Chapter 368: The Remnant Sovereign

“What do we do next? Do you need us to accompany you inside?”

“You all…” Poppy paused, considering.

This Anomaly was very likely connected to the black mist the workers had described. Something capable of killing dozens in an instant was no ordinary threat.

For her, it posed little danger. Her Rank-3 status granted resistance and resilience far beyond that of ordinary people.

But for the support squad, most of whom were Rank-2…

There could still be risks.

Poppy made her decision.

“You’ll stay outside. I’m going in alone. Rank-2 resistance… probably won’t be enough.”

She didn’t elaborate, but it was enough.

The support squad leader was silent for two seconds, then nodded.

“Understood.”

Poppy then retrieved a vial of potion from her equipment pack and handed it over.

The squad leader instinctively reached out to take it. He glanced down, and his pupils constricted slightly.

The liquid inside was a pale cyan, like molten jade. In his hand, it radiated a faint warmth.

This was The Bulwark, a Rank-3 immunity enhancer.

The squad leader recognized the potion.

“Take it. Just in case.”

Beyond its primary immune-boosting effect, The Bulwark had a special alternative use. The squad leader, naturally, knew the unique application of this Rank-3 potion. She didn’t need to spell it out.

He carefully stowed the potion away, his movements meticulous.

Poppy looked at him and added, “Don’t use it unless absolutely necessary.”

At the end of the day, this was still a Rank-3 potion. It might not be the highest quality, but if it was wasted carelessly, she’d feel the sting.

She couldn’t afford to throw around high-grade potions with abandon like a certain someone…

The squad leader blinked, caught off guard for a moment, then gave a rueful smile and nodded.

Only then was Poppy satisfied. She turned to face the twenty-story building’s main structure.

She drew a deep breath and strode toward the main entrance.

………………

She pushed open the unlocked front door. The lobby was deserted.

The air was thick with the smell of stale decay. The odor wormed its way into the nasal passages and left a cloying, sickly-sweet tang at the back of the throat.

Directly opposite the entrance was the unfinished elevator shaft. Its dark, rectangular maw gaped open like a silent abyss.

Peering down through the gaps in the elevator doors, she could see only an impenetrable, viscous darkness. It was as if the light itself was being devoured by that chasm.

Poppy’s gaze lingered on that gap for a moment.

A bold thought flashed through her mind—jump straight down from here? With a Rank-3 physique, a fall from this height shouldn’t be a problem.

But she quickly dismissed the idea. Jumping straight down would certainly be faster, but she’d lose any chance to observe the surroundings along the way.

If this building held something else she didn’t know about, recklessly diving in headfirst would not be a wise move.

She turned toward the side stairwell instead.

Tap, tap.

Her footsteps echoed through the empty corridor. The sound bounced off the concrete walls, reverberating layer by layer downward.

The space seemed to stretch downward in the gloom, each floor darker, colder, heavier than the last.

The darkness around her deepened. The stench of decay in the air grew thicker until it became almost a physical substance. Every breath felt like swallowing rot.

Abnormal water stains began to appear on the walls—a murky gray-black ooze that seeped slowly outward as she passed, as if the walls themselves were sweating.

At last, she reached the third basement level.

In this near-lightless environment, Poppy’s eyes flickered with a ghostly luminescence. As a veteran Rank-3 apprentice, this ordinary darkness no longer posed any significant hindrance to her.

She quickly located the fissure in the ground. It stretched from the stairwell doorway deep into the corridor, over two meters wide at its broadest point. Its edges were jagged and uneven, with rebar jutting out from the fractured cross-sections.

Here, indeed, the collapse had opened into a vast cavity deeper underground. Beneath it lay the crumbling structure of what appeared to be an ancient ruin.

The walls were of archaic construction, clearly not part of any modern building. Their rough stone surfaces were covered in moss and rust—a deep viridian, almost black, as if nourished by something foul over endless years.

Faded bas-reliefs were faintly visible, carved with illegible patterns. The lines were crude and sinister, rendered all the more grotesque in the dim light.

Corroded iron rings were embedded in the stone walls, some broken, others sunk deep into the rock face.

At the very center of the ruin stood the black stone pillar the workers had described, standing in silent stillness.

But unlike their description, the massive chains that had once been wrapped around it were now all shattered, lying scattered across the ground as broken scrap. The severed links were twisted in unnatural contortions.

The side of the black pillar had been violently torn open, revealing a gaping hole.

Inside that hole was a space—neither too large nor too small, just barely large enough to hold a single person.

It was a sarcophagus-shaped cavity.

But whatever had been inside was clearly no longer here. The space was empty, save for a few dried black stains.

Poppy’s brow furrowed slightly.

Given that the support squad hadn’t detected anything unusual outside the construction site, the Anomaly was, in all likelihood, still somewhere within it. Since it wasn’t underground, and not outside the building…

Slowly, Poppy raised her head. Her gaze pierced through the ceiling, looking upward. It was as if her eyesight penetrated the layered floors above, through concrete and steel, and glimpsed something lurking on some upper level.

“Running around for what? Wouldn’t it be nicer just to stay put…”

She muttered the complaint offhandedly, then lifted the elegant hookah pipe at her waist. She took a long draw and slowly exhaled.

A vast plume of gray smoke unfurled instantly, surging upward like a living tide. It swept through the building, silent but spreading with terrifying speed, climbing through the stairwell’s hollow core and seeping into every corridor, every room, every crevice.

But the next moment, her action seemed to trigger some kind of mechanism. The ruined structure beneath her feet gave a faint tremor.

From between the walls, a massive amount of black vapor began to seep out, carrying a sharp, pungent stench. That stench was ten times more intense than what she had smelled in the stairwell earlier!

But unlike ordinary people, Poppy’s eyes merely sharpened. Her gray smoke immediately moved to encircle and suppress the black vapor. The instant the smoke touched the black vapor, a faint hissing sound filled the air.

Like fire searing snow, the black vapor dispersed rapidly upon contact.

Before long, these sourceless black fumes—the lingering corrosive traces left by the Anomaly—were completely purged by her power.

At the same moment, the smoke spreading upward finally brushed against something. In Poppy’s perception, the invisible net snapped taut.

She had locked onto that powerful presence.