Chapter 701: Survivors in the Second Defense Zone See Hope (1)

Second Defense Zone, near the "Flesh Mill."

The air was congealed with the foul stench of sulfur, blood, and despair.

The conveyor belt emitted an incessant metallic grinding sound, mixed with the muffled thuds of bones shattering and flesh being crushed.

One of Jeremy's legs was empty from the knee down, the wound wrapped haphazardly in oil-stained rags.

Jeremy stared at that "Flesh Mill," its massive gears turning without pause under the drive of Demon Witchcraft, emitting a "creak" sound.

Just a moment ago, he had watched with his own eyes as that child disappeared into the entrance of the meat grinder.

The child's scream lasted less than half a second before being completely Devoured by the roar of the metal.

Jeremy's stomach churned violently; he retched a few times, but only spat out sour water.

"Don't... don't look..."

A weak, hoarse voice came from beside him.

It was Lao Kang.

He had once been the most senior technical foreman in this industrial area; now, his oil-stained work clothes were long since tattered and ruined.

He held a girl, thin as a skeleton, tightly in his arms; she was about eight or nine years old, her eyes hollow.

The girl's throat seemed to have been injured, making her unable to produce sound, only occasionally trembling violently in Lao Kang's arms.

"Even if you don't look... you still have to listen..."

Jeremy's Adam's apple bobbed as he squeezed out a hoarse voice.

"That sound... it drills into the gaps between your bones..."

Lao Kang did not speak, only holding the girl tighter, using his calloused hands to gently cover her ears, even though this could not isolate the sounds from outside at all.

His gaze swept over his surroundings; there were seven or eight other people here, mostly curled up.

The air was permeated with the stench of fear and despair, more suffocating than the sulfur and blood.

"The pipes..."

Lao Kang suddenly said in a voice that was barely audible, his cloudy eyes flickering in the shadows with a trace of a very faint, almost instinctual light.

"Do you still remember... those abandoned cooling water pipes in the East District? They lead straight... to the old sewage outlet at the Outer City wall..."

Jeremy jolted, forgetting the excruciating pain in his severed leg. He remembered!

That was a redundant system laid long ago, later abandoned and sealed when new lines were commissioned, but the structure should still be there!

He had crawled inside once during an inspection; it was narrow, damp, and covered in cobwebs, but it definitely existed!

"The Demons... won't pay attention to that place..."

Lao Kang panted, his voice even lower.

"They... only care about fresh... living and dead things... they don't care about... rat holes..."

Hope, like a faint spark, leaped in the absolute darkness of the Shenyuan.

But this spark was immediately suppressed by a heavier reality.

"How do we get there?"

Jeremy hissed, pointing toward the direction of the mill.

The path to the East District was completely exposed to the sight of the Demons in the plaza, and it was separated by that deadly conveyor belt and the wandering low-level Demons.

The Demons never imprisoned Humans; as long as Humans dared to harbor thoughts of escape and left the designated area, the nearby Demons would torture these escaping Humans to death.

Their group—the old, the young, the disabled, and the utterly weak—would have a nine-in-ten chance of dying even without the Demons if they crossed that open ground.

Silence once again enveloped them.

Only the roar of the mill's gears and the silent screams of souls in the distant Furnace echoed.

Just then, Jeremy saw several figures plummeting rapidly in the sky, as if the sky had been distorted by an invisible force.

Immediately after, Jeremy saw those figures land in the distance, and several heavy impact sounds came from afar!

"Ah!"

A survivor curled up in the corner let out a short exclamation, subconsciously covering their eyes.

"What... what is that?"

Another person asked, trembling, their voice filled with instinctual awe and fear.

"Those look like human figures."

Lao Kang muttered, his cloudy eyes fixed on the direction where the light had vanished, his cracked lips slightly parted.

"Human figures?"

Jeremy braced himself, looked at Lao Kang, and asked.

"Yes, that should be right, it's just that those figures look a bit larger."

Following that, several Transport Aircraft appeared at low altitude in the sky, and one after another, Kasrkin soldiers wearing Carapace Armor landed successfully.

"It's Humans!"

Jeremy's voice couldn't help but rise a notch; this sound spread rapidly, causing the nearby survivors to instantly perk up.

Humans appearing in the Second Defense Zone—didn't that mean they were very likely to be rescued!

The Demons wandering in the plaza also showed a brief commotion; some low-level Demons roared uneasily and rushed toward the direction where those Humans had landed.

Jeremy's heart began to beat wildly, almost jumping out of his throat.

Thoughts raced through his mind, and the pain of his severed leg seemed to have vanished.

The appearance of these human soldiers was very likely their hope for survival! They had to meet up with those human soldiers as soon as possible! Since the other party landed here, at least they wouldn't kill their own kin, right?

These thoughts eventually converged into a vague yet incredibly intense idea.

"A chance..."

Jeremy's voice was hoarse but carried a desperate determination; he looked at Lao Kang and continued.

"Let's gamble! Whether it's to find the Human troops that landed here, or to burrow through like rats to escape this place! Anything is better than... better than becoming mincemeat in a mill!"

Lao Kang looked at the flame igniting in Jeremy's eyes; that flame was faint, yet it stubbornly resisted the boundless darkness.

He looked down at the mute girl in his arms, whose eyes had widened slightly at the commotion and who seemed to have regained a sliver of vitality, then looked at the desperate eyes around him that were regaining a bit of focus.

He took a deep breath, the air mixed with blood and sulfur making him cough, but in the depths of his clouded eyes, that spark also burned stubbornly.

He nodded forcefully, his voice weak, yet exceptionally clear.

"Good... survive! Surviving... is spitting in the faces of those bastards! We will go find that troop! At the very least, after we rendezvous with them, we will be familiar with the terrain here and can provide them with help!"

He held the mute girl in his arms tighter, slowly stood up, and said.

"Move!"

In the distance, the sounds of artillery fire from battle drifted over—perhaps real, perhaps a desperate auditory hallucination—briefly cutting through the bloody air, only to be immediately drowned out by the roars of the Demon.