Chapter 67

The Old Welder's breathing froze inside his mask for a few seconds, leaving nothing in the depths of his pupils but bone-chilling horror. He could clearly "sense" the cold, greedy will emanating from that newly born, black-and-red active metal mud fused from the remains of his former companions! The source of that will pointed directly toward the summit, straight to the dying, struggling Key Seed core—the very epicenter of this entire pollution storm! This terrifying "Rust Gospel" was the Key Seed's dying, frenzied counterattack, projecting tentacles of destruction forged through the metal plague creep's most perfect evolution within this chaotic entropy field caught between ice and fire! And just as this purgatorial scene unfolded— Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Hum—! Those Cleaner individuals, whose advance had been briefly delayed by the ice and who had finally overcome initial tremors to burst forth from the cracks in the ground—after sustaining minor casualties from brief exposure to the acid mist and corrosive tentacles—immediately entered their true "mission" execution state!