Hell Scroll
The neat, clean streets, the courtyards blooming with flowers, the bright, warm sunlight, and the rows of orderly, beautiful houses—all of it should have been wonderful, yet it made Tuka feel an irrepressible sense of fear.
It was an instinctive fear, as though a pair of greedy eyes were staring at him from the area ahead, and this silent region before him was its gaping maw, waiting to swallow everything.
"Ah!!! Help! Help, somebody help me!"
Suddenly, a shrill cry for help came from a distant house, but the scream abruptly stopped the next second. If not for the echoes still resounding through the streets, Tuka would have begun to wonder whether his excessive tension had caused him to hallucinate.
"Captain, what do we do?"
Keith gripped the longsword in his hand tightly. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead, yet he still warily surveyed their surroundings. His body unconsciously shielded Nana, ensuring that he could protect her immediately if danger appeared.
"Retreat! Return to the Adventurer's Guild at once, then inform everyone about what happened here!"
After glancing toward the direction from which the cry for help had come, Tuka gave the order to retreat without hesitation. His mind was already in complete turmoil. The information he had heard from the Adventurer's Guild, combined with everything Gordon had just seen in the wealthy district, had given rise to a thought that even Tuka himself was unwilling to believe.
But Tuka knew that now was not the time to uncover the truth. As captain, he had to lead his teammates out of this dangerous place. As for the person who had just cried for help, all Tuka could do was offer an apology.
After all, their team was limited in strength, and he could not bring his teammates into danger for the sake of a stranger. More importantly, Tuka knew that the person who had called for help was almost certainly already dead.
"Yes!"
Keith and Nina nodded, then began carrying out Tuka's order without hesitation. They cautiously moved toward the Adventurer's Guild. Gordon, the most agile and nimble of them, walked at the front, acting as the team's eyes and constantly guarding against unknown enemies.
Keith and Nina walked in the middle, while Tuka, the captain, stayed at the rear. The entire team began retreating little by little in an arrow formation.
About ten minutes later, when Tuka's team finally heard the sound of people talking nearby, their tense expressions relaxed slightly. Although they had encountered no danger along the way, the strange feeling from the wealthy district still left them shaken.
"Move faster! Head to the Adventurer's Guild immediately. We have to tell everyone what happened in the wealthy district, or something terrible will happen!"
When he saw the bustling crowds on the street ahead, Tuka finally lowered the shield in his hand. He turned back with a solemn expression and glanced at the distant wealthy district. Although they had already left it, the unease and fear in Tuka's heart had only grown heavier, as if everything happening now were merely the calm before a tempest.
"Wait, Captain! What is that?"
Suddenly, Nina stopped Tuka just as he was about to leave. She tremblingly raised a finger and pointed at a nearby alley, her face filled with terror. The shadows within the alley were twisting and changing incessantly, and one massive monster after another, each nearly two meters tall, crawled out from them. Their scarlet eyes were fixed intently on the group.
"Monsters! Run!"
Tuka looked in the direction Nana had pointed. One Shadow Guard after another was pouring out of the shadows. Seeing the monsters surging forth like a tide, Tuka finally understood why the wealthy district had become like that.
The next second, Tuka let out a roar and grabbed the dazed Nana and Keith before running toward home. He understood that, facing so many monsters, the city's destruction was already inevitable. At that moment, all Tuka could think about was taking his family and teammates and escaping—far, far away.
As for resisting, if the lord of Ereccia had not left, Tuka might still have been willing to fight to the death to protect his home. But now, with the city's entire high-level fighting force and its central pillar—the city lord—having departed in advance, it meant that every one of them had been completely abandoned.
"Ahhh! Monsters! There are monsters!"
"Somebody save me! I don't want to die yet!"
"Mommy, Mommy, where are you?"
"Damn monsters, get out of here!"
"."
The next second, the entire city descended into chaos. It was not only the alley Tuka and the others had seen earlier—monsters were surging out from every direction across the city. Residents who had been chatting, working, or enjoying their lives just moments ago were instantly suffering heavy casualties.
Some adventurers also began fighting the Shadow Guard, but faced with their endless numbers, those adventurers were soon overwhelmed. Their bodies were torn apart by the Shadow Guard's sharp claws, and blood flowed across the ground.
Crack!
At that moment, an adventurer who had exhausted himself killing a Shadow Guard was kneeling on the ground, wiping the blood from his face, when he suddenly heard a strange sound beneath his feet. Before he could see what was happening, the stone pavement beneath him shattered, and a dark red tentacle drilled out from below.
Splurt!
"What on earth is happening? Why are there so many monsters? Is this a punishment from the gods? Can anyone come save us?"
At the edge of the city, endless tentacles thrust out of the ground, killing every living thing that approached the city's outskirts. At that moment, the entire city had become a birdcage, while the humans living inside were birds awaiting death.
"Lord City Master, please come save your people! Save us!"
In midair, a resident who had been impaled by a tentacle finished speaking his final words. His body and soul were devoured completely by the tentacle, and his body fell, smashing into the blood-soaked stone pavement and breaking into pieces.
By then, all of Ereccia had become a true living hell. Blood pooled together and flowed into the sewers, while the air was thick with the pungent stench of blood. On the corpse-covered streets, cries of agony, the sounds of battle, and sobs rang out at intervals, painting a picture called hell.