95: Chapter 95 All for One's Life

Three auxiliary cores exploded simultaneously!

The Lord of the Ultimate End's colossal, mountain-range-like body, as if its backbone had been ripped out, let out a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering wail, convulsing violently and withering. The terrifying pressure that had once filled the heavens and earth receded like a tide, and the soul-freezing sense of suffocation instantly lightened by more than half. Its turbid yellow pupils were now crisscrossed with spiderweb-like cracks, their light dim, as if about to be extinguished completely at any moment. The flailing tentacles hung limp and flaccid, feebly slapping at the air, no longer posing a lethal threat.

The dawn of victory seemed to be within sight!

"Suc... succeeded?!" A survivor slumped in the ruins muttered in disbelief.

"The cores are shattered! That damned thing is finished!" The ecstatic joy of having narrowly escaped death began to spread across the faces of some.

Even Su Qingyu, who had been on edge the entire time, let out a slight sigh of relief, feeling as if the boulder pressing on her heart had shifted a little. She instinctively looked towards the observation platform, at the figure who had created this miracle.

Lin Chen stood on the platform, his expression showing no sign of relaxation. On his system interface, the energy reading representing the Lord of the Ultimate End was plummeting off a cliff, but a deeper, more obscure fluctuation was emanating from the depths of its dying husk, like the final, supremely malicious gasp of a mortally wounded beast.

"Don't celebrate too soon!" Lin Chen's icy voice, amplified through the broadcast array, swept across the battlefield, instantly dousing the rising joy. "A centipede dies but never falls down! Everyone, reinforce defenses! Nether soldiers, tighten your formation! Ghost General, stay alert!"

His judgment was correct!

In the brief few seconds when everyone's guard was down due to the core's destruction—

*Thump...!*

A bizarre heartbeat sound abruptly rang out. It didn't come from outside, but vibrated directly from within the hearts of every survivor, every nether soldier, even from the depths of every piece of Fortress rubble! This heartbeat was dull, slow, yet carried a nauseating, viscous quality, as if countless tiny insects were crawling along blood vessels!

From the surface of the Lord of the Ultimate End's dying, withering body, from those ruptured wounds, black energy no longer gushed forth. Instead, a dark red, viscous plasma that wriggled like a living thing seeped out! This plasma dripped down, not corroding the ground, but instead, as if possessing life, rapidly gathered, swelled, and transformed into blurry, twisted, half-human-tall dark red blood shadows!

These blood shadows had no fixed form, resembling humanoid outlines composed of flowing blood. Emitting faint, hissing sounds full of resentment and hunger, they surged out from within the Lord of the Ultimate End's body like a tide, charging towards the remaining Fortress below!

Their numbers were overwhelming, densely packed, seemingly endless!

"They are 'Scions of the Ultimate End'!" Bai Qi's cold voice carried a trace of gravity. "It is burning its final life essence to spawn these filthy things! Be careful, they can corrupt souls and assimilate flesh!"

Individually, these blood shadows were far weaker than the tentacles, but they were vast in number and extremely bizarre! The blades of the nether soldiers slashing at them had greatly diminished effect, often only temporarily dispersing them before they could quickly reform. And once a blood shadow pounced and made contact, whether it was a nether soldier or a survivor, their bodies would rapidly be eroded and assimilated by that dark red blood. Within mere seconds, they would transform into new blood shadows, turning to pounce on their former comrades!

This was a vicious, final gambit aimed at assimilating everything, dragging everyone down to perish together!

"Open fire! Hold them back!"

"Don't let them touch you!"

"Help! Ah—!"

The Fortress, which had just glimpsed hope, instantly plunged into a new, even more bizarre and desperate chaos! The defensive line teetered on the verge of collapse under the blood shadows' assault.

"Damn it, still causing trouble even in death!" Lin Chen cursed, his eyes fierce. He frantically mobilized nether talismans, reinforcing the nether soldiers and Ghost General with [Heart-Clearing Talismans] and [Evil-Shattering Talismans] effective against such "corruptive" attacks, while simultaneously scouring the system shop for weapons capable of large-scale clearance of these blood shadows.

"Everyone who can still move! Pick up your weapons! If you don't want to become those monsters, fight them with everything you've got!" Su Qingyu's clear, cold voice rang out, carrying an indisputable firmness. She had somehow found a short sword enchanted with sharpness runes. Leading from the front, she slashed a blood shadow attempting to pounce on a wounded survivor into two halves. The splattering blood was deflected by the faint protective talisman glow she activated in advance.

Her actions inspired others. Those ordinary survivors who had been trembling, waiting for death, seeing the once aloof "Steward Su" personally engaging in combat, finally felt their desire for survival overpower their fear.

"Fight! We're dead either way!"

"Let's take on these ghostly things!"

"Protect the children! Keep them outside!"

Men, women, even some half-grown children—anyone who could move—picked up anything around them that could serve as a weapon: broken steel bars, burning wooden poles, even stones. Howling, they followed the nether soldiers and Su Qingyu, forming the final, fragile yet resolute human wall, crashing against the endless tide of blood shadows!

In this moment, there were no distinctions of status or identity, only the struggle between survivors and destroyers. Blood (human red and the blood shadows' dark red) splattered, roars and battle cries interwove, the scene tragic and heroic.

Even Qin Weiwei, who had been kept under strict watch and looked ashen-faced, was now shaken by this apocalyptic spectacle and the atmosphere of desperate resistance around her. Watching Su Qingyu's blood-soaked, battling figure, seeing the despairing yet unyielding eyes of those ordinary people, an extremely complex emotion flickered deep in her eyes. The instinct for survival, and... perhaps a faint impulse, one she herself hadn't even realized, to prove she wasn't completely useless, made her suddenly lift her head.

She shouted at the two nether soldiers guarding her with all her strength, "Let me go! I can fight too! I know how to deal with this kind of energy corruption! Let me go help Sister Su! Every extra person is extra strength!"

Her voice carried a sob and urgency, sounding sincere.

The two nether soldiers showed no reaction; they only obeyed Lin Chen's orders.

But Su Qingyu nearby heard her. Amidst the frantic battle, she glanced back. Seeing Qin Weiwei's pale, anxious face, seeing a light in her eyes that seemed different from her usual hypocrisy, and seeing the critically endangered defensive line before her...

Su Qingyu gritted her teeth and shouted at the nether soldiers, "Release her! Let her come help! Keep a close eye on her!"

The nether soldiers, receiving the instruction from Su Qingyu (who possessed secondary management authority), released their restraint on Qin Weiwei.

Qin Weiwei's face showed relief and gratitude. She stumbled as she ran towards Su Qingyu's direction. While running, she seemed to be flusteredly searching for a weapon, but her eyes, almost imperceptibly, swiftly scanned the battlefield, sweeping over the direction of the underground shelter entrance—the one that had become unstable, its light flickering, due to the Energy Core being damaged by Zhang Hao.

Her movements appeared panicked, but her trajectory held a certain purposefulness, slowly, unnoticeably, edging closer to the damaged Energy Core shelter.

The chaotic battlefield, the desperate struggle, drew almost all attention.

No one noticed that this prisoner who should have been securely guarded, this "little sister" who kept saying she wanted to help—deep within those seemingly anxious eyes, a profoundly hidden, cold, and cunning gleam was growing brighter and brighter.

She was like a venomous snake silently slithering into murky waters, waiting for the best moment to deliver a fatal strike to its prey.

Lin Chen was fully occupied dealing with the remaining, occasionally thrashing tentacles in the sky and directing the Ghost General to clear large swathes of blood shadows. Most of the system's alarms were focused on external threats and the stability of the Energy Core.

The internal venomous fang was slowly baring itself in the darkness.