Night World Players

Chapter 18 This is the last level
After hearing Last's answer, Hiltina suddenly took a step forward silently and pulled off Last's sleeve.

Black iron cross.

Not one, but dozens of them. Countless iron crosses were deeply branded on the back of Last's hand, covering the entire skin of his arm. The inky black color was much deeper than any iron cross that Hiltina had seen before.

This was a matter of course, but it was a fact that Hiltina had subconsciously ignored before. Just accidentally seeing it could contaminate ordinary people. Just a little bit of the smell leaking from the lead box could quietly make her fall victim...

Then how much contamination would Rast, who had previously prevented himself from touching the evil god statue and kept and carried the contaminants on his own, have suffered?
The pollution suffered by all the Iron Crosses in the outer city combined might not be as much as what Last has endured... He doesn't have the emblem costume and extraordinary props like Hiltina, the Night Blade by his side, and the level of the sequence elder is far behind.

"You..." Hiltina subconsciously took out an emerald green crystal from her arms. Just as she was about to do something, Last raised his hand to stop her.

Only then did Hiltina see clearly what Rast looked like at the moment.

The dilated and twisted veins have climbed up Last's once handsome face, as hideous and ugly as a pitch-black spider web. The thick and thin blood vessels are beating under the skin like black snakes.

But for some reason, his bloodshot eyes were still clear, as if there were bright stars at the bottom of the lake, exactly the same as when the two met.

"Don't waste this disposable prop that looks so precious. I don't need it. I'll keep it for yourself later."

Last's voice was a little hoarse and rough. The Iron Cross pollution had affected his throat and vocal cords, but his tone was still neither hurried nor slow: "Actually, there's nothing strange about it. Being able to suppress primitive instincts and impulses is the biggest difference between humans and beasts."

"Just like spies can rely on repeated training to find a way to counteract truth serum, the contamination of the Iron Cross is not uncontrollable - all you need to do is restrain your desires, extreme restraint."

"Don't you feel any pain?" Hiltina looked at Rast's bloodshot eyes.

She knew very well what Rast was going through at the moment. Just now, Hiltina briefly experienced the taste of the Iron Cross Plague.

The feeling is somewhat similar to a drug addiction attack, but it is hundreds or thousands of times stronger than human drugs. Once you choose to indulge in the desire for sadism, you can enjoy bliss. On the contrary, choosing to restrain the desire is like being eaten by thousands of ants.

Ordinary people cannot endure it for even a second and will immediately degenerate into sadistic beasts.

If Hiltyna's protective gear had not been triggered in time and purified the pollution, she didn't know how long she could have lasted under that kind of erosion, maybe tens of seconds, maybe a few minutes...

But the journey across the Deep Blue Harbor took several hours, during which time Last did not show any signs of abnormality.

"Not bad." Last smiled. "If you have experienced the feeling of being burned by molten iron in a steel mill many times, then the rest of the pain will naturally seem insignificant."

He stood up again, picked up the suitcase and walked towards the depths of the port area: "Let's go, we are not far from clearing customs."

Hiltina followed behind Rast, looking at the thin figure in front of her who looked as if nothing had happened.

Everyone is born delicate and afraid of pain, but those who have suffered can endure it better... The essence of crying and shouting in pain is to seek help from others, but Rast has no allies in Deep Blue Harbor. Every living creature may become his enemy in the guise of the Iron Cross, so asking for help is meaningless to him.

Therefore, he had long been accustomed to enduring pain and not expressing it to the outside world.

In the tens of thousands of cycles that have passed, Last has endured the pain of thousands of ants gnawing at his heart when the Iron Cross has eroded it, and has walked alone in the dark alleys of the port area over and over again.

He should have given up long ago, but he persisted because of a reason that Hiltina didn't know.

……

Compared to the crowded residential areas, the number of Iron Crosses in the port area, which is full of warehouses and steam boilers, is obviously much less.

However, the port area is also the base of the Royal Navy, and almost every Iron Cross is armed with a gun. As the number decreases, the danger increases significantly.

Last and Hiltyna had to spend more time to avoid these iron crosses under the cover of rain, until finally, they stopped in the depths of the port area.

This is a large steam plant located in the heart of the port area.

However, there were also many Iron Crosses wandering outside the factory. Unlike their counterparts in the outer city area, these Iron Crosses in military uniforms were somewhat abnormal.

For example, they would actively go out in groups, capture nearby humans and imprison them. Some of them would be fed blood and transformed into new Iron Crosses, while others would be tortured for fun.

Standing on a trestle a few hundred meters away from the factory, Hiltyna looked down at everything happening around the steam factory, frowning slightly: "The iron crosses here seem to have formed some kind of order."

"People's physiques cannot be generalized, and the same is true for the Iron Cross. The fighting power of a boxing champion and an Iron Cross who was starved to the point of being skinny is naturally very different."

Last didn't look, but put down his suitcase: "Most of the Iron Crosses in the port area were transformed by the navy, and there are the most mutants among them. Due to the obedience of soldiers, this is also the first place where the Iron Cross division of labor appeared."

"In just half a day, mutants have already appeared, and even the embryonic form of the Iron Cross Society has appeared..."

Xiltina's brows furrowed even more: "Their development speed is too fast."

"Of course, if it weren't for this, how could the Iron Cross Plague become a disaster that later swept across the continent? If it were really just the zombies that mindlessly chased flesh and blood in the movies, then it wouldn't take more than a few months for the cold, decay, food shortages, and microorganisms to cause them to self-extinct."

"In a sense, the Iron Cross is the evolution of humanity, if we put aside the control of the evil gods and their shortcomings of being easily dominated by tyranny."

Last opened the suitcase on the metal trestle. The platform above blocked the rain like an eave, preventing the contents of the suitcase from being soaked by the heavy rain.

The foam lining of the suitcase was neatly packed with gun parts, a black prismatic bayonet, and several timed explosive bundles made with improvised detonating devices.

He took out a folded blueprint from his briefcase, flattened it, and handed it to Hiltyna along with the timed explosives: "Take a look at this."

"This is our last hurdle."

Hiltina carefully took the bundle of explosives and looked at the drawings handed to her by Last.

This is an architectural design blueprint. The factory depicted in it should be the one in front of the two people. It also shows the plan structure of the entire steam plant.

Inside the factory on the schematic diagram, around the giant steam boiler that serves as the core, Last has marked several equally spaced locations with red circles. The locations are connected by simple lines, and the order is marked with pencil numbers next to them.

Xiltina quickly understood the information contained in this drawing: "Is this the route map for us to set the time bomb?"

"Yes." Rust nodded. "I preset different detonation times for each bundle of explosives. When placing bombs in different locations in the factory, they need to be placed two minutes apart in the order I marked so that they will eventually detonate at the same time."

"This factory has the largest steam boiler in Deep Blue Harbor. The multi-point timed explosions of the explosive bundles will cause the boiler to go out of control and the steam to implode, which will then affect the surrounding munitions warehouses and the gunpowder scattered by the wrecked ships."

"The chain explosion of tens of thousands of tons of gunpowder and super-high temperature steam will kill all the Iron Crosses in the port area."

"I'm not an expert in blasting. Deep Blue Harbor's library doesn't have any professional books on blasting engineering. This route map for placing bombs is the best solution I found after using the stupidest exhaustive method and blowing myself up hundreds of times."

"But you are wrong about one thing." Last paused and pointed at the drawing in Hiltina's hand.

“That’s not our roadmap, that’s your roadmap.”

(End of this chapter)