Act7 Justice and Metal

Foreword:

Ingratitude is human nature.

Dale Carnegie | How to Win Friends and Influence People

[Part 1: The Painful Choice]

Jason Megan, aka "Boris Harman," spoke solemnly to the hotel's customer service manager, his brow furrowed.

"I'm afraid we can't wait ten minutes!"

He could feel the [Circus of Doom] gradually eroding his body, tightly blocking the blood vessels in his wounds. If this continued, if this continued...

Oh no, this is terrible! Absolutely terrible!

Once the time is right, the moment Haitang releases her soul power, the blood clots accumulated in the wound will flow to the heart through the major arteries. Many people who stay up all night and sit for long periods of time die from pulmonary embolism or coronary artery blockage in this way.

A person can remain seated for 48 hours without any problems, but the moment they stand up, the murky blood that has congealed in the blood vessels of their legs will flow to the heart and lungs within 20 seconds, leading to sudden heart failure and death within a minute.

At this very moment, the toys "growing" out of Jason and Boris Harman are the psionic booby traps planted by [Circus of Doom].

Only two minutes have passed; there's still a long way to go before the agreed ten minutes!

If a way to defeat Haitang cannot be found, the accumulation of blood stasis will reach a critical point. Circus of Doom will deactivate its psionic powers and release blood. In just 180 seconds, Jason Megan will be dead.

For Boris Harman, this may have happened even earlier; his femoral artery damage was more severe, and the blood pooled much faster.

"Can't wait ten minutes? What... does that mean?" Boris Harman knew nothing about the rules of combat between psionicists. This ordinary man had no idea what had happened or what terrifying consequences he was about to face.

He could still feel the swelling in his thigh, but the pain was gradually subsiding. It felt as if a pair of warm, large hands were stroking his buttocks and legs. It seemed that everything was alright, the injury had healed, and everything was changing for the better. However, his toes, which were far from his heart, were getting colder and more painful.

Jason didn't have time to explain. He pulled a survival knife from his backpack and prepared to cut through the skin of his upper arm, creating a bloodletting path along the red block's body tissue.

Boris Harman began to scream as soon as the blade touched his skin.

"--Mr Jason! What are you doing!?"

To this ordinary person, the VIP's sudden act of pulling out a knife and harming himself was terrifying.

Jason was in so much pain he couldn't speak. At that moment, all he wanted was to shoot his own arm, but he couldn't. The knife was like a clumsy crowbar, struggling to penetrate the skin around the red block, blocked by the supple spiritual fibers, trying to churn out a layer of flesh from the muscle.

"Ah!!!!--"

Jason roared in pain, the blade striking the block and sending sparks flying. Rows of white teeth emerged from the bright red block, and the blade collided with these sharp teeth, exploding into blinding sparks.

Until the survival knife broke, Jason managed to make a crooked cut on his arm, barely two millimeters deep, from which very little blood could be released.

"So clever! You're so clever, my sweetheart!"

Boris Harman's thigh spoke up--

--The rubber Mickey Mouse clinging to the wound grinned.

"You actually foresaw your own death? Impressive! You're truly remarkable! If this brain could be used by Immortals, it could certainly create some truly magnificent works of art."

The spirit's voice couldn't reach Boris Harman's ears; the ordinary, innocent passerby remained staring at Jason in terror and panic, unable to offer any help.

Circus of Doom continues...

"Your skillful hands have lost their ability to paint, and you can't get any more useful information out of this fatso."

"Your heart is about to stop beating, and the knife in your hand is useless. Do you still want to resist? Tear yourself into pieces and use bloodletting to delay the onset of the embolism?"

"That will only make you weaker, and you'll be dead before the gunsmith arrives."

"How about this, sweetheart, let's play a game."

"If you're willing to taste a bite of human flesh, I'll let you go."

Jason Megan suddenly slammed the survival knife into the sink in a fit of rage, the broken blade embedded in the composite board up to the hilt—as if venting his anger, he cursed at the blunt blade.

"Useless thing!"

"That's right!" Circus of Doom continued, "This burden betrayed your real name, messed everything up, and put you in danger. He really is a useless piece of trash."

"You're clearly trying to help him, but he can't help you at all."

"Homo sapiens are such creatures. Gratitude is a product of great upbringing; you can't get it from ordinary people. Ingratitude is in their nature."

"So."

The Armadillo Hunters lurking in the shadows grew excited, its eyes becoming increasingly bloodthirsty.

What a wonderful thing it is that a noble Lapis Lazuli Guards is about to devour human flesh before his eyes. It is a sweet feast that almost no cannibal could imagine. The ultimate mental torture is the Ultimate Insult to Lapis Lazuli Guards.

"I'll let you go as long as you eat a piece of his flesh."

"Jason Jason Megan!"

Jason! Make your choice!

Click!

The bright red building blocks developed alarming cracks, and a warm current gushed from the swollen joints. The blood pooling in the upper arm was about to flow, and it was about to become a deadly embolism!

Jason's body swelled up, his latissimus dorsi muscles like those of a powerful bullfrog, suddenly bursting through his shirt. Layers of human skin were pierced by the hard, dark blue hair, turning into soft, fleshy pulp that fell to the floor, emitting high-temperature steam.

He quickly transformed into a half-wolf, his height gradually increasing to about 2.4 meters, his pointed wolf head almost touching the exhaust pipe.

"Great job, Jason! Great job!" Circus of Doom exclaimed. "Is it working? The sudden expansion of your cardiopulmonary system might give you some room to survive, but is it working? Or do you want to taste this human flesh with your wolf's mouth?"

His blood-red eyes were fixed on Boris Harman.

This was the first time Jason had appeared before ordinary people in his wolf form. He felt the growths on his upper arms and collarbone had calmed down a bit, and his strength had returned.

The offspring of the Beast of the Holy One possess terrifying spiritual pressure. To ordinary people, the pheromones they emit are enough to frighten adults into retreating. Boris Harman was completely motionless, his eyes filled only with fear. The Mickey Mouse on his thigh was also gradually melting away. Following [Circus of Doom]'s dissipation of spiritual energy and the triggering of the booby trap, a fatal embolism was about to kill him.

Pfft--

The sound of sharp teeth piercing flesh gave Haitang a jolt of energy, but the outcome wasn't as pleasant as he had hoped.

Jason Megan didn't eat people; he just found the teeth in human form too weak, so he switched to a sharp wolf's bite, biting hard at the joints of the arm and neck, and then tearing it apart with all his might, almost breaking the entire arm along with the bone!

Large splatters of crimson liquid were spilled in the room, and scalding wolf blood was poured onto Boris Harman's head.

The smile vanished from Haitang's face. He was so shocked that he wept, his heart filled with both fear and fascination, as if he were witnessing a masterpiece in the moment before its destruction.

Jason Megan.

"Your fighting spirit both terrifies and fascinates me."

"But what are you going to do next?"

The blood illuminated a crimson path in the room. The spirit, touched by the sensitive catalyst of wolf blood, immediately lost its vibrant color and turned into the unique purplish-red of [Circus of Doom].

The rubber pad on Boris's buttocks dissipated along with these spirits the instant the soul's power was released.

"Should you come straight here? Find me in your room? End me off? Or continue to treat this burden beside you?"

Jason, what would you choose?

"If we miss this opportunity to attack, I'll have to reset the traps."

Without hesitation, Jason swung his sharp claws and slammed Boris Harman to the ground.

--The customer service manager had already started convulsing. The moment the blood clot began to flow, his brain was deprived of oxygen, his body was out of control, and the open wound on his thigh, having lost the patch of Circus of Doom, was also rapidly losing blood.

The wolf's claws sliced almost all the way down Boris's right side, slicing through his torso.

He clumsily tore the backpack to shreds and pulled out Universal Elixir to save the ordinary man.

Its claws crushed the reagent bottle, spilling the white liquid onto the bloodied body. Then, it poured the remaining half into the wolf's mouth.

"Great! Great! Great!"

The sounds of the Circus of Doom echoed from all directions, signaling the start of a new round of mine-sniffing games.

"Then round two begins, Jason Megan."

"Are you going to stay in the entryway until the gunsmith comes to rescue you? By then, I'll have already escaped."

Awakening from his terror, Boris Harman was nearly killed by the wolf and Haitang, but was saved by the Universal Elixir life.

--The customer service manager felt as if his heart had been torn apart, the pain almost driving him to madness. His pupils dilated and then contracted, and he blinked violently several times before finally returning to normal.

"No second round! You little beast!" Jason's half-wolf arm had just grown back, and the newly grown limb grabbed the severed limb, ready to show Haitang his signature move. "I'm not going to sit here and wait to die!"

So--

--The severed arm swung out with a powerful gust of wind! It was like a wolf-meat cannonball, crashing heavily into the glass of the room.

Jason's expression changed; he never expected that the hotel's high-rise floors would have such high-end features as bulletproof glass.

A piece of flesh weighing over 40 kilograms crashing into a thick endurance plate at a speed of 80 meters per second only caused a tiny crack.

"Ha!" Haitang, hiding in the shadows, was genuinely startled, and chuckled dryly with lingering fear, "Hahahaha."

If that arm could be sent out the window and become a falling object, the gunsmith would definitely see it, which would be the best way for Jason to end the second round early.

[Part ② - There will be no second round!]

The heavy object striking the polycarbonate sheet produced a sickeningly loud sound, instantly waking Boris.

Jason Megan didn't give up. He improvised, searching his tattered backpack for other hard objects to try and break through the polycarbonate sheet's defenses. He threw away quite a few things, but to no avail. Finally, he pulled a canine tooth out of his mouth and threw it hard, but it only managed to make a hole in the thick, double-layered soundproof polycarbonate sheet, not completely penetrate it.

The commotion frightened Haitang into silence. He watched as more and more broken objects appeared on the bay window platform in the guest room, but the window itself remained as solid as a rock.

Only when Jason started roaring again did the cunning and treacherous hunter laugh with relief and begin to speak in a sarcastic tone.

"Wow, Boris Harman! Your hotel has top-notch security!"

"Great! Great, really great!"

Boris clenched his fists, his face contorted with rage, and roared, "What are you so smug about! You bastard!"

"This guy!" Jason exclaimed in surprise.

The Circus of Doom was equally shocked. "You can hear me? You can hear me?"

"The monster that fought Mr. Jason was you?!" Boris's eyes gleamed with a strange light, a sign of psychic awakening. "So it was you who's been tormenting us all along?"

The situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

--For Haitang, there's one more psychic to deal with.

However, the Soul Power attack had already been launched. Back when Jason Megan was throwing his anger at the sink, he used the Survival Knife as a tool to unleash his fury. It smashed through the heating pipe under the sink. In the hot summer, the underfloor heating system had stopped working, but the liquid flowing inside could become the carrier of [Circus of Doom].

The soul power of the Haitang does not possess the ability to move at high speed; it can spread to various parts of the environment through various physical objects.

At this very moment, fourteen paper boats emerged from the underfloor heating pipes and arrived beside Jason Megan's wolf paw.

The moment the foreign object touched their bodies, the two people still standing in the entryway were simultaneously affected. Their swollen feet immediately turned into bright yellow duck webbed feet. Jason felt his body lose its balance, and a feeling of soreness and pain came over him. He then saw Boris Harman holding tightly to the wallpaper.

"No! No, no, no! Harman! No! Don't touch those things!"

Water gushed out of the closet, and more and more paper boats, like a school of piranhas, smelled their prey and tried to surround the two.

Just as Jason said, the moment Mr. Harman's chubby hand grabbed the wallpaper, the paper quickly twisted and deformed, like a nimble spider, tightly wrapping around Harman's fleshy palm, gnawing at his ten fingers and sucking blood.

"Fuck your mother's mother."

Harman didn't stop; he ran straight ahead, his feet cracking with a sharp, grating sound as the fragile flesh and bone at his Achilles tendons snapped along with the terrifying toy. No one knew what he was trying to do, including Jason and Haitang. They couldn't understand what had gotten into this hysterical, chubby brother that made him want to take his own life at this critical moment.

More and more toys clung to Boris Harman, almost draining him dry, with Megatron hanging on his forehead and four or five large Lego brick tumors growing on his belly.

The instant he crashed into the floor-to-ceiling window—

--Haitang screamed in alarm.

"Idiot! What do you think you're doing!"

The curtains transformed into a ferocious rubber snake, tightly binding Harman's thick neck.

Unfortunately, Mr. Harman gave a mocking smirk, because he had almost no neck.

He painstakingly peeled off the rubber strip on the bay window, flipped out the keyhole of the safety lock, and then laboriously pulled out a small, gleaming silver key from inside his coat lining.

There were just so many keys!

--There were so many that the soldiers who stayed on the ground, pulling out toy guns and firing at Harman, couldn't even find a suitable target.

Without any hesitation, Harman precisely removed one of the pieces and inserted it into the keyhole of the safety limit lock, then...

The clicking sounds rang out one after another as Harman unlocked each of the eight glass retaining plates, and a notification sound indicating that the exterior windows were being inspected and dust was being cleaned.

The windows, riddled with spiderweb-like cracks, tilted out of the building along with Mr. Harman.

"Madman! Madman! Madman! Damn it!" Haitang cursed viciously.

What's it like to fall from the 24th floor?

Boris Harman couldn't believe he could die like this. In the instant his body lost its balance, he continued to stare at the horrific room until his very last breath.

He was still thinking, if it were Mr. Jason, he would have done the same! If it were him, someone willing to risk his life for an ordinary person like me, he would definitely have done it too!

Will he win? Can he win?

If it falls from this height to the ground, the gunsmith will definitely see it! He will definitely spot it!

There wasn't time to leave a last message, and I couldn't even curse that despicable bastard a few times!

Then I'll give you the middle finger! I need to vent my anger!

Thinking this, Boris Harman stretched out his right arm into the room. Although it had turned into a slender hand, into a cute and fun pink panther doll, it could still make the middle finger gesture.

But gravity pulled him back into the room once more.

The rubber snake at the curtains held the bay window, which weighed almost 500 kilograms, and pulled Boris and the window back with all its might.

Haitang was covered in cold sweat, her heart pounding in her throat.

Jason Megan was the same; he watched Boris Harman's actions and was momentarily frozen in place, unable to move.

The customer service manager slumped back onto the platform, still blankly pointing to the middle finger, too preoccupied to feel regret or frustration.

"Hahaha! Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha!"

The toy soldiers on the floor burst into laughter, while [Circus of Doom] hurled insults and jeers at the two people inside the room.

"A dog and a pig! What a perfect match!"

"Hahahaha! Hahahaha! You're all going to die! Just wait to die! Ugh!~"

A thick boot stepped in through the window, crushing the bright green toy soldier into colorful pieces of flesh.

The gunsmith crouched down and squeezed through the gap in the bay window, working nimbly with both hands and feet to pull the wolf fang out of the endurance board. Then, with a series of clanging and banging, the eight safety locks were reset and restored, and the rubber snake once again turned into a limp and powerless curtain.

Just three short seconds, a breathtaking three seconds.

The Grim Death God climbed in through the window, from the first floor to the twenty-fourth floor, stepping onto the soft carpet. [Circus of Doom] was so frightened that he dared not move. HelloKity, who had been lying on the ground pretending to be dead, trembled slightly as the gunsmith walked.

Bang--

The fledgling eagle's gun emitted blue smoke, and the pink kitten was reduced to minced meat.

The gunsmith removed his mask, his nose twitching as if tracking the scent of prey. He frowned at the strong smell of alcohol, scanned the room, and headed straight for the soundproof wall between the bathroom and the children's room.

"Circus of Doom! Crush him!" Haitang still made a desperate last stand.

In that instant, more than sixty fragments of spirits inside the house changed shape at the same time. Soldiers used their comrades as human cannonballs and threw their dance partners off the mini stage!

The slingshot on the television suddenly tightened, and a round glass eyeball shot towards the gunsmith's head.

"SD!" the gunsmith whispered.

The instant the giant steel cat burst forth, a bloody storm swept through the house!

The chaotic punches and kicks all broke the sound barrier! The shockwave from the explosions tore the wallpaper and wall paint off!

The large hand wearing the Steel Heart brushed aside the blood mist and pulled a slender man out of the wall. It was none other than Haitang, whose soul power was shattered and blood was coming out of her mouth and nose.

Within the blood mist, the gunsmith's pupils narrowed, resembling the Ming De eyes of a tiger.

"Hehehehehe..." Haitang grinned maliciously, her face pale but Dior Homme: "My idol! My idol is here to catch me! My idol is here to catch me!"

The Immortals's henchman remembered his leader's instructions and took out the crucial briefcase!

Since Pellegrini wants him to open this box, it must contain the ultimate, desperate measure!

Just open it. Even if the gunsmith doesn't die, he'll be badly injured! Just open it!

Sharp wolf fangs pierced through Haitang's hands, pinning them firmly to the soundproof wall. Before the clasp on the suitcase could be undone, Fragrant Dream was carefully placed back on the children's table.

"His boss..." Fear finally appeared in Haitang's eyes. "He was too fast. He..."

The gunsmith waved his hand, Jason immediately understood. He grabbed a toothbrush from the sink, took disposable chopsticks from the cupboard, and pulled two pencils from the pages of his notebook, tossing them to the gang leader.

With a crisp sound of clubs smashing through the wall, Haitang was nailed to the wall, Soul Soothing Bell stuck in her mouth. The clubs had pierced her cerebellum and completely broken her spine, depriving the monster of its ability to move.

The gunsmith spoke to the victim while committing the assault.

"Don't worry, don't worry, it will be alright."

The loud thud of Fragrant Dream's high-speed punch attracted the lobby manager.

--The meddlesome culprit immediately rang the doorbell and opened the door with his room key.

"Guest? Guest, are you alright?"

Jason Megan, her face covered in blood, replied, "It's fine."

The manager smiled and lowered his voice, asking, "Are you currently on a business trip? Are you planning a confidential operation?"

Jason Megan glanced at the manager's name tag—Dali Hotel, Home Away From Home, Regional Chain, Home Away From Home.

"No, it's just working from home."

"Oh! Is that so? Then I won't bother you any longer."

The lobby manager slowly closed the door, cautiously left, and fled into the elevator, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

The Haitang hanging on the wall was still struggling, having lost control of its body. Its eyes were staring blankly at the gunsmith, and a silver wind chime was stuffed in its throat, preventing it from uttering a single word.

"I... I... what?"

He could only muster the courage to shout out a few words from his throat this once.

"They won't say anything."

The gunsmith remained silent and motionless until Jason came to his side, took a toothbrush cup, poured in Iron Knight whiskey, mixed in Universal Elixir, and the two clinked glasses.

Jason transformed back into human form, his clothes now tattered and ragged.

"He's really good at socializing; he has a really sweet tongue."

Gunsmith: "What kind of person are you?"

Jason: "In terms of cooking."

Gunsmith: "And you?"

Jason grinned and picked up the tattered cookbook from the ground.

"What a coincidence! I'm quite good at being a beast."

Mr. Boris Harman, covered in blood, clinked glasses with the two men.

"I'll help in the kitchen."