Apocalypse with my SSS Harem Beauties-Chapter 178: Given

The dark smoke did not wrap around Red’s body. It didn’t swirl around him or linger in the air. Instead it flowed directly into his head as if it had found the exact place it wanted to reach.

Within a few seconds the last thin strands vanished completely into his eyes, nose, and mouth. Then the room returned to silence.

To the dying woman lying on the ground, it looked like nothing had really happened at all. Red was simply standing there in the middle of the room. His mouth hung slightly open and his eyes were wide as if he had suddenly frozen in place.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe loudly. He didn’t say anything. For the woman who was barely clinging to life, the sight sparked a faint and fragile hope.

Maybe something had happened to him. Maybe he had suddenly died while standing there. If that monster of a man was dead, even if she was still bleeding on the floor, maybe someone else in the camp would find her before it was too late. Maybe she could still survive.

The thought was weak, but it was the only thing she had left.

—

Deep inside Red’s consciousness, however, an entirely different scene unfolded.

Red stood in the middle of a vast and endless surface of liquid. At first glance it looked like water stretching out in every direction without limit.

But the color immediately gave it away. The entire surface was dark red, thick and heavy, and the scent hanging in the air was unmistakable.

The sharp metallic smell filled his lungs with every breath. Blood. It was all blood.

The entire endless ocean around him was made of blood.

The liquid reached only to his ankles as he stood there, but it spread so far that he could not see where it ended.

The red surface moved slowly with gentle ripples, and every movement released another wave of the thick scent of death.

Floating across the surface were bodies. Some were face down. Some stared blankly at the sky. Some had wounds that had clearly ended their lives.

Corpses drifted quietly across the red water like abandoned debris. Yet Red’s expression showed no fear or disgust. He didn’t recoil from the sight of the blood or the dead bodies.

Instead he looked around with calm curiosity. His eyes scanned the strange world as he tried to understand what was happening.

Then something appeared in front of him. A line of black text slowly formed in the air.

It hovered directly before his eyes. Red immediately noticed that it didn’t look like the usual system messages he had seen countless times before.

Those messages always appeared in bright red letters. This one was different. The text was black. Not just ordinary black, but thick and uneven, like ink that had been splashed and smeared across the air.

Just looking at it made Red feel a strange pressure. A powerful aura radiated from the words as if something enormous and unknowable stood behind them, watching him through the message.

[Do you want power?]

Red stared at the words.

"What?" he muttered in confusion.

The offer immediately tempted him. Power was the most valuable thing in this new world. With enough power he could dominate everyone around him.

But he didn’t know where this offer came from. That uncertainty stirred caution inside him.

"What are you?" Red asked.

For a moment nothing happened. The black text disappeared, leaving the vast sea of blood silent again.

Red waited. Seconds passed, and he began to wonder if whatever had spoken to him had simply vanished.

Then the black words appeared again.

[Do you want power?]

The same question. Nothing else. No explanation.

Red’s eyes narrowed. Whoever or whatever was behind the message clearly had no intention of answering him.

He stood there quietly for a moment, thinking.

In this brutal world power decided everything. If he wanted to control others, if he wanted to take whatever he desired without anyone stopping him, he needed more strength. More power meant more freedom.

This strange entity was offering him something. Maybe it was dangerous. Maybe it would lead to consequences he couldn’t predict. But great gains always required great risks.

A slow smirk spread across Red’s face.

"Sure," he said. "Give me your power."

The moment he spoke those words, something changed.

A strange force suddenly surged through his body.

The surface of the blood beneath his feet rippled wildly as if the entire crimson ocean had reacted to his answer.

For a moment the world around him twisted. The floating corpses blurred and the endless horizon of red water stretched and bent in impossible angles. Then his vision suddenly shifted again.

The sea of blood vanished.

Red’s sight was dragged somewhere else entirely.

He no longer stood in the crimson ocean. Instead he found himself staring into a place that didn’t resemble anything he had ever seen before.

There was no sky or ground. No direction he could properly recognize. Colors and shapes twisted together in ways that made no sense. Massive structures floated through the emptiness but they were not buildings or mountains or anything that could be described with normal words.

They looked wrong. Some were enormous spiraling masses that folded inward like endless tunnels. Some pulsed slowly like organs drifting through space.

Strange forms stretched and contracted, their surfaces covered with shifting patterns that seemed to move like crawling insects. Some shapes were so large that Red couldn’t even understand where they began or ended.

Then he saw the creatures.

At least... his mind tried to interpret them as creatures.

But the moment his eyes focused on them, a sharp pain stabbed through his skull.

They had no stable form. Their bodies changed constantly, stretching and collapsing in impossible geometry.

Some looked like endless limbs tangled together. Some resembled clusters of eyes that opened and closed in a chaotic rhythm.

Some had shapes that seemed to break apart into countless fragments before pulling themselves together again.

Red’s breathing grew heavy. His mind struggled to process what he was seeing.

This was not something that belonged to the world he knew.

The sight alone felt like it was tearing his thoughts apart.

Pressure built inside his head as if his brain was being forced to contain something far too vast. His vision blurred and his balance faltered even though he wasn’t truly standing anywhere.

He wanted to scream. But no sound came out. His throat refused to move.

More visions flashed across his mind.

Fragments of scenes appeared and vanished faster than he could understand them. Endless darkness filled with distant stars. Vast entities drifting across impossible space. Worlds forming and collapsing like sparks in an endless void.

Then voices echoed through his consciousness.

They were not spoken with language. They were closer to vibrations or pressure pushing directly into his mind. Some sounded distant and ancient. The others felt massive and overwhelming.

The voices layered over one another. Unintelligible sounds that carried meaning his mind could not fully grasp.

The pressure became unbearable.

Red felt like his skull would split open.

Then suddenly everything stopped.

The visions vanished. The voices fell silent.

The impossible realm disappeared completely.

Red’s consciousness snapped back into his body.

—

Inside the room in the middle of the camp, Red’s body suddenly jerked.

He staggered backward as if someone had shoved him.

His legs lost their strength and he collapsed onto the ground with a heavy thud. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

His short sword slipped from his hand and clattered across the dirt floor.

Red’s body began to tremble violently.

His muscles spasmed as waves of uncontrollable shaking ran through him.

Foam gathered at the corner of his mouth. His eyes rolled upward as his entire body convulsed on the ground.

A violent seizure tore through him.

—