Chapter 254: Holy Shit, Badass
At that moment, their arrogance, cunning, and greed were so intense they were almost tangible.
Just as they had anticipated, things went their way at first. The protagonist group stood out conspicuously among the ordinary people, who were screaming and pale with fright at the sudden collapse of order. In contrast, the group remained calm and composed, handling everything with ease.
Soon, people approached them, hoping they could help deal with these sudden, inexplicable emergencies.
Having anticipated this, the group readily agreed, then proceeded to make a series of outrageous demands.
Desperate to stabilize the situation quickly, the people who had approached them gritted their teeth and agreed. The protagonist group didn’t disappoint and did prove somewhat useful at first.
However, they soon realized the matter wasn’t that simple. The disastrous consequences of society’s collapse were far beyond what a few people could reverse.
More and more criminals took advantage of the chaos to stir up trouble, leaving ordinary people so panicked that they didn’t dare to leave their homes.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. After man-made disasters came natural ones. Earthquakes, landslides, mudslides, and tsunamis struck one after another. It was as if nature itself had grown furious, determined to devour every living being on Earth.
These events far exceeded the protagonist group’s expectations, leaving them powerless against a situation that was spiraling out of control.
It was then that things started to happen to the six members of the protagonist group.
The first to go was the rich second-generation heir. He and his parents were discovered one morning, brutally murdered in their home.
The condition of their bodies was horrific and their faces were unrecognizable, covered in pus. If not for the clothes and accessories they still wore, it would have been impossible to confirm their identities.
Not long after, the lawyer also met a tragic end. The state of his body was identical to that of the heir.
It’s worth noting that the lawyer left a message before he died. It suggested their deaths were no accident, but the work of a mastermind pulling strings from the shadows—and that this person was very likely a member of their own team.
This message immediately strained the relationship between the four remaining members. After all, they were a group brought together by mutual benefit and had already been arguing over recent events.
These teammates, who had once trusted each other with their lives and fought side-by-side in the horror instances, so easily fell into a crisis of trust.
Terence Lewis was the third to die. However, his death wasn’t due to the same unknown factors as the heir and the lawyer. He died from the backlash of the little ghost that was always by his side.
Moreover, the backlash didn’t just take Terence Lewis; it took his entire family of four.
Arabella Donovan read this and was speechless. "..."
’Is this karma?’ According to this plotline, Terence Lewis’s family had caused the death of Mr. Lewis’s family, and now they were killed by the very one they had wronged.
’It’s true what they say: divine justice is always watching. Heaven spares no one!’
Terence Lewis’s death only made the causes of the deaths more baffling and put the remaining three members even more on edge.
And just then, the female protagonist—Terence Lewis’s university professor—died.
When Arabella first read this, she had been quite shocked. Protagonists are called protagonists for a reason—they have plot armor, allowing them to overcome any obstacle. Who would have thought a protagonist would die before the finale?
But as it turned out, it was possible!
And if the author was willing, they could kill off not just the female lead, but the male lead too, easily serving up a Bad Ending in all caps.
The female lead’s death finally allowed the male lead to confirm the identity of the teammate the lawyer had mentioned before his own death. But it was too late.
The person who had single-handedly wiped out the entire protagonist group was none other than the team’s most inconspicuous member: the female journalist.
Her killing everyone hadn’t been intentional. As mentioned before, in Umbral Village, where Terence Lewis first appeared, more than half the population had starved to death during a famine. Their bodies weren’t disposed of in time, causing a plague that effortlessly finished off the remaining villagers.
Although the protagonist group had fought their way through the instance and returned to the real world, they had unknowingly carried the virus from the village back with them.
The group was aware of this risk, so they always had the female journalist disinfect them before returning to the real world. Her ability was to heal and provide immunity to all viral and bacterial harm.
They had never had any mishaps with this procedure before. But at this crucial moment, her ability failed. The virus she herself carried from the "unlimited flow" world went out of control and infected the others.
The rich heir was the first victim. He and the journalist had been in a secret relationship for a while, and because they were in more frequent contact than the others, he was the first to be infected.
The lawyer was the second victim. The heir’s death reminded him of his past misdeeds, and he grew worried that someone they had wronged was seeking revenge. He went to discuss countermeasures with the female journalist, who had been his accomplice, but this visit unexpectedly sealed his fate.
Terence Lewis and the female protagonist were infected for the same reason. However, before Terence’s symptoms could even manifest, he was taken out in one fell swoop by the little ghost.
Even so, the successive deaths made the female protagonist suspicious of the journalist, which ultimately brought disaster upon herself.
When the male protagonist found the female journalist, she was already on the verge of death. She tearfully confessed, explaining that she hadn’t meant to harm her teammates. She was just afraid they would despise and abandon her if they found out.
She was a support healer and relied on her teammates’ protection to get by; without them, she couldn’t possibly survive in this chaotic world.
As a doctor, the male protagonist listened to her explanation, his temples throbbing and his head buzzing.
He was filled with a torrent of curses but didn’t know what to say. After all, she was about to die; anything he said would be useless.
Before she died, however, the journalist gave him one last crucial piece of information: for some unknown reason, the virus they had brought back from Umbral Village had mutated. It was now not only highly virulent but also completely out of control.
She was dying, but soon, everyone would follow in her footsteps.
Then, the female journalist died, and the male protagonist went mad.
He frantically searched for a solution but was powerless to do anything.
It wasn’t until he, too, was infected and lying on his deathbed that he accidentally learned the truth.
It turned out that after returning to the real world, Terence Lewis and the rich heir had tried to curry favor with a powerful scion who had infiltrated a laboratory. To do so, they had driven a researcher named Dr. Du to his death and stolen his work.
That research was originally intended to combat cancer. It targeted the rapid proliferation of cancer cells, using a "fight fire with fire" approach that maintained a patient’s vital signs by infinitely replicating new cells.
But those lawless bastards stole the research and drove the doctor to his death. Now, his creation had combined with the virus from the "unlimited flow" world, gaining the property of infinite replication. The consequences were self-evident.
Arabella Donovan: "???"
’Holy shit, that’s insane!’