The undead bird, formed from illusory flesh and crystalline bones, emitted a sharp, ear-piercing, bizarre female voice, along with rising, burning green flames—and strange sentences no one could understand.

Shirley's somewhat muddled consciousness suddenly cleared. She looked in astonishment at the strange bird that had suddenly barged in, watching it circle in the air. Around her, the figures of the End Speakers froze into bizarre poses, as if… the people on the screens in a "movie theater" had suddenly stopped moving due to a stuck tape.

One of these monsters was even frozen mid-stride, his body nearly floating in the air, looking eerie, horrifying, and somewhat ridiculous.

The undead bird circled again. This time, a doorway and vortex of green flames opened in the air, and a tall figure stepped out, coming to stand before Shirley.

"I believe I reminded you that you could ask for help when you encounter difficulties," Duncan said, looking down quietly at the girl lying on the ground, covered in blood. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"I… I forgot," Shirley blinked. The moment Duncan appeared, she felt the corruption and curses from the End Speakers rapidly receding. As the piercing noise and chaotic thoughts in her mind quickly subsided, her mind gradually cleared. A strange and conflicted expression appeared on her face. "My head was a mess… right, these guys kept yelling, making me dizzy…"

Duncan slowly turned his head and glanced at the attackers who had been frozen mid-air by Ai's high-ping strike.

It was the first time he had seen such a strange… thing. It looked somewhat like a person, wearing tattered human clothes, but its entire body was so mutated that it barely resembled a human. Its limbs were twisted, bone spurs extended from every joint, and its face wore a fanatical and comical expression, almost uglier than A Gou.

Duncan frowned and looked back at Shirley. "Did they hit you? Where did these come from?"

"They're the ones who hit me!" Shirley said immediately. The moment these words left her mouth, she felt something was off, but she quickly brushed aside the strange feeling. "I don't know where these guys came from. A Gou said they're End Speakers, followers of those lunatics in the subspace…"

"End Speakers… followers of the subspace?!" Duncan had been somewhat nonchalant, but his expression changed slightly after hearing the latter half of Shirley's words. Then, as if he had thought of something, he immediately looked at Ai. "Don't disconnect them yet!"

As he spoke, the figures of the End Speakers frozen by Ai showed signs of flickering, but Ai quickly flapped her wings, and the three attackers who were about to be isolated from reality suddenly returned to the real dimension. Ai's sharp cry rang out in the room: "Network connected, network connected!"

"Send them to the ship," Duncan nodded to the pigeon spirit. "I'll be waiting on the deck."

"Mission accomplished! Mission accomplished!"

Ai shrieked twice and quickly drew a vortex of flames in the air. The figures of the three End Speakers disappeared in the rising spirit fire in the blink of an eye.

In the dimly lit room, only Duncan, A Gou, and Shirley remained, along with the three corpses not far away that had been smashed into End Speaker pancakes by Meteor Dog.

Shirley stared blankly at what had happened before her, watching the subspace cultists who had almost taken her and A Gou's lives disappear from the room in the blink of an eye—the "battle" had ended so bizarrely and easily that it couldn't even be considered a battle.

Mr. Duncan hadn't even made a move. From beginning to end, he hadn't paid attention to the means or special curses of the End Speakers. He had simply appeared here, and then, as if he had developed a little interest in those guys, he casually carried them away as if picking up a few stones on the side of the road.

He probably didn't even realize that those cultists had "combat power."

Just then, Duncan's voice suddenly came, interrupting Shirley's wild thoughts. "How are your injuries?"

Shirley was startled awake from her "Mr. Duncan is so scary" thoughts. Her first reaction was to habitually act tough, pretending to be dismissive of her injuries, but—

Chapter 185 Safe and Sound

—just as she was about to speak, she winced and "ouch"ed, the piercing pain in her back and the pain in her arm coming at the same time, making her unable to help but curse, "Damn it, it hurts so much…"

Duncan looked at her with concern. "Should I send you to the hospital?"

"Definitely not!" Shirley reacted quickly, continuing to wince while trying to prop herself up. "I don't have any money…"

Duncan was dumbfounded. "Is this about money? You're in this condition!"

"I wasn't finished," Shirley finally sat up. "My constitution is different from ordinary people. If I go to the hospital, people will definitely find out, and if it attracts the Church's attention, I won't be able to explain it. Besides, look—"

As she spoke, she raised her arm for Duncan to look at her wound.

The wound was healing—after the curse and corruption of the End Speakers receded, her self-healing ability had recovered. Now, the hideous tear was no longer bleeding, and the pollutants deep in the wound were being squeezed out by the wriggling flesh. The growth rate of new flesh was visible to the naked eye.

And the most serious wound on her back was also gradually recovering. Although it still hurt a lot, Shirley knew that she had survived this time.

"As long as those End Speakers don't keep blabbering, I'm not afraid of them," Shirley said stubbornly, tilting her head. "Normally, this kind of injury wouldn't make me lie on the ground… ssss, it hurts…"

A slight cracking sound suddenly came from not far away, interrupting Shirley's muttering.

She and Duncan looked over at the same time, only to see that the sound was coming from the body of a dead End Speaker. The deformed and mutated body had turned into a gray-white mass resembling weathered rock, and it began to crumble inch by inch. The debris constantly peeled off and quickly weathered into ash before it hit the ground, dissipating rapidly.

As the corpses of those preachers continued to weather and peel off, the room shrouded in the veil also changed—the shadows that had been lingering outside the window began to recede quickly, and the light from the street lamps coming from the street returned to normal. The abnormal shadows in the room and the cold malice that pervaded everywhere also dissipated.

“…The End Speakers dedicate themselves to the subspace, and now it is time to pay the price,” A Gou's muffled voice sounded, answering Duncan's confusion. "These dregs will be swallowed by the subspace, and not even a speck of dust will be left in the real world."

“…So this kind of cultist dies pretty environmentally friendly,” Duncan said thoughtfully. “It saves the trouble of cleaning up the scene.”

Then he turned to look at Shirley. "Feeling better? If you're feeling better, then come with me."

As he spoke, a cluster of ghostly green flames appeared in the air at the same time. Ai flew out of the flames, circled once, and landed on his shoulder.

"Go with you?" Shirley didn't react for a moment. "Where to…"

"You weren't planning on spending the night here, were you?" Duncan pointed to the mess in the room. "Do you think this place is still habitable?"

Shirley slowly leaned against the wall and stood up, her eyes sweeping over the old house where she and A Gou had lived together for so many years.

Everywhere was broken furniture, everywhere were the remnants of corrosion. Everything valuable and worthless had been completely destroyed.

Actually, there hadn't been much to begin with.

Shirley lowered her eyelids and didn't say anything for a while.

"The patrolling guards don't seem to have noticed the commotion here, so we can still pack up some things," Duncan sighed. He knew how Shirley was feeling, but there was nothing he could say to comfort her. "But in any case, this place is definitely uninhabitable—even if we don't consider these broken things, we have to consider whether there will be more attackers in the future. Although I don't know yet why those End Speakers targeted you, you've already been targeted by them…"

Duncan didn't continue.

He knew that Shirley was a child who was much more mature than she looked. This girl, who had grown up in a harsh environment, should know the importance of priorities.

"I… I'll pack up some things," Shirley said sullenly.

"Need any help?" Duncan asked.

"No need," Shirley shook her head. "There's… very little."

Her things were really few.

Duncan waited only a short while before Shirley packed up the things she wanted to take away from a few nooks and crannies, just some inconspicuous—

Chapter 185 Safe and Sound

—old items, including even a small cloth doll that was about to fall apart. In addition, there were a few old clothes that hadn't been destroyed, and two slightly deformed small iron boxes that seemed to contain clattering odds and ends.

She put these things into an old small box and came to Duncan with the box in her hand, honestly lowering her head. "Everything's packed."

A Gou turned to look at the small box in Shirley's hand and muttered in a muffled voice, "You're taking all this away… so we're not coming back here in the future?"

Shirley didn't say anything.

Duncan quietly looked at the girl in front of him, and a gentle smile slowly appeared on his face.

He stepped forward and pressed down on the girl's hair.

"Let's go, let's go home."

Ghostly green flames rose into the air, and the undead bird spread its wings in the flames, blocking Shirley's last view of the cottage.