The hideous, contorted serpentine shape left a shadow on his retina, and the world before Lin's eyes was immediately consumed by bright red warnings.
The moment it revealed its form and attacked, the detected Honkai energy showed a stepwise increase. The unnatural energy level was higher than every documented Honkai reading except for a Herrscher's, even vastly exceeding the value of an Emperor-class Honkai Beast.
This is not an Emperor-class Honkai Beast! This Honkai Beast is far more dangerous!
Lin's hand felt numb from the force transmitted through the impact. He didn't directly clash with it, merely using his weapon to alter the attack's trajectory, yet even that nearly dislocated his arm.
He didn't hesitate, immediately withdrawing his knife and leaping back. He shot his grappling hook to create distance, drew his pistol, aimed at its most conspicuous, grotesque head, and pulled the trigger.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The bullets couldn't penetrate its hide, but they clearly enraged it. Black fluid seeped from the gaps in its scales, twisting into numerous needles that shot back at Lin faster than the pistol bullets.
Every pore on Lin's body contracted. He watched helplessly as the black sludge, possessing the power to easily tear through power armor and human flesh, sped toward his head, and then...
It stopped in mid-air, as if a pause button had been pressed.
Lin landed on the wall, the emerald green color brought on by the drug in his eyes growing more vivid, perfectly matching the scales of the colossal, serpentine Honkai Beast before him.
The range of the Honkai Beast's black sludge attack was about ten to fifty meters. Its high-speed movement was likely dependent on the black sludge, so the best way to deal with it was to maintain a safe distance and stay away from the black sludge residue on the ground.
"Howl—"
In a flash, the impossibly massive, unknown Honkai Beast twisted and climbed the wall with a speed completely unsuited to its size, pursuing Lin up the vertical surface.
More black sludge oozed from its scales. It seemed to be granted life, crowding together chaotically yet orderly, forming two colossal hands that clapped toward the man hanging on the wall from both sides.
The speed was too fast. With Lin's dynamic vision, all he could see was a black shadow rushing up the wall from below, and the two giant hands, nearly the size of the Honkai Beast itself, were already upon him.
"Bang!"
The black sludge narrowly grazed his face.
The combined force of the hands dug a hollow into the skyscraper, which instantly began to collapse, like a finished sandcastle with half its mass scooped out.
Before Lin, who had dodged the attack, could decide his next move, the giant hands suddenly transformed. Countless sharp spikes burst out from between the closed palms.
Lin's pupils contracted sharply. He spun around in mid-air—
"Slice!"
A splash of crimson bloomed in the rain.
His right abdomen, left calf, and left shoulder were pierced. The protective armor offered no defense whatsoever. The black sludge began corrupting his body the moment it penetrated him. A toxin entered his body through the sludge, paralyzing most of him.
"Cough—"
Even though the drug reduced the pain, the profound sense of foreign matter and his body's reaction still made Lin's eyes widen. The paralyzing toxin also invaded his brain, making the sight before him instantly blurred and indistinct.
Lin pulled out his knife and sliced the black sludge, falling downward. He weakly shot out his grappling hook, but this time, it failed to catch anything. He plummeted straight to the ground.
"Thud!"
A sickening, unnatural sound of his body twisting.
Blood painted the dark-blue interface crimson, mixed with some of the glowing green agent.
The world in his eyes became distorted and kaleidoscopic. His body remained motionless, refusing to obey his commands. He didn't know if his limbs were damaged, his cerebellum controlling movement was injured, or if his spine had been pulverized upon impact.
The massive serpentine shadow coiled around the half-ruined skyscraper, mockingly watching the life gradually drain from the human.
"..."
Was there any way out?
"..."
His sluggish brain began to calculate. The mocking serpentine shadow seemed to slow down.
All the scenes of his life flashed before him, passing like a slide show.
But this wasn't a death flash, not the end of Lin's life, but his calculation.
Lin would never give up.
Death? Wouldn't that mean he, the human, lost to the Honkai?
"..."
No, humanity will not lose.
Then, only two options remained: the Phase Transfer Device, and...
"Then, the first thing I'm asking you to do is to test these for me. They can temporarily enhance your physical functions and reduce your pain..."
Mobius's words echoed in his ears. For some reason, Lin recalled this particular sentence she had said with such a meaningful tone.
Her eyes gradually overlapped with the snake eyes of the shadow.
Lin reached out and grabbed the remaining four vials of the agent from the articulation unit. He pulled them out and plunged all four into his neck.
The veins on his right hand, wrapped in armor, bulged. He clenched his fist and slammed it onto the ground.
"————"
The viewport flashed rapidly over the impact areas of his armor. The expiring countdown was replaced by a new ten-minute timer.
This time, the countdown was blood red.
Lin struggled to his feet. He could feel the residual pain rapidly vanishing from his body. The effect of the paralysis toxin was suppressed by a different toxin.
Lin didn't stop to adjust his breathing. Instead, he raised his head and locked onto the enemy using the targeting system in his viewport.
This time, he didn't pull back. He raised his knife and charged toward the monster.
"Boom!"
The serpentine shadow roared in response, and streaks of surging lightning flashed from the black sludge.
"Doctor, what happened to those synthetic toxins you prepared earlier?"
Blanca, organizing documents in the lab, noticed an item that was supposed to be there was missing. After searching and failing to find it, she turned to Mobius, who was sitting in a chair, drinking coffee, and reviewing Lin's data.
Mobius frowned at a sentence in Lin's file, but then her brow smoothed out when she heard Blanca's question: "Synthetic toxins? Oh... those. That naturally defective little lab rat took them."
"Took them? That young man?" Blanca was stunned. "Why would he take that?"
"To use them, of course."
"..."
Blanca froze.
"What are you waiting for?" Mobius looked up, a sinister smile forming on her delicate face. "Isn't that precisely what they're meant for?"
"But don't those toxins damage the pain receptors?"
The synthetic toxin had been prepared even before Mobius joined the Moth of the Flame-Chasers. Its original purpose was to enhance humans, but its side effects were too great, so it was never approved for use.
"Damage the nerves? That's merely a trivial detail of the drug, or perhaps you could even view it as a positive effect." The Doctor touched her ear ornament with a finger, the light in her green eyes intensifying with excitement. "Lin. I've examined him three times, and three times he disappointed me. But the two recent surgeries were the only things that made me realize his extraordinary endurance is the reason his combat ability surpasses others, even those with superior Honkai adaptability."
From memories so distant she had nearly forgotten the person's face, she recalled how drugs enslaved human nerves, emotions, and bodies, making humanity ugly in her eyes.
The ideal of human evolution was precisely etched into her future from that moment.
"Do you know, Blanca, what the biggest side effect of that toxin is?"
"It hijacks the user's emotions, making them maniacal and aggressive, and it's highly addictive. There are one thousand nine hundred thirty-one experimental cases of this toxin, yet no organism has managed to escape its control. Nine hundred twenty-three cases resulted in brain death after the effect wore off, and only one case survived after six injections."
"But I believe in that human. He is the image of the 'humanity' I always hoped for."
She believed in that human, more than she believed in the one-in-one-thousand-nine-hundred-thirty-one chance.