bookbashuk Page 132
Page 132
It was hard to tell which one was the evil spirit. The twin brothers, who were originally terrifying in appearance, now looked like cowardly characters in a horror movie, weak, pitiful, and helpless.
75
Chapter 75 Twins.
However, what made the four members of the team feel a chill was that the twin brother, whose forehead had been pierced by the rapier in Asuna Yuuki's hand, did not change his expression at all. He just spoke in a simple and honest tone that seemed a bit silly.
"Brother, those four people are really strong."
The twin brother, whose skull had been split in two and whose brains were spilling out, spoke in a muffled tone.
"Hmm, this is tough to deal with. Let's get serious."
As soon as the words were spoken, the twins' already very large bodies suddenly began to swell rapidly.
"Phase two?"
Kato Megumi, Yuuki Asuna, and Asagiri quickly retreated, watching as the twin brothers' bodies swelled up to nearly four meters in height. Then, their muscles writhed, and they shrank back to a height of only about 1.7 meters.
Despite her shrunken size, Kotoko Iwanaga, who could still sense the strange aura, looked wary and immediately spoke up to warn him.
"Be careful, these two guys have suddenly become much stronger, they're on a completely different level than before..."
Just as Kotoko Iwanaga was speaking, a blur flashed through her vision. The older twin had rushed in front of her, his muscular right arm slamming down on her head with a whooshing sound.
"boom!"
A figure in red appeared first, Yuuki Asuna's crimson cloak billowing as she used the shimmering light in her hand to block her twin brother's attack.
"Hmm? Looks like you're the fastest."
After transforming into this form, the twin brothers' tone of voice changed, from a slightly slow and silly one to a cold and rational one devoid of any emotion.
"hateful……"
Asuna Yuuki frowned and gritted her teeth, but even with all her strength, the shimmering light in her hand was slowly pressed down by her twin brother's single hand.
"This guy's strength...is far greater than mine..."
Asuna Yuuki's unique passive skill set meant she wasn't suited for static defense, but...
"Your strength is so weak."
Just then, the older twin suddenly spoke in a deep voice.
"This guy's ability should be that the faster he is, the stronger he becomes. Don't let him move."
"Understood, brother."
Hearing the twin brothers' conversation, Asuna Yuuki was startled.
Aren't these two guys mentally ill? How come they have such high combat intelligence?
In just one round of combat, they deduced the effects of her abilities and devised a countermeasure?
Just as the younger of the twins was about to rush over to help, Asagiri blocked its way.
"Your opponent is me."
"Get away."
The twin brother was incredibly fast, appearing in front of Asagiri in an instant. He clenched his fist and delivered a simple, straightforward straight punch towards Asagiri's face.
"Too simple."
Asagiri dodged her twin brother's straight punch with a sidestep, then grabbed his arm and, with a perfect over-the-shoulder throw, slammed his disgustingly muscular body to the ground. She placed one foot on her twin brother's back, her eyes gleaming with a pale golden light, and her voice sounded somewhat excited.
"I'll take your arm!"
"Click."
With the sounds of flesh tearing and bones breaking, Asagiri ripped off her twin brother's arm. When the older twin saw this, he was about to go and help when he felt his arm go lightly. When he turned around again, he found that Yuuki Asuna had disappeared.
Kotoko Iwanaga's purplish-blue eyes shone brightly, condensing into a ball of black particles that transformed into two IBMs, which directly hugged her twin brother's legs from the left and right.
"Bah..."
The twin brother's eyes suddenly widened, and his eyes, which had looked normal before, suddenly became covered with dense, fine blood vessels that looked like insects swimming inside. As he exerted force with his legs, his seemingly indestructible IBM body began to crack.
But even a brief pause is enough.
"Phantom!"
"Oh, I see."
Even in such a thrilling moment of battle, Kato Megumi's voice remained as gentle and calm as ever, but her actions were completely at odds with her voice. She had already raised both hands high, holding a deep purple dagger in her right hand and an Indian tomahawk in her left, standing about seven or eight meters away from her twin brother, in a position where the "throw" would have the maximum power. Then, with an extremely cool move, she swung her arms down sharply, throwing the dagger and the Indian tomahawk simultaneously at her twin brother who was trapped by IBM.
Kato Megumi has two hands, so she can naturally throw two weapons at the same time.
The dagger was aimed at the twin brother's left eye, while the Indian tomahawk was aimed at his abdomen.
"boom!"
Although the twin brother was very strong, he was unable to break free from the IBM restraints created by Kotoko Iwanaga for a moment, and was unable to dodge the weapon thrown by Megumi Kato. His mushroom-like body was sent flying backward.
“Violet!”
"Sword skills..."
While her twin brother was still flying backward in the air, Yuuki Asuna rushed over from the opposite direction. This time, she was wielding her sword with her left hand. Although she was not as skilled with a sword as she was with her right hand, she didn't need to aim too precisely when facing a flying target like this. It was better to use her non-dominant left hand to wield the sword and unleash her sword techniques. This way, even if her left wrist became sore and weak, her fighting ability would hardly be affected.
"Stardust Splash!"
At full speed, Asuna Yuuki's physical abilities are greatly enhanced, and the power of her sword technique, Stardust Flying, reaches its maximum.
His body was so tough that even the weapon thrown by Kato Megumi could only penetrate a few centimeters into the body of his twin brother before being reduced to pieces amidst eight flashing sword beams.
"elder brother!"
Upon seeing this, the younger twin immediately let out an angry roar.
"Why are you shouting so loudly?"
Asagiri shook her head impatiently and summoned her human demon, Shura. As if playing with Lego bricks, she and Shura dismembered her twin brother's body into eight pieces.
If you ignore the blood and gore, and the twin brother's screams, the scene actually looks quite heartwarming.
"You're quite difficult to tear."
After tearing his twin brother's body apart with the help of the demon, Asagiri, though not sweating, still pretended to raise his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, let out a long sigh, and sighed in a mature and sophisticated manner, just like an office worker who had worked hard all day and finally returned to the cozy home.
"Sigh, I've really had a tough time."
Upon hearing this, Asuna Yuuki retorted with a hint of helplessness.
"Why don't you just pull off its limbs and head? Why do you have to tear its body apart piece by piece? It's just a perverse pleasure, isn't it?"
Before Asagiri could answer, Kato Megumi, who had put her dagger and battle axe back in, spoke in a calm tone, hitting the nail on the head.
“Violet, you can say things like pulling out limbs and heads so casually... you don’t seem quite right either.”
"Forehead……"
Asuna Yuuki was speechless, only watching as the twin brothers' body fragments turned into blood and dirt, sinking into the filthy ground, her brows furrowed.
"These two guys are less like bizarre beings and more like..."
Asagiri crouched down to observe the ground and said calmly.
"A special infected person, right?"
Yuuki Asuna was somewhat surprised to hear this, and then immediately spoke up.
"Huh? You felt it too?"
"Of course, you think I just tore that guy's body apart for fun?"
Asagiri stood up, clapped her hands, and spoke softly.
“I just observed that these two don’t bleed when they are injured, not because they are strange beings, but because the blood in their bodies has already stopped flowing, and their internal organs have shown obvious signs of rotting and necrosis.”
"This……"
Kotoko Iwanaga frowned slightly, immediately understanding the meaning behind Asagiri's words.
"You mean... if we disregard the influence of the strange forces and judge solely from the perspective of their physical structure, they're like... special infected individuals in a zombie instance?"
"Yes, something like that."
Asagiri nodded slightly and turned to look at Kotoko Iwanaga.
"Now we can draw a conclusion: the mastermind behind the so-called experiments in the Giant Mountain Mental Hospital is indeed Blackwatch, and the reagent mentioned in the diary that was injected into the mental patients is the zombie virus."
Kato Megumi asked in confusion upon hearing this.
"Then why torture the souls of those mentally ill people? If it's for creating biological weapons, there's no need to do this, is there?"
"No, just think about it for a moment, and you'll see that it's obvious..."
Asuna Yuuki's expression was complicated as she murmured.
"Because purely physical damage cannot completely eliminate the bizarre type of enemy, what Blackwatch wants to create is a weapon with monstrous physical functions, but which can eliminate the bizarre through the fusion of bizarre power... a weapon with no weaknesses due to the fusion of biological evolution and bizarre power."
"I don't know if this is even possible, but Blackwatch seems to be a long way off."
Kotoko Iwanaga began to analyze as she pondered the situation.
"That 'groom' only possessed bizarre powers, his physical abilities were not outstanding; he was a failed experiment. The twins we just eliminated, and Chris Walker who was previously eliminated by the Leader, were the exact opposite. Their physical abilities were extremely powerful, but apart from being reborn using the power of this bizarre area and possessing the characteristic of being bizarre beings that cannot be eliminated by purely physical means, they did not possess any supernatural attack methods..."
Just as Kotoko Iwanaga was saying this, something unexpected happened.
The scene before her, Asuna Yuuki, and Megumi Kato suddenly changed. They were still in the lobby next to the elevator shaft entrance, but the bloodstains on the floor and the broken debris around them had vanished instantly. In their place was a very clean lobby, so clean that the floor tiles reflected the light from the chandelier above, making people feel safe and relaxed.
In the lobby, there were caregivers in uniform, wearing masks and medical caps, mental patients in white straitjackets, and doctors in white coats.
"This is……"
Kotoko Iwanaga looked at the bustling scene before her, smelled the slightly pungent odor of disinfectant in the air, and her eyes revealed a look of vigilance.
"A hallucination...and not just a visual hallucination, but also a hallucination that affects hearing and smell..."
76
Chapter 76 Asagiri's Choice.
This was the first time in Kotoko Iwanaga's life that she had encountered such a situation.
As the goddess of wisdom among the supernatural beings, her mental strength was already much higher than that of ordinary people. After being strengthened through multiple dungeon runs, she became the person with the highest mental strength in the team, even surpassing Asagiri. Furthermore, she also possessed resistance to supernatural phenomena.
Even so, she still fell into an illusion.
What's even more terrifying is that Kotoko Iwanaga knew perfectly well that the scene was fake, but the smell, the sound, the picture—everything she perceived—was flawless.
"Violet? Phantom? Leader?"
Kotoko Iwanaga looked around, but couldn't see Asagiri, Asuna Yuuki, or Megumi Kato at all.
"Has the illusion separated the four of us...?"
Kotoko Iwanaga tried waving her hand around, but she didn't touch anything.
"If it's just a simple illusion, then even though I can't see it, I should be able to touch it. Or... is my sense of touch also affected?"
Even in this unbelievable situation, Kotoko Iwanaga remained calm. She knew very well that if she panicked and wavered, it would affect her judgment and she might fall into the illusion and be unable to extricate herself until her spirit was gradually worn away and she was completely devoured by the strange being that created the illusion.
According to Kotoko Iwanaga, in the world she lived in, monsters or demons created illusions not simply to scare humans, but like spiders, because they did not have the ability to directly hunt humans, they could only use illusions to break down humans' psychological defenses and devour their spirits.
Just then, a terrifying demon with a face covered in scarlet blood suddenly appeared beside Kotoko Iwanaga, baring its fangs and lunging at her.
"Ha, childish."
Kotoko Iwanaga stood motionless, and sure enough, the demon vanished like smoke a second before it could touch her.
And then, she felt that familiar, warm touch coming from her hand.
Even though there was nothing there, Kotoko Iwanaga couldn't help but smile. She gripped the hand in the way she knew best, without needing to think at all, and intertwined her fingers with the unseen hand.
Just as she had guessed.
Asagiri possesses the unique passive effect of the Human Asura, which grants her immunity to all types of mental influence. This means that even if she, Yuuki Asuna, and Kato Megumi are all trapped in an illusion, Asagiri will still be able to remain conscious.
Meanwhile, Asagiri, looking at Yuuki Asuna and Kato Megumi beside her, was pondering an extremely serious problem.
He was holding Kotoko Iwanaga's hand with his left hand, leaving only his right hand...