Bad Reputation BIG

Carne, who had rushed at him with such ferocity, was killed by Li Qing with a casual flick of his wrist.

After three life-or-death battles, Li Qing couldn't believe he'd encountered such an easy opponent.

However, the system prompt that appeared in his mind and the experience bar that had suddenly filled up on the system interface clearly told him: this person was dead.

"Is he really dead?"

Li Qing forced himself to accept this absurd fact, then cautiously took a step, intending to bypass Carne's corpse and leave.

However, at that very moment...

As soon as he moved, a faint sound suddenly echoed from the forest – the soft rustling of an unseen object moving through the muddy ground.

The sound was coming from not far from Carne's body, extremely close to Li Qing.

"There's definitely something strange!"

Although Li Qing couldn't see under the dataization, he could construct a rough outline of the enemy in his mind through sound waves.

And right at this moment, in his perception...

That enemy wasn't human at all. To be precise, it had no human shape whatsoever.

It was a mass, about the size of a basketball, constantly deforming as it writhed violently—

a lump of flesh.

This lump of flesh was like a monster that had its skin ripped off alive, its surface covered in crisscrossing ravines, ineffable tentacles, and clusters of bubble-like growths.

Every time it moved, one could hear the disgusting sound of dark red, viscous liquid surging through its flesh.

"What is this thing!"

"It seems to have crawled out of Carne's corpse, but Carne is clearly dead."

"Could it be..."

"Could it be some kind of evil Stand that requires the sacrifice of its master's life to activate?!"

Even though Li Qing was naturally calm, he couldn't help but feel a chilling sense of sanity loss.

He instinctively accelerated backward, but the grotesque meatball, which seemed to have emerged from an evil myth, locked onto Li Qing and immediately increased its speed to match his.

Li Qing fled rapidly, and the meatball relentlessly pursued him.

It had completely lost its initial sluggishness and bulk, instead using its mud-like body to bounce and leap through the forest, as agile as a monkey.

No matter how fast Li Qing ran, it always managed to be slightly faster.

The already small distance between them grew terrifyingly smaller.

And what was even more horrifying...

"How does it feel..."

"This thing hasn't just gotten faster, it's gotten bigger too!"

Li Qing's heart sank:

While pursuing him, the meatball had been devouring the trees, plants, and insects along the way.

All these things were being swallowed into the disgusting meatball's body, providing nourishment for its twisted, deformed, and evil form.

The incredibly distorted mass of flesh thus corroded everything in its path, like an insatiably hungry Taotie, constantly feeding, multiplying, deforming, and expanding.

"Damn it!"

"It's absorbing the energy of those things!"

Li Qing's expression turned extremely solemn:

"This damned thing can actually devour energy to get stronger!"

"If I let it keep expanding like this, it will eventually become so powerful that I can't resist it at all..."

"No, I can't run anymore."

"It's always a step faster than me; no matter how I run, I can't escape its pursuit."

"What's worse..."

He concentrated, listening to all the sounds around him:

"There are no birds or beasts in this artificial forest, and no pedestrians within a three-hundred-meter radius."

"Even if I wanted to use Echoes Act to escape, I wouldn't have a target for Sonically Enhanced Wave."

"Running is a dead end..."

Feeling the distorted meatball behind him almost touching his spine, he made a bold decision:

"I must eliminate it completely before it becomes too powerful to defeat!"

Li Qing suddenly stopped, unafraid, and aimed his gun at the monster charging at him:

"Bastard!"

"Since you're dead, you should die a more thorough death!"

He fired four shots in an instant, blasting apart the indescribable mass of flesh at point-blank range.

Four shocking gashes were ripped open in the flesh, and a large amount of viscous, crimson fluid splattered out from the wounds.

Though the sight was appalling, it had no effect whatsoever.

"Splurt, splurt."

Amidst a series of creepy squirming sounds, the mass of flesh rapidly healed its wounds.

The three bullets that had entered its body seemed to have been devoured; not even the casings were spat out, disappearing without a trace within it.

"No way?"

"Even bullets don't work on it!"

Li Qing's expression turned extremely grim:

His current physical strength was limited, and his most powerful attack method was firearms.

If even supersonic bullets fired by modern weapons couldn't scratch the surface of this monster, then he truly had no way to fight such a terrifying creature.

Thinking this, Li Qing instinctively wanted to keep running.

However, he had already paid the price for his previous wrong decision made without sufficient intel—

The mass of flesh remained completely unharmed by the bullets. Instead, Li Qing's useless counterattack had slowed his escape, leaving him completely exposed within the evil flesh's attack range.

"Whoosh!"

The mass of flesh waved its clusters of wriggling, hideous tentacles and lunged at Li Qing's body with terrifying speed.

The next second, it completely latched onto Li Qing's body.

Li Qing instinctively tried to fling the disgusting mass of flesh off himself, but like malt sugar melting under the summer sun, it clung tightly to him the moment it touched his body.

It attached itself to Li Qing's chest, squirming and deforming continuously.

The differentiated tentacles, like vigorous vines, covered more than half of Li Qing's body in an instant, firmly locking his major joints such as his shoulders, knees, and elbows.

Under these circumstances, Li Qing was completely unable to move.

Then, the nauseating mass of flesh intensified its squirming, seemingly eager to tear Li Qing's skin and flesh apart the next second and swallow him whole into its body.

Because his body was data-based, it could not be destroyed, so its instinctual desire to feed failed.

No matter how hard it squirmed, squeezed, or tore, Li Qing's body would recover the instant it sustained damage.

However, this did not mean he was immune to the damage of this violent consumption:

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His health continued to drop under the flesh's devouring.

If he couldn't escape this situation, he could only last for another eight seconds at most.

But the problem was—

"I can't break free, I just can't break free!"

"It's one thing that this monster is fast and resilient, but its strength is also far beyond mine!"

Li Qing was now like a helpless insect caught in a spider's web, only able to watch in despair as his body was wrapped inch by inch by the damned spider's silk, and then devoured bit by bit as if it were a delicacy.

"How laughable..."

"Calling myself a 'high-level player'..."

"I've only been 'in the game' for half a day, and I'm already going to die?"

The mass of flesh on his body tightened its grip, and Li Qing could see no hope of escape.

He had almost given up thinking.

But just then, a car engine's roar suddenly echoed from the coastal highway outside the forest.

Because the distance was at least several hundred meters, the sound seemed somewhat faint.

The mass of flesh was still focused on gnawing at Li Qing's body, completely unfazed.

But Li Qing's eyes, covered in a white haze, lit up:

"A car?"

"There's hope!"

PS: Stand Panel

Stand Name: "Bad Reputation BIG"

User: Carne

Destructive Power: A

Speed: ∞ (Always maintains a speed slightly faster than the target being pursued, no upper limit.)

Range: ∞ (User is dead, no concept of range)

Durability: ∞ (Immortal and indestructible, never tires)

Precision: E

Growth Potential: A

Ability: An automatic Stand that manifests through the residual resentment energy of its deceased user. It prioritizes attacking the fastest-moving objects and can grow its size by devouring energy-possessing objects. Since the user is dead, it has no action range limit and cannot be destroyed.