"Bang!"
A bullet pierced precisely into the giant's left eye socket, murky pus splattered, and the giant let out a painful wail!
It was Holmes!
He had struggled to his feet at some unknown moment, suppressing the tumultuous, maddening whispers in his brain and his physical discomfort, and rushed to the edge of the innermost dark silver mercury barrier!
"Watson, throw it over!"
Watson did not hesitate, using his last bit of strength to throw the sulfur bottle toward Holmes.
"Roar!!!"
The giant roared in anger, ignoring Watson, and turned to crush Holmes.
Holmes caught the sulfur bottle, unscrewed it, and made a motion to sprinkle it onto the third barrier.
"No! No! No!!! Stop him for me, quickly!"
Claire, in the critical moment of the ritual, was completely unable to stop Holmes's actions and could only command the giant in terror.
The giant felt the urgency and became even more manic; its only remaining eye locked onto Holmes, its malice almost becoming tangible.
It curled into a ball of flesh and rolled toward Holmes at a speed inconsistent with its size.
The ball of flesh rolled faster and faster, looking as if it would crush him into a meat patty.
A sharp glint flashed in Holmes's eyes; this was the moment he had been waiting for.
He poured out the sulfur powder, sprinkled it toward the giant, then lunged to the side, rolling several times to narrowly escape the crushing range of the ball of flesh.
Holmes had dodged it, but behind him was that very last barrier!
The ball of flesh collided with the sulfur powder, covering its entire body, and sped straight toward the center of the ritual.
"Stop! Stop! No!!!"
Claire roared in vain, unable to stop the speeding ball of flesh.
In her expression of terror, the ball of flesh, coated in sulfur powder, rushed into the flowing, bright silver mercury barrier that was protecting her.
"Hiss!!!"
The ball of flesh formed by the giant was directly decomposed by the final ring into blood, and the pale yellow sulfur powder mixed with the blood and the bright silver mercury.
It was like cold water dripping into boiling oil! The moment the sulfur powder touched the mercury barrier, a violent, unimaginable chain reaction occurred!
It was not an explosion, but a more terrifying scene of silent annihilation; an extremely blinding white light erupted from the point of contact between the sulfur and the mercury!
Wherever the white light reached, the flowing mercury barrier instantly dissolved, vaporized, and disappeared! The mysterious energy structure constituting the barrier was completely destroyed by this ultimate "incompatibility"!
The white light also engulfed Claire herself; she let out a scream so shrill it didn't sound human.
Holmes was violently thrown away by the shockwave and crashed heavily into the stone wall.
His vision went completely black, his ears were ringing incessantly, his throat was full of dust and the metallic taste of blood, and every breath tugged at the sharp pain deep in his chest.
Worse still, the maddening whispers in his mind did not stop because of the destruction of the ritual; instead, like a persistent gangrene, they took advantage of the gap in his dual mental and physical weakness to churn even more rampantly in the depths of his consciousness.
Countless twisted knowledge, incomprehensible languages, and fragments of cold, indifferent scenes from the depths of the universe assaulted his crumbling barriers of sanity.
The blinding white light had receded like a tide, leaving behind a brief and absolute darkness, followed by a deathly silence, with only the subtle sound of gravel and sand rustling down from above.
"Sherlock!"
Watson's hoarse cry pierced through the ringing in his ears, filled with urgency and worry; he endured the severe pain and struggled to crawl toward Holmes.
Holmes bit the tip of his tongue hard, the severe pain bringing a moment of fleeting clarity; he shook his head vigorously, trying to dispel the black spots before his eyes and the gibberish in his brain, forcing himself to focus his vision.
The air was filled with a pungent smell of ozone, a strong scent of sulfur, and the foul stench of burning protein.
The scene in the center of the hall was shocking: where Claire had been standing, there was only a pit with charred edges, several feet deep, with scattered spots of dark red, viscous stains and a few charred fragments of dark red fabric remaining at the bottom.
That ambitious dean, along with her crazy dream of "divine descent," had been completely erased by the terrifying energy produced by the annihilation reaction of sulfur and mercury, not even leaving behind a single complete remnant.
But fortunately, Catherine seemed not to have been affected by the white light; she had only fainted nearby.
"Boom!"
The entire underground space let out an unbearable groan; the core of the annihilation not only destroyed Claire and the magic circle, but its violent energy also severely damaged the ancient rock structure supporting this massive underground space.
On the ceiling, hideous cracks spread rapidly, and large slabs of stone peeled off and crashed down with deafening roars!
On the walls, the bricks carved with blasphemous symbols and constellation signs also collapsed one after another.
"It's collapsing! Get out of here quickly!"
Sheriff Marcus crawled out of a pile of rubble, covered in dust and dirt, and roared at the top of his lungs, one of his arms twisted unnaturally.
His two remaining able-bodied Police Officers were each helping a colleague: one dragging a companion whose ribs had been broken by the giant, the other supporting a colleague who had been severely injured by the Insectoid and was almost in shock.
Holmes's gaze glanced toward the edge of the deep pit at the center of the explosion, where a faint dark red glimmer flickered in the dust; it was that blood-drop pendant!
It had surprisingly not been completely destroyed in such a terrifying explosion, only covered in cracks on the surface and having lost its luster, like congealed dirty blood.
Holmes's eyes narrowed, and without the slightest hesitation, he lunged forward and quickly picked it up.
The pendant felt ice-cold in his hand, with a heart-palpitating stickiness; he shoved it into his pocket, having no time to examine it closely.
"Hurry! This place won't hold!" Wright shouted anxiously.
More giant rocks crashed down from above, a massive stone pillar supporting the vault slowly tilted, and in the direction of the steep stone steps leading to the ground, large fallen rocks had already blocked part of the passage.
Wright, holding Catherine, moved with difficulty toward the direction of the stone steps.
Sheriff Marcus threw away his empty shotgun and commanded the still-mobile Police Officers: "Jack! Steady Smith! Sam, help me carry Davis! Quickly! Charge toward the steps!"
Holmes rushed to Watson's side and reached out to support him.
"Holmes! How are you? That book..."
Holmes waved his hand, signaling that he was fine; deep within his grey eyes, the maddening gibberish surged like an undercurrent beneath ice, but his iron will forcibly suppressed them.
"I'm fine, the book is still here."
He patted the specially made pocket on the inside of his trench coat, which contained the book of eibon, exuding an ominous aura.
"The priority is to leave this place."
The stone steps leading to the ground became like a road to hell; the slippery stone surface was covered with cracks and fallen rubble, requiring extreme caution with every step, and the steep angle seemed even more dangerous amidst the violent shaking.
Huge rocks constantly crashed down from above, emitting dull, thunderous sounds and kicking up even more smoke and dust; the air became scorching and thin, and the dust made it impossible to breathe.
"Hold on! We're almost there!" Sheriff Marcus roared, sweat mixed with blood and dust streaming down his determined face.
He and another Police Officer gritted their teeth, almost dragging their unconscious companion as they moved along the steep stairs.
Catherine remained unconscious, her face pale as paper, her breathing weak.
Wright, holding Catherine, found every step exceptionally difficult; blood loss and pain made his vision go black in waves, but he gritted his teeth tightly, protecting the girl in his arms with his life, using his own body to shield her from potentially falling rubble.
Holmes supported Watson as they walked at the very front, using the flashlight beam to cut through the pervasive smoke and dust to guide those behind him, and occasionally kicking away smaller stones blocking the path.
Finally, a light appeared ahead; it was the secret door they had entered through. Everyone, as if grasping a lifeline, supported one another and squeezed through the narrow secret door one by one.
Sheriff Marcus struggled to push the severely injured, unconscious Police Officer through the secret door, and just as he was about to crawl out himself, a deafening boom came from behind!
"Rumble!!!"
The massive ritual hall they had just escaped from, having lost its key supports, finally collapsed completely.
Countless rocks crashed down, deeply burying the twisted monster remains, the blasphemous magic circle, Claire's ambition, and the secret lair operated for many years, along with that steep stone stair passage!
The violent shockwave, carrying rubble and dust, slammed Sheriff Marcus, who was the last to come out, hard to the ground.