Chapter 709

Standing in the church attic.

Lin An brought Zhang Tie, and the two silently watched the night outside the hanging window.

In the mist, monsters occasionally crawled past at high speed.

A turtle in a jar.

The small town with a fractal structure was like a gu poison.

Occasionally, panicked and without choosing a path, they would run to nearby Survivors, and after a miserable scream, they would often be dragged into the thick fog and devoured.

The town's tranquility was completely shattered.

Near or far, the shrill screams never ceased.

The slaughter hidden in the black mist seemed never to stop.

「77%！」

The numbers jumped.

The death toll surged again.

Watching the fluctuating progress of the inner world again, Lin An slightly raised his brow.

The death toll had already decoupled from the progress, but that seemed reasonable.

Those monsters prioritized hunting Awakened Ones whose hands were stained with the blood of their own kind.

Thus, the progress and the numbers did not exactly match.

When these people are all dead, is it the eighth level?

If nearly everyone is wiped out, then it's the ninth level?

Already weakened by internal strife, hardly any Awakened Ones in any war zone could resist the newly appeared monsters.

Human-head spiders, "Nurses," Judgers, human-faced insects, iron pagodas...

The monsters constantly spawning inside the inner world tormented the fragile nerves of all Survivors to the brink of collapse.

They're dying way too fast...

Beside Lin An, Xiong Hanzi had his mouth open, having held back for half a day and still not knowing what to say, thus expressing his current mood.

Just an hour had passed.

All major battle zones were nearly wiped out.

This was only because an alarm had been pulled midway, giving the Survivors precious breathing time.

Only 20% left...

Damn it... There's no way we can wait 48 hours.

At this rate, everyone will be dead in an hour.

He muttered twice.

These Awakened Ones, by rights, should be the elite of humanity at this stage.

But in this high‑difficulty trial, they were as fragile as infants.

A mix of feelings.

Somewhat pessimistic, Zhang Tie instinctively looked back at the bronze bell hanging inside the attic.

The rust‑stained hands pointed to 1 a. m.

Under the bronze bell lay a desiccated corpse, burnt like dried beef, that of a priest.

The priest knelt on the ground, devoutly bowing before the sheep‑head statue.

He was wrapped in a spotless linen robe.

Who knows why the robe remained intact, unburned.

Lin Dui, after this trial, won't every battle zone be doomed?

What is the system thinking? Does it think we're not dying fast enough?

Why is the difficulty so high?!

While speaking, his emotions inexplicably turned, and he looked at Lin An:

Is it because we're too strong... that we've doomed them?

He felt somewhat guilty.

After all, no matter how indifferent one may be, these Awakened Ones are still part of humanity.

Xiong Hanzi sighed, then casually broke the limbs of the human‑faced spider corpse to vent his anger.

This monster, an hour ago, had cradled the skull of the Awakened One he killed and come for "revenge."

After a punch that burst it, he then stomped that resentful face into a pulp.

While everyone else panicked and fled, they actually had nothing to do.

He muttered to himself.

Lin Dui, doesn't this seem a bit unreasonable?

The system could just increase our difficulty, not everyone's...

Lin An stared out the window, unblinking.

He heard Zhang Tie's incomprehension and his pessimism about the future.

We're one of the reasons.

From the system's perspective, the death of one person or a group makes no difference.

Don't impose human will on the system.

He explained offhand, also as a way of telling himself.

Lin An lightly tapped the windowsill with his finger and continued:

Moreover, the difficulty is actually not that great.

If the Awakened Ones do not fight among themselves, they dare to face the monsters.

Perhaps the progress of the inner world will not increase at all.

Or perhaps after advancing to the next level, after spending 48 hours in safety, everyone will end the trial with the points given for free.

Zhang Tie, after hearing, his expression furious, he fiercely smashed the spider shell beside him:

Damn it, this bunch of guys are just cowards!

What time is it now, still internal fighting?

He glanced sideways at Zhang Tie, and Lin An's eyes flickered with a hidden meaning.

Xiong Hanzi did not grasp the deeper meaning of this mission, and he also did not choose to speak it out.

The progress of the inner world requires deaths.

Assuming everyone gets along 'harmoniously' and jointly faces the enemy.

Then, what do those who need to enter the inner world need to do?

The answer is obvious.

After suppressing the thought, Lin An turned to face Zhang Tie and casually comforted:

Alright, there's nothing to think about.

In about half an hour, this place will be completely dragged into the depths of the inner world.

I'm actually curious what enemy the system will arrange for me...

Recalling the observed monster information, Lin An's brows slightly furrowed.

These monsters do not put much pressure on me.

Could it be that at the final stage, he and Zhang Tie alone face a huge number of monsters, forcing their potential through continuous slaughter?

Otherwise, he really cannot think of how to unlock his own gene lock.

This thing has no clues at all.

Even Huang Shaohua is vague, unable to clarify how he originally unlocked it.

As for Zhang Tie's angry survivors' internal conflict, Lin An does not have much emotion about it.

Individuals may perhaps remain rational and choose the optimal solution in the face of disaster, but a group certainly cannot.

Remembered in the historical records of the real world.

There once broke out a disaster that swept across the globe.

At that time, clearly everyone only needed to observe a closure of one week, at most one month, to completely curb the spread of the disaster.

People with normal intelligence can all think of this.

Yet under the 'command' of countless strategists and high-level officials, they actually allowed the spread.

From the perspective of later generations, how foolish!

And at that time, these people called it: the losses brought by closure are greater.

As a result, the disaster swept for nearly ten years before ending.

The losses caused are a hundred times greater than a global one-month closure.

This trial is the same.

Lin An does not believe that the captains of each war zone would be unaware of hunting Awakened Ones; there must be a problem.

But what of it?

For some reason, he always feels that this time he is supposed to play the role of the monster.

The progress of the trial site seems to have reached a certain critical point; at the moment the system's cold prompt sounds, suddenly a hint of red appears in the darkness shrouding the overhead.

Like the birth of a blood moon, it dyes the black mist in the high sky crimson.