In the damp maze, Charles ran fiercely with his crew.

  “Mr. Charles, my friend can’t keep up!” Lily shouted anxiously from Charles’s shoulder.

  “Tell them to climb onto James’s back! Hurry!”

  The rats quickly scrambled onto the shrinking giant’s back, making James look like he was draped in a black cloak.

  “Ahhh!!”

  “Ahhh!!”

  “Ahhh!!”

  The wretched screams ahead grew louder and more numerous, but they could not hinder Charles’s pace.

  According to the bandage, the island outside had already sunk below the water's surface. If everyone couldn’t escape quickly, they would sink into the deep sea along with the island. No matter what lay beneath the depths, it was not a place for humans to tread.

  The damp air was suffocating, and everyone wore a grave expression. However, seeing Charles leading the way like a pillar of strength, no one panicked.

  The crew followed the bandage, darting through the maze, and the screams grew ever closer. Suddenly, Charles turned a corner sharply, and a wide area opened up before them.

  To their surprise, there was light in front of them, but what was happening in that light was truly horrifying.

  In a space the size of a football field, there were naked humans of all ages—men, women, and children. They clawed at their throats, screaming in agony, rolling in the muddy water, just like the graffiti they had seen on the wall earlier.

  Surrounding them were countless black tormentors, the size of a human palm, resembling centipedes with spider legs. They stood on the water's surface like water spiders, encircling the screaming humans, their bodies trembling rhythmically with the volume of the cries, as if they were relishing the humans' suffering.

  Seeing this scene, Charles immediately understood: these were the tormentors. The scarred man had been right; this was the lair of torment.

  As soon as Charles saw them, the tormentors noticed him as well. In addition to those on the water’s surface, some began to crawl out of the mouths of the screaming victims. The tormentors started moving, advancing towards Charles, intending to merge him into the cacophony of screams.

  They came in swarms, resembling a black carpet.

  Faced with this scene, fear crept onto everyone’s faces. Charles quickly carved into the wall with his knife. “Bandage, the tormentors are coming! Where’s the exit you mentioned??”

  But at that moment, the bandage vanished from the wall again.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Damn it!” Charles exhaled sharply and pulled out the Thunder Staff. It was the only relic capable of dealing with such a massive number of enemies.

  “Zzz!” A bright arc of electricity shot into the swarm of tormentors, jumping between them.

  However, the despairing scene that followed shocked everyone. Despite the power capable of killing a hundred tormentors, they showed no reaction, as if they were insulated.

  “Tap tap tap~” The tormentors surged forward, crawling up Charles’s clothes and into his mouth. In an instant, a bone-deep pain spread throughout his body, nearly causing him to faint. His throat involuntarily emitted a scream.

  The other crew members were similarly affected, convulsing and screaming in agony.

  Just then, Charles saw the bandage reappear on the wall. It drew a box and made a motion as if opening it.

  “A box? The mirror box!!”

  Charles trembled as he reached for his backpack, but the intense pain made it hard to think. His hands instinctively clutched his throat, as if that would provide some relief.

  “Mr. Charles, I’ll help you!” Lily’s rats quickly jumped onto James’s back and pulled out a mirror box from within.

  The tormentors seemed to only attack humans; the nearby small rodents didn’t even glance their way.

  The screaming vampires, witnessing this, overcame their fear of sunlight, desperately burying themselves in the mud.

  With a “snap,” the mirror box was opened by the rats, and a dazzling light instantly filled the entire space.

  Under the sunlight, all the tormentors around them melted away like snowmen, leaving no trace behind, and the excruciating pain vanished swiftly.

  Exhausted, Charles gasped for breath and looked at the bandage on the wall. A thought crossed his mind: how did this guy know that sunlight was effective against the tormentors?

  But at that moment, the bandage graffiti disappeared again, and its real figure emerged from a muddy spot in the distance. “Captain… over here!”

  Next to the bandage, in the muddy water, there was a hazy white light that was the searchlight of the Unicorn! That was the exit!

  As Charles crawled out of the muddy hole, the icy cold seawater enveloped him, instantly washing away the muck from his body.

  Charles looked around and saw that the previous flat-topped island was submerged beneath the sea, already seven or eight meters below the surface.

  He didn’t immediately surface but paused at the exit point, quickly counting the crew members coming out.

  Lily, Krona, Deep, the crew members emerged one after another from the hole, rising toward the surface.

  Charles soon realized that one person was missing; his chief engineer, James, hadn’t come out yet.

  When Charles dove back in, he found James standing there with a very pale face.

  “What’s going on? Hurry up and come!”

  “Captain, I’m too big… I can’t get through.” James’s face was filled with despair.

  Charles’s heart sank. He realized that James’s body hadn’t fully shrunk yet; at three meters tall, he simply couldn’t fit through the exit.

  James trembled as he handed the purple crystal to Charles, struggling to say, “Captain, please tell my wife that I… I will always love her.”

  Seeing James’s expression as if he were delivering his last words, Charles irritably pushed the purple crystal back. “If you want to tell her, you can do it yourself. How long until you shrink back to normal?”

  “I… I estimate about five minutes, Captain. There’s not enough time.” James said painfully.

  “Then we’ll wait five minutes. Don’t worry, I’ll stay with you.” Charles pulled out his pocket watch and calmed down to wait.

  Time passed slowly, and more and more seawater surged into the hole. Watching the muddy water rise, Charles finally understood how the swamp had formed.

  Just as James shrank to two and a half meters, Charles noticed that the edge of the strange exit began to undulate unstably; it was going to close.

  “We can’t wait any longer, hurry up!!” Charles pushed the giant towards the exit.

  As expected, James got stuck; the edge of the exit slowly constricted, pressing inward against his skin.