Chapter 193 | Transmigrated with a Sanity Gauge

One set.

Two sets.

The base of the third set of barricades was visibly warped to the naked eye.

"We can't hold!"

A Nightwatcher's voice trembled.

Lu Yuan emptied his cylinder, his right hand flicking the ejector as his left hand already felt for bullets on his ammunition belt.

Six silver-plated bullets were pressed into the cylinder.

He snapped it shut and raised the gun.

But he knew that bullets were no longer enough.

The barricades were not enough either.

Just as the defense line was on the verge of collapse.

The distance lit up.

It was the city wall.

On the massive copper wall at the junction of the inner and outer cities, alchemical runes that had been carved for untold years were lighting up one by one.

Eerie blue light surged from the runes, spreading rapidly across the wall's surface, burning from the base all the way to the top.

Then the light spilled over the wall.

It spread outward along the copper structures of the ground, like blood being pumped back into dried veins.

The copper floor itself had no runes, but it could serve as a conductor.

The power from the city wall was transmitted through the copper to the entire area.

It moved with extreme speed.

Within seconds, the eerie blue light spread from the distance to the feet of the position, from the position to the barricades, and from the barricades to the edge of the hole.

Lu Yuan looked up.

It was not just beneath his feet.

On the distant horizon, beams of eerie blue light were rising from the ground.

One, two, three...

They shot out from different locations on the wall, piercing straight into the night sky like several massive copper-colored torches being lit simultaneously in the darkness.

There were at least three known collapses in the inner city, and several more in the North Ward and southwest of the outer city.

But there were seven pillars of light, more than any number he knew.

And...

The two pillars of light from the direction of the inner city were significantly thicker and brighter than the others.

The brightness even eclipsed the silhouette of the wall itself, turning that part of the sky into an eerie blue dome.

That was not an intensity that a small-scale collapse could force out.

Lu Yuan's heart sank.

The city wall runes were not lit for them.

The inner city could no longer hold.

The pressure there was so great that it directly triggered a full response of the rune system, and their direction was merely covered by the spillover.

'Just how many holes are there under the Bronze City?'

Lu Yuan felt the change beneath his feet.

The copper floor was heating up.

It was not the scorching heat of fire, but a gentle yet irresistible temperature permeating from the inside out.

The ghouls currently ramming the barricades paused simultaneously.

The suppression effect of the copper was magnified several times by the power of the city wall runes.

It was no longer just a burn upon contact.

It was a total crushing force within the range of coverage.

The ghouls at the very front hanging onto the barricades began to melt.

It was not the instant disintegration seen when the Guardian acted, but a slow, continuous dissolution.

Layers of grey-red muscle tissue peeled away.

They screamed as they let go, falling to the ground with limbs convulsing, as large charred black patches appeared on their skin, the edges constantly creeping inward.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle...

The sound erupted from all directions at once.

The soles of every ghoul standing on the copper floor began to smoke.

They roared and lifted their feet, but the other foot was also burning.

They could not stand, and they could not run.

Some ghouls tried to jump to reduce contact area, but the burning was even more intense the moment they landed, the flesh of their entire soles burning through to reveal the greyish-white bone beneath.

At the edge of the hole, the ghouls climbing out also stopped.

The eerie blue light conducted along the copper structures all the way to the shattered edge of the hole, and those grey-red figures clinging to the walls began to fall.

One.

Ten.

Dozens.

Those grey-red figures clinging to the walls began to fall... like locusts being peeled off a wall, they plummeted down in a dense mass.

The ghouls that had already rushed out of the hole were also in retreat.

They roared and struggled, pushing and shoving each other as they retreated toward the hole like madmen.

Those who were slow simply collapsed on the ground, their bodies still melting and limbs twitching until only a puddle of steaming, dark brown pus remained.

It was identical to the traces left after the Guardian's strike.

It was just much slower.

The greater ghoul, heavily wounded by the combined efforts of the two Descendants, was not spared either.

Its skin cracked even deeper under the power conducted by the runes.

The Descendant with the mangled arm was still pinned to it, not letting go.

The short spike churned inside the back of its head, and combined with the burning of the copper, the greater ghoul's body finally stopped twitching.

When it fell, the ground shook.

The gunfire stopped.

The roaring stopped.

All that remained was the low hum of the runes on the distant city wall and the faint sizzling of the march lamps in the night wind.

Everyone on the position was gasping for air.

Bo Er slumped behind the cover, and the two Descendants stiffly returned to the left side of the position.

The left arm of one was completely deformed, and its right arm was severed below the elbow, leaving only a short spike.

But it still stood, its bird-beak mask facing the hole, motionless.

It was as if nothing had happened.

【Environmental Perception: Detection of copper... runes activated... target rune power is fading...】

Lu Yuan looked up at the distant city wall.

The eerie blue light was indeed growing dim.

It flickered on and off like a light bulb with insufficient power.

Lu Yuan gripped his revolver.

His gaze crossed the line of barricades to look at the hole.

Inside the hole, there was silence for about ten seconds.

Then the roaring erupted again.

It was denser than before.

It was angrier than before.

The first claw climbed back onto the edge of the hole.

Then a second.

A tenth.

A twentieth.

They were back.

The runes on the distant wall were still flickering.

But they were getting darker and darker.

The runes continued to dim.

Between the flickers, the grey-red claws at the edge of the hole had already reached the surface.

When the first ghoul flipped out of the hole, faint blue smoke was still rising from its body from the residual burning of the copper floor.

But it did not collapse like before.

The power conducted by the runes was no longer enough to melt it, at most causing its movements to lag for a split second.

Then a second.

A third... the speed at which they surged from the hole was even faster than the first wave.

And they had changed.

The first batch charging in the front did not ram the barricades.

They lunged directly onto them.

With limbs spread wide, their entire bodies slammed against the copper spikes and copper wire mesh.

Sizzle sizzle sizzle...

Their skin charred against the copper spikes, muscle tissue was burned through, and black blood flowed down the copper.

They were screaming.

But they did not struggle.

They did not try to climb over, nor did they try to retreat.

They simply hung there on the barricades, motionless.

They used their own bodies to cover the copper spikes.

"They're using themselves as meat cushions!" Bo Er's voice suddenly spiked, a look of shock appearing on his face.

The second row of ghouls followed closely.

They stepped over the corpses of their kin, treading on those still-smoking husks to flip over the top of the barricades.

The copper spikes were covered by flesh.

The copper wire mesh was crushed by the corpses.

The barricades were still there, but they were no longer an obstacle.

At the same time, problems arose on the flanks.

The arc of the barricades was only sixty meters, and both ends were open.

Ghouls circled in from both ends of the arc, charging straight toward the cover along the walls of the textile workshop.

"Left flank! On the left!"

A Nightwatcher shouted anxiously.

Lu Yuan turned his head.

Three ghouls rushed in from the far left, less than thirty meters from the cover.

But what was even more hair-raising was the front.

As ghouls continued to die, the copper on the ground was gradually covered, and the ghouls had regained their ability to jump.

It was not a climb-over kind of jump, but a leap into the air after a running start, their entire bodies flying over the top of the barricades and the copper wire mesh to land directly inside the position.

Their hind limb strength far exceeded human imagination; their hunched bodies fully extended the moment they jumped, their grey-red forms slicing through the beams of the march lamps like chunks of meat flying out of the darkness.

Thud.

The first one landed five meters in front of the cover, denting the copper floor.

The moment it landed, it lunged at the nearest Nightwatcher.

Thud. Thud.

A second. A third.

They landed in the position one after another.

Meat cushions paved the way in front, flanking maneuvers on the sides, and leaping incursions from above.

A three-sided pincer attack.

Bo Er reacted extremely quickly, leveling his short-shotgun and firing a shot at the leader.

A copper-cased incendiary round hit its shoulder, and blue-white alchemical fire exploded on the wound, instantly igniting half its body.

But it did not stop.

The ghoul, covered in flames, continued to charge forward, slamming straight into the ammunition crates behind the defense line.

"Get back!"

Bo Er shoved the Nightwatcher beside him and rolled away.

The ghoul slammed into the ground, sparks from its burning body splashing onto the tarpaulin of the ammunition crates.

Bo Er drew his copper sword and slashed down, the edge cutting into the ghoul's neck; amid the sizzling, the copper scorched the muscle tissue, but the keratin layer was too thick, and a single strike failed to sever it.

The ghoul swiped back.

Bo Er's left arm was slashed open, blood spraying out.

"Sss—"

Bo Er gritted his teeth and did not let go; instead, he applied more force, twisting the copper sword in the gaps of the keratin layer until finally, with a snap, half the head slumped over.

Gunfire echoed from behind again.

The other two ghouls circling in from the right flank were suppressed by firepower, but ammunition was being consumed too quickly.

Lu Yuan emptied his cylinder and reloaded for the third time.

He counted the ammunition belt at his waist.

Eighteen silver-plated bullets remained.

Three copper-cased incendiary rounds remained.

Not enough.

Far from enough.

The light of the runes on the city wall dimmed another notch.

It changed from the original eerie blue to a murky greenish-grey, like old copperware covered in a layer of dust.

The burning effect on the copper floor was now negligible.

As those ghouls stepped on it, only a wisp of light smoke rose from their soles, not even hindering their run.

At the hole, the roaring merged into a single wall of sound.

There were more than the first wave.

They were faster than the first wave.

Lu Yuan raised his gun to aim.

But he knew that this time, there would be no city wall runes to save the day.

As for the Guardian, it was unclear if he would strike again; right now, to stay alive, there was no choice but to fight desperately besides running.

"The barricades are about to fail!"

The voice came from the very front of the defense line.

The front barricades no longer looked like their original selves.

Layer upon layer of ghoul corpses hung on them, the copper spikes completely covered by flesh, and the copper wire mesh crushed into a charred meat rug.

The ghouls behind them stepped over the corpses of their kind, scaling the defense line like climbing a slope.

The first set of barricades did not fall.

But it no longer mattered.

It was completely buried in flesh.

Ghouls surged in from atop the pile of corpses.

"Copper powder!" Lu Yuan shouted.

Two Nightwatchers hurled the copper powder canisters.

The canisters exploded among the ghoul swarm, the fine copper powder kicking up an orange-red mist.

Dense scorched marks immediately appeared on the ghouls' skin, as if they had been showered with red-hot iron sand.

They screamed and rolled, but the kin behind them had already charged over them.

The effect of the copper powder lasted only a few seconds.

Corpses began to pile up in front of the second set of barricades as well.

More ghouls lunged forward, hanging onto the copper spikes, their skin charring and bodies convulsing, but they refused to let go.

The Descendant with the mangled arm stood there, its broken body like a wall of iron.

Its nozzle sprayed a final burst of blue flame before going completely dark.

The Descendant retracted the nozzle and snapped a short spike from the base of its ruined arm, meeting the surging ghouls.

The short spike pierced the throat of the first one, but a second had already lunged onto its back.

Sharp teeth bit into the Descendant's shoulder armor, making the metal screech.

A third circled to the side, claws tearing open the black robe at the Descendant's waist, revealing the deformed gears and linkages beneath.

The Descendant made no sound.

It simply turned mechanically and stabbed its remaining short spike into that ghoul's eye socket.

But more were surging forward.

At the edge of Lu Yuan's vision, greyish-white text flickered constantly.

【Environmental Perception: Number of pollution sources continuing to rise... immediate retreat suggested...】

Lu Yuan ignored the frantically appearing prompts, because with the Timekeeper in hand, as long as he wanted to leave, the ghouls would never be able to catch him at their speed. However, Bo Er and the remaining residents of the North Ward would all become fodder for the ghouls.

Lu Yuan pulled the trigger repeatedly.

A copper-cased incendiary round shot into the open mouth of a ghoul and exploded out the back of its head, blue-white alchemical fire surging out from deep within its throat.

Three copper-cased rounds left.

Eighteen silver-plated bullets.

Bo Er retreated to Lu Yuan's side, his copper sword covered in black blood, the wound on his left arm dripping, but he did not bandage it.

"Lu Yuan."

Bo Er's voice was calm.

"We can't hold."

This time there was no fear, nor was there any wavering.

It was simply an old soldier stating a fact.

Lu Yuan did not answer.

He looked toward the hole.

Reflected in the firelight, the grey-red figures were still surging out in a never-ending stream.

It was as if they could never be killed off.