Chapter 152: Stopping the Nuclear Bomb? For Real?
The old woman hugged her granddaughter tightly, seemingly oblivious to the pain. A serene, almost beatific kindness remained on her face as she allowed the girl to gnaw on her flesh.
"Rongrong… don't be afraid… Grandma is here…"
She spoke in halting, gentle whispers, her withered hand stroking her granddaughter's twisted and deformed head. It was as if she were soothing a child through a common nightmare on any other night.
"So fragrant… delicious. Want more… more!"
Rongrong's only response was a greedier, more frenzied devouring. She tore at the old woman's flesh, bite after bloody bite. There was no warmth left in her malformed body, only a ravenous hunger driven by pure instinct.
Ye Tian couldn't bear to watch any longer and raised his greatsword, but Haruto, who had been standing beside him, moved first.
A familiar gap tore open in the air, and from it, Haruto pulled a folded parasol. In the next instant, he vanished, reappearing directly in front of the tragic pair. The parasol swung down in a vicious arc—
He didn't strike the monster. Instead, the tip of the parasol landed with pinpoint accuracy on the last chain tethering Rongrong's leg.
Clang—!
The heavy iron link snapped under the impossibly sharp impact.
The very moment the chain broke, Rongrong's swollen, deformed head burst apart with a wet pop, like an over-inflated balloon. There was no splatter of blood, no human tissue—only a spray of grayish-black, viscous matter.
The grotesque, headless body froze for a second before pitching forward, collapsing directly into the old woman's bloody embrace.
She held her granddaughter's motionless corpse, sitting there in a daze. The stone room fell into a dead silence, broken only by the soft, rhythmic dripping of blood.
Looking at the scene, Ye Tian let out a heavy sigh and forced himself to compose his emotions. He then walked over to Xia Ye, who was still "playing dead" on the floor, and nudged him helplessly with the tip of his boot.
"Stop acting, Little Xia."
The other members of the Ascending God team gathered around, their voices a chorus of good-natured teasing.
"Yeah, you're overacting."
"We already know how much you trust the Boss."
"Hurry up and get up. It's time to move out."
However, no matter how much they prodded and teased, the man on the ground remained completely unresponsive.
Just then, Lin Xuelao's quiet voice cut through the banter. "Is it possible… that he actually fainted from the fumes of that candle?"
"He really fainted?"
Ye Tian and the others were all stunned. Their expressions shifted into something complex—a mixture of pity, amusement, and secondhand embarrassment. They could suddenly understand Xia Ye's uncharacteristically bold behavior today; it wasn't born of trust, but from the simple fact that he had been completely unconscious.
"Didn't he also drink the potion you guys prepared?" the team's secretary asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Lin Xuelao shook her head, indicating she didn't know, and turned her gaze toward Haruto. The rest of the group followed suit.
"Why are you all looking at me?" Haruto waved a hand irritably. "I wasn't the one who prepared the potion."
And so, every gaze in the room focused in unison on Youmu.
The half-ghost gardener gave a slightly embarrassed cough. "I… accidentally took the wrong one. That bottle was filled with Sprite."
…Sprite?
The group nearly collapsed on the spot. The reason was so utterly ridiculous they didn't even know where to begin their criticism. All they could muster was the thought that it was lucky it hadn't been poison.
Youmu hastily produced a bottle of the real potion and had someone administer it to Xia Ye. Within a few breaths, he woke up with a groan, looking around the room with a blank, groggy expression.
After learning that he had nearly become a monster's next meal, he shuddered violently, his face turning deathly pale.
The old woman was still sitting in a daze, cradling the headless corpse. After a final, quick glance, Haruto turned and led the way out.
"Let's go."
Youmu cast one last look of pity at the old woman before immediately following Haruto. The rest of the group fell in line behind them.
They walked out of the stone room, and Haruto stopped at the cave entrance. After a short wait, Yotsuya Miko and Lin Xuelao were the last two to emerge.
"What took you so long? Did you get any information?" Haruto asked.
Yotsuya Miko looked at the assembled group, her voice low and serious. "The grandmother told me something at the end. She said the evacuation point might be fake. The authorities abandoned this place long ago and don't care about their survival."
Her words made everyone's heart skip a beat.
Haruto was about to press for more details when—
BANG!
A single, clear gunshot rang out from inside the house.
Everyone flinched, but there was no need to go back in. They all understood what had just happened.
"Let's get out of here first," Haruto said, swallowing the question he was about to ask. He turned and entered the connecting passage.
When they reached the end, they could faintly see moonlight filtering in. It was indeed an exit. As the group stepped out, they found themselves back on a desolate street. Behind them, the colossal Flesh Mountain was still, a relentless tide of horror.
Following Haruto's instruction, Lin Xuelao led them to find a safe place to rest. The group eventually settled into a small, abandoned tavern.
Haruto took the can of Coke Youmu handed him, took a long gulp, and then turned to Ye Tian. "How did you guys get the location of the escape point?"
"A newspaper," Ye Tian replied, pulling out a folded paper. "To be safe, we tried a Ouija board, but we didn't ask for the location directly. Instead, we asked if the content in the newspaper was true or false." He then looked at Haruto. "What about you guys?"
Haruto didn't answer directly. He took the newspaper and scanned its contents. "We did the opposite of you. We used a ghost letter to ask for the escape point directly, and then found a newspaper to verify if it was true or false."
"Is the escape point the same?"
"The same." Haruto put down the newspaper.
"So she was lying to us?" one of Ye Tian's teammates asked.
"No," Haruto said, shaking his head. "She was a person on the verge of death with nothing left to lose; there was no reason to lie. Besides, I could tell she wasn't the type to drag others down with her."
Although he said this, he still turned to look at Lin Xuelao. Only when the blind girl gave a slight, confirming nod did he finally conclude, "Then there's only one possibility: none of us were wrong."
None of them were wrong? But the evacuation point was fake?
Everyone was completely confused. It couldn't be a dead end from the very start, could it? How were they supposed to clear the instance then?
"It's a plot point," Youmu explained, seeing the confused looks on their faces. "Since the information obtained by all three parties is consistent, there's a high probability that the evacuation point itself isn't the problem. However, we must first complete a certain key task before we can actually evacuate."
Haruto nodded in agreement. "So, I speculate that what we actually need to do is stop the nuclear bomb from exploding."
Stop the nuclear bomb from exploding?
The others stared back at him, their expressions a mask of bewilderment. Was he serious? They were all just flesh and blood; how were they supposed to stop a nuclear bomb? For real!?
"I'm not asking you to physically stop a nuke," Haruto clarified with a helpless sigh, correctly interpreting their stunned silence. "We need to eliminate the monster that the launchers deem must be eradicated. As long as we deal with it, the threat level of this city will drop significantly. When that time comes, the decision-makers will naturally re-evaluate the pros and cons and decide that the city is worth preserving. Only then will a true evacuation opportunity appear."
"What is that monster?" Ye Tian asked, his focus sharpening. "Is it that Flesh Mountain from earlier? Or the Broodmother the old woman mentioned?"
"It's not certain yet." Haruto shook his head. "That is the key piece of intelligence we are currently missing."
"Then how about…" Xia Ye suggested hesitantly, having finally recovered. "We continue toward the evacuation point? If we really can't find any clues on the way, once we reach the location, we can have other players use the Ouija board to get more information?"
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