After more than a thousand urns floated into the Sea of Flowers, they all hovered in midair.
Moments later, the ashes inside every urn rose into the air, gathering into one enormous sphere.
As Claire Quinn and Emily Gale stared in stunned silence, the massive ball of ashes split apart into countless tiny streams, each flowing back into a different urn.
Only then did Ethan remember the note attached to the blueprint—the Sea of Flowers could sort ashes.
"Don’t worry," he explained. "The Sea of Flowers is separating everyone’s ashes. After this, each urn will contain only one person’s remains."
Hearing his explanation, Claire and Emily both let out sighs of relief, smiles finally appearing on their faces.
Earlier, they had been forced to gather everyone’s ashes together.
With only the two of them, there had been no way to separate them properly.
Now...
Everyone would finally have a resting place of their own.
Once the sorting was complete, the urns slowly descended to the ground before gently sinking several meters beneath the fertile soil.
The soil itself was the purified earth Ethan had traded from Claire Frost, so there was no need to worry about contamination.
As the urns settled underground, gravestones began rising from the earth one after another like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
The greatest surprise...
Was that each gravestone bore not only a name...
But also a photograph.
Claire and Emily rushed into the cemetery, gently stroking the gravestones as tears streamed uncontrollably down their faces.
Stopping before one particular grave, both women dropped to their knees.
"Grandpa..."
"We... we’re still alive."
Claire choked back a sob.
In the end, she felt that was the only thing the kind old man in the photograph truly wanted to hear.
Walking over, Ethan said softly,
"My condolences. The dead can’t—"
Before he could finish...
A translucent figure slowly emerged from behind the gravestone.
The moment Claire and Emily recognized the old man’s face, their eyes widened in shock.
It was their grandfather.
Ethan glanced at the inscription.
Here Lies Walter Quinn.
"Grandpa!"
The sisters cried out in unison.
As though awakened by their voices, the emptiness in Walter Quinn’s eyes gradually faded, replaced by warmth and clarity.
Looking at the two girls, he smiled gently.
"Thank goodness..."
"You’re both alive."
Claire wiped away her tears.
"Grandpa... I’m sorry."
"We... we couldn’t fight alongside you until the very end."
"Silly child."
"Nothing matters more than the two of you surviving."
"Besides... that Terror Drake wasn’t an enemy you could have defeated."
His expression suddenly changed.
"Hmm?"
"Emily..."
"Why has your hair turned white?"
Claire lowered her head.
"She overused her life force to save me."
Walter sighed deeply.
"You’ve both suffered so much..."
Turning toward Ethan, the elderly man bowed solemnly.
"Mr. Ethan..."
"Thank you for everything you’ve done."
Instinctively, Ethan reached out to stop him.
But his hand passed straight through Walter’s translucent body.
Still...
From that brief contact, Ethan noticed something unexpected.
Although Walter was now a spirit...
His presence wasn’t cold in the slightest.
"Grandpa..."
"What’s going on?"
"How are you alive again?"
Emily asked in disbelief.
This time, Ethan explained the cemetery’s ability.
He admitted he hadn’t mentioned it earlier because awakening spirits wasn’t guaranteed.
He hadn’t wanted to give them false hope.
Now that Walter had appeared...
There was no reason to hide it anymore.
"So that’s how it is..."
"Thank you."
As Claire and Emily thanked him once again...
Their loyalty instantly surged.
Loyalty: 80
At that level...
Entrusting them with guarding the shelter was no longer a concern.
Walter chuckled.
"Come now."
"I may be dead..."
"And now I’m just a spirit..."
"But I can still watch over you."
"I can still talk with you."
"Isn’t that already a wonderful outcome?"
"The only pity..."
"...is that I can’t smoke anymore."
The two sisters laughed through their tears.
Soon, they chatted with Walter like little girls again.
They talked about the Terror Drake being struck down by lightning.
They talked about Brother Niu’s sacrifice.
And they talked about joining Ethan’s group.
Walter mostly listened quietly, offering words of comfort from time to time.
Wrapped in that warm atmosphere...
The two exhausted girls gradually drifted off to sleep.
They had always been strong.
But only because this cruel world had forced them to be.
If given the choice...
Who wouldn’t prefer a carefree life?
The grief of watching family and friends die...
The crushing pressure of survival...
The uncertainty of tomorrow...
All of it had weighed upon them like an invisible mountain.
Tonight’s conversation with Walter made them feel like children again...
Listening to their grandfather tell stories.
With much of that burden finally lifted...
And their bodies already weakened from exhaustion...
They slipped into a deep, peaceful sleep.
There was another reason as well.
They trusted Ethan.
They truly believed he would not harm them.
Only then could they relax enough to sleep so soundly.
"Mr. Ethan," Walter said respectfully, "please take them back to the shelter. It’s cold outside at night, and it’s not safe."
"I will."
Natasha carefully lifted Claire and Emily onto Brutus’s broad back.
The two women were slender enough that they barely took up any space.
After looking at their sleeping faces, Ethan turned back to Walter.
"Mr. Quinn..."
"Is it normal for a Terror Drake to attack a survivor camp?"
Ethan remembered that Survivors were supposedly still under beginner protection.
Monster activity should have been relatively low.
Unless...
The beginner protection only applied to Survivors.
If so...
The monsters that would normally attack players might instead target the native inhabitants.
Walter shook his head.
"The stronger a monster becomes..."
"The larger its territory."
"And the more eager it is to expand."
"So the Terror Drake wandering into our camp wasn’t impossible."
"However..."
"There’s another situation that can drive powerful monsters away from their territories."
He stopped speaking.
It seemed he was still trying to confirm his own suspicions.
Unable to resist, Ethan asked,
"What situation?"
Walter let out a long sigh.
"I hope I’m wrong..."
"But..."
"It’s a monster tide."
Even without further explanation...
Ethan immediately understood the horror behind those words.
Thousands...
Perhaps tens of thousands...
Of monsters charging across the land.
Wherever they passed...
Neither Survivors nor natives would be spared.
Everything would be devoured until not even bones remained.
His shelter might appear sturdy now...
But against an endless horde of monsters...
It probably wouldn’t last long.
"Mr. Quinn..."
"How did people survive monster tides in the past?"
Walter slowly shook his head.
"It’s not that I don’t want to share what I know."
"It’s simply because monster tides are incredibly rare."
"And they don’t happen everywhere."
"The closest one I know of occurred when I was a child."
"Several badly wounded survivors reached our settlement."
"They told us their camp had endured a monster tide."
"They held out for three days..."
"Before it was completely overrun."
"They escaped only through sheer luck."
"One of them mentioned something that always stayed with me."
"Before the monster tide arrived..."
"Powerful monsters frequently left their own territories."
"They seemed to be scouting the route of the coming invasion."
A deep sense of unease settled over Ethan.
Seeing the frown on his face, Walter smiled reassuringly.
"Don’t worry too much."
"Perhaps the Terror Drake simply went mad."
Ethan nodded.
"There’s no point panicking over speculation."
"But it’s always wise to prepare before disaster strikes."
"Mr. Quinn..."
"Please tell me everything you know about monster tides."
"Of course."
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