If this had been a game, this would have been the cutscene: Charlie threw the chair, everyone scrambled out of the way, then they watched him turn into a giant werewolf before the boss fight began.
But Li Wei never gave Charlie that chance.
After activating [Death's Eye] and slowing the passage of time around him, he aimed at Charlie and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
"Bang! Bang!"
The shots rang out, and time returned to normal.
Li Wei sidestepped the flying chair, but the village chief behind him was too slow. It struck him squarely, sending him to the floor with a scream.
Charlie, of course, had the worst of it.
There was no such thing as invincibility during a transformation in reality. Charlie's body had only just begun to swell, tearing through his clothes, and before he could even finish, an armor-piercing round struck his chest and exploded, cruelly blasting a vast, bloody crater into it.
Then a Mercury Bullet followed the same path, plunging into Charlie's wound.
"Aaargh!"
He spat blood and fell to his knees, his enormous, muscular body hitting the floor with a dull thud. Li Wei did not lower his guard. Instead, after dodging Charlie's chair, he darted into the shadows beside the wall. Almost at that same instant, a thick, clawed arm reached out from behind him, barely missing his body as it swept across the wall in front of him and gouged a long scar through the heavy stacked logs.
"F-Father Connis?!"
The village chief lay on the floor, his eyes wide as he stared in disbelief at the giant wolf before him. Only a moment ago, he had been a calm, composed priest. Now he had become an enormous black wolf.
"I'm not like you, Charlie."
The priest, now a werewolf,