Tap, tap, tap.
Then Sainsai's footsteps halted once more, his face froze once more, and his breathing stopped once more.
In that instant, Sainsai was certain he had not misheard.
There really had been some kind of movement behind him!
And so, his eyes filled with horror and shock, Sainsai turned around once again and looked behind him.
The next second, reflected in his enormous single eye was still the bloodied figure lying on the ground.
However, what lay beyond Sainsai's imagination was—
The Rat Master Hunter, whose consciousness should have vanished beyond recall, was actually beginning to move again at this very moment!
His fingers began clawing at the dirt!
His legs began repeatedly straightening and bending!
His torso began shifting back and forth without pause!
He looked as though he were wrestling and struggling against something—
like a caterpillar trying to break free from its cocoon!
Faced with this sudden sight, Sainsai froze on the spot.
Then, an emotion he had not felt in a long, long time surged forth from the Branding Iron Clown's heart, making the hairs along his spine stand on end.
It was fear!
Ever since the calamitous war that had swept through the Delight Theater began today, no amount of twists or accidents had ever made Sainsai panic.
Because from the very beginning, he had never feared death.
Just as he had told Weimeng earlier, to Sainsai, death was instead a release akin to escape.
The morbid sense of responsibility branded into his heart meant he would never deliberately seek death, but if there truly was not the slightest hope of survival, then he would never resist death as an outcome either.
It was precisely because he possessed such twisted yet unwavering resolve that, in the more than half century since joining the