Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 560 473: The Darkest Day_2

The Sword Blade wailed, emitting a piercing cry of steel.

Without any hesitation, he sprinkled the dust of Golden Amber on the spine of the blade, coating the sword's body with a dazzling layer of gold.

As Huai Shi struggled to shake off the tattered book covering his face, he saw Raven thrust a sword backhandedly into the crack in his own chest.

Huai Shi was startled.

"...Again?"

Without giving him another chance to speak, Huai Shi felt an intense blaze ignite within the deepest recesses of his shell, exploding from the inside out, engulfing him.

The slender Sword Blade penetrated the rift, inching into his body, but it did not emerge from his back, as though his body had devoured it.

Until the hilt, too, vanished completely.

TICK.

A crisp sound emerged from the pocket watch in Raven's hand.

Precise to the moment.

"A timely wind is all that's needed to send you to the Western Paradise."

Raven stepped back, a pleased smile on his face. "——Welcome to Hell, fool."

In that instant, after swallowing endless light and heat, Huai Shi began convulsing violently, roaring involuntarily.

Within him, darkness surged like an ocean, gushing out from the opening in his chest. The deathly poison and Apocalypse, having brewed for an unknown age, surged like a tide, yet remained firmly confined within the basement.

Then, following the matrix on the inside of the Spirit Coffin, it flowed majestically, covering the entire Stone Marrow Pavilion, wrapping the colossal structure like a black curtain.

Under the afternoon sun, the splendid Stone Marrow Pavilion appeared to plunge into Hell in an instant, transformed into Guǐ lù.

And at the heart of the Secret Ritual, Huai Shi looked up in horror, staring at his chest.

On his chest, the rift began to spread, as if growing, inch by inch, swallowing his entire chest cavity until it disappeared without a trace, followed by his limbs, his head...

In the endless black surge, Raven tilted his head, grinning as he observed the terrifying and bizarre situation before him.

Huai Shi was no more.

In his last moments, he seemed to sense that he was beginning to fall.

.

.

Meanwhile, far away—in Australia, practically on the other side of the Current Circumstances.

Within the endless sands, the Sand King, holding Golden Amber in his hands, ascended the altar.

Bracing against the oncoming storm, the elderly man raised the dazzling miraculous crystal high.

"Today, I implore here!"

Towards the eternally arid desert below his feet, towards the cruel, merciless Sky Dome above, he roared, using all his strength, exhausting all the Correction Values accumulated by generations of Sand Kings, to declare,

"With the power of the Sand Kings of the ages, I pray here."

"Please grant your blessings: pure waters, bountiful lands, gentle breezes..."

Amid the sound of his skin cracking and breaking, the old man's mottled white hair danced in the spontaneously arising gales as he roared,

"——May fertile soil descend upon this land, may the sovereign Holy Spirit operate in this desolate world of mortals."

And then, the heavens and earth thundered.

In his hands held high, the Golden Amber exuded an intense glow.

The brilliant Blessing soared to the skies, turning into a golden light observable even from Hell's Depth Nine.

It propped up the sky here, establishing a perpetually bountiful land.

The Sand King howled, his body rapidly hunching.

However, within his decaying frame, a vast miracle reemerged, forming a vague phantom upon the Sky Dome's throne. Head bowed, it overlooked the eternal wasteland beneath, and could not help but shed two streams of turbid tears.

The tears, upon falling through the air, turned to rain.

Thunder suddenly boomed, spreading out; then, a downpour materialized from nowhere, covering the entire region around Canberra.

The rain of Blessing, glittering with golden light, enveloped heaven and earth.

It stirred the winds anew, which blew away the dry sand, revealing the dark, fertile land below. Clouds spread amidst the thunder, and the lightning seemed to brighten the pale skies, restoring their azure blue.

Under the rain's cleansing wash, many maladies were cured without medicine. In many despairing souls, a glimmer of hope sprouted.

Old and young alike looked up, gazing at the weary silhouette on the altar.

The Sand King staggered a step and instantly collapsed, tumbling from the altar into the mud. Onlookers, reacting too slowly to support him, rushed forward in dismay to help, but the old man forcefully pushed them away.

He plunged again into the mud, kneeling and shakily cupping the soil from the ground, and a new sprout of tender grass emerging from it.

As if holding a treasure, he lifted his head, euphorically showing the hope in his hands to those around, leaving the dumbstruck onlookers rooted to the spot.

"It is salvation, children!" he laughed heartily, holding up this sliver of newfound hope, his voice choked with tears of excitement. "Our salvation has come!"

In The Year 2110 AD, The Fourth Generation Sand King relinquished all his Correction Values, using the Golden Amber to revise the Current Circumstances.

One-fifth of Australia was reborn.

A monumental achievement was established.

In comparison to such a deed, worthy of the attention of the whole land, all else seemed trivial.

No one noticed that, at the same time, someone had used the dust of Golden Amber as a catalyst, using this cognate ritual as a cover, to quietly begin their advancement.

This act also concealed the horrific disasters that would later erupt as a consequence.