Unexpected Development?

Eerie green flames surged like a sudden tide, flooding the vast assembly hall in an instant and spreading toward every Abyssal cultist present—as if the flames had been brewing aboard the ship for an unknown length of time, their rise accompanied by a thunderous roar of wind and lightning!

Cries of alarm and furious roars erupted from all directions. Almost every Abyssal Demon reacted the instant the eerie green flames appeared. The weaker demons immediately began to lose control, while even the stronger ones, driven by immense terror and instinct, refused to obey their symbiotes' commands. Black Abyssal rifts began to appear above the assembly hall, and cultists and priests dragged away by the demons vanished into those runaway fissures with wails of agony—the very few "lucky" survivors had no choice but to hastily face the enemies who had suddenly burst in.

Scattered gunfire rang out, and several feeble spells struck the spot where Duncan and Alice stood.

But the flames stood like a wall. Those weak attacks could not even approach before losing all force. Bullets were dyed eerie green within the fire and fell harmlessly to the floor, while projectiles and acid conjured through demonic power transformed into fresh flames in midair and flew back toward where they had come from.

Alice watched the thrilling scene with wide-eyed curiosity. Strange-looking demons and cultists driven mad by fear surrounded her, but she did not feel afraid—she had come with the captain to "watch the excitement," and things were certainly lively here now.

Yet before long, she found it a little too noisy.

She looked toward the noisiest directions, frowned, and raised a hand in a beckoning gesture. Invisible threads drifted down into her grasp—the captain had told her before they set out that everyone in this hall was a