Chapter 1726: A miracle and A hope.
Chapter 1726: A miracle and A hope.
When I reached the familiar door, I froze in place.
It was slightly open, gently swaying back and forth with a slow creaking sound as though someone had only just entered moments ago. Thick blood dripped from the metal handle, sliding down the wood before disappearing onto the floor in slow crimson droplets.
Every instinct inside my body begged me not to open it.
My trembling hand refused to listen.
With shaking fingers, I slowly pushed the door open.
A disgusting gulping sound echoed through the silent room.
Gulp...
Gulp...
Gulp...
The scene before me completely shattered my mind.
A black humanoid creature crouched beside two lifeless bodies, its unnaturally thin frame resembling a corpse that had been stretched far beyond what flesh should ever endure. Charcoal-black skin clung tightly around protruding bones, while dozens of swollen veins pulsed beneath its surface with shifting rainbow-colored light. Its elongated arms ended in claws longer than kitchen knives, each stained with fresh blood that slowly dripped onto the floor.
One of those claws was buried deep inside a human chest.
With effortless strength, the creature ripped out the still-beating heart before stuffing the entire organ into its grotesquely oversized mouth. Its jaw opened far wider than any human’s ever could, revealing several rows of jagged teeth that crushed bone and flesh together with wet, sickening crunches.
Thick streams of blood poured from the corners of its mouth as it swallowed greedily, savouring every bite as though it had discovered the greatest feast imaginable.
I couldn’t recognise whose body it was anymore.
The corpse had already been torn apart so completely that the face no longer resembled a human being.
My legs refused to move.
Every muscle in my body became completely rigid as overwhelming terror swallowed every rational thought inside my mind. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, and... couldn’t even force my trembling fingers to twitch as I stood there staring at the nightmare before me.
Then the creature suddenly stopped eating.
Its long, pointed ears twitched once.
Then again.
As though it had heard my heartbeat from across the room, the monster slowly lifted its head before turning it toward me with unnatural, almost mechanical movements.
Two rainbow-colored eyes glowed from the darkness of its face, burning with an intelligence that made my entire body shiver.
They weren’t the eyes of a starving beast.
They were the eyes of a predator that had just found its next meal.
The corners of its blood-soaked mouth slowly curled upward into a horrifying grin that stretched almost from ear to ear, exposing row after row of needle-like teeth still packed with pieces of human flesh.
Then it screamed.
"KKRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
The deafening shriek exploded throughout the room with such overwhelming force that the windows shattered instantly. Pain shot through my ears like burning needles, my vision blurred, and blood began trickling from both ears as I instinctively collapsed to one knee while clutching my head.
"ARRRGH!!"
The monster lunged.
Its body exploded forward with terrifying speed, leaving behind only a blurred black silhouette as its claws sliced through the air toward my throat.
My mind went completely blank.
Death!
That was the only thought left inside my head.
I desperately tried to move, but my legs refused to obey. Every instinct screamed at me to run, yet my body remained frozen as though fear itself had chained me to the floor.
Just before those razor-sharp claws reached my neck...
BANG!
BANG!
A thunderous gunshot echoed throughout the room.
The creature’s head jerked violently to one side as dark blood sprayed across the wall, forcing its attack slightly off course. Its claws narrowly missed my face, tearing through the air only inches away before crashing into the wooden floor hard enough to leave several deep gouges.
"Jonathan!!"
Another gunshot followed.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Several bullets slammed into the monster’s back in rapid succession, forcing it to stagger away from me while letting out an enraged screech.
"KKRRRRAAAHHHH!!"
My teammates rushed into the room with rifles raised, their faces pale but their hands refusing to stop pulling the triggers.
"Keep firing!"
"Don’t let that bastard get close!"
Bullets rained across the creature’s body, tearing apart chunks of black flesh as pieces of its skin burst apart. Yet instead of collapsing, the wounds began writhing before our very eyes, black muscles knitting themselves back together with horrifying speed.
"What the hell...?"
"It... It’s regenerating!"
Panic spread across everyone’s faces.
The monster slowly straightened its body, as though the barrage of bullets had done little more than annoy it. It rolled its neck with a sickening crack before lifting its rainbow-colored eyes toward us.
For the first time...
I saw fear on my teammates’ faces.
Real fear!!
The kind that stripped away every illusion that humanity still stood at the top of the food chain.
Without warning, the creature vanished.
"W-Where did it go?!"
"Above us!"
One of my teammates barely finished shouting before the monster dropped from the ceiling like a starving predator.
Its claws pierced straight through his shoulder before throwing him across the room as though he weighed nothing at all. His body smashed through a concrete wall, disappearing beneath a cloud of dust and broken bricks.
"AAAAAGGHHH!"
"Spread out! Don’t bunch together!"
The room instantly descended into chaos.
Gunfire erupted from every direction as everyone desperately tried to keep the creature away from one another. Muzzle flashes illuminated the blood-soaked room while spent shell casings rained onto the floor.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
One teammate deliberately stepped in front of me while continuing to fire.
"Jonathan!"
His voice snapped me back to reality.
"What are you doing?! Move!"
My frozen legs finally responded.
I stumbled backwards, nearly collapsing as I forced myself away from the monster. Every breath came out ragged, and my entire body shook uncontrollably while the horrifying image of that creature feasting on human flesh remained burned into my mind.
"I... I..."
"Get out of here!" another teammate roared while reloading his rifle with trembling hands. "We’ll hold it back! GO!!"
Before I could even react, one of my teammates grabbed my arm with all his strength and forcefully dragged me out of the room. Behind us, the remaining members stood their ground with rifles raised, shouting at the top of their lungs as they unleashed a relentless barrage of bullets toward the monster.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
The creature didn’t retreat.
It charged straight through the storm of bullets as though the gunfire meant nothing to it. Its claws flashed through the air faster than my eyes could follow before one of my teammates was ripped completely in half.
Blood erupted like a crimson fountain, splattering across the ceiling and walls before another man was impaled through the chest and thrown across the room as if he weighed nothing.
"Shoot! Don’t stop shooting!"
"It’s not dying!"
"ARRRGHHHHH!!"
Their desperate screams echoed throughout the building, one after another, as that horrifying creature tore through them without mercy.
Limbs flew through the air, flesh was ripped apart, and... b-blood painted every inch of the hallway until the floor itself became impossible to recognise.
...
That was the last time I ever saw them.
My parents...
My teammates...
The people who had trusted me to lead them...
Every single one of them was reduced to nothing more than torn flesh beneath those monsters.
"Come on, Jonathan! This isn’t the time to fall apart!"
The last surviving member of my team pulled me with all his strength, practically dragging my lifeless body through the blood-soaked corridor while the sounds of rifle fire continued echoing behind us.
When we left the building,
BANG!
BANG!
BAN...
The final gunshot abruptly stopped.
An unbearable silence swallowed the building... as if everything was over.
Finally... over!
My mind finally snapped.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
I screamed until my throat burned raw, struggling wildly against my teammate’s grip as I desperately tried to run back inside.
"LET ME GO!"
"LET ME GO!!"
I kicked, punched, and fought with every ounce of strength I had left, but he refused to release me. Tears blurred my vision as the building behind us remained deathly silent, as though every living soul inside had already been erased.
Everything...
Everything we had struggled to build...
Everything we had sacrificed for...
Every Fucking thing!!
It all disappeared within a matter of minutes.
"Our families..."
"Our friends..."
"Our future..."
The man holding me finally broke down as well. Tears streamed down his dirt-covered face while he held me tightly, not because he wanted to stop me...
But because he knew there was nothing left to save.
We could only run... before the monster comes out and kills us as well!
There was nowhere else to go except the shelter we had once abandoned.
Surely...
Surely the General and everyone there had survived...
That desperate hope was all that kept our exhausted legs moving.
But when we finally reached the shelter...
My stomach completely dropped.
The entrance had become another slaughterhouse.
Blood flowed across the ground like rainwater after a storm, carrying pieces of flesh through the broken doorway. The walls had collapsed in several places, and the overwhelming stench of death nearly made me vomit.
My last team mate staggered backwards, almost losing his balance after seeing the General’s corpse.
His body had already been dragged across the ground by several black creatures that surrounded him like starving wolves. They clawed at his flesh with animalistic hunger, tearing away chunks of meat while disgusting gulping sounds echoed throughout the ruined shelter.
None of them even acknowledged our presence.
They were too busy feeding.
"..."
Not a single word escaped my lips.
There was no escape.
There was no safe place.
Bullets couldn’t stop them.
Walls couldn’t stop them.
And Humanity... couldn’t stop them.
Everywhere we looked, crimson whirlpools continued appearing across the sky, and each one gave birth to more of those horrifying creatures. They poured into the world endlessly like an unstoppable plague, devouring everything standing in their path.
Unlike the Roots that destroyed the world and millions of lives... these creatures almost wiped out one-third of the remaining population.
We didn’t know what they were.
We didn’t know where they came from.
Most importantly...
We had absolutely no way to fight back.
At that moment, I accepted it.
This...
This was truly the end of the world.
Humanity had lost.
After months of starvation, fear, and endless suffering, perhaps God or whoever was looking down at us... had finally decided that our punishment was over.
Perhaps...
Death itself had become mercy.
Yet just as several monsters slowly turned toward us with blood dripping from their jaws...
SSSHHHHHHHH—
A brilliant pillar of golden-white light suddenly pierced through the heavens.
It descended from beyond the clouds with overwhelming radiance, illuminating the entire world as though a sun had suddenly appeared. The beam struck somewhere far beyond the horizon where the ocean met the sky, and a deafening explosion shook the entire world.
POOOOOOOOO~
A colossal tsunami erupted from the impact.
Towering waves rose thousands of meters into the sky, climbing higher than any skyscrapers ever built before, racing across the ocean with terrifying force.
"W-What..."
"What is happening...?"
I could barely whisper the words.
Then something impossible happened.
The monsters...
Trrrrr!
They trembled?
Those merciless creatures that had slaughtered humanity without hesitation suddenly froze in place. Their bodies quivered uncontrollably as they stared toward the distant pillar of light with unmistakable fear.
The grey clouds that had smothered Earth’s sky for months slowly split apart beneath the golden radiance, revealing patches of clear blue sky that nobody had seen since the Root invaded.
Then...
A figure slowly descended from within the light.
Its brilliance was impossible to look at directly. Forcing everyone to shield their eyes as warm golden light spread across the ruined world.
Then a gentle voice echoed across the entire planet.
"Children of Gaius Terravita... You have endured a sorrow no Empire should ever witness."
"Every prayer... every scream... every tear has reached Me."
"From this moment onward... You shall not face this calamity alone."
I didn’t know whose voice it was.
I didn’t even know whether what I was witnessing was real.
Yet the moment those words reached my ears, every fear, every sorrow, every ounce of despair weighing upon my heart vanished completely.
It felt exactly like a mother embracing her frightened child, assuring them that everything would be alright.
Even the towering tsunami froze in midair as though time itself had stopped. Billions of tons of seawater hung silently above the ocean, casting an enormous shadow across the coastline while not a single drop continued its descent.
The sphere pierced straight through the suspended tsunami.
There was no explosion.
There was no violent collision.
The endless pillar of light gradually compressed into a brilliant golden-white sphere no larger than a carriage. For the briefest fraction of a second, it remained perfectly still before shooting across the sky at unimaginable speed.
The moment the golden sphere touched the enormous wall of water, the entire tsunami silently split apart from its very centre. The billions of tons of seawater separated as though an invisible blade had sliced the ocean itself into two perfect halves.
Only after the sphere had completely passed through did gravity seem to remember its existence, allowing both halves of the tsunami to collapse harmlessly back into the sea with thunderous roars that shook the horizon.
BOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!SSSSSPPPPLLLLLASSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!
Yet it was not over...
Without slowing down in the slightest, the golden sphere streaked across the heavens like a miniature sun.
Golden streaks of light pierced through every crimson whirlpool.
One after another...
Every crimson vortex vanished as though it had never existed.
The monsters that continued emerging were instantly erased by the same divine light before they could even touch the ground.
Within moments...
Silence returned!
The golden sphere slowly rose into the heavens, hovering where the sun itself had once shone.
The dark clouds dissolved like morning mist beneath its radiance until Earth’s familiar blue sky finally returned after countless months of darkness.
A warm voice echoed across the world once again.
"I cannot return what has already been taken."
"Yet I swear upon My Divine Name... No child of Mine shall ever endure such despair again."
"Lift your heads, My children."
"I am Arcane."
"And from this day onward..."
"Your Goddess shall walk beside you."
Those words carried a warmth beyond anything I had ever experienced. They soothed broken hearts, calmed terrified minds, and restored hope to people who had long since forgotten such a feeling could exist.
It was...
A miracle.
The miracle every survivor had prayed for.
"G-Goddess..."
Without a single word of hesitation, both of us slowly fell to our knees and bowed our heads before the divine light, believing with every fibre of our being that our salvation had finally arrived.
A Final Hope!