Chapter 18: This Is the Final Stage
Hearing Rast’s answer, Shiltina suddenly stepped forward in silence and yanked up Rast’s sleeve.
Black iron crosses.
Not just one, but dozens of them—countless iron cross-shaped marks were deeply branded on the back of Rast’s hand, covering the entire skin of his arm. The inky blackness of them was even deeper than the iron crosses Shiltina had seen before.
This was something that made perfect sense, and yet it was a fact Shiltina had subconsciously ignored before—
Just a mere glimpse was enough to contaminate ordinary people, just a trace of the aura leaking from the lead box could silently ensnare someone…
So then, Rast—who had stopped her from touching the Evil God’s sculpture, who had personally stored and carried the contaminant—just how much had he suffered from the pollution?
The total pollution from all the iron crosses in the outer district combined might not even match what Rast had endured…
He didn’t have protective emblems or transcendent items like Shiltina.
No Nightblade at his side, and his sequence level was far lower.
“You…” Shiltina instinctively reached into her pocket and took out a green crystal, just about to do something with it, but Rast raised his hand to stop her.
Only then did Shiltina clearly see Rast’s current appearance.
Bulging, twisted veins had crawled up his once-handsome face, grotesque and hideous like a black spiderweb.
Thick or thin, his veins pulsed beneath the skin like black serpents.
But for some reason, his bloodshot eyes remained clear, like stars resting calmly beneath a lake’s surface—no different from the moment they had first met.
“Don’t waste a precious single-use item like that. I won’t need it. Save it for yourself later.”
Rast’s voice was a little hoarse and rough. The iron cross contamination had already affected his throat and vocal cords, but his tone remained calm and steady.
“Honestly, it’s not that strange. Being able to suppress primal instincts and impulses—that’s the biggest difference between humans and beasts.”
“It’s like how spies, through repeated training, can find ways to counter truth serums. The pollution of the iron cross isn’t entirely uncontrollable—what’s needed is restraint. Extreme restraint.”
“You don’t feel pain?” Shiltina looked at the bloodshot corners of Rast’s eyes.
She knew exactly what Rast was enduring.
Earlier, she had briefly tasted the plague of the iron cross herself—
The sensation was somewhat similar to a drug addiction, but a hundred or even a thousand times stronger than any human narcotic.
If one chose to indulge in the sadistic urge, they would experience unparalleled pleasure.
But if they chose restraint, it was like being devoured by ten thousand ants gnawing at the heart.
An ordinary person couldn’t endure even a single second before falling into madness and becoming a sadistic beast.
If her protective talisman hadn’t triggered in time and purified the contamination, Shiltina had no idea how long she could’ve lasted under that erosion.
Maybe a few dozen seconds, maybe a few minutes…
But the journey across Deep Blue Port had taken hours, and during that time, Rast hadn’t shown a single sign of abnormality.
“It’s not so bad.” Rast smiled.
“If you’ve experienced being slowly burned by molten iron in a steel mill countless times, then other kinds of pain don’t really matter anymore.”
He stood up again, picked up the suitcase, and walked deeper into the port district.
“Come on. We’re close to clearing the stage.”
Shiltina followed behind Rast, watching that thin back that seemed completely unbothered.
Everyone is born fragile and afraid of pain—
It’s just that those who have suffered are better at enduring it.
Crying and shouting in pain is, at its core, a way of seeking help from others.
But Rast had no allies in Deep Blue Port.
Every living being could become his enemy as a bearer of the iron cross.
Asking for help meant nothing to him.
So he had long since gotten used to enduring pain without expressing it to the outside world.
In those tens of thousands of past cycles, Rast had borne the pain of the iron cross’s erosion—like ants gnawing at his heart—again and again, walking alone through the dark alleys of the port district.
He really should’ve given up long ago, but he held on—
Because of a reason Shiltina did not yet know.
…
Compared to the overcrowded residential district, the port district—filled with warehouses and steam boilers—had significantly fewer iron crosses.
But it was also the stationed base of the Royal Navy.
Almost every iron cross here was armed with firearms.
Their numbers were lower, but the danger they posed had increased dramatically.
Rast and Shiltina were forced to spend even more time avoiding them, relying on the cover of the rain.
Until finally, their steps came to a halt in the depths of the port.
This was a large steam factory, located in the very heart of the district.
But outside the factory roamed many iron crosses as well.
Unlike their counterparts in the outer district, these iron crosses in military uniforms behaved abnormally.
For example, they would actively form groups and leave the factory to capture nearby humans.
Some were fed blood to transform them into new iron crosses.
Others were kept to be tortured for amusement.
Shiltina stood on a wharf several hundred meters from the factory, overlooking the area around the steam factory with a slight frown.
“The iron crosses here seem to have formed some kind of order.”
“Just like people have different physical conditions, iron crosses vary too.”
“An iron cross that was a boxing champion in life won’t have the same combat strength as one who starved to skin and bones.”
Rast didn’t even look. He simply set down his suitcase.
“Most of the iron crosses in the port district were transformed from navy personnel. Among them, the number of mutated variants is also the highest.”
“Due to their obedience in life, this was the first place to exhibit division of labor among the iron crosses.”
“In just half a day, mutated forms have already appeared… even a rudimentary iron cross society has begun to take shape…”
Shiltina’s frown deepened.
“Their development speed is terrifying.”
“Of course. Otherwise, how could the iron cross plague become the catastrophe that later swept across the continent?”
“If they were just mindless zombies chasing flesh like in movies, they’d die out within months—cold, rot, lack of food, and microorganisms would take care of that.”
From a certain perspective, the iron cross was a form of human evolution—
If one ignored the fact that they were controlled by an evil god and prone to being ruled by violence and irrationality.
Rast opened the suitcase atop the metal wharf.
The rack above them, like a rooftop, shielded it from the rain so its contents wouldn’t be soaked.
Inside the foam-lined case were neatly arranged firearm parts, a black rhombus-shaped military bayonet, and several bundles of time bombs built with makeshift detonators.
He took out a folded blueprint from the case, spread it out, and handed it along with the bombs to Shiltina.
“Take a look at this.”
“This is our final stage.”
Shiltina carefully received the bomb bundles and examined the blueprint Rast handed her.
It was a factory architectural design blueprint, likely of the very factory in front of them, depicting the entire steam facility’s layout.
In the schematic, the central giant steam boiler had several evenly spaced points marked with red circles by Rast.
Lines connected these points, and handwritten numbers beside them indicated the sequence.
Shiltina quickly grasped what the blueprint conveyed.
“This is our route for planting the bombs?”
“Mm.” Rast nodded.
“I’ve preset different detonation times for each bundle. While placing them at different spots in the factory, we’ll need to follow the order and spacing I marked—each two minutes apart—so that they’ll all explode at the same time.”
“This factory holds the largest steam boiler in all of Deep Blue Port.”
“By simultaneously detonating the bombs at multiple points, the resulting overload will cause a boiler failure, a steam implosion, and then trigger a chain reaction with the nearby military warehouses and the scattered gunpowder from wrecked ships.”
“Tens of thousands of tons of explosive power and superheated steam will wipe out every iron cross in the port district.”
“I’m no demolition expert. The Deep Blue Port library didn’t have any professional books on explosive engineering.”
“This bomb placement route is the result of my dumb brute-force method—I optimized it after blowing myself up hundreds of times.”
“But you got one thing wrong.” Rast’s tone paused, and he pointed to the blueprint in Shiltina’s hands.
“That’s not our route—
It’s your route.”