"Roar—!"
In the next second, Valentine's body began to swell violently.
Layers of black keratin grew on the surface of his skin, his nails surged into sharp claws, and two huge tumors even bulged on his back, as if something was about to burst out of his body.
The originally elegant noble instantly turned into a humanoid monster.
He didn't use a weapon, charging directly into the monster swarm, his hands like blades, tearing everything in his path—whether hounds or rats—into fragments.
Blood splashed on his face, making it impossible to tell for a moment whether he was human or an eerie.
"Transcendent power is truly terrifying."
Lu Yuan stood in the back, sighing while raising the large-caliber copper shotgun.
"Splash!"
The water surface exploded, and a tentacle tried to ambush Valentine, who was in the midst of a killing frenzy.
"Bang!"
Lu Yuan pulled the trigger without hesitation.
The copper pellets exploded, and that tentacle was instantly mangled, retracting in pain.
"Nice work, Doc!"
Valentine looked back with a grin, his mouth full of fangs making the smile look exceptionally terrifying.
With Valentine and Hans pushing forward, a path was finally carved through the dense swarm of mutated creatures.
"Now! Block the path!"
Hans roared.
Gray, standing behind him, grabbed a bottle of mithril from his pack and smashed it toward the rat swarm surging from the side.
Meanwhile, Toby threw another bottle at the massive corpse pile blocking the drainage outlet.
"Boom—!!"
Two brilliant silver flames rose simultaneously.
The rat swarm turned to ash in the silver fire, and the flesh mountain ahead was also engulfed by the silver blaze.
Shrill screams echoed in the pipes, and the air was filled with a thick, burnt stench.
"Is it over?" Ed panted heavily, wiping black blood from his face.
"Cut the crap! If you don't want to suffocate, get out of here now!"
Hans pulled up the still-panting Lu Yuan and signaled everyone to retreat quickly by the light of the fire.
However, things did not go as smoothly as expected.
Just as everyone thought the flesh mountain had been burned to death by the mithril.
"Gurgle—"
A spine-chilling squelching sound suddenly drowned out the crackling of the flames.
"Watch out!!"
Lu Yuan turned his head abruptly, his pupils shrinking.
The flesh mountain burning in the silver fire actually moved!
It wasn't dead!
On the contrary, that bottle of mithril seemed to have only burned away a layer of "cocoon" on its surface.
At this moment, countless charred tissues peeled off, revealing the fresh, dripping blood-red flesh underneath.
Its body, so massive it almost filled the entire pipe, began to squirm violently, and countless pale arms reached out from the meat.
Like some kind of insect, it scratched the walls frantically, using the leverage to move forward.
The target was pointed directly at the blood-covered Valentine!
【Witnessed high-rank Agglomerate: Foul Entity (Berserk State)】
【Traits: Extreme hunger for high-rank flesh and blood, surface skin possesses super regeneration.】
【Weaknesses: Blunt force, fire, core】
"It's chasing us!!"
Ed let out an incredulous mumble, "The mithril didn't kill it!!"
"It's locked onto Valentine!"
Hans's expression changed drastically. He swung his greatsword back, trying to cut off an approaching tentacle.
But the tentacle was incredibly tough, and the greatsword actually bounced off when it struck.
"Roar—!"
The flesh mountain let out a greedy roar. Its massive body was like a derailed train of flesh, rumbling over with incredible speed.
Wherever it passed, whether it was the corpse moss on the walls or the rubble on the ground, everything was swept into its gaping maw.
"Run! Run now!!"
No one dared to stay and fight.
"Damn it! Why is this thing so tough!"
Valentine shouted as he ran, turning back to try and tear it apart with his claws.
But the wounds he tore open were instantly filled by new granulation tissue. "It's no use! My attacks aren't working."
The flesh mountain drew closer and closer.
The nauseating stench almost sprayed onto the back of everyone's heads.
"There's no other way! We must kill it! Otherwise, no one will escape!"
Hans stopped in his tracks, a look of determination flashing in his eyes. "Toby! Do you still have mithril?"
"There's one bottle left!"
Toby, running at the very front, skidded to a stop and turned around, gripping the bottle of silver-glowing potion tightly. "But if the one just now didn't work, this one..."
"Just throw it in!"
Hans was about to order a direct attack.
"Wait!"
Lu Yuan, who had been silently observing, suddenly roared, interrupting Hans's command.
"Don't just throw it! Its regenerative ability exceeds the power of the mithril."
Everyone froze.
In this moment of life and death, everyone's gaze instinctively turned toward Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan didn't explain.
Because under the prompt of the gray-white text, he clearly saw that deep within the frantically squirming flesh mountain.
A ball of black light was pulsing violently.
That was its core, and the source of all its power.
But the core was buried too deep, wrapped in thick layers of corpses.
"An agglomerate like this most likely has a core inside!"
Lu Yuan stared intently at that ball of light, his speech rapid. "We must expose the core for the mithril to be effective! Listen to my instructions!"
"Valentine! Can you rip it open?"
"I can!" A ferocious smile appeared on Valentine's beast-like face.
"Good! Watch my signal!"
Lu Yuan took a deep breath. Even as his sanity issued a frantic warning, he did not look away.
The flesh mountain had already charged in front of them, and countless arms were about to grab Valentine.
"Now! Above the abdomen! That healing wound! Rip it open!"
Lu Yuan pointed sharply at a spot in the upper-middle section of the flesh mountain.
It looked ordinary, but in Lu Yuan's eyes, it was the best path to reach the core.
"Go to hell... open up!!!"
Valentine did not hesitate at all.
He let out a beastly roar, and instead of retreating, he lunged forward, charging into the overwhelming mass of tentacles.
His sharp claws, carrying a lethal resolve, stabbed fiercely into the position Lu Yuan had pointed out.
"Rip—!"
Accompanied by a tooth-grinding tearing sound, Valentine applied force with both arms, forcibly ripping a large hole in the flesh mountain's belly.
Black-green fluid erupted, but he held the wound open firmly, not retreating a single step.
And deep within that mangled flesh, a pulsing black tumor was finally exposed to the air!
"Toby! Throw it!!!"
At the same time Lu Yuan shouted.
Toby, who was already prepared, used all his strength to hurl the last bottle of mithril into that large hole, accurately hitting the tumor.
"Withdraw!!"
Valentine kicked off the flesh mountain, using the leverage to fly backward.
"Boom—!!!"
In the next second.
An unprecedentedly brilliant silver light exploded from inside the flesh mountain.
Without the protection of the skin, the fragile core instantly vaporized under the mithril fire.
Immediately following, the massive entity that had been frantically chasing them froze.
It let out its last, and most shrill, mournful wail.
"Ah—!!!"
The sound carried an invisible mental shockwave, sweeping through everyone.
Except for Hans, whose powerful physique allowed him to barely kneel on one knee, everyone else instantly lost their balance.
Ed and Gray rolled their eyes and fainted directly, blood gushing from their noses.
Valentine, who was in a berserk state, was even more heavily damaged, spitting out a mouthful of black blood.
His body shrank, and he fell heavily to the ground like a kite with a broken string, his fate unknown.
"Ugh..."
Lu Yuan only felt his vision go dark, and warm liquid flowed from his nostrils.
But Lu Yuan gritted his teeth, forcing himself to remain conscious.
【Witnessed high-rank Agglomerate's death wail】
【Sanity II check in progress... check passed. You have mastered a certain form of agglomeration...】
【Forbidden Lore: Seeker: +5】
"Go... let's go..."
Rate on N.U.
