92: Chapter 92 She drew her sword and cleaved through evil, with humanity behind her!

As Liu Yuyan took her first step into the seawater, the sand beneath her combat boots was scorched into glass by the holy light.

Eight tentacles crashed down simultaneously.

She did not retreat.

The Sword of Judgment swept up from her waistline, holy runes flared one by one, and a golden arc carved a half-moon into the night.

The blade sliced into the base of the nearest tentacle.

Not severed—incinerated.

Holy light poured along the cut, and the dark green scales cracked and peeled away in the golden flames.

At the severed end, pink granulation tissue just began to emerge before being scorched to charcoal by the lingering holy light.

There was no regeneration.

The second sword stroke followed immediately.

The silver-white figure slipped through the gap between two tentacles, the tip of her sword tapped the joint of the second tentacle, and holy light burst forth.

Another one fell off.

Granulation tissue sprouted, the holy light struck, and regeneration failed completely.

Three, four, five, six.

Forty seconds.

The severed stumps of the six tentacles churned in the blood-colored sea, their cross-sections sealed shut by the holy light.

The Abyssal Tide Beast shrieked.

That low-frequency sound wave surged up from the seabed, causing the sea surface to ripple in concentric circles.

The remaining two tentacles retracted frantically, wrapping around its head.

It was sinking.

Its massive, flat, round head submerged into the sea, the dark red glow of its vertical pupils becoming increasingly blurred underwater.

Liu Yuyan stood in the surf, seawater washing over her ankles.

She couldn't catch up.

She lacked the ability to walk on water or any means of flight.

All of a Tier 2 Paladin's skills were based on melee range.

If it escaped, it would return.

The rift was still open, and the food was still on the shore.

It had to be solved now.

---

In the ruins, Lin Xiaoman launched herself from behind a fire truck.

Her extraordinary perception completed all calculations the moment she took her first step; the Shadow Erosion Beast's stride frequency, turning radius, and black fog diffusion speed all transformed into a silver-blue data stream flooding her vision.

She picked up a broken fire hose from the ground, swung it with both hands, and smashed it against the joint of the Shadow Erosion Beast's right hind leg.

Clang.

The sound of metal colliding echoed through the ruins.

The Shadow Erosion Beast turned its head, its dark red light points locking onto this 1.52-meter-tall target.

"Chase me, you big dummy."

Her voice was soft, but her footsteps had already begun to pull distance, inch by inch steering the beast's path away from the underground garage entrance and toward the coastline.

Four hundred meters away, Henry stood before the second Shadow Erosion Beast.

Sixty-two years old.

A Tier 1 Extraordinary.

Unarmed.

He did not dodge.

His right fist slammed into the beast's flank, putting his full strength into it.

The Shadow Erosion Beast swayed.

Just swayed.

The black fog counterattacked, creeping along his forearm.

His combat armor runes activated instantly, a pale golden light membrane repelling the corrosive layer, though a burning pain shot through his arm.

Henry retreated half a step, steadied his center of gravity, and stood between the beast and the half-collapsed apartment building behind him.

There were nineteen people in the basement of the apartment building.

"No rush, I have plenty of time."

The Shadow Erosion Beast seemed to judge him as no threat and turned to bypass him.

Henry threw another punch.

This time, he hit its head.

The beast was finally enraged.

---

Liu Yuyan's voice came through.

"Xiaoman! Professor! Lure them to the coastline!!"

Lin Xiaoman's response was almost instantaneous.

"Received. The one to the due north, I'll have it in position in ninety seconds."

Henry didn't speak.

But his footsteps changed direction, and he punched the Shadow Erosion Beast toward the sea, one blow after another.

If his fists weren't hard enough, he'd just hit it more times.

The interval between each punch was timed perfectly to interrupt the Shadow Erosion Beast's counterattack wind-up.

The experience of being knocked flying by Liu Yuyan one hundred and four times in the training field was now fully realized as instinct.

Henry found his rhythm.

He threw a left hook, retreated half a step to dodge a claw swipe, and followed up with a right cross.

The Shadow Erosion Beast, agitated by this "non-lethal but extremely annoying" fighting style, chased him all the way toward the coastline.

Seventy seconds.

Lin Xiaoman led the first Shadow Erosion Beast to the edge of the beach.

She wasn't just dragging it.

Every turn, every change in speed, was perfectly executed along the optimal path calculated by her extraordinary perception.

She even used the scattered car wreckage in the ruins as stepping stones.

She vaulted over a car the moment the beast lunged, causing it to crash headlong into a pile of building rubble, then struck it from the side to max out its aggro.

Ninety seconds.

Two Shadow Erosion Beasts were brought to the coastline.

Three beasts: two on the shore, one in the near sea, perfectly aligned in a line.

Liu Yuyan stood at the very front of the extended line, facing the sea.

The Sword of Judgment was raised high above her head.

Deep within her breastplate, eight points of light pulsed simultaneously.

Mercy, Humility, Honor, Sacrifice, Awe, Loyalty, Courage, Justice.

Eight holy radiances of different textures ignited in sequence, converging frantically within her body.

All the energy surged into the sword blade; the holy runes lit up one by one from the hilt to the tip, finally concentrating at the point.

The air distorted.

The sand beneath her feet lifted off the ground, suspended at knee height.

The seawater was pushed away by the pressure of the holy light, revealing the wet seabed sand.

Lin Xiaoman stood fifty meters away, the silver-blue data stream deep in her pupils stopped scrolling.

It wasn't a glitch.

Her extraordinary perception was screaming; the energy reading ahead had already exceeded the upper limit of her Tier 1 perception range.

Henry's life perception also issued a warning.

The energy within Liu Yuyan was burning at a frantic speed, her heart rate soaring to two hundred and twenty beats per minute.

"This sword, for the glory of Kindling, for the survival of humanity!"

The voice came from beneath her helmet, no longer cold or decisive.

It was the echo of pure conviction left after burning everything away.

"—Slash!"

The sword fell.

Golden sword qi erupted from the tip.

It was over ten meters wide, piercing through the line formed by the three beasts.

The first Shadow Erosion Beast didn't even have time to struggle.

As the golden light curtain passed, the black fog evaporated, its torso split down the midline, and its core shattered into dust in the holy light.

The second Shadow Erosion Beast tried to turn and run.

Too late.

The sword qi caught up to it ten times faster than it could move its legs.

It vanished into ashes.

The sword qi did not stop.

It crossed the beach, passed through the surf, and shot into the sea.

The water was cleaved apart.

A deep trench hundreds of meters long extended from the coastline into the near sea, walls of water churning high on both sides, turning transparent gold under the illumination of the holy light.

The reefs and sand on the seabed were exposed to the air, fish and shrimp flopping desperately on the trench walls.

The Abyssal Tide Beast's vertical pupils contracted violently the moment the sword qi arrived.

The golden sword qi wave pierced through the very center of its head.

It penetrated the two guarding tentacles.

It penetrated the dark green scales.

It penetrated the core brain.

It shot out the other side.

Eight tentacles spasmed and stiffened simultaneously, then fell limply into the water.

Its massive body disintegrated from the outside in within the holy light; scales fell off, flesh evaporated, and finally, only a single dark red crystal fell from the void, carried onto the beach by the backflow of seawater.

Three E-tier crystals lay scattered on the beach, which had been scorched into glass by the holy light.

The seawater closed back up, the sound like thunder.

Liu Yuyan knelt on one knee.

The Sword of Judgment was plunged into the sand, supporting her body.

All the holy runes on her silver-white armor extinguished, turning back to the color of ordinary metal.

Beneath the helmet, sweat dripped from her forehead to her chin, landing on her breastplate.

Her vision blurred for two seconds.

Her body felt empty, as if someone had drained her marrow and blood.

But she did not fall.

Because on the eastern horizon—the first ray of dawn pierced through the leaden clouds.

It was not blood-colored.

It was true, clean, golden sunlight that belonged to this world.

The light spilled over the ruins, refracted into fine rainbows on the shattered glass.

It spilled over the overturned school bus, the scattered school bags, and every relic belonging to this city.

It spilled over that silver-white figure kneeling on one knee.

Survivors stood up from the ruins.

They crawled out from behind basement ventilation grates, climbed out from under the chassis of overturned SUVs, from behind flower beds, under the base of walls, and from every dark corner.

One, two, ten, fifty.

More than three hundred people stood in the light of dawn, watching those three figures on the coastline.

No one spoke.

The blonde girl knelt on the broken bricks, tears streaming down her face.

She pressed her hands together, her lips moving for a long time before she squeezed out a single word:

"God..."

In the basement, the father finally released his hand from his daughter's mouth.

The five-year-old girl poked her head out, looked at that ball of golden light in the distance, and tugged at her father's sleeve.

"The sky has brightened."

Lin Xiaoman ran to Liu Yuyan's side and grabbed her arm.

"Sister Yuyan!"

Liu Yuyan propped herself up with her sword, the corner of her mouth curling beneath her helmet.

"Job done."

The wind came from the sea.

A clean, salty, living wind.

Liu Yuyan stood there, her silver-white armor having lost its holy radiance in the morning light, yet it was brighter than ever.

More than three hundred pairs of eyes watched her.

Different skin colors, different languages, different faiths.

But at this moment, the same thing was reflected in everyone's eyes.

The totem of Kindling, flames cradling the stars, was on the center of her breastplate, plated with a golden edge by the rising sun.

---

In China, Su Chen sat on a stone bench in a park.

The system panel flickered in the corner of his vision.

"Authenticity +800... +1200... +1700..."

The numbers were still soaring.

More than three hundred survivors who had witnessed it with their own eyes—each one was a seed.

Su Chen opened his notebook and wrote a line on a blank page.

"Lighthouse Country—Kindling faith, sown."

The pen tip moved down a line.

"Expand members!"

He closed the notebook.

Morning light filtered through the window gap, landing on a twenty-five-year-old face.

The corners of his mouth curled.