Volume Four: Withering in the Mortal World - Chapter 313: Monster of Flesh (4)

"The underground four o'clock direction!"

"Flame Cut Bloodline!!!"

Countless capillaries, flowing with highly concentrated blood, twisted into a giant spiral drill, heading towards the location indicated by the bright moon! The intense heat concentrated on the seven-micrometer-diameter capillaries became the sharpest cutting blades, easily pulverizing the earth. Amidst the flying debris, a small figure was revealed, her entire body bound by pitch-black tentacles, unable to move!

"Attack together!"

"Learn!"

Flame Cut Bloodline pierced the girl's body like venomous snakes, but I knew that with her regenerative abilities, severed limbs wouldn't harm her. Therefore, my goal wasn't to cut her, but rather—

"Offered with intestines."

Her abdominal cavity split open with a gaping wound, and her white large and small intestines proliferated and mutated, forming hundreds of sticky, fleshy thorns. But such a gruesome scene couldn't distract me. I roared, and the blood in my veins exploded into flames, mingling with the thorns! The scalding blade and the thorny fleshy thorns intertwined, their toughness astonishing me; even the Flame Cut Bloodline couldn't sever them immediately!

However, as I said, my goal is not to cut ties!

The heat concentrated at the tip of the blood vessel gave it unstoppable puncture ability within seconds, and the blood vessel pierced into the thorns. Although the intestines had mutated, the end was still connected to the girl's abdominal cavity!

"Injection!!!"

The highly concentrated blood was injected into the thorns, and the scalding torrents flowed along them. The girl immediately sensed something was wrong and tried to sever the connection between her intestines and herself, but it was too late.

"Trouble..."

The girl let out a soft groan, and in the next instant, the highly concentrated blood that had entered her body began to burn violently, the raging Blood Flame destroying her flesh from the inside!

"Haoyue! Don't give her a chance to recover!!!"

"Of course—Black Moon: Eclipse Devour!"

Haoyue, who had been gathering her strength for a long time, finally launched her attack. Her longsword, now completely black, was aimed at the girl and thrust down. A stream of icy, dark liquid detached from the tip of the sword and rushed towards the girl, even reducing the heat of the Blood Flame in the air!

Don't blame me, you unfamiliar girl...

My Blood Flame burn within you, while the Black Moon erodes your exterior. Your two older sisters will play this game of ice and fire with you; you should be content.

For the first time, Sin Annihilation felt a sense of crisis.

It wasn't out of her own will; she didn't feel any fear. It was merely a biological instinct to sense danger that triggered her reaction.

She had suffered all sorts of injuries during past missions, and endured countless fires and heats, but the current torment raging within her body surpassed even the sum of all her previous experiences. This was the first time she had felt such a devastating heat, spreading and destroying everything in its path, capable of instantly sublimating even rocks hundreds of millions of years old. Her internal organs constantly issued warnings; although they regenerated the instant they were burned, the regenerated organs were immediately destroyed again, repeating this cycle endlessly. However, she had severed the "connections" between her internal organs from the very beginning, thus isolating herself from the raging heat. She knew that once her body adapted to the extreme heat, the problem would soon be resolved.

If it were merely the intense heat injected into her body, she wouldn't need to worry too much. Although its power was terrifying, it was far from enough to truly kill her. The problem lay in the attack from the other side.

A chilling, viscous darkness descended from the sky, spreading rampantly the moment it touched her skin, turning her pale skin into black cracks. Her outer skin quickly became completely necrotic, while the dark substance continued to erode her body. Compared to the intensely hot substance inside, one was icy cold and the other scorching hot, but both possessed astonishing aggressiveness. With the two working together from the inside out, even Sin Annihilation would find it difficult to adjust her body to adapt to both simultaneously in a short time!

If she were to take this combined attack head-on, even if she survived, she would be left with only half a life.

"... The attack failed."

Even under these circumstances, she remained calm, her mind continuing to make the most rational decisions despite the heat and darkness. Since the first assassination attempt had failed, all she needed to do was focus on disengaging from the fight.

In fact, when they first clashed and realized the formidable nature of their mission objective, Sin Annihilation was already mentally prepared for defeat.

If it really doesn't work out, then let's treat this first attempt as a preliminary battle for intelligence gathering.

Knowing the opponent's detailed combat abilities gives you an advantage. However, in return, the opponent will also gain some understanding of your own abilities.

The risks are proportional.

The body... 14% has been completely destroyed, 33% has entered a state of suspended animation, and 27% has been severely injured. All of the above have their self-healing ability restricted by the Blood Flame, and they will be burned again as soon as they regenerate.

"Abandon 74% of your body."

Most of the skull, the distal ends of the limbs, and a small portion of the bones are still usable. This 26% will be used as a new command tower, completely severing its connection to other eroded areas and separating it from the rest.

"... Is he/she dead?"

"I don't know... My Eclipse Devour is still eroding, are you kidding me? It should be able to erode organic matter in the blink of an eye, self-healing is useless against it. Just how freakish is that little girl? She's held on for so long without even a groan. What about you, Xiao Ye?"

"Me too, I can still feel the Blood Flame burning, and it's still a long way from being completely burned away."

"Slow progress... What a terrifying body this girl has."

"I don't know why, but I feel a little uneasy... Hurry up and finish him off."

I forcibly used a small portion of the Rakshasa True Word's power to mutate the capillaries, and Haoyue simultaneously activated two Black Moon Runes. We were both in a state where a single misstep could lead to disaster, which is why we didn't dare to attack rashly just now, but instead wanted to see if that girl could just die like that.

Now it seems that the situation is becoming somewhat abnormal.

"Flame-Cutting Crystal Blade--"

Blood vessels coiled around the Void Greatsword, and raging Blood Flame shot straight into the sky. Without any further hesitation, I swung the Greatsword down at the figure that seemed to be still struggling!

"--burst!"

The last time I used this move was against the Sick Spider, and I was distracted by the fluctuations caused by the Boundary Breaking Armor going out of control, so I ended up giving up. Therefore, I don't know how powerful this move is.

Now that I think about it... well, it's practically a super deluxe, collector's edition, blood-red, enhanced version of the EX curry stick, and I feel completely drained.

"Xiao, Xiao Ye-- "

"Wow, this is too much..."

A crimson beam of light erupted from the point of impact, shooting straight up thousands of meters into the sky. Scattered sparks of Blood Flame spread outwards, turning everything in its path to ashes. The hellishly hot shockwave even flattened the swamp within a radius of dozens of miles, leaving only scorched black earth. The swamp's water and countless beautiful blue reeds... were gone.

I think I've done something that's really detrimental to sustainable development...

If it weren't for my crystal shield's extremely high tolerance to Blood Flame, Haoyue, with Black Moon activated, would probably have been swallowed by the heatwave.

Anyway...

"Well, she's definitely not going to make it this time."

Bound by the Touch of Abyss, scorched by highly concentrated Blood Flame within, and corroded by the Eclipse Devour, and then hit by one of my attacks—in a Tencent game, this would definitely be considered a high-tech ultimate move. If he doesn't die after all this—

"... Xiao Ye, it seems she really isn't dead."

Haoyue pointed to the distant sky, and I looked in the direction she was pointing. By the light of the moon and the afterglow of the Blood Flame, I could see a large, strangely shaped thing, like a big lump of flesh, flying away from us at high speed, with deformed wing-like things on it.

Hey, internet cafe manager, she's cheating.

There's no doubt the enemy has abandoned the attack and chosen to retreat. I don't know the extent of her injuries, but since she can still sprout wings and fly away at such a fast speed, we're probably still some distance from completely killing her.

What terrifying vitality!

"Could it be that the only way to kill her is to destroy every single one of her cells, leaving none behind?"

"I'm afraid so, Xiao Ye. In my opinion, she probably abandoned the part of her body that could withstand attacks that could cause serious damage through self-healing, and let the best part of her body leave."

"So, the body, organs, and bones are all just things you can throw away whenever you want...?"

In any case, the other side retreated.

We successfully weathered the crisis; our collaboration at the critical moment multiplied our overall fighting strength, not just added together.

But neither Haoyue nor I felt at ease.

I knew, and she knew, that if we weren't fighting the enemy together, but rather one of us encountered her while the other couldn't arrive in time to provide support—

Right now, either I or she is already a corpse.

If this girl were in the organization, she would definitely be qualified for the position of Special Class Combatant. Considering her near-immortal vitality, she could probably even surpass Special Class Combatant.

At least in my opinion, the Sick Spider, which mainly attacks by cutting, can't kill her, nor can Raosen, which creates twisting and spinning. The stone-controlling stone- Stone Strike creature, however, still has the option of sealing her deep into the earth's crust with stones.

"... Forget it, let's not think about that anymore. Haoyue, how long have we wasted in total?"

"From the start of the attack, it was less than five minutes, maybe four minutes."

"Only four minutes?"

In those intense battles, even a millisecond can be stretched out dozens of times. The battles feel like an eternity, but in reality, it's only the time it takes to make a bowl of instant noodles.

"Anyway, let's recover our strength quickly; she shouldn't come looking for us again anytime soon."

The car was destroyed in the fierce battle, but the Blood Flame Drive and the Bright Moon Rune I used are much faster than the car, so I can speed up my journey as soon as my stamina recovers.

"Xiao Ye, I think this girl is most likely an assassin sent by the Vatican." While rubbing her feet through her tattered black stockings, Hao Yue thought to herself, "Hey, you look so tempting."

"Such a powerful assassin... Is he Templar Knight? His strength far surpasses Alan's; he's anything but naive."

"Could it be... the Chief?"

"That can't be right. Weren't the top four supposed to be Guardian Knight who spent most of their time in the Cathedral of the True God? How come they were released?"

"Could it be... that Loxue mentioned something about a 'tribunal'?"

"Who knows..."

Haoyue and I talked until very late, but we still couldn't figure it out.