Bad Reputation BIG

Carne, who had come at him so aggressively, was casually beaten to death by him.

After surviving three battles of life and death, Li Qing simply could not believe he had encountered such an easy opponent.

Yet the system notification appearing in his mind, and the experience bar on the system interface that had suddenly risen by a large chunk, clearly told him: this man was dead.

"Really dead?"

Li Qing forced himself to accept this absurd fact, then carefully took a step forward, intending to circle around Carne's corpse and leave.

However, just then—

The moment he lifted his leg, a faint sound suddenly came from the woods—a soft squirming noise made by some unknown object moving through the muddy forest floor.

The sound came from not far from Carne's corpse, extremely close to Li Qing.

"Something really is wrong!"

Although Li Qing could not see after being digitized, he could use sound waves to construct a rough outline of his enemy in his mind.

And at that very moment, in his perception—

That enemy was not human. More precisely, it did not even have a human shape.

It was a lump about the size of a basketball, constantly changing shape as it writhed violently—

Meat Chunk.

This Meat Chunk resembled a monster that had been skinned alive. Its surface was covered in crisscrossing grooves, indescribable tentacles, and dense clusters of blister-like tumors.

Every squirm made a nauseating sound, like dark crimson viscous fluid continuously churning through flesh and blood.

"What is that thing?!"

"It seemed to have crawled out of Carne's corpse, but Carne was obviously already dead."

"Could it be..."

"Could there actually be an evil Stand that required sacrificing its user's life to activate?!"

Even with Li Qing's calm nature, he could not help feeling a bone-chilling sense that his sanity was plummeting.

He instinctively retreated faster, but the eerie mass of flesh, as though it had crawled out of some evil myth, seemed to have locked onto Li Qing. It immediately accelerated sharply along with his footsteps.

Li Qing fled rapidly into the distance, while the Meat Chunk pursued him relentlessly.

It no longer showed the sluggishness and bloated bulk it had displayed at first. Instead, it bounced and sprang through the woods with its mud-like body, as nimble as a monkey.

No matter how much Li Qing increased his speed, it always proved just a little faster than him.

The already short distance between them steadily shrank, closing to a terrifying degree.

And even more frighteningly—

"Why does it feel like..."

"This thing isn't just getting faster—it's getting bigger too!"

Li Qing's heart sank.

As it chased him, the Meat Chunk was swallowing the trees, flowers, grass, insects, and ants along its path.

All of those things were devoured into that disgusting Meat Chunk, contributing nutrients to its twisted, perverse, evil body.

The grotesque mass of flesh devoured everything along its path. Like an insatiable glutton, it continuously ate, multiplied, transformed, and swelled.

"Damn it!"

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

Li Qing's expression turned extremely grave.

"This damned thing can actually devour energy and keep growing stronger!"

"If I let it expand without limit, sooner or later it'll become so strong that I won't be able to resist it at all..."

"No... I can't keep running."

"It's always faster than me. No matter how I run, I can't escape its pursuit."

"Even worse—"

He concentrated with all his strength, listening to every sound around him.

"There are no birds or animals in this artificial forest, and no pedestrians have passed within three hundred meters."

"Even if I wanted to use Echoes Act to escape, I can't find a target for Sonically Enhanced Wave to lock onto."

"Running means certain death."

Feeling the twisted Meat Chunk behind him, nearly touching his back, he made an extremely bold decision instead.

"I have to erase it completely before it grows too strong to defeat!"

Li Qing abruptly stopped, fearlessly raising his gun at the monster charging straight toward him.

"Bastard!"

"If you're dead, then stay dead!"

In an instant, he fired four bullets, blasting apart the indescribable Meat Chunk at point-blank range.

Four horrifying gashes were torn open across the Meat Chunk, and large amounts of thick scarlet fluid sprayed from its wounds.

It looked horrifying, but it was completely useless.

"Squish, squish."

Amid a series of hair-raising squirming noises, the Meat Chunk rapidly repaired its wounds.

The three bullets that had entered its body seemed to have been swallowed by it. It did not even spit out the casings; they simply vanished without a trace inside it.

"You've got to be kidding me?"

"Even bullets don't work on it?!"

Li Qing's expression turned ugly to the extreme.

His physical strength was currently limited, and the most powerful attack available to him was firearms.

If even supersonic bullets fired from modern weapons could not so much as scratch this monster, then he truly had no way to fight such a terrifying thing.

With that thought, Li Qing instinctively wanted to keep running.

However, he had already paid the price for the wrong decision he had made without sufficient information.

The Meat Chunk had not been harmed in the slightest by the bullets. Instead, Li Qing's useless counterattack had slowed his escape, leaving him completely exposed within the attack range of that sinister mass of flesh.

"Whoosh!"

The Meat Chunk waved clusters of wriggling, ugly tentacles and pounced at Li Qing's body with terrifying speed.

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

Li Qing instinctively tried to throw the disgusting Meat Chunk off himself, but it was like malt candy melting under the summer sun. The moment it touched a human body, it stuck tightly to it.

It clung to Li Qing's chest, constantly squirming and changing shape.

The tentacles it split off were like vigorous vines. In an instant, they covered most of Li Qing's body, tightly locking his shoulders, knees, elbows, and other vital joints.

Under these circumstances, Li Qing could no longer move at all.

Then, the nauseating Meat Chunk began writhing even more violently, as though it could not wait to tear apart Li Qing's skin and flesh the very next second and swallow his entire body into itself.

Because a digitized body could never be destroyed, its instinctive attempt to feed failed.

No matter how hard it squirmed, squeezed, or tore, Li Qing's body recovered completely the instant it was damaged.

However, that did not mean he could not be harmed by this violent devouring.

92%83%75%

His health continued to drop under the Meat Chunk's consumption.

If he could not escape this situation, he could hold on for at most another eight seconds.

But the problem was—

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

"This monster is fast and incredibly resilient, but its strength is far beyond mine too!"

Li Qing was now like a helpless insect caught in a spiderweb, able only to watch in despair as that damned spider wrapped his body inch by inch in silk, then devoured him bit by bit as if savoring a snack.

"How ridiculous."

"They called me some high-level player."

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

The Meat Chunk around him tightened more and more. Li Qing could not see the slightest hope of escape.

He had nearly given up thinking.

But just then, the roar of a car engine suddenly drifted faintly from the coastal highway outside the woods.

Because it was at least several hundred meters away, the sound was somewhat faint.

The Meat Chunk continued to gnaw at Li Qing's body with complete focus, utterly unmoved.

But Li Qing's eyes, veiled in white haze, lit up.

"A car?"

"I'm saved!"

PS: Stand Profile

Stand Name—"Bad Reputation BIG"

User—Carne

Destructive Power: A

Speed: ∞ (Always remains slightly faster than the target it is pursuing; no upper limit.)

Range: ∞ (The user is dead, so the concept of range does not apply.)

Staying Power: ∞ (Undying and indestructible, never tires.)

Precision: E

Growth Potential: A

Ability: An automatic Stand manifested through the resentment energy generated by its user's death. It prioritizes attacking the object moving at the fastest speed and can grow larger by devouring objects possessing energy. Because its user is dead, it has no range limitation and cannot be destroyed.