Scorch Marks
This discovery left Han Su deeply shaken.
Reciting the Fishing Horn instantly activated his Mental Power, making him far stronger than he was in his normal state. It also let him wield the Giant's Eye and the Cross Bronze Hand with ease. These had always been his trump cards for dealing with all kinds of trouble.
But now, facing the strange corruption that had emerged from this painting, the drawbacks of the Fishing Horn finally became apparent.
Or rather, his own shortcomings did.
The Fishing Horn was so powerful that it let him do many things ordinary people couldn't. But its power didn't come from nowhere—it was built on his Mental Power.
His Mental Power was insufficient, and it drained too quickly. It couldn't fully drive out the corruption. Instead, it left an opening for the corruption to burrow deeper into him.
As his thoughts raced, wave after wave of drowsiness washed over him. Han Su felt his mind slipping in and out of focus.
He felt "himself" growing panicked and desperate. He saw the underground facility growing more and more dilapidated, its deterioration far outpacing the original estimates. He watched the generations around him dwindle and grow increasingly strange. He couldn't hide down there any longer.
He knew the surface was now rife with radiation and residual flares. Even so, he decided to go outside. Rather than wait for a slow death in the underground facility, he would return to the surface and seek a new way forward.
So he sent out an exploration team. Wearing the few protective suits they had, they left the underground facility and returned to the surface. The result was beyond doubt: death.
Their protective suits were no match for the intense radiation. Every member of the team died, and not even