The Last Chance

Tender green shoots broke through the soil, somehow spreading across the scorched earth until the land seemed draped in a mossy blanket.

Contaminants of all shapes and sizes lay quietly on the dense vegetation. Some resembled crocodiles, some rhinoceroses, some snakes, while others had membranes growing from their forelimbs, resembling Late Cretaceous pterosaurs.

Though they looked wildly different, they had one thing in common: every one of them had a pair of red eyes.

In the dim night, Drunkard sat atop the Hive's enormous carcass, looking at the Contaminants in the distance as she remarked, "After raising them for over a month, they finally look presentable."

She lowered her head and asked, "Can these Contaminants stop the Hidden Boss?"

Below was a tangled web of dried bones. Meteor was nowhere to be seen, only her voice carrying over. "Whether they can stop her or not, we have to try. This is our last chance."

Drunkard was dazed for a moment. "Yeah, our last chance..."

She looked up at the sky. The sky within the Maze was always hazy and murky. No Starlight could be seen in the night, only endless darkness stretching beyond sight.

"Meteor, I'm a little scared..." Drunkard's fingers tightened as she said softly, "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid that this time... we'll still fail. How could just the three of us possibly kill her?"

"As long as the Short-legged Sheep is in our hands, we have a chance." After several seconds of silence, Meteor asked, "Do you remember how we killed the Hive last time?"

"Mm, I remember." Recalling the past, Drunkard slowly said, "At first, we had no clue what to do. We couldn't even see where the Abyss Boss was. No matter how many times we killed those Contaminants, before long, the dead