I, the final BOSS of the beta test server!

Why does he know my name?

The thought flashed through his mind in a flash, and Rast pulled the trigger.

In the bright and shining light of the lantern, the tyrannical desires and madness were suppressed, the iron cross on his forehead dimmed a little, and the consciousness of Marine Captain Langley was briefly revived.

Langley stopped in confusion, looked around, and recalled everything he had done before - as the captain of the Marine Corps, he should have defended his country and commanded the army, but he devoured his soldiers one by one in order to gain power.

"What have I done?"

The next moment, dozens of tons of falling steel bars swallowed everything.

……

A violent roar was heard, and it could be heard clearly even outside most of the city.

Previously, only a section of the metal trestle was broken, but this time, dozens of tons of steel bars and fuel tanks fell.

Sparks from the collision of steel ignited the broken fuel tanks, and hot air currents and flying debris swept across.

It was unknown how long it took before the rain extinguished the fire and smoke from the steel ruins.

Last was crawling in the ruins of steel, his chest rising and falling weakly.

At the moment when dozens of tons of steel bars fell and the fuel tank exploded, Langley stood in front of him and used his body to bear most of the damage for Last.

He might have done this to atone for his sins, or perhaps out of a sense of responsibility as a soldier to protect civilians... It's just unclear if Langley would regret his decision if he knew that Rast had been wanted many times with five stars on his head and had sniper duels with the Marines in Deep Blue Harbor.

But in fact, at this moment, there is no difference between Rast being alive and dead.

Not far away, the unique laughter of the Iron Crosses was heard along with the sound of footsteps.

The desire for blood and power overcame the fear of fire, and hundreds of Iron Crosses climbed over the burning steel ruins and headed towards Rast.

This place holds an incomparable allure for them. In addition to Rast's blood and the evil god statue, there's also the body of the Iron Cross leader, Langley.

The Iron Cross who eats this corpse may become the new Iron Cross leader, or even the new king of the tribe in the future.

Luster didn't move, or rather, he couldn't move.

The previous bloody battle had exhausted all his physical strength, and Lenglet was unable to protect his whole body. Broken metal fragments penetrated into his organs, and several sharp steel bars cut through the bones and tendons of his hands and feet. Even his mental strength was drained by the final shot that awakened Lenglet.

Last's five senses began to dull, and even the sense of pain became blurred.

He knew that his current appearance was just a blurry mass of flesh and blood that was difficult to distinguish as a human shape. The reason he didn't die immediately was simply because the effect of the Iron Cross serum had not completely faded, and that extraordinary self-healing ability was just giving him his last breath.

Last used his last bit of strength to grope for the pocket watch. On the broken dial, the 25-minute countdown had come to an end.

Mission accomplished, he single-handedly held off the entire city's Iron Cross for 25 minutes.

If everything goes well, by now, Hiltina should have already set up all the time bombs in the factory and is evacuating the port area through the escape route of the ventilation duct.

The wild laughter gradually moved closer to Last, and the footsteps were much more frequent than before. At least a thousand Iron Crosses gathered around Last. They were the Iron Crosses that were originally outside the port area.

Surrounded by such a large number of Iron Crosses, even if Last was still in his prime, with an entire arsenal behind him, it would be impossible for him to successfully break out. What's more, Last had already used up his last bullet and even had difficulty moving a finger.

He closed his eyes and waited silently for death to come and a new cycle to begin.

This was not because Rast was afraid of pain, but because he was eaten by the Iron Crosses and died. This was just the most ordinary way of death among the many ways Rast had died in the past.

He was just thinking about Hiltina and what would happen after the new cycle began—

Based on their short one-day experience together, Last judged that Hiltina was quite reliable and not the kind of person who went back on her word. She would probably find a way to rescue him after successfully escaping from the night world.

But he didn't know whether Xiltina could successfully place the time bomb and escape from the port before it exploded.

Could the Evil God's descent be stopped by killing all the Iron Crosses with an explosion? This was just Lust's speculation. He was confident in his deduction process, but he had never actually successfully implemented it, so he was not sure.

Even if Hiltina did escape the Night World, would she be able to successfully accumulate strength and return to the Night World Reverberation to save him? Would Hiltina encounter any accidents during this period? Would new events unfold in the Night World? Last didn't know.

He never trusted anyone, and for hundreds of years, Rast had been alone, but this time he chose to place his bet on the rapier girl named Hiltina, whom he had known for less than twenty-four hours.

Because this is the only variable that appears in Last's tens of thousands of cycles, he has no choice but to seize the possibility even if it is only one in ten thousand.

The footsteps paused.

An Iron Cross stopped in front of him, and Rast could already hear the sound of the sharp blade breaking through the air.

At this moment, a gust of wind suddenly blew, bringing with it a gust of red and white wind.

The knife that was slashing towards Rast was destroyed in the strong wind, and then the owner of the knife also disappeared in the distance.

"Real name, Liberation."

A clear voice echoed throughout the entire steel ruins. It was a girl speaking, and she spoke an ancient language with a metallic voice.

Rast had never heard of this language, but now he understood the meaning of the word, which meant "star".

The next moment.

The light of the morning star illuminated his eyes.

Chapter 24: Can all your tanks fire flares?

Last's vision gradually darkened, and a coldness spread throughout his body. The shadow of death enveloped him.

But in the gradually dimming vision, Last still saw that beam of light...that intense and clear starlight that penetrated the rain curtain and illuminated the sky.

The sound disappeared.

Next to disappear is the color.

The world became silent, with only the gushing hot starlight remaining.

The rushing light stirred up countless whirlpools, engulfing the dark waves formed by the Iron Cross in front of the ruins.

The bodies of the Iron Crosses were instantly annihilated in the light, leaving only the instantly melted earth and the white ashes left after the flesh and blood were burned away.

The girl with the light brown eyes and the rapier landed in front of Rast. In the dark vision, her long chestnut hair was so dazzling, and her whole body was surrounded by pale silver flames.

Hiltina took out three emerald green crystals and placed them on Rast's chest. At the same time, she once again chanted an ancient syllable:

"cure."

The crystal shattered instantly, turning into thousands of emerald green crystal fragments, falling on Rast's bloody wound.

In a trance, Rast saw ripples on the water. He bathed in the warm spring water. The darkness in his vision was dispelled by the light, and the cold was eliminated by the warmth.

The loss of Rast's vitality stopped, the flame of life, like a candle in the wind, no longer flickered, and his wounds began to heal slowly.

After doing all this, Hiltina squatted down beside Rast and supported him on her shoulders.

"The time bombs have been installed. Where should we go next?" Her voice was like a heavenly sound. "Should we go through the same ventilation duct as before?"

"No, it's too late to go through the ventilation duct now. We can't leave the port before the explosion." Last tried hard to get his stagnant brain working again, adapting to and thinking about everything that was happening in front of him.

"According to the original plan, you should have been halfway through the escape route by now, instead of appearing here."

There was no gloom in Hiltyna's voice: "So where are we going now?"

"Actually, I do have a backup plan, but I can't guarantee its safety."

"explain."

"Instead of going through the ventilation duct, let's go to the observation tower in the harbor area. Turn left and go into the factory. There's a shortcut there."

Hiltina grabbed Last's arm, stomped her knight boots on the ground, and then jumped high.

In mid-air, Last saw the lava path that ran through the earth. The molten lava path tore the Iron Cross wave surrounding Last into two halves, and the sand and gravel along the way evaporated into white crystals in the high temperature.

The Iron Crosses who survived the beam of light looked at Hiltina's figure in mid-air and even forgot to shoot.

A few seconds later, Hiltina appeared on the upper platform of the factory carrying Rast, and then started speeding.

Although her figure was so slender, the hands that held Last were extremely strong. During this process, Last felt like a kite, and Hiltina was the little girl running wildly with the kite.

"One thousand six hundred kel." said Hiltina.

"what?"

"One thousand six hundred gold kol. Kol gold coins are the common currency in our world."

Without even turning around, Hiltina said, "To save you, I activated my Night Blade's second-level ability, unlocking the True Name of 'Shimmering Morning Star.' The price I paid was that my weapon was half-destroyed after unlocking the True Name."

"One thousand six hundred cole is the total cost of repairing my rapier, plus the three instant healing crystals that I can't bear to use myself... Remember to return them to me after we leave the night world."

Last saw the scabbard at Hiltina's waist. The crystal-like silver sword in the scabbard had been shattered. The power that had torn the earth apart before was not without cost.

He was silent for a moment. "You know very well that I can't possibly have the currency of your world."

"Then work for me, as a bartender, sculptor, stylist, veterinarian, or as a prostitute in a shop... Don't you like doing these things?"

Luster remained silent.

Role-playing games and being forced to work to pay off debts are two completely different experiences.

Just like players who have a lot of fun playing Shawarma Legend will not actually go to a Turkish kebab restaurant to work and roll burritos.

But he didn't say anything else. Rast knew that this was the proud female knight expressing her dissatisfaction with his previous act of taking the initiative to stay alone to cover the retreat.

It seemed that because of Last's surrender, Hiltina did not continue to dwell too much on the topic of debt.

Rast was grabbed by Hiltina and ran wildly in the factory. Every time he leaped, he covered a distance of dozens of meters. The scenery of steel and steam boilers around him changed rapidly.

He looked at the fading Iron Cross brand on his body and asked, "Aren't you afraid that I'll bring the Iron Cross Plague with me and cause disaster in your world as well?"

"It's okay. When the Echoes of History are cleared, the Night World will be cleansed of all pollution." Hiltina continued, "As long as you're still breathing by then, everything will be restored to its original state."

"You shouldn't have bothered with me," Luster said. "You've successfully evacuated according to the original plan, but now we're both likely to die in the harbor."

"You only have one life left, and by then I'll have to fall back into that long, hopeless cycle. This is a blind and irrational choice."

"I know."

"But just as it was your persistence that sustained you through tens of thousands of failures without giving up... I also have my own persistence, a persistence that will not yield."

Hiltina's voice was so clear that it reminded Last of the chime of a midnight wind chime: "The motto of the Forest Ranger family—"

"As a noble, you must protect your subjects at all costs, even if it means sacrificing your life. As a knight, as long as you have breath left, you must never let your companions die in front of you."

Luster sighed. "That sounds like a pretty rigid, old-fashioned, stupid rule that doesn't allow for flexibility."

"You're not the first person to complain like this. My father and sister have said similar things."

Hiltina smiled, without a trace of gloom in her smile: "So I hope you won't be the last."

Beside Rast and Hiltina, the monotonous scenery of steel and steam boilers disappeared, replaced by a one-way road with a towering watchtower at the end.

The moment they rushed out of the steel factory, they heard the sound of waves crashing against the shore.

The sea was separated from them only by the watchtower, and the sound of the tide seemed to echo between heaven and earth.

Chapter 25 I jump first, then you jump

Hiltina paused in front of the tall watchtower. Although she was in a port city, this was the first time she was so close to the sea since entering the night world.

But at the same time, Hiltina also heard the faint laughter mixed in with the sound of the waves.

The Iron Crosses came after them again. The starlight that penetrated the earth before could only scare them for a while, but could not last long.

Those Iron Crosses were intelligent. After recovering from the shock, they quickly determined that the starlight that destroyed everything must have consumed a great deal of energy on Hiltina, and that she was now at the end of her strength.

In fact, Hiltina really couldn't use the Night Blade of "True Name Release" again. Her silver sword was already covered with fine cracks, and it could shatter at any time with just a swing.

Hiltina listened to the shaking of the earth. She knew that in a few seconds those fanatical Iron Crosses would transform into a dark wave and surround them again as they had surrounded Rast before.

But when Hiltina looked around, she found no other way to escape.

She slowly adjusted her breathing: "What should we do next."

Luster pointed to the upright watchtower not far away and said, "Go up."

……

bang bang bang-

Hiltina rushed into the watchtower with Rast and quickly went up the spiral stairs.

This watchtower had obviously not been used for a long time. The spiral staircase was covered with rust and moss, and the accumulated dust fell as the two people walked on it.

"I was actually quite surprised. I didn't expect that I would be recognized as your companion."

Luster smiled and said, "I thought a young lady of your age, a young noble who had been pampered in the academy, would subconsciously reject or even dislike me after seeing how I had previously tried to stop the evil god from descending by blowing up half a city."

"In the eyes of ordinary people, this kind of massacre is no different from genocide. Maybe someone will even say that the life of an Iron Cross is also a life..."