“Who are you?!”
Promush looked in surprise at the uninvited guest. The loli dragged a trail of bloody footprints behind her, her entire body emanating a thick stench of blood.
“Mr. Promush…”
The loli patted her chest and said fearfully:
“The pigs outside went berserk. They nearly bit me to death, but I slaughtered them all. Don’t worry—these are all pig blood.”
“Who the hell are you?!” Promush roared, his nerves stretched to the limit.
“I’m the quasi-bride of the Scripps Family, Yinsu Helin’s fiancée.”
The loli introduced herself, pinching the hem of her blood-soaked skirt as she performed a deep curtsy, then continued:
“I was invited here for the Flesh Feast, but I haven’t had a chance to pay my respects yet. We’re all on the same side, so no need to be strangers. By the way, we ran into a little trouble. Your cage couldn’t hold that guy, so Montago sent me to find you…”
It didn’t matter if he believed her or not—what mattered was flooding him with a burst of information to spark his thoughts. In the instant the sheep-headed man was distracted, Ashley swiftly drew her gun from her waist!
Hades!
Divine might erupted! The half-meter-thick concrete floor shattered like a crispy biscuit and exploded outward!
The shot pierced through an unknown number of floors before finally vanishing into the depths, where the echo took ages to return!
This somewhat exceeded Ashley’s expectations. Back when she rode the Hades Train, the sensation hadn’t been this intense—perhaps because there hadn’t been a derailment.
But what surprised her even more was that Promush dodged the attack!
Ashley clearly saw that, just before she drew her gun, the sheep-headed man seemed to foresee the danger and preemptively evaded!
Promush knocked over the table, sending tableware scattering everywhere. He struggled into a crouching position, his eyes wide open, the edges of his pupils trembling violently in extreme terror!
His heart nearly stopped in fright, as if he had fallen onto the tracks and barely brushed past a high-speed train by a hair’s breadth!
“Hey, why were you able to react?”
Ashley tilted her head. Blood had congealed on her small face into an expressionless mask, leaving only her two eyes lively—making her look utterly terrifying!
Promush supported himself with one hand and barely sat up. His other hand, merely grazed, had vanished entirely.
Cold sweat plastered his forehead hair into wet strands. His handsome face twisted in distortion, slick as if he’d just steamed in a sauna. Large beads of sweat trickled crookedly down as he panted roughly and answered:
“Huff… huff… Because I’m Yinsu Helin’s fiancé. It’s common sense that one person can’t have both a fiancé and a fiancée at the same time.”
“Hahahaha…”
Ashley burst into slightly manic laughter, then her smile suddenly vanished as she spoke in a bone-chilling tone:
“It seems only one of us can live between us, to avoid this paradox causing a BUG in the world, right?”
Whether from the pain of his severed arm or the fear of impending death, Promush trembled all over and let out a low bleat from his throat.
“I heard from Amber that you’re a finger player too. Looks like we have the same type of ability, so it’s all about whose gun is faster.”
Ashley wouldn’t let her guard down. Though the opponent looked utterly wretched, marksmanship had nothing to do with health bars—as long as he could pull the trigger, life or death was uncertain.
The atmosphere grew tense. The two faced off dangerously in silence for a few seconds before Promush spoke:
“I remember now—you’re the last one from the Tribunal Seventh Group, with your hair dyed red. I didn’t recognize you at first. Since you’re from the Tribunal, I surrender.”
“If you’re surrendering, raise your hands—slowly from your sides. I know you can fire your finger bones,” Ashley said coldly, not relaxing her vigilance in the slightest.
“If I raise my hands, you’ll definitely kill me,” Promush shook his head.
“How did you know?” Ashley asked curiously. She did indeed plan to do that.
“Because you’re not a true powerhouse without absolute confidence. In your mind, it’s not about ‘controlling the situation’ but ‘eliminating the threat.’ My remaining hand and the family behind me are threats to you. But you know this incident will be investigated back to you, so you’re reacting instinctively, wanting to silence me,” Promush analyzed calmly, his tone carrying a hint of threat.
“Whether you’re naive or stupid, revenge can never compensate for losses—it only escalates them… If your family operated on the logic you described, they’d have been done for long ago. The value of the living and the dead is different. If I kill you and offer symbolic compensation to let your family recoup some losses, they’ll gratefully accept it and think your death had value. Understand? Dying in a duel during conflict versus being insultingly murdered are two different concepts.”
These words drained the color from Promush’s face. He hadn’t expected a loli to grasp the logic of the adult world so clearly, but it only deepened his doubts, prompting him to ask:
“But if you’re not reacting instinctively and your head is clear, why are you so fixated on killing me?”
“Because anyone who hurts or tries to hurt Miss Amber has to die!” Ashley roared, instantly raising her gun barrel!
Promush lacked the resolve and harbored fluke hopes. Knowing he’d die in a shootout, he didn’t even draw his gun. Instead, he pulled out a small vial of bright red liquid he’d secretly uncorked and gulped it down the instant the terrifying kinetic blast arrived!
In that moment, countless black horns burst from his body! Amid screeching crunches, they twisted and wove together like vines or ivy, forming a tortoiseshell-shaped shield!
A powerful deflection field bounced the impact upward, piercing through floors and ripping open a massive skylight!
After the earth-shattering roar, the entire building trembled and shook, dust cascading down as if it might collapse at any moment!
Ashley narrowed her eyes. Even though it deflected most of the impact, the knotted horns protecting Promush had been crushed to powder like crackers, with countless broken horns stabbing into his body like birthday candles!
The scene was so gruesome it was almost unwatchable—equivalent to being directly crushed by the Lord of Insects. Not turning into meat paste was already a merciful death.
But the next moment, something eerie happened!
Promush’s mangled body, like a dark dish of broken spaghetti stabbed into burger meat, began to writhe!
Ashley’s eyes sharpened. From the reforming compact structure, it was clear a genetic program had activated for flesh editing!
The rotten meat chunks first oozed grayish-white fluid, spreading to the broken horns embedded throughout his body and rapidly hardening into highly inorganic bone. It even formed a cage-shaped twisted skeleton!
Puff puff puff!
Several soft, bizarre long arms extended from both sides of the bone cage, instantly flinging upward to grab the upper floor slab and burrow out through the kinetic round’s crater!
Ashley hurriedly fired, but her final kinetic round only destroyed its lower half. The pulverized remnant left a twitching tail tip wriggling on the ground.
“Did you get it?” Chloe ran over and asked. The tense standoff had been too thrilling; she hadn’t dared make a sound.
Ashley shook her head, listening to the fading sounds in the distance. A foreboding premonition rose in her heart as she dashed back along the original path toward the factory exit.
“Take this!” Chloe handed her the Shepherd’s Crook.
Ashley took it and sprinted to the surface, chasing the traces of the monster’s crawl.
When she reached the front of the Boothslot Family Villa, she saw a hole smashed in the wall, and the grotesque monster had plunged headfirst into the basement!
“Amber!”
Ashley cried out in panic and hurried after it. In that short time, the monster had already grown to four or five meters long!
Like an old mountain dragon, its back sprouted layered, massive bone spikes. Its sides extended over a dozen pairs of tentacle-like long arms.
Its head was a blood-flesh fruit split into four lobes, with the everted sections covered in blood-red cortex resembling brain folds. A slender tongue protruded from the center, constantly flicking drool!
