This is the critical moment Perfikot has been waiting for.
When those tentacles, thick as ancient tree roots, tore through the last line of defense and surged towards the Energy Tower with a nauseating stench, the survivors huddled in the shadows of the camp ruins, the light in their eyes slowly extinguishing.
Mothers held their children tightly in their arms, their rough fingers digging deep into young shoulders; old craftsmen hunched their backs, grasping with white knuckles the rusty wrench that had accompanied them for half a lifetime.
The sound of corrosion drilled into everyone's eardrums.
It wasn't a simple sizzling sound, but something more sinister—like countless barbed insect feet crawling on nerves, or like a thirsty tongue licking the inner wall of a skull.
The frozen ground beneath their feet squirmed eerily, as if the entire earth had turned into the stomach of some gigantic creature.
