Xiao Ba's piercing scream punctured everyone's taut nerves like a needle.
Milluki's voice shook uncontrollably. On the terminal screen in his hand, the graph representing energy fluctuations had turned a glaring red, its readings soaring wildly.
"Bai Zhu... that door on the Lighthouse... when did it open?"
No one answered him.
Everyone's eyes were fixed on the top of the Lighthouse.
The heavy iron door stood open, revealing a pitch-black opening. The darkness seemed to swallow the moonlight, letting none of it penetrate. It looked less like a room than an entrance to an abyss.
Morel reacted first. The Purple Smoke in his pipe burst outward with a boom, then instantly drew back together, forming a constantly roiling defensive formation around him and the others. Every Smoke Soldier took a guarded stance. His expression was graver than ever before.
Knuckle and Shuto instinctively drew closer to their master. The shadow beneath Shuto's feet had already begun to churn, and a pitch-black hand quietly emerged to guard him.
In the suffocating silence, a figure slowly walked out of the pitch-black opening.
He stopped beside the outer railing on the Lighthouse's top floor.
It was Vick.
He was as gaunt as a desiccated skeleton, casting a long shadow beneath the cold moonlight.
Bai Zhu's pupils abruptly contracted.
Vick still clutched the rust-covered lamp crank in a death grip.
But dark red liquid was dripping from its end.
Drop by drop, it struck the Lighthouse's stone floor. Despite the distance, each drip sounded as clear as if it were right beside their ears.
Stranger still, Vick's lips were moving, as though silently repeating something.
He stood utterly motionless, his hollow eyes looking down at Bai Zhu and the others like a stone statue standing at the gates of a living hell.
Milluki's legs