Chapter 330: Loop

Chapter 330: Chapter 330: Loop

Something far more brutal had clearly happened here.

Lyra Lowell, trailing behind, turned even paler at the sight and subconsciously shrank behind Alaric Hawthorn.

Fayestar’s brows furrowed as she raised her lantern, trying to illuminate the room.

Seraphina Sinclair followed the others. Although she didn’t raise a lantern, her [Mystic Insight] allowed her to see more clearly than anyone else.

The bloodstains and bodies on the floor indicated a chaotic battle had taken place. The corpses... they looked almost identical to the Ember’s Victims outside.

Besides that...

Seraphina Sinclair’s gaze settled on a corner.

Four statues stood there, each with a different form, surrounding two identical indentations.

The indentations were strikingly familiar. Seraphina Sinclair immediately recalled the slots where they had placed the Sunflowers during the last instance.

She didn’t rush over to inspect them, her gaze shifting to a nearby desk.

The desk was covered in a layer of dust, with only a notebook lying on it.

Seraphina Sinclair nonchalantly approached the desk and brushed the thin layer of dust off the notebook’s cover.

The paper was yellowed and brittle. The writing, penned in some sort of dark brown liquid, was twisted and frantic.

[They’re here... from the depths of the mines... carrying the curse of the Embers...]

[This place... why has this place completely changed... why does every path lead back here...]

[Can’t get out... no matter which way we go... we can’t get out...]

[We sealed that mine tunnel... but it was useless... they still crawl out of the cracks... like shadows...]

[The lamps... only the lamps made of purification fluorite can repel them for a while... but we’re almost out of fluorite...]

[Despair... everyone has despaired... gone mad... killing each other... for the last drops of lamp oil... for... a chance to get out alive...]

[Get out? We can’t... sacrifice... only sacrifice... put it there...]

[Put it where?! WHERE?! Who will do it?! Who would be willing?!]

[Sacrifice the weakest... the expendable ones... for a chance to survive...]

[Run... RUN!!!]

The writing stopped there abruptly. The final word, "RUN," was scrawled so large it had nearly torn through the paper, radiating an overwhelming sense of desperation and madness.

"What’s this?" Alaric Hawthorn asked, leaning in.

Seraphina Sinclair closed the notebook and handed it to him.

Fayestar and Lyra Lowell came over as well. The three of them aimed their flashlights at the page, struggling to read the words one by one.

"’They’re here’? Is it talking about those monsters corrupted by the Embers?" Lyra Lowell analyzed as he read.

Alaric Hawthorn nodded beside him. Fayestar, however, frowned and, after a moment of serious thought, suddenly countered, "I don’t think so. This says something *brought* the Embers."

She looked up, her expression puzzled. "Aren’t the Embers a type of mineral? The files we saw before said someone was researching them. Why does this say they were brought here by something?"

It was a good question. Having read the entire notebook, Seraphina Sinclair was also lost in thought.

"The first sentence is weird enough, but what do the second and third mean?" Lyra Lowell scratched his head, completely baffled.

No one answered him. The beams of their flashlights continued down the page, and their gazes followed.

When they reached the words "sacrifice," "the weakest," and "the expendable," Lyra Lowell’s face turned pale once more.

He snatched the notebook, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it a few times, shouting, "What is this crap? It’s a lie! This has to be a lie!"

Fayestar and Alaric Hawthorn: "..."

Was there any point in making such a scene?

Fortunately, they had already finished reading the notebook. Fayestar didn’t say anything more, but Alaric Hawthorn shot Lyra Lowell a glance and threatened, "If anyone’s getting sacrificed, it’ll be you!"

Seraphina Sinclair didn’t bother to see Lyra Lowell’s reaction. Her gaze returned to the two indentations surrounded by the four statues.

’From the looks of it, they need to sacrifice two people.’

And...

’Why did the notebook keep insisting they couldn’t get out?’

Seraphina Sinclair looked back at the large door they had come through. The flashlight beams happened to shine on it, revealing not only the descending steps but also the statue-like Ember’s Victims.

The light swept past, and the area outside the door plunged back into darkness.

In that instant, the Ember’s Victims, as if they had weathered a thousand years, suddenly dissolved into specks of floating ash, drifting in one direction before vanishing completely.

Immediately after, the steps behind the monsters vanished along with them.

The drifting ash then reformed, creating an entirely new scene before Seraphina Sinclair.

This new scene was also familiar—it was the corridor!

The very corridor they had traversed back and forth several times!

Most importantly, a yellow hard hat lay on the corridor floor.

Seraphina Sinclair stared at it for a moment. The claw marks and teeth imprints on it were identical to the one they had seen before.

’No need to go out and check. The inside lining definitely has the word "Forward" written on it.’

’So, if we were to walk down this corridor again... which room would we end up in?’

’The room we’re in now? Or would it revert to its previous state?’

Fayestar and the others were still completely unaware of what had just happened outside the door. Lyra Lowell and Alaric Hawthorn were bickering, while Fayestar, holding her mining lamp, was circling the room.

Seraphina Sinclair stared out the door for a long while before finally suppressing her shock and pulling her gaze away.

She finally understood what was going on.

"We’re trapped in a loop." Seraphina Sinclair’s voice, though not loud, rang out with striking clarity in the silent room, cutting through the meaningless argument between Alaric Hawthorn and Lyra Lowell.

The three of them turned to look at her at the same time.

"A loop?" Fayestar was the first to react. "What do you mean?"

Seraphina Sinclair said nothing, simply raising a hand and pointing outside the door.

Fayestar turned her head. Alaric Hawthorn rushed over, and the moment he saw the scene outside, his pupils constricted. "Where are the steps? And the monsters? Why is it a corridor now?!"

Lyra Lowell was so scared he nearly collapsed. "We... we just came in from there! How did it change outside the door?!"

"It’s not that the outside changed," Seraphina Sinclair said, walking to the doorway. Her sharp gaze swept over the corridor, which looked real but felt deathly still. "It’s that we never truly left certain areas. Or rather, this space itself is constantly resetting and reconfiguring."

She pointed to the corridor outside. "Remember what the notebook said? ’Why does every path lead back here...’ and ’no matter which way we go... we can’t get out.’ That wasn’t a metaphor. It was literal."

"We thought we were moving deeper, but we were likely just cycling through a few fixed spaces. The steps, the corridor, the Victims, the releasers... even this door and this room are all part of the loop."

"It seems we’ve reached an endpoint," Seraphina Sinclair said, turning to look at the statues. "We can either make a sacrifice... pay the price to get out, or we can step into that corridor and walk through the past all over again."