In the biting cold wind, Pela finally saw the golden mask, glowing with a cold, eerie light under the starlight.
"Tha…"
The words of thanks were barely out of her mouth when they were torn apart by a piercing shriek.
"Th—!"
The hand gripping her wrist was anything but gentle; it suddenly flung her upwards!
An irresistible, pure brute force surged through her.
Pela felt like a tattered sandbag, carelessly discarded, as she was roughly tossed high into the air.
The momentary weightlessness and fear left her mind blank.
Finally, she slammed heavily into a snowdrift nearby, the soft snow cushioning what would have been a fatal impact.
By the time she struggled out of the head-high snow and eagerly looked towards the abyss, only bottomless darkness remained in her vision.
Phainon's figure had vanished.
"Mr. Flame Reaver!!! Where are the others?! Are you still there?!"
Her only answer was the wailing, swirling cold wind from the abyss.
Pela collapsed to the ground.
This collapsed area was too vast, stretching as far as the eye could see.
"Am I the only survivor?!"
"Mr. Flame Reaver… sacrificed himself to save me, and then…"
"And everyone else…"
Pela was not very old, and she rarely participated in front-line combat.
Despair clutched her heart, and her tears fell uncontrollably.
"Why… why did a simple reconnaissance mission turn into this…?" She subconsciously clenched her hands, and in her endless despair, a faint thought flashed through her mind.
"Qlipoth God… please…"
However, before she could finish her plea.
What answered her was not the holy light of Preservation.
But… the prelude to destruction.
"Boom—!"
A loud explosion suddenly erupted from beneath the abyss!
Immediately after, a pitch-black shadow roared out of the deep pit!
"Ah ah ah ah—!"
That dark shadow was, surprisingly, an Iron Guardcook who usually only handled meals.
His mournful scream echoed through the night sky, finally tracing a desperate arc before he plunged headfirst into a nearby snowdrift, leaving only his two legs flailing helplessly outside.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
It was as if some violent "launch" sequence had begun.
One dark shadow after another, accompanied by screams, was "spit" out of the abyss in quick succession.
The second… the third… In the blink of an eye, the previously empty snowy ground was littered with groaning, moaning Iron Guard soldiers, lying in disarray.
Pela stared blankly at this absurd scene, the tear stains on her face not yet dry, but her eyes already filled with unspeakable horror.
She stiffly turned her head, staring intently at the abyss.
No.
This was not a miracle.
Miracles are not so brutal!
The figure of the black-robed, masked man appeared in her mind.
And the terrifying legend circulated among the troops: that he, alone, had turned a Doomsday Beast tide into a rain of blood and flesh!
It was him.
It must be him!
—
Inside the abyss.
Phainon's figure plummeted vertically into the endless darkness.
The wind howled past his ears, but the expression beneath his mask was terrifyingly calm.
Below, a falling Iron Guard came into his view.
A flash.
He appeared beside the Iron Guard like a ghost; the soldier hadn't even clearly seen who it was, only feeling his back collar suddenly grabbed by a brute force.
The next instant, the sensation of falling vanished.
In their place was a terrifying acceleration that uncontrollably flung him high into the air!
As he was thrown, he caught a glimpse of that indifferent golden mask.
It was the recruit code-named "Flame Reaver"!
However, before he could think more, Phainon's four pitch-black phantoms had already detached, like a flock of predatory eagles, swooping towards the other falling guards.
Grabbing… then throwing… The entire sequence of actions was fluid, precise, efficient, and cold.
Phainon grabbed the last guard.
"Forty-two… no more, no less…"
He muttered to himself, and the hand gripping the guard's shoulder suddenly exerted force.
Whoosh—!
The last guard, like a cannonball fired from a barrel, instantly vanished from the entrance of the abyss.
The hunting ground was finally cleared!
Phainon hovered in mid-air, his four phantoms returning to his body like tired birds to their nest, silently merging into him.
He slowly landed, clapping his hands.
"Obstacles… all cleared… complete…"
Just then, an indescribable stench wafted from a huge opening below.
The smell was like the decaying corpses of billions of beings for millions of years, mixed with the most ancient malice and chaos from the universe.
Phainon raised the Dawnbreaker in his hand.
This aura… felt somewhat familiar.
But… it didn't matter.
Phainon didn't hesitate in the slightest; his figure moved like a stream of dark light, actively and slowly walking towards the depths of the cave.
"Something that even 'Destruction' finds interesting…"
"What exactly is it?"
"Heh heh heh… it doesn't matter, just destroy it!"