Fallen Demon Hunter VS Superpowered Individual 6

I looked at where Zhuang Cheng had fallen in shock.

The corpse, severed head and body lying on the ground, spontaneously combusted without warning, as if an invisible person had doused it with gasoline and lit a match while I wasn't looking. Not only that, but even the blood pooling on the ground and the scattered brain matter seemed to burn like gasoline.

Incredibly, despite being engulfed in flames, the burning corpse, blood, and brain matter were not scorched or damaged. Far from being damaged, upon closer inspection, these things didn't seem to be igniting; they looked more like they were transforming into flames themselves.

Yes, transforming into flames. I wasn't sure what I was saying, but these physical biological tissues seemed to have originally been formed from flames and were now gradually returning to their original state.

Then, something even more unbelievable happened.

The headless body, which visually became more and more ethereal and flame-like, actually slowly sat up right in front of me, the killer, as if nothing had happened.

Confused, he reached up to touch his non-existent head. After finding nothing, he paused, then bent down, found his severed head on the ground, and picked it up, cradling it in his arms.

He—he could still move?

The unexpected scene left me dumbfounded. "You, you..."

He had resurrected? No, he hadn't been killed in the first place?

Surviving decapitation—what kind of superpower was this? Immortality? But he was a Flame ability user, so how could this ability be related to immortality?

He slightly adjusted the direction of the head in his arms so it faced me. The terrifying face, its eyes destroyed by the strike, seemed to be staring at me.

His intact mouth moved, and he spoke with a sigh, "I was lying there and thought about it for a while, and finally figured it out... You were acting the whole time, weren't you? Are you the mastermind?"

How could he speak with his head severed from his body? His vocal cords couldn't possibly be functioning normally.

No, calm down, Kong Da, calm down. Although this was my first time encountering a superpowered individual who could move after being decapitated, in this world, this level of immortality wasn't that strange. His power seemed to be something other than flame manipulation, some other mysterious ability. But so what?

There were plenty of mysterious powers. Most agents and Demon Hunters, no matter how unwilling, had to face strange powers they couldn't understand. Real combat wasn't like a battle of wits in a manga; there was no rule that you had to decipher the enemy's abilities to win. To gain an advantage on an unpredictable battlefield, there had always been only one method, the one I had always used—

Strike first!

Without hesitation, I transformed into my monstrous form and charged, my arms turning into blades. No extra words, no extra movements. In an instant, an instant so fast that ordinary people probably couldn't even blink, my slashes landed on Zhuang Cheng's body one after another, with no reserve of power.

The previous slashes from my partial transformation prioritized stealth, with power being secondary. Now, my full transformation slashes pursued extreme destructive power.

If Zhuang Cheng thought I only had physical attacks, he was gravely mistaken. The slashes from my monstrous form could not only destroy physical bodies but also slay spiritual existences.

In other words, I possessed the power to attack souls directly.

Especially now, with my heart filled with killing intent and my mind focused solely on attacking souls, the mana concentrated on my blades was even more devastating. Ordinary people, without mana, would be annihilated just by a graze, and most superpowered individuals lacking soul-related powers would suffer the same fate.

All my slashes hit, and Zhuang Cheng instantly fell apart. I braked behind him after completing my charge, ending my attack.

I won...

Just as this thought reflexively surfaced, Zhuang Cheng's voice came from behind me, "Physical attacks are useless against me."

As his voice spoke, my right hand and both legs spontaneously combusted, and the intense pain made me cry out involuntarily.

I could understand my right hand burning; it still had Zhuang Cheng's blood and brain matter on it. Since his biological tissues splattered elsewhere were burning, my right hand naturally would too. But why were my legs burning out of nowhere? He wasn't even looking at me!

Why hadn't he died before this?

While screaming in pain, I twisted and fell to the ground, his figure coming into view.

He was standing there, completely unharmed, the head cradled in his arms still speaking to me, "This form I have now, I originally intended to show you earlier, if only you hadn't suddenly opened fire... I see now, that demon who attacked from behind was trying to test if I could sense things behind me..."

As he spoke, he became lost in thought, muttering to himself.

How was this possible? My blades had clearly cut through his body, so why were there no new wounds on him? More importantly... my soul attack had no effect! Not only that, he didn't even realize his soul had been attacked!

No, I had to deal with the flames on my body first!

I quickly swung my left blade and severed my own right hand and both legs. The excruciating pain was unbearable, but it was acceptable compared to letting the flames spread to my torso. As long as this monstrous body had time, my right hand and legs could regenerate later.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye. I also decided not to try killing Zhuang Cheng for the time being. Dealing with an opponent who couldn't be killed no matter how you attacked was a waste of effort. If necessary, I'd find a way to assassinate him later. I needed to escape, using my shadow power to transfer!

Under my mental command, the surrounding shadows surged like a tide. I had to escape quickly; Zhuang Cheng's attack speed was not slow, and his power was unparalleled. If I were even a tenth of a second late, I would be burned to death on the spot.

However, I was still a moment too late. Zhuang Cheng's flames reached me instantly.

I still couldn't see where the flames were coming from, and this time, they didn't start burning from the surface of my body. I felt a terrifying heat erupt from deep within my chest and abdomen, as if someone had injected a large amount of boiling water into my stomach. The pain from the inside out and the internal pressure made me involuntarily open my mouth.

My vision suddenly went dark, and I couldn't hear anything. Then, I felt something violently surge out of my mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.

No, I understood. It was flames... flames that had appeared directly inside my body and erupted outwards!

At the same time, all my muscle tissue seemed to be destroyed, leaving me completely immobile. Only one thought remained in my mind—

He could summon his flames directly inside my body? Outrageous!

But... I wasn't dead yet. Logically, with his firepower, I should have died instantly. In fact, I felt like I was on the verge of death now, my consciousness exhausted by the intense pain. But I wasn't dead yet. He had held back. This was his biggest mistake.

The surrounding shadows were still following my previous command. As flames erupted from my seven orifices, the shadows on the ground opened a portal, and I fell into it, pulled by gravity.

"Shadow Transfer" successfully activated, and I entered the Shadow World.

Unlike the colorful real world, the Shadow World had no light or sound. It was like the deep sea. It wasn't just because my eyes and ears were burned out; it was truly this monotonous. I couldn't even perceive up, down, left, right, or front; I could only vaguely sense that "I seemed to be moving somewhere."

Those without the relevant abilities couldn't even think or survive here, as there was no concept of time or space. Even for me, the user, it was extremely dangerous; a slight misstep could lead to getting lost forever, unable to return to the real world. The only places I could travel to via Shadow Transfer were those I had already reached in the real world.

Zhuang Cheng had mentioned a mental connection between himself and his flames. However, beneath the cave in the fifteenth-floor room, this mental connection had been severed.

The reason for the severance was obvious: the area beneath the cave was an other dimension that didn't exist in reality.

The space-time entered by Shadow Transfer was also an alternate dimension that didn't adhere to the rules of the real world. Here, no form of radio wave signal could reach, and Zhuang Cheng's connection to his flames was certainly no exception. As proof, the flames burning inside my body quickly extinguished after I entered the shadow space-time. My tormented consciousness finally regained some composure.

I concentrated my mana into my eyes and ears. Before long, I felt like I had regained my sight and hearing, and then, as if surfacing from water, I broke free from the shadow's spacetime and arrived at a place I had been before.

This was the abandoned construction site I had investigated with Zhuang Cheng. I had transferred directly to the upper floors of the unfinished building. Because construction had stopped, the upper floors of this unfinished building only had their frameworks. Looking up from the ground where I stood, the floors above had no ceilings or walls, only the gray skeleton formed by layers upon layers of crisscrossing rebar and concrete.

If I escaped here, I should be safe... I breathed a sigh of relief for the time being.

The shadows solidified into artificial limbs, giving me temporary replacements for my right hand and both legs, allowing me to stand up.

Suddenly, a mana fluctuation appeared near me.