Chapter 144: Bayne City's Apocalypse

Silas didn't know how long he had slept. During the entire dark slumber, he couldn't enter the dreamscape to become a god. He seemed to be trapped in a conscious space by countless chaotic thoughts, surrounded by fragmented and jumbled thoughts, making him extremely agitated yet unable to find the source.

In a daze, he had the first dream he'd had since coming to this world.

In the dream, he transformed into a strange mist. This mist constantly reassembled, turning into steam, and the steam then turned into bubbles, repeating in a cycle.

He couldn't tell if he was that mist or a bubble within this mist.

He felt his thoughts extend infinitely, as if they could reach the ends of the world, even crawl over every world, every corner of the entire universe.

"What's wrong with me? What am I doing?" Silas was full of confusion at this moment.

Pop, pop, pop…

At this moment, all the bubbles suddenly burst, and countless mists infinitely collapsed, forming an indescribable singularity.

"My Lord, we have conquered to the end of the Abyss. The White Frost has frozen all those disgusting fellows to death." The voice came from nowhere and went nowhere.

"My Lord! Quick! Quick! This is a trap! This world… this world is… Ahhhh!"

"Hide! Hide! This world has no hope of salvation, not even the qualification for destruction…"

"My Lord! Quick! Find the existence that summoned us, find %%##￥%, we still… still can…"

"Form ranks, swear an oath!"

"Warriors who rose from the frozen wasteland of hardship, raise your greatswords and offer everything we have to our great Lord of White Frost!"

"Knights of the Eternal Storm born in despair, tighten your reins and offer everything we have to our great God of Storms!"

"Warlocks of the Twisted Nightmare wandering in dreams, wave your scepters and offer everything we have to our great Master of Dreams!"

Incredibly chaotic, incredibly fierce, incredibly deafening, incredibly tragic, incredibly insane, incredibly bloody…

This was how Silas felt hearing these sounds.

"Who… who am I!? Why did I come to this world!?" Silas thought with difficulty.

Dong!

Suddenly, a distant and deep bell sound rang out. All chaos, all anxiety, all agitation completely subsided. Even those incredibly messy thoughts were gradually smoothed out by this bell sound, transforming from a tangled ball of thread into a neat spool.

"I am… Silas Sotos," Silas said, slowly opening his eyes.

"Thank heavens, you're finally awake, Your Holiness Pope."

The moment he opened his eyes, the first thing Silas saw was Helles's face, filled with joy.

Silas slowly sat up and said calmly, "How long was I unconscious?"

"Twenty hours," Luke's voice came from the side.

Silas's expression entered an incomparably calm state. He nodded slightly, stood up, and asked, "What's the situation?"

The four were silent for a moment, then said simultaneously, "The apocalypse has arrived."

Silas frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

Adeline's face was unsightly. She moved aside, and the somewhat dazzling blood-red sunset shone in through the window.

"See for yourself!"

Silas squinted and walked to the window. Looking out, an intense feeling of suffocation rushed towards him.

His eyes widened uncontrollably, as if they were about to fall out of their sockets. Indescribable fear enveloped Silas's mind.

Thud!

His Spirit Vision suddenly increased by five points.

Looking out, the entire Bayne City was already in ruins. The surroundings were completely covered by mountain-like fleshy bodies.

In the sky, a huge, pitch-black magic circle had completely formed, enveloping the entire city.

Countless starlights brewed on it, contained but not yet released.

On the ground, dozens of incomparably huge insects with squid-like heads lay sprawled on the ground, completely surrounding the entire city from the outside.

These insects had bizarre patterns on their bodies, like magic circles. Their twisted and terrifying appearance was indescribable. Each body was over a hundred meters long, giving off a suffocating pressure.

On the ground, ordinary citizens who had witnessed such indescribable terror had completely gone mad, wandering dazedly through the streets and alleys of the city. They numbered in the thousands, like zombies in a movie.

Among them, Silas saw the simple and honest baker, Mr. Parker; the kind and serious forensic doctor, Mr. Adam; his former neighbors; and colleagues with whom he had once laughed.

The streets were in chaos, littered with large pits. The ground had collapsed, gas pipelines had ruptured and were burning, and many places were covered in towering flames.

Just as the four had said, the apocalypse had arrived.

After a full ten seconds of silence, Silas closed his eyes, lowered his head, wiped away the bloody tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, and asked, "Are these the Great Devouring Wyrms?"

"Yes, adults," Luke confirmed.

Silas's voice was somewhat hoarse. "These insects should have been parasitizing people's bodies before, and they crawled out last night, right?"

"How did you know?" Adeline asked.

Silas briefly explained his previous analysis. Luke and the others were very surprised upon hearing it, because Silas's analysis was exactly the same as what they had seen yesterday.

"How is the combat capability of these insects?" Silas asked calmly, his expression frighteningly serene.

Luke stroked his chin. "Their attack power is definitely nothing to scoff at. Encountering them pretty much means being crushed to pieces. But they are very clumsy, and they don't seem to intend to attack, merely preventing the people in the city from going out, waiting for something to descend."

Silas took off his cassock and put on the relatively loose, battle-suitable suit he had prepared earlier.

"Are the things ready?" Silas asked Adeline.

Adeline nodded and turned to take out a package.

Inside the package were some silver-grey badges and masks.

The badges were made of pure silver, shaped like a large bell with a lightning-wreathed spear thrust through it.

This badge represented the emblem of the Evening Bell Church.

The badge was determined in a dream, according to Silas's request to Adeline.

The masks were pure white, vaguely resembling a majestic ghost or deity.

Pinning the badge to his chest and putting on the mask.

Silas flicked his staff and said calmly, "Although fate is thus, human affairs are not yet concluded. It's time to make a name for our Evening Bell Church."

Helles and Bernice were immediately invigorated upon hearing this. They put on their badges and masks and hurriedly followed.

"Silas, wait a moment," Marx's weak voice came from the shadows.

"What's wrong?"

Marx explained, "You should be going to save people, right? If you are saving people, please send them to the library of the Holy Blood Cathedral. The captain said that no matter what happens, that is the safest place in the entire Bayne City."

"But the Holy Blood Cathedral is now occupied by Ron. The church is no longer safe," Silas said, shaking his head.

Luke, however, said decisively, "No, this Night Watcher is right. Even if that place is occupied, and everyone in the church is occupied by fanatical heretics, that place is still the safest."

Silas turned his head, his eyes under the mask staring seriously at Luke. "Are you sure?"

"I am very sure," Luke replied seriously.

After a moment of silence, Silas nodded. "Then how do we get in? The entire church is sealed off by Ron and has become his territory."

Luke looked confident. "That fellow, in order to use the central runes of the church, has already shut down all the church's mechanisms and stopped all prohibitions. I have dozens of ways to easily enter the Holy Blood Library. Leave it to me!"