142, Ignorance, and Inescapable Calamity!

"Yeah... why?"

Ruksinth tilted her head, her eyes curving into happy crescents as she smiled at Lilith beneath the Blood Moon in the center of the sky.

Following her gaze, everyone looked upward as well. In the next instant, their pupils shrank—Lilith's fusion with the Blood of Madness had caused a massive, hideous eyeball to open at the center of the Blood Moon. Around it, countless densely packed smaller eyes emerged, enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

Their gaze seemed to stop everyone's thoughts at once, while murmurs began to echo beside their ears.

The surface of the Scarlet Castle had begun to rot away. The trees around it, which had long since withered, were regaining vitality, but what grew from them were strange, fleshy tentacles. Their branches quietly twisted and stretched toward the group. Ling Ling was the first to sense that something was wrong—

She whipped around and saw the distorted branches lying silently on the ground, seemingly harmless... But when she suspiciously turned back, then turned around again—the surrounding forest seemed closer, while the vines had already spread to less than a meter from her feet.

"These trees..." Ling Ling murmured. Staring at the vines, she seemed to see mouths inexplicably growing from the twisted, coiled branches, laughing wildly at her—

Bang! Blazing flames ignited the trees. The screams of children and women came from within them. They laughed, screamed, cursed, and gave thanks.

The wails and murmurs mixed together, finally making Ling Ling and the others cover their ears with both hands—this Blood Moon Territory was mutating!!!

Just as everyone suffered under the interference of the murmurs, a gentle song suddenly broke through the monsters' ferocity and the clamor of the whispers like winter sunlight... It soothed them beyond measure, yet its heavenly beauty made them