Guys, you have to pull this off!

"So we just used infinite respawns to bait out its ultimate and completely drained its stamina?" [Passing Pure-Love Warrior] was so excited he nearly jumped.

"This is our chance!"

[Ji Luo] immediately seized on the turning point in the battle. "Its outer shell's defense must be at its lowest right now!"

"Warrior, Bossy Guy, stop clinging to its legs!"

"It's slowing down. Find an opening to get close to that huge tumor in its chest!"

"Ma Lou, Jiahao! Drain every last bit of your mana now. Use Ashen Shaping to make Warrior and Bossy Guy the sharpest spears you can!"

"Got it!"

The five-man team's coordination truly came into its own at that moment.

Jiahao and Ma Lou pressed both hands firmly against the ground, straining to squeeze out the last traces of their mental energy.

Two Ash Spears, each two meters long and shimmering with a dim, dark gray glow, instantly formed in Pure-Love Warrior's and Bossy Guy's hands.

"Here comes the truck!"

With an Ash Spear apiece, Pure-Love Warrior and Bossy Guy looked like two fearless Spartan warriors.

They charged straight into the monster's now-sluggish, bone-spiked arms, launching their final, all-or-nothing assault!

"ROAR!"

Sensing a lethal threat, Flesh Fusion frantically expanded the tumor in its chest, trying to kill the two men before it outright!

"Now!"

The instant the monster opened its enormous mouth, [Ji Luo] leaped high from the side.

He had no weapon, but he used his own body as a sandbag, blocking the tumor's mouth and forcibly intercepting a gushing blast of corrosive acid.

"Sssss!"

Half of Ji Luo's body melted away in an instant, but he clung desperately to the edges of the monster's mouth and roared, "Drive them in!!!"

"Die!!!"

Pure-Love Warrior and Bossy Guy seized the fraction of a second Ji Luo had bought with his life.

Roaring, they drove their razor-sharp Ash Spears deep into the monster's open mouth, burying them all the way to the grips!

Thick, blackish blood erupted from within the monster like a fountain.

Flesh Fusion's massive body shuddered violently. The corpse fragments stitched onto it seemed to lose the energy holding them together and began to peel away.

"We did it!"

Just as everyone thought they were finally about to win this defensive battle, something suddenly changed!

"ROAR!!!"

A roar more terrifying than any before, as though it came from the very bottom of the Abyss, thundered out of the monster's mangled chest.

The roar carried endless agony and an evil majesty that made their very souls tremble.

The erupting sound wave instantly hurled Pure-Love Warrior and Bossy Guy into the Church's stone pillars. Their health bars hit empty at once, and they turned to ash.

[Ji Luo], who had just respawned on the array, felt his eardrums ache from the shock, while his vision flashed red.

"Fuck, it's still alive? What the hell kind of health bar does this thing have?" [Ji Luo] covered his ears and stared outside the entrance in shock.

Flesh Fusion, which should have been on its last breath, did not collapse. Instead, it slowly straightened up.

The wounds in the enormous, impaled tumor in its chest began to writhe furiously.

Countless tentacles, longer than before and coated in dark red slime, extended from the wounds like an octopus's arms.

Even more terrifyingly, as the monster roared...

The lesser monsters outside, which had been prowling around because they could not breach the barrier, all stopped moving.

They turned in unison to face Flesh Fusion and gave low cries, as though worshipping it.

"What's it trying to do?"

Ma Lou swallowed, a deeply ominous feeling suddenly rising within him.

A second later, the answer became clear.

"Rrrrip!"

Dozens of tentacles shot out from Flesh Fusion's body, precisely ensnaring the dozen or so lesser monsters closest to it.

Without any resistance, those monsters shriveled into empty skins within seconds, as though a pump had sucked them dry.

The essence of their flesh and blood flowed continuously through the tentacles into the monster's body.

Devouring!

This was its exclusive authority as one of the Twelve Calamities serving the Ancient Evil God!

As it frantically devoured its own kind, Flesh Fusion's shriveled body not only instantly returned to its original size, but began swelling further at a visible rate!

Its muscles grew even more knotted, sharper bone spikes sprouted from its shell, and even its featureless head began to show the faint outlines of several compound eyes gleaming with a cruel red light!

Ding!

In the center of all five players' vision, a system warning panel flashed wildly, glaringly red!

[Highest-level system warning!!!]

[Target: Flesh Fusion is activating the authority of 'Devouring'!]

[Current level rapidly rising: Lv.18...Lv.19 (absolute peak of first tier)!]

[Severe energy fluctuations! About to breach the life-tier barrier and evolve to second tier (nightmare tier)!]

"Motherfucker! It can't beat us, so it just eats its minions on the spot to heal and level up?"

"This fucking boss has a second-phase enrage too?!"

[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] had just rushed off the Resurrection Array. The sight left him utterly numb.

They had never seen a second-tier, nightmare-tier monster, but even an idiot could figure it out: at level 17, this thing's screen-wide AoE had already slaughtered them like chopping vegetables.

If they really let it evolve to second tier and awaken some even more ridiculous nightmare-tier ability...

"Don't let it finish eating! Interrupt it! We have to interrupt it!"

[Ji Luo]'s voice even grew hoarse with urgency. "Warrior, Bossy Guy! Cut off its tentacles, whatever it takes!"

"Ma Lou, Jiahao, forget the boss! Clear out all the lesser monsters it's using as food. Cut off its supply!"

"Got it!"

At that moment, Lin En was also frantic inside the Divine Statue, like an ant on a hot pan.

Cold sweat broke out as he watched the monster's energy index skyrocket in the system backend.

"Second tier, nightmare tier... If it actually evolves, we're really done for!"

Lin En frantically searched through the system backend, trying to find an option like "Divine Punishment Descends" or "Instant-kill Cheat."

But to his despair, he discovered that not only had his faith points dropped substantially, many of the system's higher-level permissions had not even been unlocked.

The pitiful amount of divine power he had left was nowhere near enough to perform something as outrageous as a "Deity's Descent."

"Guys, you have to pull this off!"

Lin En stared fixedly at the battlefield, pinning all his hopes on these five crazed members of the fourth catastrophe.

On the battlefield.

At [Ji Luo]'s command, the five-man team instantly split into two groups.

Like a pair of cunning hyenas, Ma Lou and Jiahao targeted the lesser monsters that had not yet been caught by the tentacles.

They recklessly hammered away with their Wooden Spear and bricks. Jiahao had even learned to use Ashen Shaping to place simple stumbling blocks on the ground, slowing the lesser monsters down.