Chapter 37: Luke’s Fate

At the stern, the massive breach held firm, braced by the shells of deep-sea armored beetles and the ancient, cyan-tinted moss, stubbornly resisting the battering of the sea and the erosion of acid rain.

At the bow, the bean-sized, pale blue light burned with fierce persistence, maintained by the full efforts of Suliu and Aya. It cut through the toxic fog, guiding their path toward safety.

Lorraine buried her face in the cold, rabbit-fur lining, her warm tears mixing silently with the icy acid rain. Suliu stood guard nearby, her gaze sharp as a falcon’s, vigilant against threats lurking outside the storm—and the potential ambush from some hidden corner of the future that the vanished Luke might bring. Her fingers brushed unconsciously against the dagger at her waist, the faint glow of the Hourglass of the Hour flowing deep within her psyche as she silently calculated the unknown dangers and the timing for its next use. Ahead, the endless sea remained fraught with peril.

The blinding silver light had not yet fully faded, and the dizzying sensation of the world spinning still battered Luke’s consciousness.

Beneath his feet, the ground felt damp, viscous, and strangely resilient, reeking of pungent moss, fungi, and something else—a fishy, sweet scent of dust settled over countless ages. He collapsed heavily, his bones feeling as though they had been shaken apart. He coughed violently, greedily gasping for the acrid, humid air, his glasses long lost in the turbulence of the teleportation. His vision was a blur, but a thrill of manic ecstasy surged in his heart: He had escaped! He had broken free from that damned woman!

"Heh... heheh..." Luke pulled his mouth into a twisted grin, reaching out to grope the ground in an attempt to stand. "Suliu... you just wait... next time..."

His voice cut off abruptly.

As his blurred vision began to focus, he saw it.

Shadows of giant ferns, vast enough to fill his field of vision, twisted grotesquely in the leaden grey light. Beneath his feet lay thick, ink-green moss, saturated with water and rising and falling like a living thing. And directly in front of him... was that familiar, honeycombed, suffocatingly massive... craggy rock wall!

On the wall, deep within a hole as large as an eye socket, a deep green light pulsed like congealed pus—a bloodshot eye, as if some slumbering troll had been disturbed and was now staring at him with cold indifference.

Luke’s heart was seized by a cold, giant hand; he missed a beat.

"No... impossible..." He muttered, his voice warped by extreme terror. His body retreated instinctively, dragging across the slippery moss. "How can it be here?! How could it be... Abyss-Back Reef?!"

Abyss-Back Reef!

He had been absolutely certain that this was the place from which Suliu had swindled a vast amount of precious supplies before making her escape! This was the living island so terrifying that even the Symbiotic Ships had fled from it at any cost!

His precious life-saving scroll had sent him back to the origin of his nightmare?!

Just as Luke was nearly shattered by this cruel reality, a colder, sharper killing intent instantly enveloped him!

"Shhh—!"

"Wulu!"

Subtle yet dense sounds emerged from the shadows of the rock wall, the roots of the ferns, and the crevices of the mossy ground! Countless slender, agile figures emerged like ghosts. They were silent, moving with the speed of an underground current. Their dark brown to ink-green, carapace-like skin blended almost perfectly with the gloomy environment; only the pair of antennae on their heads, like precision antennas, erupted with an unprecedented, blinding, and intensely angry crimson glow!

The Underground Exiles!

Luke recognized these figures—they were the natives who had surrounded them in the underground nest, the ones who had been fooled by Suliu’s clumsy deception!

And now, all their gazes—cold, angry, hateful, and humiliated—felt like thousands of needles pinning him down, plunging him into an icy abyss.

The elder who had been deceived by Suliu, who had led his entire clan in submission, and whose eyes had once burned with humble hope, now stood at the edge of the largest hole beneath the rock wall. His whiskers, like white crystalline fibers, drifted in an intangible rage. His cloudy eyes held no trace of piety or hope, only the most primitive, naked desire for destruction born of total fury.

Deception! Foolery! Blasphemy!

That so-called "Messenger of the Dawning Light" had used the old glory of the Empire as bait to trample on the faint hope they had waited centuries for, playing with their clan’s emotions like a clown before snatching their precious supplies and vanishing! Their volcanic, pent-up rage had burned within the abyss of despair, long since exceeding the limits of patience!

And now, another "intruder" from the outside! A lone, bedraggled "intruder" who might even be an accomplice to that liar!

"Intruder... blasphemy... liar... accomplice..."

The small tribesman who had served as a translator previously was now prostrate at the elder's feet, his body trembling with extreme rage. His common tongue was broken, filled with bone-deep hatred and mania. His crimson antennae flashed frantically, each pulse screaming a single word: Kill!

No orders were needed, nor any trial. For these exiles, whose hatred and murderous intent had been fully ignited, Luke’s appearance was the final spark to light the fuse!

"Ughhh—!"

An inhuman war cry, a mixture of shrieks and roars, burst from the throat of one of the exiles!

Like a signal, it instantly ignited all the crimson fury! More than a dozen figures lunged at Luke from all directions like poisoned arrows released from a bow, tearing through the humid air with the force of total destruction!

Luke’s courage shattered! His last shred of sanity collapsed, leaving only the instinct to survive! He scrambled, trying to pull out his weapon, trying to summon his analyst for defense... but it was too late. His movements were as slow as solidified tar against the speed of the claws of vengeance!

"Puchi!"

The first bone blade, polished to razor-sharpness and quenched in a dark venom, whistled through the air and pierced his thigh!

"Arghhh—!"

The excrutiating pain made him scream, and he lost his balance, crashing to the ground. Before his cry could end, "Crackle!" another pair of arms covered in hard carapace locked onto his wrists like iron pincers, snapping them backward with brute force!

"Shhh-la—!"

A third figure swept by from the side, its blade-like forelimbs slicing through his suit and flesh, blood spraying instantly!

Luke’s body, like a broken doll, twitched and shattered under the tearing of countless claws and fangs. His consciousness sank into an abyss of crimson and despair, his final thoughts filled with endless, poisonous resentment and confusion—why was it she who lied... yet it is I who am dying...?

When Luke’s final, weak whimper vanished into the depths of the moss, the elder slowly raised his hand. The frenzied attack ceased instantly. The exiles dispersed in silence, the crimson glow of their antennae fading as the slaughter concluded, though the deep-seated hatred remained, merely settling deeper.

On the ground, only mangled, lifeless remains were left.

The elder’s gaze swept coldly over the blood-soaked mess. He knew this was not the "Messenger of Light," but it mattered not. He was merely a sacrifice, an outlet for their rage, a cruel retaliation against the liar, the outside world, and an unjust fate. This land of exile had, in its most primitive and bloody fashion, devoured the first "price" to be delivered to its doorstep in the wake of the deception.