Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1827: The world shall suffer with him.

The robots, which had been moving like swarms of cockroaches only moments ago, suddenly froze.

From their bases to the tops of their mechanical frames, their bodies locked in place as if an invisible hand had seized every moving part. Their clothes blackened and crumbled into ash, their synthetic skin bubbled and melted away, exposing the machinery beneath.

Metallic systems groaned and creaked as the energy flowing through their circuits abruptly died, and within seconds, their metal bodies began to rust instantaneously, orange-brown corrosion spreading across them like a disease.

SSsshhhh~

The sky suddenly darkened as enormous black clouds gathered over the entire Gamma Division. The daylight vanished beneath them, leaving the city beneath a sickly twilight that seemed to deepen with every passing second.

And from within the mountain of broken robots… a thick, deep-black smoke slithered through the wreckage like a living serpent. It curled between twisted limbs, crawled over shattered machines, and slowly spilled down the mountain of robot corpses.

Ssssshhhh~

Wherever it touched, everything cracked.

Metal fractured with sharp, brittle snaps.

The smoke continued forward, slowly covering the entire mountain of broken robots. Sand disintegrated into fine particles beneath it, while the earth darkened as though something had scorched it from within.

Then the ocean, which had been flowing gently along the coast, suddenly began to retreat.

It pulled away from the shore in unnatural silence.

As if the sea itself was trying to escape.

The moment the thick, dark smoke touched the water, the ocean died.

Like literally!!

For almost a few kilometres, the water simply disappeared from the world, leaving behind nothing but scorched ground covered in deep cracks that glowed with a faint crimson light.

No steam rose from the vanished sea.

Only silence remained.

And then the darkness began moving toward the thriving city that stood before it.

Meanwhile, the people of Gamma Division were still complaining about the sudden disappearance of their robots.

“What do you mean I need to wait? That was my fucking wife!” a man shouted furiously into his communication device. His face was flushed with anger as he paced through the crowded street.

“Listen, I need my wife back now! I don’t fucking car—”

His words died in his throat.

He slowly looked upward.

The sky had turned deep black.

Not dark.

Black!

It looked as though night had descended over the city in a single breath, swallowing every trace of daylight. The people around him gradually stopped moving, their faces turning upward one after another as confusion spread through the streets.

Then they heard it.

kTrkTrkTrk….””TrkTr

A strange, guttural sound echoed between the towering buildings.

It did not sound mechanical.

And it definitely did not sound human.

It sounded like something breathing from deep within the earth, a wet and distorted rumble dragged upward from the depths of an enormous throat.

The sound reverberated through the buildings, vibrating against windows and metal walls.

Nobody moved.

For one terrible moment, the entire street seemed to hold its breath.

Then, without warning, the deep pitch-black smoke came crashing through the streets like an enormous tsunami.

It poured between the buildings, swallowing everything in its path.

The man didn’t even have time to scream.

The darkness touched him, and his body instantly crumbled into ash, scattering across the pavement as the wind carried the remains away.

Everyone caught within the advancing wave suffered the same fate. Bodies collapsed into drifting ash before they could even understand what was happening.

Those farther away finally understood.

And they ran.

“NO!!”

“SOMEONE SAVE US!!”

“OH GODDESS, PLEASE SAVE US AGAIN!!”

People shoved one another aside as they desperately fled through the streets. Some fell. Others abandoned everything they were carrying. Parents grabbed their children and ran blindly through the streets while alarms began screaming from every direction.

Yet no amount of prayer could save them.

No amount of screaming could stop it.

The darkness continued forward.

The black tsunami didn’t merely destroy the humans it touched. Everything along the trail it left behind was ruined.

Buildings cracked and collapsed as though a thousand years had passed over them in seconds. Windows shattered. Metal beams corroded. Entire sections of towers crumbled into the streets.

Half of the buildings collapsed completely, while the remaining structures stood at impossible angles, barely holding themselves together beneath walls stained black by the advancing darkness.

“SOLDIERS! HELP US!”

The Gamma soldiers immediately deployed toward the affected city.

Armoured units descended into the streets, weapons charging as they prepared to confront whatever had invaded their city. But the moment they arrived, even the soldiers fell silent.

There was nothing to fight.

Only darkness.

An endless wall of deep black smoke stretched across the streets, swallowing the city ahead of them.

Their scanners returned nothing. Their targeting systems failed to lock onto anything within it.

Stiil,

“Fire!”

Energy weapons erupted simultaneously.

Blinding beams tore across the darkness.

Explosions thundered through the streets.

For a brief moment, the soldiers believed they had managed to stop it.

Then the smoke emerged from the explosions without a single sign of damage.

The energy simply vanished inside it.

The soldiers stared.

No matter how much energy they fired, no matter how powerful their weapons were, nothing penetrated the darkness. Every attack disappeared as though the smoke itself was consuming the force behind it.

“N-N-NO!!”

The darkness reached them.

One soldier disappeared first.

Then another.

Then an entire squad vanished beneath the black wave.

Their screams lasted only seconds before they were swallowed completely. When the darkness passed, only a few scattered pieces of metal remained on the ground, their surfaces blackened and corroded beyond recognition.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Explosions and screams echoed throughout the city as the darkness continued spreading through the entire Gamma Division.

And with every street it swallowed, the screams grew fewer.

In a matter of just… ten minutes.

Barely ten minutes!

The once-flourishing Gamma City had been reduced to nothing but an abandoned ruin, as though a thousand years had passed over it.

Towers stood hollow and lifeless, their surfaces blackened and fractured, while streets that had once been filled with millions of people lay buried beneath ash and debris.

And darkness was slowly reaching the borders as well; it would be a matter of time before other divisions fell!

And all that remained was… Gamma Tower.

Hundreds of people and numerous soldiers had gathered inside it, desperately trying to escape the horrifying phenomenon consuming everything outside.

They deployed barrier after barrier around the tower, layers of energy shields overlapping one another as they desperately tried to hold back the approaching darkness.

Yet…

The barriers crumbled against it.

One after another, the shields fractured, their surfaces rippling violently before shattering into fragments of fading light.

“E-Everyone… F-Fire!”

The Commander shouted, but he didn’t fire.

His finger remained frozen above the trigger.

Fear had rooted itself too deeply within him.

The soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, weapons trembling in their hands. Some clutched their families. Others had fallen to their knees, praying desperately for their lives.

Goodbyes echoed throughout the tower.

Quiet sobs.

Broken prayers.

Desperate pleas.

And then…

The darkness stopped spreading.

Everyone froze.

For several seconds, nobody dared to breathe.

Then a few soldiers slowly lowered their weapons.

A woman covered her mouth as a trembling breath escaped her.

“It… stopped?”

Another soldier stared toward the ruined city beyond the shattered windows.

“Is… is it over?”

Relief slowly spread through the tower.

Whatever that thing was…

Maybe it was finally over.

Maybe they had survived.

But the moment they allowed themselves to believe that…

!!!!

Everyone instinctively flinched and looked upward.

Their bodies reacted before their minds could understand why.

Something was there.

Something was watching them.

From within the darkness…

A deeper darkness emerged.

It was so profoundly black that the surrounding darkness itself seemed pale beside it.

A figure slowly manifested from within the void.

There was no recognisable structure to its body.

No face.

No eyes.

No limbs that could properly be distinguished.

It was simply… pure blackness given form.

The figure hovered silently before the people.

Nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

Every soldier trembled as their weapons slowly lowered.

There was no help.

There was no mercy.

There was… No god.

What stood before them was nothing less than DEATH itself!

Then came a low, guttural sound.

A strange vibration passed through the tower, almost like reality itself was struggling to remain stable around the figure.

“I… Want… It…”

The voice emerged slowly, each word carrying a deep vibration that seemed to crawl beneath their skin.

The shadow raised one indistinct arm.

And pointed toward someone.

Everyone flinched.

Their eyes followed the direction of the gesture.

And then they saw her.

A pregnant woman stood among them.

Her face instantly drained of colour.

“N-No… No! No! Please, no!”

She stumbled backwards as every eye in the tower suddenly focused on her.

The soldiers clenched their fists.

One of them stepped forward, his expression twisting with anger and disbelief.

“D-Do you think—”

His body crumbled before he could even finish the sentence.

Silence consumed the tower.

And then…

Without the shadow saying another word, the crowd moved.

The terrified people shoved the pregnant woman forward without hesitation.

“N-No! I don’t want to die! My baby! Please!”

“Bitch! Do you want us to die?!”

“It’s just asking for you!”

“Get off!”

“Yes! Save us!”

“Compared to you and your unborn child… our lives matter!”

“Get out!!”

Hands pushed her.

Someone kicked her.

Another person shoved her violently from behind.

She cried out in pain as she stumbled forward, clutching her stomach before falling hard onto the ground.

“Ahh!”

She rolled across the floor before finally stopping just before the darkness.

Her body trembled uncontrollably.

Her hands instinctively wrapped around her swollen stomach.

The woman’s face contorted with pain and terror.

“P-Please… Please… I-I don’t want to die… N-Not my baby… P-Please…”

She begged again.

And again.

Her voice broke beneath the weight of her fear as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Please… someone… help me…”

The shadow simply hovered before her.

Its featureless darkness stared down at the trembling woman as though it were patiently waiting for her final plea.

As though it was listening.

As though it was enjoying the sound of her begging for her life.

“Life… When… Death cometh… ye beg. When… the end layeth its hand upon thee… thou offerest all things. Flesh… blood… kin… even thy soul. Such is thy nature… or merely thy selfishness?”

Instantly, it waved its hand right beside her face.

The people and soldiers who had given her up turned to dust in an instant, their bodies disintegrating before they could even scream. The force of the gesture tore through the tower, and half of the structure crumbled down in a deafening roar.

The woman cried as tears rolled down her eyes.

“P-P—!”

She flinched when the darkness touched her stomach.

She could feel her baby moving inside, kicking in panic and pain, as though something was hurting the child from within.

“Even… the life unborn… fears Death~”

The voice turned amused as it sensed the baby trembling inside the womb.

In the next moment, the woman winced in agony as dark claws slowly dug into her stomach, piercing deeper through the darkness surrounding her.

“N-NOOOO!!!” she screamed in horror—

“THAT’S… ENOUGH!!”

A wooden staff struck straight into the figure’s body, landing between the shadow and the woman.

The impact sent the shadow folding backwards as if it had been violently thrown away. The darkness surrounding it recoiled, spreading outward for an instant before being swallowed back into the shadow figure.

It was as though something was sucking the darkness back into itself.

Then, reality directly behind it folded.

The space bent like the surface of disturbed water, warping around the figure before collapsing inward and swallowing the shadow completely.

“Forgive me, child… for I have arrived too late.” An ethereal voice echoed.

The woman, who had been crying moments ago, blinked in confusion.

Both the black tsunami and the dark creature…

Had disappeared.

She slowly looked down at her stomach.

The wounds were gone too.

Not even a mark remained, as if she had never been injured in the first place.

Her expression slowly changed.

Relief… Disbelief.

Then a strange, overwhelming happiness washed across her face as her trembling legs finally gave out beneath her.

“Awwweeeee!”

She cried out as she collapsed onto the ground.

And around her…

There was nothing but a broken world.

The city was dead.

The towers were shattered.

The streets were buried beneath ash and debris.

Everything around her had been destroyed.

Everything…

Except her.

Meanwhile, in an unknown place…

“It has been a while, Child… or should I say… what remains of you?”

A woman dressed in pure white robes stood with a perfectly straight posture.

The air fluttered through her robes, causing the fabric to sway gently around her.

A hood covered her face, leaving her features hidden within its shadow. A white ribbon attached to her clothing danced lightly in the passing breeze.

In her hand, she held a simple wooden staff.

She stood alone as she looked at the shadow figure staring at her dangerously.