightly with both hands, but he couldn't stop the sound from drilling into his brain.

"I'm sorry..."

His lips moved, the whispered breath lighter than a mosquito's,

"I just... wanted to survive..."

After an unknown amount of time, he saw a blonde girl curled up behind a flower bed fifty meters ahead, hugging her knees and trembling.

Jason's pupils moved.

Not sympathy, but calculation.

As long as someone was running behind him...

He started to crawl, his broken leg leaving a dark red trail on the asphalt.

"Hey..."

He squeezed out a smile, the wound at the corner of his mouth splitting open, blood flowing down, making the smile look exceptionally ferocious,

"Follow me... I know a safe path..."

The girl shrank back in terror, but seeing the trail of blood behind him, she hesitated.

Just as Jason crawled to her side and reached out to grab her wrist—fifty meters away, in the pile of broken bricks, a pair of dark red light points lit up.

Shadow Erosion Beast!

Jason's fingers tightened violently, intending to push the girl away first.

But his broken leg made him slow, and the blood and sweat on his palms made him lose his grip.

The girl's wrist slipped from his fingers, and she scrambled up, screaming, and stumbled away in the opposite direction.

Jason lay on the ground.

He couldn't move anymore.

The claw shadow of the Shadow Erosion Beast fell, not like treating prey, but more like stepping on a bug blocking the way.

Sharp claws pierced through his chest from his back.

Jason looked down at the dark green claw in his chest.

It didn't hurt.

The nerves hadn't had time to transmit the pain yet.

In his blurred vision, he saw the back of the blonde girl running away.

She lived.

Not because of him.

But because he didn't grab her.

Jason's mouth twitched, not knowing if he wanted to smile or curse.

The Shadow Erosion Beast flicked its claw, and his body was tossed into the pile of broken bricks by the roadside.

A blogger with millions of followers died in a disaster he had personally said "not even a dog would believe," without even a close-up shot.

The Shadow Erosion Beast turned to the fleeing blonde girl, pushed off the ground with its four feet, and catapulted forward.

Three meters, two meters, one meter.

It was getting closer and closer.

The girl closed her eyes in despair.

"Clang—!"

The loud sound of metal colliding made her eardrums buzz.

A hot wind swept over her head.

She opened her eyes.

A crescent-shaped golden light curtain slashed through the air, hitting the torso of the Shadow Erosion Beast, the immense force flipping its entire body and smashing it into a half-collapsed building.

Light.

Warm, clean, light that absolutely shouldn't exist in this ruin full of decay and blood.

Three figures stood on the rubble.

In the center, a figure clad in silver-white light armor, with holy light flowing along the armor surface.

The Sword of Judgment was held horizontally in front, the holy patterns on the blade lighting up section by section.

On the center of the breastplate—a flame supporting a star.

On the left, a petite figure.

The dark gray exoskeleton-style battle armor fit her form perfectly, with sufficient space reserved at the joints for movement, not looking bulky at all.

The rune patterns spreading along her limbs were like precise circuit boards, flashing with silver-blue luster, exactly the same color as the data stream in the depths of her pupils.

Micro-cracks could still be seen on the protective layer of her left shoulder.

On the right, a person wore the same dark gray exoskeleton armor, but the lines were more steady.

The rune patterns were a warm and peaceful pale gold, and the rhythm of the light halo flowing was slow and powerful.

Liu Yuyan's voice came from under the helmet, not loud, but every syllable was carried by the night wind into every corner of the ruins.

"Kindling is here, all things return to order."

The blonde girl tilted her head back, tears dripping from her chin, her lips trembling for a long time before she squeezed out a word.

"Angels..."

Behind the basement vent, the father who was covering his daughter's mouth let go.

He looked at the ball of golden light through the grate, tears flowing silently down his face.

Lin Xiaoman's extraordinary perception spread out.

"Survivors, three hundred and twenty-seven people."

Her voice was soft, but the end of the sentence was bitten off tightly,

"Most are hiding in basements and under vehicle chassis. Eleven are seriously injured, three are in critical condition."

Henry's life perception was activated simultaneously.

"The three critical patients won't last an hour."

The blue-gray eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses sank a degree.

Liu Yuyan's gaze swept over the ruins, locking onto three alien beasts.

Two Shadow Erosion Beasts, one was struggling to crawl out of the ruins, and the other was approaching from afar.

On the sea surface, the vertical pupils of the Abyssal Tide Beast finally opened completely.

"Battle plan—"

Liu Yuyan's voice was cold and decisive.

"The Abyssal Tide Beast, I'll take it."

She turned to look at Lin Xiaoman and Henry.

"You two, contain the two Shadow Erosion Beasts. Don't seek to kill, just hold them off. Protect the survivors; wait until I finish off the one at sea, then come back to finish them off."

Lin Xiaoman and Henry nodded at the same time.

The three of them dispersed.

The figure in the silver-white holy armor stepped on the rubble and charged straight toward the coastline.

The holy patterns of the Sword of Judgment flared up section by section, dragging a straight path of light through the ruins.