Chapter 1399: Chapter 1399

The splintering crash of the door echoed far down the street. After delivering the blow, Jenkins didn't duck inside the building. Instead, he retracted his sword and launched himself in a powerful leap, scrambling up the facade of the grey, three-story Baroque building across the way.

These types of structures often featured strangely shaped, faceless humanoid sculptures on their protruding sections, which gave Jenkins ample handholds to continue his ascent. He soon reached the roof, guarded by four plaster statues, and immediately dropped into a prone position.

Placing plaster statues on a roof meant they had to be replaced periodically. But in the real world, this particular building was apparently an exclusive gentleman's club, so its owners likely wouldn't have cared about such expenses.

Just as he expected, five monsters wrapped in black bandages, drawn by the noise, saw the empty street and surged toward the shattered door of the tobacco shop. It was, of course, deserted. These creatures showed no camaraderie; the moment they collided, they immediately turned on one another.

The victor—a masked nun who drifted rather than walked, an iron maiden strapped to her back—absorbed the ashes of the other four, its power swelling. To the grating clatter of chains, it floated away unconsciously toward the other end of the street.

"Damn, I don't think I can take that one..."

In fact, the five monsters that had just appeared were likely the most powerful Jenkins had ever encountered in this apocalyptic illusion. If this wasn't some incredibly rare fluke, then it meant that as this world drew closer to the material world, the monsters of the apocalypse were also growing significantly stronger.

Jenkins didn't understand the principle behind it. All he knew was that this journey was not going to be easy.

The creatures whose clothes had fused with their skin, the ones that dissolved into ash upon death, were the most common enemies in this city on the brink of doom. Previously, their attacks were limited to simple weapons. Though they were strong, Jenkins could handle them.

Jenkins struck with a familiar, practiced slash, but was shocked when his sword lodged itself in the creature's torso. Its hands, completely covered in black bandages, seized the hilt, and black scarabs poured from the gaps in the bandages like a tide.

They couldn't chew through the blade, so they swarmed toward Jenkins's hand. For a terrifying moment, Jenkins nearly let go of his sword, but he quickly came to his senses. Recalling the sensation of rage, he let the fire of his Bestowal course through him, once again taking on a form like that of a fire elemental. He let out a silent roar and lunged forward, embracing the monster and its swarm of insects.

The crackle of flames and the foul stench of scorched insects filled Jenkins's nostrils. He coughed a few times and retreated, extinguishing the fire that wreathed his body. His sword now stood askew in a pile of ash, while a few lucky scarabs scattered in every direction down the alley.

"Could it be... that this is the true strength of these monsters during a real apocalypse?"

Jenkins speculated, figuring his guess was likely correct. After all, given the original strength of the ash monsters, even if they could spread their ashen curse to all living things, they would be little more than a terrifying, curse-type Mysterious Object.

It wasn't just the monsters' strength that had increased; their numbers and variety had grown as well. This doomsday world was still desolate and silent, the landscape under the yellow moon still possessed a stillness so profound it could drive one mad, but the creatures—or things that could barely be called creatures—roaming its streets had become far more numerous.

His attempts to find a clear path were repeatedly thwarted. He was even forced to use a low-power burst of [Mechanical Light] just to ensure his own safety.

This world was growing more insane by the minute. The air was thick with a scent of decay, a hallmark of finality, which was precisely the meaning of this apocalyptic world.

But the monsters weren't the most frightening thing. What truly worried Jenkins was the possibility that the yellow moon overhead might suddenly plummet from the sky, plunging the world into an ultimate darkness. He couldn't comprehend what that ultimate darkness represented; none of the end-of-epoch cataclysms he knew about matched this description.

He had once guessed it might be akin to the fireless age of the Titans, but even in that era, there was the glow of lingering embers in the darkness, not this absolute terror and silence.

The only parallel he could think of was from the train-themed Mysterious Realm last autumn, when the conductor had spoken of the train's final destination: The End. Jenkins dared not imagine what would happen if that moon were to suddenly vanish while he was here. All he could do was offer a quiet prayer to the Sage and quicken his pace toward the clock tower.

He had returned to this world to save Nolan. Killing the old man in the clock tower was the most direct solution, but Jenkins knew he couldn't do it. His primary objective now was to find the third survivor, the one imprisoned here by the old man. He was convinced that person held the key to the problem.

Confronting the old man on the clock tower would be foolish. Jenkins's plan was to observe the auras in the area and find the imprisoned individual. He had used his [Eye of Reality] many times during his previous meetings with the multi-eyed, faceless old man on the tower, but he had never seen anything besides the ubiquitous black auras and the crushing pressure the old man exuded.

So this time, he began his search in the vicinity of the clock tower, a decision that quickly proved correct.

The layout of apocalyptic Nolan wasn't much different from the city in the late 18th Epoch. And there, near the square, in a cafe Jenkins often frequented, he saw it—an unusual aura.

Every monster in this world had a black aura. So that single sliver of white amidst the black had to mean something.

It took him some time to bypass the monsters milling about the square. From an alley, he used a trash bin—which had a chunk bitten out of it by some unknown creature—to vault over the wall into the cafe's backyard. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel fire.net

According to the backstory of apocalyptic Nolan, a truly horrific massacre must have occurred here. The bones piled in the backyard almost formed a small mountain. It was a pity Jenkins had no time to investigate the story behind them; it might have offered further insight into the end of a past epoch.

He also realized something was wrong. He had cleared most of the bones from the city just a few days ago, so their reappearance was illogical. But then he connected it to the monsters' recent power-up. If the convergence of the two worlds could strengthen the monsters, he reasoned, it might also affect the physical matter that already existed in this world.