Chapter 335: The Battle Begins

Margaret was the first to rush in.

The swarm of insects made way for her, and Rex's swarm of insects avoided a half-step radius around her, unwilling to come into contact with the aura emanating from her.

She raised her right hand, palm facing forward, fingers slightly bent. The movement was casual, no different from taking something off a shelf in the branch warehouse.

The next moment, all the moisture in the area was forcibly torn away.

The dampness in the workshop ruins, the moisture from the cracks in the walls, the water from the muddy ground, and the last wisp of water vapor in the air were all violently stripped away in the same instant, dragged towards Margaret's palm. Even a trickle of bodily fluid seeping from the cracks in the shell was drawn away.

The black liquid surrounding J was the first to be affected.

The torrent of black liquid pouring from her body suddenly collapsed the moment she raised her hand. The water was drawn directly out of the black water, and the liquid quickly thickened and dried up after losing its carrier. The amount of liquid decreased by more than half in just a few breaths.

J tried to add more, but the newly condensed liquid was dispersed before it could take shape.

J's expression darkened. The black water's carrier was water, and she was fighting with herself for the same thing, and the way she was fighting for it was completely devoid of skill; she was simply using overwhelming force to swallow all the water within her range in one gulp.

The humidity in the air had dropped to the point where he could feel his skin tightening, and the black water he condensed happened to be the most concentrated source of water in the area.

Continuing to wear them down from a distance is suicide.

J did not move backward.

He collected the black liquid that had spread out at the far end, drew it all back to his side, compressed it, and condensed it into a flowing black membrane that covered his arms and torso.

The fluid on the skin no longer diffuses outwards, but instead rotates rapidly along the skin, locking all the remaining moisture inside.

Then he went to meet him.

He lowered his body, sprang into the black water beneath his feet, and charged straight toward Margaret.

The black membrane on his right arm solidified into the shape of a short blade at the moment of his sprint, the dark blade surface gleaming with a moist sheen.

If you can't win at range, then fight up close. Pumping water requires distance and time; once you get close, she won't be so relaxed.

As for Margaret, the extracted water was not wasted.

A large amount of water vapor and liquid flowed into her palm and did not dissipate. A pale blue film of water quickly spread from her palm along her forearm to her elbow and shoulder, with its density and flow rate increasing rapidly.

Something was taking shape inside the water film. Its outline was not yet clear, but its volume was continuously expanding. A salty and astringent smell spread from her whole body, so strong that even the air became viscous.

She was still smoking, showing no sign of stopping.

Klaus and his servant moved almost at the same moment.

The dark green light on the bone sword surged, and two afterimages popped out from behind Klaus, one in front and one behind, forming a three-way encirclement with the main body towards 9.

The attendant cut in from the right flank, his narrow-bladed longsword fully drawn, its blade enveloped in purple light, the tip pointing directly at the location of the old wound on his 9th rib.

9. No refund.

His aura was completely unleashed, so intense that the surface of his carapace shimmered with a grayish-white luster, and the thickness of his carapace suddenly nearly doubled, forcibly covering the wounds on his ribs with a layer of newly grown carapace.

With arms crossed, the carapace blades pointed in two directions, the left arm facing Klaus's bone sword, and the right arm facing the attendant's narrow blade.

The bone sword struck the left arm armor, the green light colliding with the grayish-white armor surface, sending fragments flying. The force traveled along the sword, and 9's foot dragged a deep gash in the ground. Almost simultaneously, the purple longsword pierced through, its tip sinking half an inch into the right arm armor. Purple light scorched the armor surface along the wound, leaving a charred ring.

9 blocked it. He went all out, a desperate, hard-hitting effort, the two cracks on his greyish-white shell creaking loudly.

But he knew in his heart that he couldn't hold out for long. Klaus's two afterimages still hung motionless behind him, reserved for finding an opening to finish off the attacker. The servant's purple light continued to burn, its penetration speed increasing rapidly.

Even more serious was the ribs. The shock from the previous impact had caused the newly covered carapace to crack, with fine lines appearing on the old wounds. The residual crystallization inside was causing a dull ache, and each exertion of force accelerated the cracking process.

I've quit exercising.

The moment she stood up from the ruins, her body began to contort.

The spine bulged in the back, and the muffled sound of bones misaligning came from under the skin. The outline of the shoulder blades expanded rapidly, and the originally thin torso swelled up in a few seconds.

The crystalline scar left by Klaus on half of her face was stretched and cracked as it expanded, and dark red blood seeped from the crack, but she didn't even frown.

The expansion continued, the limbs rapidly thickened, the knuckles lengthened, and the angles of the joints began to deviate from human range.

Something was wriggling beneath her skin, the muscle texture twisted into a pattern that shouldn't appear on a human body, and bulges appeared on the surface of her swollen torso. The second layer of skeleton was stretching her flesh from the inside.

Each time a bone dislocates, it is accompanied by a wet, sticky crack, and a grayish-white viscous fluid with a faint salty and fishy smell seeps out from the cracked skin.

With his still-changing body, Jie charged toward the flanks of Klaus and his attendants.

9. Having already reached his limit by directly confronting the two, the cracks on his carapace were rapidly widening. The timing of the ring's attack from the rear was perfect; his swollen left arm swept across the servant's back with power completely different from that of the wounded man who had been panting against the wall earlier.

Sensing the change in the aura behind him, the attendant withdrew his narrow-bladed longsword from the armor of the ring and parried backward. The purple light collided with the ring's expanded limbs, and the attendant's foot slid back half a step.

The attendant was pulled away by the ring, leaving only Klaus to press down on 9. The cracks on 9's carapace were still there, but with a brief respite, a thin layer of grayish-white luster re-condensed.

Klaus didn't seem to be in a hurry. He even sent one of the two afterimages behind him to fill the gap on the right side of 9, while the other one hung in the air, staring at the direction of the ring.

the other side.

The two hooded Night's Watchmen broke away from Klaus the moment the melee began and did not participate in the frontal charge.

They moved to the side, stepping on the carpet of insects that covered the ground. The insects made way for them and then quickly closed in, swallowing them up in the writhing gray.

The entire area was covered by Rek's swarm of insects. The two moved within the swarm, becoming one with the crawling insects, their presence completely concealed.

They circled around to J's side and rear. J was locked in close combat with Margaret, his attention completely focused on the woman who had drained him of all his moisture. The two hooded figures emerged silently from the insect blanket, already less than three steps behind J.

Q arrived before them.

Black liquid silently seeped from the cracks in the stone slabs of the ground, bringing with it a strong, pungent, and sweet odor. The liquid gathered extremely quickly, solidifying into a human shape just before the two hooded figures landed, blocking them from J.

Even after Q solidified, the liquid did not calm down. The black liquid on his skin continued to seep out and recede, and each time it receded, countless tiny particles would vaguely appear beneath the surface, slowly wriggling inside the liquid, occasionally causing a small bump to rise from the surface and then disappear.

His ashen face was expressionless, but the air within three steps of him was noticeably sticky, and breathing became heavy.

Q didn't speak, but immediately took action. Black liquid gushed from both of his arms, transforming into two liquid whips that lashed out at the two hooded Night's Watchmen.

The moment the liquid whip was lashed out, it left a trail of rotten, sweet odor in the air. The wriggling, tiny particles on the surface of the whip were flung away with each swing, splattering onto the ground and walls. White smoke rose from the stone surfaces, leaving behind corroded pits the size of fingernails.

The two hooded figures split up and dodged, one to the left and one to the right, avoiding the point of impact of the liquid whip. Their movements were silent and extremely fast.

But Q's figure had completely blocked their route to J.

All he needed to do was one thing: stall the two men and prevent them from getting close to J.

After dodging, the two hooded figures did not rush to pursue, but instead stopped.

The two looked at each other across Q.

The expression was obscured by the shadow of the hood, but the pause carried an incongruous ease; the fourth-tier being covered in putrid fluid seemed like a laughable thing to them.

The one on the left moved first.

His chest cavity was suddenly ripped open from the center, his ribs sprang to the sides, and a pale white human figure spewed out from inside. It was inhuman, with an extremely long and flat body, dragging a winding tail, and a pair of huge claws at the top of its head, the tips of which gleamed with a bone-white luster in the night.

The pale white figure shot out of Q's chest cavity with lightning speed, covering a distance of only a few meters. It took only a moment from ejection to contact with Q. Its claws gripped Q's shoulders and sides.

"Got you!"

The voice came from the direction of the torn chest cavity, light and playful.

Q's black liquid surged wildly the moment it was grabbed, attempting to corrode the claws, but remained motionless after white smoke rose from the pale claw surface, the corrosive liquid sliding over the bone-white surface.

Q's gaze suddenly sharpened.

He had never encountered anything that was immune to corrosion. The black liquid was his core technique; it dissolved upon contact, which was the foundation upon which he had established himself at the fourth level.

When those claws clamped down, he subconsciously increased the concentration and output of the corrosive liquid, but ended up not being able to bite anything off.

The force from the claw tip was extremely brutal; the claw gripping his shoulder tightened inward, forcibly squeezing and deforming the surface of his body, which was made of black liquid.

Q tried to liquefy his entire body to slip out of the claws, but the claws tightened at the same moment he liquefied, firmly trapping his liquefied core.

This thing can sense the location of its liquid core.

Q's expression changed for the first time.

The other hooded Night's Watchman was no longer there.

His arms were changing; his skin was bursting outwards in circles from his shoulders, like a whole fruit peel being shaved off, spiraling away to reveal rows of closely spaced serrations that stretched from his shoulders to his fingertips, each tooth tip trembling slightly.

Two arms covered in sharp teeth descended upon Q.