Qian Hai was enraged.
Just before, he had been adopting the mindset of various fictional villain BOSSes.
He was misunderstood, though in reality, it was partly out of selfishness and fear of war breaking out between humans and Deep Ones, which might affect him. Moreover, he had gained some benefits from it, and when he could truly interfere with politics, he also had some private desires to fulfill. However, what he was doing was indeed the right thing.
He directly cast himself as Lelouch, Eren, Uchiha Madara rejected by Senju Hashirama, or Uzumaki Boruto exiled from the village.
But the other party had no bottom line, immediately saying "Yes" and "I know." Now he felt like he was a villain, but the villain's position had directly shifted to Gotham.
So he activated the last ritual he knew, but he never expected the other party to have such little regard for rules. Instead of exclaiming and sweating as he slowly rose, they even attacked him during his transformation!
No longer bothering to speak, the mass on the ground, now riddled with several bloodied holes, suddenly leaped up.
Upon seeing it jump, Keli and Kirito realized that the monster before them was no longer human-shaped.
Its once handsome skin had become like a toad's, and its fish-like features were even more pronounced.
Even more noticeable was its overly bloated body, which didn't feel powerful but rather seemed swollen from bruises, or perhaps like a waterlogged corpse, except the owner of that corpse was a monster slowly growing scales all over its body.
Due to its swollen body, the monster became slightly taller. Even on all fours, it appeared taller than the two men. And most importantly, despite being hit by several bullets with Keli's blood-stained casings, the monster was still alive. Instead, it erupted with a strength that was utterly inhuman.
Although it looked bloated, like a Great Unclean One under Nurgle, its speed was strangely reminiscent of an ape, or a Rajang from Monster Hunter.
After getting up, to avoid the gunfire, the thing leaped like a mountain goat, repeatedly bouncing forward but without losing any speed, charging straight at Keli like a wild ox.
The giant monster's eyes flickered with maddened crimson.
A severe pain from Keli's bullets was tormenting its body and mind.
He didn't know what the opponent had used, but it didn't look like Deep One technology. Yet, at this moment, its strength seemed to have increased again, and it also displayed characteristics similar to a Living Corpse; injuries appeared on its body but couldn't affect its movements in the slightest.
"Roar!"
Like a roaring beast, enduring Keli's pistol fire, the monster actually charged directly in front of the continuously firing Kirito. As Kirito tried to turn and flee, it swiped a claw.
Keli seemed to hear the sound of bones breaking.
Immediately, a message popped up: Kirito was dead.
Keli frowned, unafraid. He lightly cut his own thigh with his spear, then raised the spear and thrust it at the monster.
The thing leaped from its spot and pounced on Keli.
It seemed to have lost even the initial composure to speak, acting only like a maddened Living Corpse.
Keli plunged his spear into the monster's arm, causing a spray of unknown purple liquid. Keli exerted force with both his legs and hands, intending to use this as a pivot to leap up, while simultaneously pulling the trigger of his spear-gun again at the monster.
"Bang!"
This shot hit the monster's head directly, causing a burst of blood to erupt from its swollen head, which was likely completely encased in a fleshy tumor.
But the monster was still moving, its arm, impaled by Keli, flailing wildly.
Keli, gripping the spear tightly to stabilize himself, was swung around in the air.
Strong. This monster displayed the greatest strength and vitality Keli had encountered since leaving the mental hospital.
It could actually use the strength of its arm to lift an adult from the grip of gravity.
"Bang! Bang!"
But Keli, despite being shaken, continued to fire.
Soon, Kirito's corpse appeared nearby, but Keli had no time to worry about Kirito's current state.
Because the monster had started rolling!
The spear pierced clean through the monster's arm, but the monster, with crimson eyes, grabbed Keli's gun-holding hand with its other hand, and its increasingly bloated body rolled to crush Keli.
It felt like his entire body was about to be crushed and broken, so Keli gave up on the pistol that had no bullets.
The monster's mouth directly opened and bit Keli's shoulder, but the intense pain that followed made the monster's throat emit a huge growl, though it still bit down hard.
Fear!
Regret!
Its crimson eyes radiated a terrifying madness.
It was bloody; facing a situation where it could escape, it chose not to, but instead opted to avenge its kin.
Unlike those cowardly authorities, it would not hesitate to transform itself into a monster that was neither human nor ghost.
It wanted to see, to see these intruders who had arbitrarily barged into its plan, killed its kin, and then brazenly declared that they would resolve everything, making all of its efforts over the years seem meaningless—it wanted to see them reveal fear, dread, and regret.
However, there was nothing.
On the face just inches away from its fish-like face, there was only a chilling calmness that made it shudder.
Another disappointment; although the sensation beneath it was that of being crushed, the other party showed no weakness or retreat.
Stopping its rolling, it once again raised its fist under the moonlight.
However, beneath it was a body that seemed perfectly intact, as if it had never been injured.
All those impacts, all that squeezing, the feeling of having crushed everything of the other party, all seemed like an illusion.
And the other party, with a calm gaze, was staring at it while pulling out his last weapon from his embrace: a dagger.
If there were no firearms, he would use a spear; if there were no spears, he would use a dagger; and if the dagger was also useless, then he would resort to fisticuffs.
The other party was merely doing what one does in a fight, neither feeling anything nor having strong emotions about it, as if its life-gambling revenge and its determination to become a monster could only go so far.
"Crash!"
The fist came down, and that face it found disgusting was smashed into the ground, but the burning sensation continued to emanate. The monster felt the other party's blood, like a scorching sun, bringing it pain within its body, mercilessly toying with and depleting its already weak life, which was due to multiple previous bullet wounds.
The dagger sliced open its white-scaled abdomen, and its equally putrid, neither-human-nor-fish internal organs spilled out.
But it had not fallen yet; it could still continue, even if its internal organs were gone, as long as its heart was still beating.
"Whoosh!"
Two streaks of blade light cut across the night sky. Kirito, who had revived and obtained two curved blades, performed a jumping slash, beheading the monster.
"Keli! Are you alright?!"
"Too slow."
Keli propped himself up on his knees, kicked the monster, which, like Louis XVI, was headless but still twitching erratically like a skinned bullfrog, off himself, then straddled it and forcefully stabbed through its beating heart with the dagger stained with his own blood.
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