68: Chapter 68 Invasion

The engines spewed overloaded crimson exhaust flames as the surviving warships of the Blood Blade Guild desperately climbed toward the 10,000-meter boundary.

Below, the churning gray fog resembled a boiling quagmire. Countless translucent tentacles, covered in suckers and barbs, writhed like giant pythons, latching onto the fleet's slipstream. Any warship that lagged even slightly was instantly dragged into the abyss, leaving not even a ripple behind.

"Boss! Old Ghost, he..."

In the command room, Scar turned his head sharply, his eyes splitting with rage.

The deputy guild leader, Old Ghost, had his body half-mutated, and the massive bloodshot eye squeezed out from his throat was rotating greedily.

Old Ghost's limbs had twisted into strange, arthropod-like appendages, resembling a giant humanoid spider, and he bit through the navigator's neck beside him.

Screams and the teeth-grinding sound of chewing instantly ignited the narrow command room. More crew members began clutching their heads and wailing in agony as their bodies mutated at a visible rate.

"Damn it! I'll cut you all down!"

Scar's eyes were blood-red as he violently drew the high-frequency combat blade from his waist.

Without a moment's hesitation, he slashed off Old Ghost's mutated head, splashing his face with purple, foul-smelling pus.

Immediately after, like a desperate beast, he swung his combat blade wildly in the command room, cutting down the brothers he had once risked his life with, one by one.

Blood and shredded flesh flew everywhere. He panted heavily, the edge of his blade already notched, looking like a blood-bathed Asura: "Even if you die... you'll die like a human for me!"

Just then, the warship jolted violently, and blinding sunlight finally pierced through the heavy gray fog.

The altimeter jumped wildly: 10,050 meters... 10,100 meters... 10,200 meters!

We made it out!

But before ecstasy could bloom on Scar's face, the sunlight above was suddenly completely blotted out.

Boom—!!!

The gray fog exploded like boiling water as several pitch-black tentacles, thicker than heavy warships, easily ignored the so-called 10,000-meter safety limit and burst through the air.

The thick alloy armor was as fragile as water-soaked paper before that invisible, mighty force.

Scar watched helplessly as frigate after frigate withered and twisted eerily in mid-air, finally exploding into fireworks like crushed soda cans.

But he could no longer feel fear.

Because at this very moment, his entire sensory perception had been replaced by an extremely absurd "sensation of fullness."

Scar looked down at his own hands. The rough palms that had been gripping the combat blade had long since melted into a puddle of purple fleshy mush.

Accompanied by the teeth-grinding sound of bone dislocation, several thick, slime-covered, fleshy-red tentacles tore through his back armor with a "squelch," wriggling happily in the toxic, fiery air.

[SAN Value: -99... -200... System Error... System Error...]

The red warning lights before his eyes began to flicker wildly, gradually blurring and stretching.

For some reason, the shrill alarm slowly transformed into the sound of an alarm clock carrying a hint of mundane, everyday life.

The smell of blood and ozone faded away, replaced by the rich aroma of freshly ground coffee and the faint, burnt scent of fried eggs.

...

"Hey, you big sleepyhead, time to get up!"

A pair of soft, slightly cool hands gently patted Scar's cheek.

Scar opened his eyes abruptly.

There was no gray fog filling the sky, no broken warships, and no despair-inducing monsters.

What greeted his eyes was the warm morning light of early autumn, gently spilling onto the cozy solid wood floor through the off-white curtains.

He was lying on a soft double bed, wearing comfortable cotton pajamas.

Beside the bed, a young girl wearing loose loungewear with her hair in a bun was looking at him with a smile.

She had a pair of beautiful almond-shaped eyes, and every glance was filled with love for him.

That was his childhood sweetheart, the beloved he had dreamed of countless times in the middle of the night during this cruel apocalypse.

"Xiao Ya..."

Scar reached out in a daze, feeling the real, warm, and gentle touch of the girl's cheek.

His mind was blank; whatever survival game, whatever Blood Blade Guild, all melted away without a trace under this sunlight.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Did you have a nightmare?"

Xiao Ya gave him a coquettish roll of her eyes and took the opportunity to hold his hand against her face.

"Hurry up and get up to wash. Did you forget what day it is today? The people from the wedding company are coming this afternoon to go over the procedures with us."

"Marriage..."

He muttered to himself, a silly smile unconsciously spreading across his lips.

"Yes, we're getting married..."

"Not just marriage, you even forgot the date, didn't you?"

Xiao Ya gently poked his forehead with her finger, her eyes full of longing for their future life.

"The eighteenth of next month, I've already booked the hotel. Tell me, should we put our wedding photos by the entrance?"

"Okay... I'll listen to everything you say. The eighteenth, a good day."

He smiled foolishly, immersed in this immense happiness and tranquility, his body completely relaxing.

However, in the dimension of reality, the scene was horrifying to the extreme.

The "Blood Slaughter" warship, its hull already riddled with holes, had arrived at that absolutely silent, 10,000-meter altitude.

There was no fire, no explosions, not even the sound of wind.

In this thick, ink-like gray fog, hundreds of broken LV3 and LV4 starships were fixed and suspended in mid-air in extremely twisted postures, like mosquitoes trapped in amber. All engines had been extinguished, and all survivors had ceased their wailing.

And below these toy-like fleets, the abyss's fog was forcibly pushed aside.

More than a dozen pitch-black tentacles, as thick as mountains, were slowly rising from beneath the unfathomably deep clouds.

The surface of these tentacles was not only covered in viscous dark matter, but even more horrifyingly, they were densely packed with thousands of giant eyeballs.

Those eyeballs held no emotion; they were just quietly "gazing" at the suspended iron shells above.

An indescribable, massive aura, symbolizing twisted reproduction and decadent flesh, completely enveloped this airspace.

And in the command room of the "Blood Slaughter."

Where was there any warm sunlight? Where was there any cozy apartment?

The command room was everywhere splattered with purple pus and severed limbs.

At this moment, Scar was lying face-up in a twisted posture on a small hill built from countless wriggling chunks of flesh and tentacles.

The hideous scar on his face had split open, filled with fine, sharp teeth.

His arms had completely degenerated into two thick tentacles, tightly hugging a nauseatingly massive mass of organic tissue.

A slippery tentacle extending from that mass of tissue was patting Scar's now-inhuman face, one beat after another, extremely "gently."

"The eighteenth... a good day... Xiao Ya is so beautiful..."

An extremely happy, eerie smile hung on Scar's face, and glistening drool dripped down his mutated chin onto the mountain of flesh beneath him.

And above his head, outside the shattered panoramic dome of the command room, an indescribable entity resembling a dark nebula was silently hovering there.

It had no specific form, just a mass of constantly churning pitch-black tentacles, a conglomerate interwoven with the shadows of twisted goat hooves and countless gaping, closing giant mouths.

It radiated a twisted, maternal radiance, as if gazing at the "child" it was about to give birth to.

It just watched Scar, who was deep in a beautiful dream, silently and benevolently.

In this dead silence, only the "squelch" of flesh tearing and growing echoed faintly within the empty warship.