Earthworm and Leech Misjudge

Leech watched as Gelman was dragged downstairs by Earthworm, and he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief before quickly walking over to Owl.

At this moment, Owl was lying flat on his back on the floor. His sunglasses were long gone, and his body was twitching uncontrollably.

The large flames had finally been extinguished by his own efforts, but scattered sparks still flickered on his severely burned flesh, a mix of charred black and dark red.

A shell of his former self, Owl reached out a hand toward Leech, his finger bones visible. His mangled mouth opened and closed, seemingly begging for help.

"Ah... ah... ah..." However, Owl could no longer form coherent words.

Leech could only command all the fat worms he had just released to crawl toward Owl and attach themselves to his body, hoping to keep him alive.

Yet, he knew this was not a permanent solution. If Owl wasn't rushed to the nearest hospital for treatment, his burns would be fatal.

Owl realized this as well. With his vocal cords damaged, he could only let out "ah ah ah" sounds, using his pleading eyes to express his thoughts.

However, Leech did not listen to Owl.

"From the moment you became a Shadow Beast, you should have been prepared for this. Gelman is dangerous. I cannot let Earthworm handle him alone, or we will be picked off one by one. Completing the mission is the priority."

"Rest easy. Once Bat finishes off the woman in the next room, he will come over. His flight ability will be able to get you to the hospital faster than I could."

Under Owl's gaze, which could not hide his disappointment, Leech walked toward the breach and carefully jumped downstairs.

Downstairs was a room with a similar layout. The original occupant of the room had screamed and fled the moment Gelman and Earthworm crashed through.

At this moment, the room was in total disarray. The sofa was overturned, tables and chairs were shattered, and the bedsheets and curtains had been ignited by the flames. A sea of fire and thick smoke surrounded the two combatants.

In less than twenty seconds of one-on-one combat, a large portion of Earthworm's right arm had been severed, and blood was dripping from the stump onto the floor.

Gelman held his Meat Saw in his right hand, while his left hand still gripped the Flamethrower, though he did not move to spray it again.

After Leech landed, he kept his eyes on Gelman's movements while slowly moving toward Earthworm. He spat out a mass of fat worms, attaching them to Earthworm's severed arm to temporarily stop the bleeding.

"The flamethrower consumes a lot of energy for him, so he can't use it constantly," Earthworm told Leech with a grim expression, providing a key piece of intelligence. "He's waiting for us to enter the flamethrower's attack range."

Leech nodded, then whispered a piece of bad news to him.

"Earthworm, I don't have much 'stock' left in my stomach, and Owl has lost his ability to fight. If we can't decide the outcome in the next attack, we're in trouble."

"I know," Earthworm gritted his teeth. "This guy is even stronger than we imagined. Even though we were prepared, we still underestimated him. We should have deployed all our members at once."

That was just hindsight; who could have imagined it would evolve into this situation?

Just then, Gelman suddenly made a new move.

The Meat Saw in his right hand vanished, replaced by a black shield. He stood the shield upright on the floor; the shield, embossed with a relief of wings, reached exactly to his chin.

Gelman stooped low, revealing only half his face and the nozzle of the Flamethrower in his left hand from behind the side of the shield, then steadily advanced toward Earthworm and Leech.

The two Shadow Beasts realized the situation immediately, their breathing growing heavy.

"This guy, he doesn't intend to give us any chance to gain an advantage, and he's forcing us to make a choice!"

Earthworm had no long-range attack means and had now lost his right arm; the fat worms Leech threw out were not very threatening either.

Even if they did have long-range attack means, this shield could basically block them all.

Manifesting the shield was a testament to Gelman's caution; he had done so under the assumption that the two possessed mid-to-long-range attack means.

This way, either they waited for Gelman to gradually close the distance and be attacked by the Flamethrower, or they had to take the initiative to bypass the shield and attack.

If the two acted together, Gelman would simply continue to pivot the shield to face them.

If the two acted separately, he would likely drop the cumbersome shield immediately and choose one of them to take out first.

At this moment, Gelman advanced like a tank, the oppressive feeling of his step-by-step approach causing both of them to swallow hard.

"Leech," Gelman said suddenly, "I will target you first in a moment. Because your leeches cannot inflict fatal wounds on me in a short time, and you lack Earthworm's ability to escape by burrowing through ground and walls."

The slightly chubby Leech couldn't help but knit his brows.

"He's baiting you!" Earthworm hurriedly warned, "When he uses the Flamethrower in a moment, we must split up to increase our survival rate. If we stand together, we're just lambs waiting to be slaughtered."

For the Shadow Beasts, the trouble lay right here: a single person would be insta-killed by Gelman, while acting as a pair would lead to being focused and hunted down by Gelman's Flamethrower.

Thinking about it, the only way to survive was to split up, with one person drawing Gelman's fire while the other counterattacked.

Sweat poured down Leech like rain.

Earthworm, receiving no reply, warned again: "Leech, don't fall for his trick."

"I know," Leech responded gloomily.

But he knew very well that once he separated from Earthworm, there was a high probability that Gelman would really choose to target him first, because he simply lacked the proper means to escape or counterattack.

He couldn't help but think of Owl's miserable state just moments ago.

Although he had told Owl about the "resolve of a Shadow Beast," it was hard for him to accept it when it was his turn.

Gelman had reached a distance close enough to Earthworm and Leech, so he raised the Flamethrower.

"Whoosh—" A bone-chilling flame erupted!

"Now!" Earthworm shouted, leaping directly and drilling into the floor below like a loach.

Leech hesitated for a split second, then, under immense psychological pressure, sprinted wildly to the left.

Sure enough, Gelman looked toward Leech, immediately making the latter's scalp tingle.

"Are you really going to pick me as your target?"

The next moment, contrary to expectations, Gelman did not discard his bulky Winged Shield. Instead, he retracted the Flamethrower and held the shield with both hands, allowing him to increase his speed as he pursued Leech.

"A shield? He's voluntarily shortening his attack range? Could it be that he no longer has enough Nen to unleash flames?"

Leech was shocked, but he didn't even have time to vomit up the remaining fat worms in his abdominal cavity.

He wanted to run toward the room's exit, but he was blocked by the surrounding wall of fire and had no choice but to keep running for his life.

To stop was to die.

"Earthworm!" Leech shouted in terror.

However, the moment he shouted, he understood Gelman's intention.

Gelman was intentionally not using the Flamethrower because his chosen prey was not actually Leech; Leech was merely bait.

If he had killed Leech quickly, Earthworm would likely have fled immediately.

"He's baiting Earthworm into making a wrong judgment!" A chill ran down Leech's back.

At this moment, the floor beneath Gelman suddenly cracked open. Earthworm had indeed launched an attack; he reached his left arm upward, intending to grab Gelman's ankle.

But how could Gelman fall for the same trick twice?

He had been paying close attention to the movements on the floor. Now that he sensed something amiss, he raised the shield with both hands and slammed it downward with all his might, landing exactly on Earthworm's left arm.

With a "crack," Earthworm let out a cry of pain. His left arm twisted instantly, bending to the side as bone protruded through his brown skin.

He wanted to retreat back below the floor, but his completely deformed left arm not only lacked the strength to pull him back, it also became wedged in the hole, preventing him from escaping in time.

Only then did Gelman quickly retract his shield, switch to his Meat Saw, grab Earthworm's left arm, and pull his entire body out from beneath the floor.

The Meat Saw was raised high and brought down hard, hacking into Earthworm's head and splitting it in two.

In his final moments, Earthworm only had time to let out a sigh that sounded like a lament.

Afterward, Gelman dropped Earthworm's corpse and turned to pursue Leech.

Watching Earthworm die, Leech was overcome with panic and terror. He failed to see the ground beneath him, stepped on a pile of broken glass, slipped forward, and tumbled into the scorching flames.

"Ahhh—" He caught fire and let out a miserable scream, his entire body turning into a rolling fireball.