At the center of the conference hall, a massive world map slowly unfolded, already covered in vast patches of red.
The old man responsible for compiling intelligence stood at the front, his expression grave.
"Over the past three months, the global number of eerie incidents at A-Rank and above has exceeded four times the figure from six months ago."
"S-Rank incidents have nearly tripled."
"SS-Rank incidents have increased more than fivefold."
"And those numbers are still rising."
He paused, and the map changed.
The East Sea, the South American Rainforest, Northern Europe Greenland, parts of Africa, and the European coast were marked in an even more conspicuous dark red.
"But the more troublesome issue is eerie contamination."
"At present, more than two hundred distinct areas of abyss pollution have been confirmed worldwide."
"Large numbers of marine creatures, ordinary wild animals, and demonic beasts have begun to mutate to varying degrees."
"Of these, demonic beasts have the highest survival rate after contamination, as well as the highest likelihood of undergoing high-level mutations."
"Over the past month, we have confirmed fourteen cases of demonic beasts that were originally below SS-Rank advancing to SS-Rank after contamination."
A low murmur immediately rose through the conference hall.
A representative from Southeast Asia was the first to stand.
"Three severely contaminated zones have already appeared along our coastline. All nearby islands have been evacuated."
"We have only four people in the Transcendent Stage Realm in our country, and two of them are already injured."
"If this continues, we can hold on for another month at most."
Another representative quickly picked up the discussion.
"A month?"
"We've already abandoned two cities in our Northern Region."
"The issue now isn't whether we can deal with the eerie beings at all. Their numbers are growing faster than we can