Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 160: A Kind of Alarm
—Whoosh.
The pitch-black spear flew past the humanoid figure and shot cleanly toward the enormous monster.
Compared with his fight against Salaar, Myss’s movements were far more vicious. The spear exploded directly against the “dandelion’s” stalk, nearly blasting it in two.
A rain of black arrows followed immediately.
With a wave of his hand, the magic from the snake’s mouth struck straight at the last remaining connection. Myss opened with a clean “decapitation.”
Myss only wanted to destroy this so-called Marcela as quickly as possible. He had no desire to exchange even half a word with the thing.
Realizing this, the figure made of fog immediately rippled.
At the same time, the fleshy stalk rapidly retracted, and the enormous sphere descended at high speed, wrapping itself in layer after layer of filthy pink membrane. In the blink of an eye, the flesh dandelion had transformed into a round egg made from clustered chunks of flesh.
Numerous crack-like openings remained across its surface. The fog turned into small gray-white tornadoes and was frantically sucked inside.
Another wave of annihilation magic struck. This time, Myss only managed to blast through several layers of membrane. The thing was clearly much tougher than those chunks of flesh and possessed a strange resistance to his annihilation magic.
It accumulated enormous amounts of magic over its surface, creating a slime-like layer of insulation. Myss’s attacks were canceled out by that magical layer, making it difficult to damage the thing at its core.
At the same time, the immature chunks of flesh all around began to transform.
Their bloody color faded until they became the gray-white of dead matter, then floated eerily into the air. The surfaces of these flesh chunks rapidly keratinized, sprouting sharp spikes that extended in six directions until they resembled pale cross-shaped stars.
First they shattered on their own and dissolved into the fog, then abruptly reassembled out of thin air extremely close to Myss. One spear-like edge pierced through his shoulder, while another spike nearly struck his eye.
Worse still, the nearby magical fluctuations were exceptionally intense, and these things concealed their presence extremely well. If Myss’s reactions hadn’t been astonishingly fast, he would have been surrounded by the bizarre objects in an instant and gotten to experience the torture of an iron maiden firsthand.
Myss wiped the cut on his forehead to keep the blood from obscuring his vision.
After only a brief pause, the white spiked clusters that had failed to hit him vanished again. Myss had no intention of suffering through that a second time, so he could only keep changing position quickly.
He dodged and sprinted around the contracted ball of flesh, while the corner of his eye remained fixed on the thing.
This thing was completely different from every “god” he had encountered before.
Those half-baked gods from before generally knew only how to follow their own divine power down a single path until the bitter end.
This thing was entirely different. The moment it realized its magic couldn’t overpower Myss’s, it abandoned that approach almost immediately. It switched to complete defense, supplemented by purely physical attacks using its flesh.
He had to admit, the judgment was extraordinarily accurate… as though it had long been accustomed to battles at this level.
Myss’s greatest weakness right now was his current, compromised body. If Salaar were beside him, that would be one thing. But right now, Myss had absolutely no ability to heal himself.
As long as he couldn’t destroy the opponent quickly, that mass of pale things would injure him and waste his stamina for nothing.
Myss’s annihilation magic was extremely powerful offensively, but its defensive capabilities left much to be desired. The “semi-enclosed space” he had improvised earlier could only defend against pure magic. As long as he didn’t completely hide inside the space, those deadly spikes could still injure him.
But completely hiding inside the space took time, and while inside, he couldn’t launch any effective attacks.
The situation became something of a stalemate.
Myss more or less understood what the thing was trying to do. It had turned itself into essentially a “chicken bone”, something too troublesome to consume but felt wasteful to abandon, hoping Myss would decide the difficulty wasn’t worth it and retreat.
Myss suspected that if he turned around and went back to find Salaar right now, this thing absolutely wouldn’t stop him.
How pragmatic and clever.
If this had been Myss inside the seal, he absolutely would have given up, just as a human would abandon a piece of badly spoiled meat. The risk involved in hunting this thing outweighed the reward, so it would be better to leave and find another target.
But Myss didn’t want to leave.
It had nothing to do with the truth or with hunger. Salaar’s twisted, grotesque divine body simply kept flashing before his eyes.
His rage was like charcoal buried beneath ash. No matter what he did, it refused to go out.
His magical spears weren’t powerful enough, and the short arrows were even less useful. He needed something stronger, something more direct, something that could grievously wound the opponent in a short amount of time…
What methods had Salaar used against him before…? He needed to find a more suitable way to attack…
Deep within the fog, Lawler was still indistinctly shouting something. His throat was so hoarse it sounded as if it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper, his voice filled with helplessness.
“Teacher, stop… I know… you’re not a monster…”
Even though he already knew neither side of the battle would listen; the words were nothing more than childish, ridiculous noise.
…But, a monster?
Myss swayed slightly, and the bloodstained corner of his mouth suddenly curved upward.
Right.
He was a monster.
Ever since entering the human world and obtaining this body, he had still been influenced by Salaar without realizing it. He had grown accustomed to shaping his magic into human spears and human arrows. Just now, he had even been wondering, “What method would a human use against a monster?”
Back then, Hero Salaar had been helpless against the enormous Chaos Archdemon. A single human couldn’t deal with a gigantic monster… But another monster could.
Myss took a deep breath and grabbed his own cheek. His sharp nails dug deeply into the skin, then tore downward with force.
Warm blood splashed outward, but what poured madly from the wound wasn’t only scarlet blood.
Vast amounts of black dust spilled out. They gathered in clusters within the fog, moving according to a terrifying, hypnotic pattern and forming an intricate yet horrifying radial structure outward.
The shell called “Myss” looked like packaging that had been ripped open. His arms and legs stopped moving as his rigid body floated into the air, like a wedge nailed to the edge of an abyss.
Meanwhile, the pitch-black morning mist surged wildly outward from his neck, the radial structure becoming more and more distinct. It gradually formed one relatively complete corner, while its patterns twisted more violently.
The structure no longer resembled the romanticized corona depicted in alchemical diagrams. Instead, it looked more like the spiraling outer edge of a galaxy.
Myss’s limbs continued collapsing, the ends of his hands and feet turning pure black. If Salaar had been present, he would have recognized the scene immediately. It was exactly how Myss had looked when he lost control during the first battle they had fought side by side.
Unfortunately, Salaar wasn’t there.
Plop.
Myss’s right arm fell to the ground and crumbled into powder. The right side of his head had already shattered, leaving only the left half of his face. Just as the body was about to decay further, translucent membranes wrapped around it once again.
They completely enveloped Myss’s physical body and pressed down with all their strength, stopping the collapse from spreading any farther.
For a moment, the sight was bizarre beyond description.
The right half of Myss’s body had vanished. The remaining shell was attached to a perfectly ordered spiral grotesquely disproportionate in size, like an enormous black flower blooming from a tiny receptacle.
What remained of Myss’s body was covered in a layer of gray-black, like a faded puppet. Every trace of living color had vanished from him except for his surviving left eye, which remained scarlet.
…More bizarre still, that eye was perfectly lucid.
Myss turned that single eye, his suspended body shifting slightly to face the ball of flesh not far away.
He could still feel the impulse that came with losing control, but this time, he didn’t need Salaar to help suppress his instincts.
Even if he couldn’t fully unleash the power he possessed while out of control, this was… enough.
The white spikes flashed into existence again as the opponent tried the same trick.
But the moment they approached Myss’s body, before they could even fully take shape, the pulsing black particles swept them into the vortex and erased them completely in an instant.
Myss could hear his instincts screaming, demanding he tear open that ball of flesh and devour it completely.
How convenient, he thought. This time, his reason agreed with his instincts.
No spears. No short arrows. Myss himself lunged toward the frozen ball of flesh.
“It’s you…!”
A mournful cry from nowhere echoed through the fog.
“How is that possible… You can’t possibly still be conscious…”
Oh, that was a question for Salaar.
Myss brought his mutated body down over the flesh sphere. This time, the moment he approached, the pink defenses coating its surface began to disintegrate. They shattered into extremely fine particles and were instantly swallowed by the black vortex.
For an instant, Myss felt the pleasure of eating.
This thing was richer and sweeter than an Abnormal Fruit. For a moment, he even felt slightly intoxicated and wanted nothing more than to devour more.
“Myss…”
A weak voice came from the pocket on the side of his body that was still intact.
“Myss… I feel… terrible…”
Tass, or rather, the lump of flesh called Tass, writhed continuously inside his pocket as though enduring tremendous pain.
Myss’s movements paused instinctively.
And in that brief opening, Lawler finally forced his way through the torrent-like magic and reached them.
“You… cough, both look badly injured…”
Lawler rubbed his eyes. Facing Myss, he stood in front of the flesh sphere.
“Maybe… ask Teacher first what exactly is happening…”
Lawler had been shouting “Teacher” at the monster the entire time. Myss had assumed his mind had been bewitched, or that he had simply gone insane.
Only now did Myss notice a filthy pink membrane covering Lawler’s eyeballs. It completely obscured his eyes. From Lawler’s perspective, they apparently still looked human.
“She should at least have… a chance to speak…” he murmured. “Maybe the real Marcela… can still be saved…”
Truthfully, Myss didn’t care, nor did he want to care.
He didn’t even particularly want to care whether Tass lived or died. That single taste had been far too wonderful.
He wanted more.
“Myss!”
A familiar voice cut through the fog and entered his one remaining ear.
The “mouth” Myss had just opened snapped shut immediately. Even the enormous spiral on the right side of his body shifted slightly, making itself look a little more orderly.
What was Salaar doing here?
That bastard was injured, couldn’t use even the slightest bit of magic, and was more fragile than Tass in meat-lump form!
The right side of Myss’s body salivated over the flesh sphere right in front of him, while the remaining human half instinctively leaned toward Salaar instead, tugging his body apart with a soft pop.
Salaar pushed through the fog and charged over on his own. Then he skidded to a halt in front of Myss and immediately let out a gasp.
The “body” Myss had released was quite spectacular, seven or eight times larger than Marcela’s two-story residence. Compared with the last time he had lost control, it appeared more stable and orderly… and utterly mesmerizing.
At first sight, Salaar’s gaze was completely stolen by the pitch-black miracle, and he nearly forgot to assess the situation.
Fortunately, he quickly recovered and looked toward the remaining half of Myss’s face.
Myss glanced at him with his sole remaining left eye.
“You suicidal bastard. I’m about to eat it.”
“Wait!”
Salaar turned and moved to stand beside Lawler.
“I don’t think this needs to be done quite so urgently.”
A completely new kind of anger mixed itself into Myss’s existing rage. For the first time, he discovered there were surprisingly many different ways he could be furious.
“You want to be a ‘saint’? Now? After what it did to you?”
He roared in disbelief, his damaged voice carrying an inhuman quality.
Salaar was certainly no softhearted man. When necessary, he slaughtered his own kind as easily as chopping vegetables.
Could the contract have sealed away his intelligence along with his magic?
“Oh, I’m not worried about It.”
Salaar glanced at the thoroughly confused Lawler, then quickly looked away.
“I’m more worried about the problems Its death might cause. If possible, restrain It first.”
Myss stared fixedly at Salaar. The inhuman half of his body hovered over the flesh sphere like a pot lid, ready to take a bite at any moment.
Marcela, the flesh sphere, whatever this thing was, didn’t resist for the moment. It was impossible to tell whether it was waiting for an opportunity to escape or merely using the time Salaar spent talking to gather strength.
“Obviously, this thing isn’t V.O.R, nor is It a god created from a human.”
Salaar’s face was pale, but his usual smile still hung there.
“It feels very similar to you. It may have been ‘born’ this way, right?”
Myss truly couldn’t argue with that. The thing’s magical flow was indeed more refined, more naturally complete.
He grunted, which counted as agreement.
“On the way here, I saw many chunks of flesh, chunks just like Tass. Looking at things now, they seem to be part of this being.”
“So I thought… perhaps the so-called ‘new species’ that suddenly appeared after the Night Scourge are merely pieces of flesh from some god. The Dragon Fae outside the fog are an illusion. Those chunks of flesh are their true forms.”
“These pieces of flesh are born from Its body, wander outside, then eventually return to Its body. The human body has similar cycles of birth and renewal.”
“Then I thought of something else. It doesn’t have a religion It needs to maintain, so there’s no reason for It to reveal Itself at all… Why would a god in poor condition, one hiding Its true body, deliberately expose Its divine body to the human world?”
Myss suddenly realized something. The pupil of his left eye expanded sharply.
“You mean…”
“Just a simple thought.”
Salaar coughed twice and raised his head to look up at Myss floating in midair.
“If It dies, Dragon Fae all over the world will develop abnormalities, perhaps even die along with It. Think about how convenient that is. Anyone could hear about news that big.”
“…I think Its death would be one hell of an alarm.”
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