Behind him were the Nightwatcher "Red Gloves" and the troops on the airship who could recover and arrive at any moment. Ahead, there was only this mysterious woman standing alone.
Without hesitation, Lanervus pushed off with both feet and charged toward the mysterious woman.
She also swung her dagger wreathed in black flames and rushed forward. The distance between them rapidly closed.
Having just escaped from the Red Gloves' ambush, Lanervus was now unarmed, but he didn't need any other weapons. Although he was only a low-sequence Beyonder of the "Thief" pathway, after being possessed for a long time by that detestable "True Creator" who had transformed parts of his flesh and blood, he had gained many special abilities in the endless ravings and curses—abilities that didn't belong to conventional "Thieves."
Slightly avoiding the dagger's attack trajectory, he extended his right hand. His palm, carrying a foul stench and bloody smell, was about to strike the woman's shoulder when she suddenly changed direction, dodging to his left. At the same time, the dagger descended, leaving a deep wound on his elbow that revealed bone. The black flames on the dagger instantly ignited the skin at his elbow and rapidly spread, burning toward other parts.
The soul-deep pain from these cursed flames made Lanervus break out in cold sweat. He quickly formed his right hand into a claw, dug into the skin at his elbow, tore off the piece burning with black flames and threw it away. Then he looked warily at the dagger flickering with black flames.
"You're a Witch? Why is the 'Witch Sect' getting involved in this matter?"
The "Witch" didn't answer but shook her dagger and continued stabbing toward him.
Lanervus knew that Beyonders of the Witch pathway could not only control cursed black flames but also control frost and were proficient in various types of black magic. However, this mysterious witch who spoke barely a word seemed to prefer close combat. Like a low-sequence member who hadn't yet advanced, she wielded her dagger, occasionally leaving wounds on his body. He could only quickly dig out the flesh contaminated by black flames to avoid continuous curse damage.
From this perspective, it looked like I was harming myself...
And she's not planning to kill me? Is she stalling for time, waiting for the Nightwatchers to catch up, or does she simply want to torture me through these painful wounds?
Knowing time was limited and he couldn't drag this out any longer, Lanervus gritted his teeth, endured the pain from wounds all over his body, and charged fiercely at his opponent.
As he rapidly closed the distance, small bumps densely appeared on the exposed skin of his chest and abdomen beneath his shirt, on his palms, and on his face—as if stones of various sizes had been embedded under his skin. They quickly connected into one piece, taking on an unsettling rust color that instantly covered his entire body, transforming into a suit of flesh armor.
This made Lanervus's thin body suddenly swell up a size, and even his momentum increased considerably. The witch's dagger quickly slashed toward his left hand but only left a shallow scratch on the rust-stained flesh armor. The black flames still burned this mutated flesh, but the effect was much worse than before.
"You know, after being tormented by a deity for so long, even someone like me has gained quite a few rewards."
Clenching his fist covered in mutated flesh, Lanervus flashed out a punch like a battle-hardened boxer, striking straight at the witch's face. She flexibly bent her neck to avoid the punch, but this heavy blow that directly hit the sewer wall shattered the rock, and the splashing dust blinded the witch's eyes.
Good opportunity!
He suddenly accelerated, both hands striking out. His left hand spread its swollen fingers and gripped the opponent's right hand holding the dagger, while his own right hand clenched into a fist and smashed toward that hateful round face.
All the times he had pretended to be no match for her speed, deliberately showing weakness and getting injured—now they all paid off.
"Bang—"
The right fist with flesh armor unstoppably smashed into the witch's head, flattening her skull...
Something's wrong!
Lanervus looked at the witch in front of him as she turned into a thin white paper figure. Its head was broken, its right hand was crushed by Lanervus's grip, and it was drifting down in the air.
Then his left elbow transmitted intense pain. The witch who reappeared at his side swung her dagger and severed his left hand at the elbow. The previously impregnable rust-colored armor seemed as fragile as paper as the dagger shrouded in black flames cut through it like butter, followed by the muscles, blood vessels, and bones below.
Enduring the intense pain and abandoning that left arm whose flesh armor was gradually disappearing, Lanervus rolled through the sewage and left his original position.
Standing up from the foul-smelling sewage and retreating several more steps, he finally steadied himself while clutching his left elbow. Several strange flesh tendrils drilled out from the elbow wound, stopping the flowing blood as if repairing the wound.
But the penetrating wound through his chest and abdomen, his previous battle with the "Sword of the Goddess," and the demigod-level collision had exhausted his physical strength and spirituality. His recovery was now very slow. Growing back a complete left hand in a short time was simply impossible.
However, this witch—was her target my left hand from the very beginning?
Lanervus was covered in cold sweat from pain, but what shocked him more was the opponent's methods.
She attacked my left hand multiple times—to be precise, my left elbow. She even pretended she couldn't cut through my flesh armor. Was her ultimate goal to find the right opportunity to cut off my left arm?
Slowly retreating, Lanervus looked at the woman who was approaching step by step—clearly a "Witch" yet also able to use "Paper Figure Substitute" like a "Magician" from the Secret Order. He shook his head and said:
"Fine, I really can't beat you. I surrender." He said in a low voice, glancing at the passage to the side, his brain racing to think of an escape plan. "Are you from the 'Witch Sect' or the 'Secret Order'? Or are you planning to hand me over to those Nightwatchers behind us to judge me for my crimes in Tingen City?"
"None of those."
The woman who had only spoken two sentences upon meeting finally spoke again.
"I just said I would make you remember the innocent people you killed." She stopped seven or eight meters away, reigniting the dagger in her hand. The leaping black flames made the wounds all over Lanervus's body seem to hurt again. "You see, after cutting off your left hand, have you become a bit more clear-headed? Can you remember what happened in Tingen City?"
"Next is the chest. Don't die prematurely."
As soon as she finished speaking, she flung the black-flamed dagger and her body flashed with bright yellow light. She instantly crossed the distance between them, arriving first despite moving last, stepping on flames to appear in front of Lanervus. She reached out to catch the dagger flying from behind her and smoothly slashed it toward him.
Klein, dressed as a dock worker and wearing a clown mask with an upturned smile at the corners and a red ball decoration on the nose, ran quickly through the sewer passages. His movements were agile as he moved through the complex sewers at extremely fast speed, as if receiving some kind of guidance, running toward the place ahead where battle sounds faintly came from.
After lying in ambush at the divination-confirmed location for several minutes and discovering that Lanervus had "stood him up," Klein performed dream divination again. He learned that the other party had changed his escape route and appeared in a sewer location closer to the Backlund Dock to the east. He immediately hurried in that direction.
Following the reminder of his spirituality, he passed through one bend after another, rapidly approaching the target location. But after turning another right-angle corner, Klein stopped in his tracks. With both hands gripping Tarot cards that could be used as throwing knives, he looked ahead.
In the pitch-black passage before him, a ray of crimson moonlight penetrated through the gap in the sewer manhole cover overhead, spilling onto the water surface. In the moonlight, a tall figure in a cloak pressed tightly against the back of another slightly shorter but more robust figure. A slender arm had pierced through the latter's chest, glistening with the color of fresh blood under the moonlight.
This scene made Klein's chest instinctively feel pain, as if returning to the last day in Tingen City—the day he was pierced through the chest by Ince Zangwill, his heart shattered, dying in front of Angel.
"Whoosh—"
The tall figure withdrew its arm and casually pushed the now-motionless person away.
This dead person fell face-down to the ground, his left arm severed at the elbow reaching forward, as if trying to crawl away from the killer behind him.
The blood-stained figure moved its neck and looked toward Klein. In the next second, bright yellow flames burst from various parts of its body, and with a "pop" sound, it disappeared from the sewer.
Instinctively looking around, Klein didn't discover the mysterious person's figure.
Had the other party already left?
He remained cautiously alert and slowly walked toward the fallen corpse. He pulled the breathless body from the sewage, turned it over, and by the ray of moonlight from overhead, recognized the person's identity.
This broken corpse was none other than Lanervus, who had hidden in the dock area and escaped from the "Red Gloves'" pursuit tonight, yet had inexplicably changed routes and appeared here.
That face, now turned bronze-colored for some reason, no longer bore the cold sneer that mocked all things in the world—the sneer from when he appeared at the dock union yesterday or in the wanted poster portrait. Instead, it carried doubt and bewilderment.
"How could I die here?"
His wide-open eyes seemed to be questioning Klein, who was looking at him.
From the head downward, Lanervus's right shoulder shirt was stained dark red, as if there was a huge wound below continuously seeping blood, but the clothing showed no damage. At his chest, above the nearly healed penetrating wound through his chest and abdomen, in the wound just punched through by the mysterious person, his shattered heart still flowed with gushing blood.
His outstretched left arm had only a smooth cross-section at the elbow. The forearm had fallen somewhere in the sewer, and Klein, who lacked dark vision, didn't attempt to search for it.
He just stared blankly at this corpse with its rather symbolic death state. The face under his clown mask constantly twisted, and then he bent over clutching his stomach, letting out an inhuman laugh.
"Haha, hahahaha, hahahahaha!"
Between gasping breaths of laughter that couldn't catch up, he panted and said intermittently:
"Haha, you bastard, how, haha, how did you get ahead of me... hahahaha."
After laughing for a few seconds, he suddenly stopped that laughter uglier than crying and drew out the ritual knife he carried with him, stabbing it into Lanervus's chest. It plunged into the area above the fist-sized wound, leaving only the handle.
"Still so reckless, charging forward without regard for consequences or your life." Having completed this stab, Klein looked around and then pulled out the deck of Tarot cards he had prepared for battle. "If the Nightwatchers see Lanervus like this, won't they immediately know it was you who did it?"
He pinched the deck of Tarot cards between his thumb and middle finger, bent them forcefully, pushed forward with his index finger, and like a fancy shuffling dealer, flicked out the entire deck card by card, scattering them over Lanervus's body and into the sewer around him.
Having done all this and looking at the Tarot cards all over the ground and the corpse whose body reproduced the fatal wounds of the Nightwatchers who sacrificed in Tingen City, Klein sniffled and said softly:
"Although I don't know why you came to Backlund, or how you found Lanervus, or how you beat me to killing him..."
The corners of his mouth beneath the mask stretched up, as if becoming the smiling clown he was playing.
"...But knowing you're still alive is truly wonderful..."
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Today the 3K beast has returned for a limited time.