The Sacrifice's Struggle

May 13, 22:30.

One hour and thirty minutes left on the countdown.

Having spent three and a half hours of his remaining life, Lynch finally laid eyes on the true visage of the culprit.

Even before he could make out its full shape, a colossal dread washed over him—far more intense than from the photograph, making Lynch feel as if needles were pricking his back.

Just as this dread hit him, a vision suddenly materialized before his eyes.

A biting cold wind, barren earth, primitive mud huts, emaciated livestock.

And a ruined city.

Those structures that could barely be called houses were constructed from mud, their design exceedingly primitive, built haphazardly together on a considerable scale.

At the heart of the city lay a vast open square, where a swarm of bizarre creatures had gathered, shouting in an incomprehensible tongue.

There were well over a hundred of them. These beings bore half-human, half-lizard faces, their bodies covered in thick fur. Standing nearly three meters tall, they rippled with explosive muscle, their upper bodies hunched over, massive claws dangling at their sides almost scraping the ground.

A sharp twinge of pain stabbed his brain, and then the vision vanished. The eerie statue was still right before him, and the gentle voice echoed in his mind.

【Mystery relic, Joy of the Flicker: Offer up your flesh and soul, and I shall bestow power upon you, my morsels.】

“Mr. Levive, you had better leave as well. An uncontrolled relic is extremely dangerous.”

When Lynch came back to his senses, he realized that the screaming blue uniforms had already been dragged outside by their more composed colleagues. Only Officer Natalie remained, squatting beside the statue. Without looking back, she spoke:

“I will suppress it immediately and try my best to finish within an hour and a half. Just wait outside...”

“I've struggled this far; of course I'm going to see it through to the end. This is self-preservation.”

“I'm not looking down on you, Lynch. I recognize your effort and competence, but the danger inside is unknown, and there is no reason for an ordinary person to take such risks. You are not a Soul Severer and have no combat ability; getting caught up in this could get you killed even faster. Trust me. I'm a professional when it comes to handling mysterious events. Leave it to me.”

“I don't like watching others risk their lives for me while I just stand by and wait. To me, even if I survived that way, it would be a disgrace. If I were utterly useless, that would be one thing, but you yourself mentioned what someone with sharp inspiration means to people like you. I can be useful.”

“You...” Officer Natalie gritted her teeth in exasperation, but ultimately let out a sigh. “Fine. You've earned the right to insist. But don't blame me if I treat you like a professional, then.”

Lynch gave a slight smile, took off his top hat, pressed it against his chest, and offered a shallow bow.

“Randall and the others were in the middle of some ritual when we disrupted them, causing the relic to lose control and backfire, bringing about their own demise. If we want to terminate the relic's effect now, we must enter the ancient memories it holds to suppress and contain it. The trouble is, we know nothing about this ancient memory, so there's no way to prepare beforehand—”

“Joy of the Flicker,” Lynch interrupted Officer Natalie's regretful explanation directly. “There's also a story: Offer up your flesh and soul, and I shall bestow power upon you, my morsels.”

The answer came so swiftly that Officer Natalie was left slack-jawed, speechless for several moments.

“You...” The lady officer clenched her fists, torn between being delighted and exasperated. “This story sounds like an item used for sacrifices. In that case, I think I understand what happened.”

“Oh?”

“They were followers of this Ancient Flicker, most likely using a special method to sacrifice you all. Right now, you are the sacrifice.” Grabbing Lynch by the wrist, the lady officer pulled him toward the statue. “There's still time to back out. Once we enter the relic's memories, it will be too late for regrets.”

Lynch touched the red moon pendant at his chest and offered an easy smile.

“All right, do as I do: focus your gaze on the relic, relax your will, and don't resist. In a moment, we will appear together, you—”

At first glance, the terror and oppression brought on by its filth lingered, but after staring for a few seconds, Lynch watched the statue begin to warp, gradually churning into a vortex. His consciousness felt as though it were plunging into the vortex's depths, and everything around him blurred into haze.

The next moment, Lynch snapped awake. The instant his consciousness returned, he instinctively held his breath.

The pungent reek of blood assaulted his senses, sparking an immediate instinctual alarm. He kept utterly silent and did not move an inch.

He was surrounded by a massive pile of cold, stiff, foreign objects. A foreboding dread crept over him. Narrowing his eyes to slits, he quietly surveyed his surroundings.

Corpses.

A mountain of corpses.

All of them were human, both male and female, clad in animal skins that exuded a raw, savage aura.

The surrounding air was biting cold, chilling the bodies stiff, yet they remained relatively supple—clearly having died not long ago.

These corpses were piled high around a statue identical to the one in his vision. Several similar corpse mounds dotted the vicinity, while those massive, bizarre creatures crouched in concentric circles farther out, deafening roars rumbling from their throats.

The distance was considerable—at least thirty to forty meters—yet the immense pressure radiating from the gathered horde slammed into Lynch like a physical blow. His body locked up in involuntary tension, even as his limbs went numb with weakness.

Worst of all, Officer Natalie was nowhere to be seen.

Beside him were only stiff corpses; Lynch had no idea why she hadn't appeared beside him as promised.

Had her experience failed her? Why were they separated?

【You are a sacrifice, Awakened.】

Panic gripped Lynch's heart. No matter how bravely he had spoken earlier, being cast into a literal sea of blood and mountain of corpses surrounded by a horde of monsters made him tremble uncontrollably.

What was more, the corpses beneath him began to shudder—vibrations from heavy, plodding footsteps.

In the next instant, an enormous shadow blotted out the sky, plunging Lynch's heart to rock bottom.

A massive creature, seemingly a leader, strode in front of Lynch and extended a claw down toward him from above.

Lynch shook all over, gripped by a single desperate thought: run.

Yet monsters surrounded him on all sides; where could he run? How could he possibly fool the one right in front of him?

Squinting at the descending claw, Lynch suddenly gritted his teeth, reined in his terror, and clamped his eyes shut.

Praying silently, Lynch clenched his teeth and remained motionless. He felt a gust of air sweep across his skin—the wind stirred by the approaching claw—causing his heart to pound like a galloping steed, racing faster and faster.

Some part of the claw brushed against his body, sending his heart plummeting, but in the next second, it merely scraped past him to seize another corpse beside him, lifting it effortlessly like a toy.

With a casual swipe of the sharp claws accompanied by a sickening sound of rending flesh, the corpse was cleaved into several pieces on the spot. Severed limbs and entrails rained down across the ground, splattering warm, foul-smelling, thick blood all over Lynch's face.

The roars intensified, pulsing with excitement. The leader's claws deftly gathered the fallen scraps of flesh and walked toward the statue, heaping all the mangled remains beside it before thrusting both arms upward, howling toward the heavens.

Lynch felt an urge to howl at the sky himself, blood surging through his chest in waves, his clothes drenched through with cold sweat.

He had been a single step away from death; only now did waves of lingering dread wash over him.

Forcing himself to calm down while the monster was away, Lynch wriggled his body as stealthily as possible, trying to inch toward an inconspicuous spot by the corpse pile.

It was grueling work, but fortunately, the surrounding monsters were entirely focused on the leader before the statue, paying no heed to the peripheral corpse heaps. After several intermittent attempts, Lynch finally managed to maneuver behind the pile, out of the statue's line of sight.

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief and his strung-up nerves relaxed, Lynch's face suddenly drained of color.

His final movement had been slightly too broad, upsetting the delicate balance of a corpse, which slowly tilted to one side.

By the time he noticed, it was already too late. Lynch couldn't even leap up in time to steady it; he could only watch helplessly as the corpse tilted further and further, tumbling down the pile.

The sound of the rolling corpse was tiny, drowned out by the continuous roar of the distant monsters, but the howl beside the statue abruptly cut off.

His heart froze completely. Clinging to a thread of hope, Lynch rolled his eyes to the side.

Yet out of the corner of his eye, he saw a massive figure leap lightly across the distance, landing right beside the corpse pile, sharp claws raised high, plunging violently downward!

No longer able to keep his composure, Lynch mustered every ounce of strength in his body to roll down the corpse pile. A sickening sound of a blade slicing into flesh rang out, followed by a spray of blood.

The razor-sharp claws practically grazed Lynch's body, slicing a clean rip through his trench coat. The claws sank into the corpse pile right beside him, effortlessly shredding several frozen bodies.

Before he could even catch his breath, the leader's claw was raised once more.

Lynch's eyes nearly tore at the corners, his hair standing on end. He desperately wanted to dodge again, but the previous roll had drained every ounce of his strength. His body refused to obey his frantic thoughts; all he could do was watch the leader's claw rise higher and higher, filling his entire field of vision.

Confused roars echoed from the outside, but to Lynch's despair, the leader was not distracted in the least. Its lizard face remained expressionless, vertical slit pupils gleaming with icy apathy.

Then, the claw swung down with savage force.

Yet there was no time to react. He could only watch as the deadly claws descended from above.

At that very instant, a cold scoff rang out behind the leader.

“What do you think you are doing to the person under my protection?”

In the next heartbeat, Lynch witnessed a scene he would likely remember for the rest of his life.

Amidst that sharp rebuke, a human figure abruptly materialized beside Lynch, stepping directly into the claw's trajectory.

The hulking monster was grotesque and terrifying, while the human standing before it seemed slender and frail. Two starkly contrasting figures intersected before his eyes.

Clad in a trench coat and top hat, holding a rapier, long hair draped over her shoulders, her face cold and resolute—even when facing a creature towering half a body taller than herself, the human stood ramrod straight without a shred of cowardice, raising her sheathed rapier with a single hand.

Claw and rapier collided, holding each other at a standstill for an instant before the massive leader stumbled backward.

Capitalizing on the momentum, the human strode forward, kicking the monster squarely in the chest. That several-hundred-kilogram body was launched into the air by the kick, crashing violently toward the statue and smashing into the sprawling heap of butchered flesh.

Only then did the human turn unhurriedly around, tipping her top hat toward Lynch with a shallow bow, her voice righteous and clear:

“Mr. Lynch Levive, apologies for keeping you waiting.”

Officer Natalie Angel had arrived.