At the center of the altar, the flesh cocoon that Bossy Guy had hacked open began twisting and swelling wildly.
Then a massive arm made of countless twisted muscles and sharp bone spurs tore straight through the outer membrane and reached out!
Rip!
The cocoon burst apart completely! Blood mist and shredded flesh flew everywhere.
Amid the thick blood mist, a terrifying monster slowly straightened to its full height of nearly four meters. It had no fixed shape, looking like countless human corpses forcibly stitched together.
Its head had no facial features, only a huge fleshy tumor growing in its chest, as deep and dark as a black hole.
Layers upon layers of sharp teeth covered the tumor.
[System warning: The incubation process has suffered irreversible damage!] [Target locked: Flesh Fusion (Premature Form)] [Current level assessment: First-Tier Peak (Lv.17)!] [Extreme, lethal danger! Players must evacuate immediately!]
"First-Tier Peak?"
Seeing the panel's notifications, the group felt no fear. Instead, they let out long sighs of relief.
"Ji, you really are a fucking prophet! We knocked it out of the second tier! Now it's the same level as yesterday's Cave Stalker!"
"Don't let your guard down! This thing feels way more threatening than that giant bug!"
[Ji Luo] stared fixedly at the monster before him, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.
Although both were at First-Tier Peak, the suffocating, evil pressure radiating from Flesh Fusion was nothing a physical monster like the Cave Stalker could compare to.
This was an eldritch entity carrying a trace of the Evil God's authority!
The monster slowly turned its featureless head, seemingly sensing the world around it.
When it looked toward the Cultists kneeling and trembling on the ground, the huge, tooth-covered tumor in its chest suddenly opened.
Riiip!!
A dozen or so dark red tentacles shot out like lightning, precisely wrapping around the necks of every Cultist present, including the red-robed leader.
"Holy Lord... no... I'm your most faithful..."
The red-robed leader screamed in terror, but the monster paid no attention.
Before the five players' horrified eyes, the dozen or so Cultists had no chance to resist. The tentacles dragged them straight into the tooth-filled maw in the monster's chest!
"Crunch... crunch..."
Horrifying chewing sounds echoed through the hall, the cracking of bones making their scalps crawl.
After devouring the Cultists' flesh and blood, the monster's aura, which had been somewhat weakened by its premature emergence, actually began surging at a visibly astonishing rate!
"Fuck! It can eat people to heal and buff itself!"
Ma Lou was so frightened his voice cracked. "How are we supposed to fight that?"
Having finished devouring the Cultists, Flesh Fusion finally turned its attention to the five players who had ruined its plans.
It slowly raised its massive, bone-spurred arm, and an inhuman roar filled with endless rage and murderous intent erupted from the tumor in its chest.
"ROOOAR!!!"
The next second, rather than charging like an ordinary monster, it did something else entirely.
The writhing flesh covering its body suddenly churned violently like boiling water.
Then thousands of sharp blood spikes exploded from its body like a furious storm, instantly blanketing every corner of the hall!
"Find cover, quick..."
[Ji Luo] hadn't even finished shouting.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
They had no time to react. They didn't even feel any pain.
The five members of the fourth catastrophe had just reached level 3 and were ready to show what they could do.
Yet without so much as touching a hair on the monster, they were instantly riddled with holes beneath the barrage of blood spikes.
One encounter.
The five-man party was wiped out instantly.
They turned into five clouds of frustrated ash and vanished into the air.
Inside the dilapidated Church at the edge of the Black Forest.
Seated atop the altar, Lin En was happily admiring the steadily rising preregistration count in the system's backend.
Suddenly, an extremely piercing alarm exploded inside his head, making even his stone statue shudder twice.
[Emergency divine domain warning!] [High-risk eldritch entity detected! Coordinates: Abandoned Village!] [Warning: This creature carries the Evil God's Devouring Authority and is extremely aggressive!] [Warning: Target has locked onto the Ash Church! It is gathering nearby Aberrants to form a small beast tide, expected to strike the Deity Barrier in three minutes!]
The smile on Lin En's face froze instantly.
"What the hell?! A beast tide is rushing our base?!"
Before he could start swearing, a dense burst of white light suddenly erupted from the Resurrection Array before him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The five Ash Apostles respawned in a row, pale-faced and gasping, looking as though they had just been fished out of a blender.
"Fuck that bastard! What kind of bullshit mechanic was that?!"
The moment [Passing Pure-Love Warrior] opened their eyes, they started clawing at their head in fury!
"A full-screen, unavoidable AoE instakill?"
"We didn't even get a fucking chance to get close before it turned us into pincushions!"
Ma Lou patted his chest, still shaken. "That was terrifying. This monster has to be the final boss of the current version! Our little dodges are a complete joke against a full-screen attack."
Just as the five of them were cursing and preparing to discuss how they could use cover to get revenge, something happened.
The ground outside the Church suddenly began shaking violently in irregular tremors.
"Thump... thump... thump..."
It sounded as though countless muffled drums were being beaten at once.
The group froze, then hurried to the Church's battered doorway and peered outside.
What they saw instantly made all five of their scalps crawl.
In the distance, toward the Abandoned Village and along the edge of the Black Forest, something was approaching.
Thick black fog churned toward the Church like floodwater bursting through a dam.
Within that black fog, hundreds of densely packed crimson eyes flickered wildly!
The [First-Tier Mutant Werewolves] roaming deep in the Black Forest, the remaining [Zero-Tier Corrupted Villagers] in the village, and even all manner of enormous, unknown monsters...
At that moment, they seemed to be under the absolute command of some supreme will.
They formed a vast, dark tide and charged en masse toward the blue dome surrounding the Ash Church!
At the very center of the beast tide, the four-meter-tall [Flesh Fusion], stitched together from countless severed limbs and scraps of flesh, crushed every obstacle in its path like a moving mountain of meat.
"It... it brought every monster in the village to raid our base?!"
[Even Monkeys Have Dignity] was so frightened that his voice warped and his legs went weak.
Facing a charge made up of dozens upon dozens of monsters, that utterly lifelike sense of oppression was enough to make anyone wet their pants in reality.
But as [Ji Luo] watched the distant tide of monsters, despite the shock in his eyes, he let out a long breath.
Before you continue