After absorbing a copious amount of dark fog released by the topped alien statue, Grey Watcher Xarnus completely lost his human form!
Somehow, his implanted organs and altered genes all mutated into a huge monster that massed many times more than his previous form.
Where did all of this mass come from?! How come this priest became so strong?!
"He's too fast!"
The just-recovered Mirror Raiders tried to shoot their sole remaining enemy down, but the fleshy monster didn't even flinch as his fleshy body incurred some damage.
The blackened and bleeding wounds regenerated in seconds, making it seem as if none of the damage was able to stick!
The monster let out a deep-throated roar as it barreled straight towards one of the surviving Mirror Raiders!
"YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR BLASPHEMY!"
With a huge, clawed hand, the monster grabbed hold of the Larkinson's armored form and lifted it up. The Grey Watcher lifted his captive even as the soldier kept firing his rifle in vain.
CRUNCH!
A sudden bite was all it took to crush the soldier's in half! The huge monster's sharp teeth crunched the upper body of the Larkinson apart, uncaring of the fact that he was chewing through a portion of armor as well. With a loud gulp, the Grey Watcher swallowed his crunchy meal!
With the remaining Mirror Raider firing lasers in the monster's back, the mutated Grey Watcher appeared disinterested in eating the lower body of his victim. The monster swiveled around and threw the bloodied remains at the other soldier!
Unprepared for such a move, the surviving Mirror Raider crashed onto his back from the force of the impact. Just as his armored form lifted himself up from his prone position, the thunderous stomping of the monster had already closed the distance.
A claw grabbed hold of the remaining soldier!
With a cruel grin, the monstrified Grey Watcher repeated his earlier act and bit off the upper half of the Larkinson's armored body!
With another series of crunching, the huge mutant swallowed the broken contents of his mouth. As for the bloody lower body, the monster turned to Ketis and immediately performed another throw.
This time, he missed!
"That trick won't work on me, buddy!"
Ketis had liberated herself from every piece of equipment that weighed herself down. Left with only a thin layer of advanced material, her underlayer vacsuit hardly afforded her any protection against attacks.
What was worse was that she had removed the helmet that had allowed her to ignore the suppression up to this point!
She no longer needed its protection. The broken statue of the Unending One had leaked out all of the darkness it previously held. The darkness still lingered, but was slowly starting to clear up. Ketis was able to maintain her focus a lot better now that the pressure that cloyed in her mind started to weaken.
Against a monster like this, Ketis needed all the mobility she could get. With her Rising Red Dragon shattered into pieces, the helmet that she retained would only do more harm than good.
In this crucial final struggle, the last thing she needed was a burden of several kilograms weighing down her head!
The only weapon she needed was a sword. She held her trusty cutlass, which held out remarkably well despite the battles she had lived through.
As for the laser pistol, she had already overheated it due to all of the full-powered shots she fired. Even if she was still able to fire a couple more laser beams, she had already seen that none of the damage stuck.
This monster's regeneration ability was too abnormal!
"YOU…" The mutated Grey Watcher uttered with his deep, beastly voice. His huge eyes looked down at Ketis with disdain. "PUNY GIRL. YOUR TOOTHPICK CAN DO NOTHING AGAINST ME. WHERE IS THE CAT? IT MUST PAY FOR BLASPHEMING THE DARK GOD!"
The monster looked around and soon managed to spot Lucky crawling away.
"Lucky! Run!"
"Meow!"
Though the mutant cultist was able to traverse a lot of distance very quickly with his four powerful limbs, Lucky ignored all of his injuries and managed to squeeze out just enough speed to jump through the hole in the floor!
"YOU DETESTABLE CAT!" The monster roared with anger as his huge forelimbs reached into the hole, only to come up with nothing!
"Meow meow!"
Lucky strenuously used his claws to grip against the surfaces of the tunnel to arrest his fall. He managed to reach the other side of the small tunnel and grip onto the ceiling of the industrial processing hall situated underneath the shrine.
He managed to escape!
The furious monster pounded the floor of the shrine, causing some of the tiles to crack and the surface to crater.
However, the obsidian structure of the shrine resisted his attacks! While his huge fleshy physique granted him incredible strength, he didn't gain the ability to fly!
"Heh." Ketis smirked as she held her cutlass with a two-handed grip. Despite its modest reach compared to her favored weapon, she knew that she needed to use both of her arms if she wanted to have any hopes of inflicting damage on this monster. "You're dead, freak. Lucky will call for backup. I admit that you're powerful enough to crush anyone on foot, but we have mechs! If that's not enough, there are still some nuclear mines outside that we can use to blow your new body up! I wonder, will you be able to piece yourself together after suffering so much damage."
The monster released a wordless roar that rang Ketis' ears like a bell!
It seemed the monster was not as impervious as she feared.
She grinned. As long as her opponent could be killed, she still stood a chance!
"Come then! Fight me to the end!"
The monster released another angry cry and stormed over to Ketis, who looked incredibly frail with just a single suit and sword to her person.
Yet the moment the monster came close enough to grab her body, she nimbly rolled away at the exact right timing!
Surprised at the fact he missed, the Grey Watcher froze.
A sharp cutlass sliced the monster's flank, inflicting a wide wound that cut as deep as a finger's length!
The mutated body rapidly regenerated the wound within seconds, but the pain that Xarnus felt was very real!
The Grey Watcher grew even more furious! The huge four-limbed monster began to thrash around as he chaotically attacked Ketis with successive swipes!
None of his attacks managed to harm Ketis!
Though the fleshy monster was much bigger than a puny human, the Grey Watcher's agility was not as good!
Even though the mutated cultist was able to sprint much faster, that was only when he needed to traverse a straight line.
In closer ranges, his huge bulk and enormous muscle mass limited his agility. As long as Ketis successfully predicted her opponents attacks, she was able to evade the monster's clumsy attacks, if only barely.
This was not the first time she fought a huge beast!
In her Swordmaiden graduation ceremony, she hunted down a huge exobeast under similar conditions!
No woman could call herself a qualified Swordmaiden if she didn't slay an exobeast while armed with just a single sword!
Ketis continually brushed with death as she cleverly evaded the Grey Watcher's attacks with ingenious, trained evasive movements.
Whenever the grey monster had overreached, she brilliantly took advantage of the opening that presented itself and cut into her opponent's fleshy body without mercy!
The monster released another pained cry as a portion of his wrist suffered a deep cut. Ketis had managed to inflict a wound that went straight to the bone!
Ketis scowled as she rapidly drew back. She had put considerable momentum behind the blow, but her cutlass abruptly stopped when it collided against the monster's bone.
The deep cut regenerated within a dozen seconds. All of her efforts had gone to nothing!
"YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT, WOMAN!"
The Grey Watcher lost his temper even more! His attacks accelerated! Even if he exposed more openings, Ketis found much less opportunities to inflict her return blows.
Even so, she continued to maintain her calm. The floor shook over and over again as the monster continually swiped and slammed his limbs.
"You stupid priest! Is this what your evolution has resulted in? You've degenerated into a beast!"
"SHUT UP!"
Though the monster exerted a huge amount of threat to Ketis, her confidence only grew as she sensed the rhythm of the battle was within her tolerance.
Her opponent was strong. There was no doubt about that. However, his sudden transformation hadn't increased his combat sense!
He was still the aged priest who spent most of his time in supplication to his dark gods. Just because he gained a body blessed by the Unending One didn't mean he became a trained warrior!
The mutated Grey Watcher fought worse than an actual exobeast.
The latter grew up step by step in a dangerous alien biosphere and climbed its way up to the top of an untamed planet's food chain after honing his natural battle skills!
As for the fleshy monster that continually tried but failed to kill her, his clumsy movements and his mindless rage lacked any semblance of strategy or tactics!
Even so, the old cultist's horribly transformed body was horribly durable!
While Ketis managed to exploit the monster's untrained movement, any deep cuts she inflicted never lasted for long!
"HAHAHA!" The monster roared even as his powerful strikes only managed to whip up some wind. "MY BLESSED BODY IS IMMORTAL, JUST LIKE THE DARK GOD THAT HAS GIFTED ME THIS STRENGTH! SO LONG AS MY HEART STILL BEATS, I SHALL NEVER FALTER!"
The powerful Grey Watcher's heart just happened to be protected by an abnormally large ribcage. The bone had grown to such an extent that it had turned into an internal b.r.e.a.s.tplate!
Ketis missed her CFA greatsword. She believed her main weapon was sharp enough to cut through the bone!
The longer the battle dragged on, the more she began to experience the shortcomings of her weapon.
While her cutlass wasn't the shorted of bladed weapons, its lack of reach meant that she was forced to let many potential opportunities go. Her current weapon had never been designed to fight against opponents of this scale. How could she possibly know that she would end up fighting a transformed monster in the middle of a shrine of all places?
"GIVE UP, WOMAN." The monster roared as he continued, letting his rage fuel his impotent attacks. "I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HIT YOU ONCE, BUT HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP JUMPING AROUND? MY BLESSED BODY IS INEXHAUSTIBLE!"
Even though Ketis had undergone a couple of CFA gene optimization treatments, her genetically-modified body could never match the endurance of her freakish opponent!
In a battle of attrition, Ketis knew that she would definitely grow tired first.
Already, her strained body began to slow at some points. Xarnus became more energetic as he sensed his adversary's weakness.
"YOUR END IS INEVITABLE!"
Ketis didn't give up! She continued to exert herself and she kept launching exhausting attacks despite their apparent futility.
She would not go down without a fight!
As the two opponents danced across the hall, they fought past the toppled statue as Ketis continually had to retreat against the monster's furious offensive.
At one point, her foot stepped onto a broken armor piece. Ketis widened her eyes as her footing slipped.
She started to trip!
"HAHAHA! YOU ARE NO MATCH AGAINST MY BLESSED BODY!"
The monster exultingly charged forward with both of his claws.
However, just as his limbs pierced through Ketis' body, she stopped trying to remain upright. Instead, she purposefully fell and rolled through the huge monster's limbs!
Though Xarnus missed, his cruel eyes glinted as he attempted to push himself around. With his prey this close, he might easily be able to slay his elusive enemy!
Yet to his surprise, his clawed limbs failed to push against the floor.
Without his notice, his duel against the woman had actually moved him all the way to the hole in the floor!
"YOU TRICKED ME!" The mutated monster roared as his remaining forward momentum had not yet abated.
Crash!
The monster's clumsy forward attack had caused the front half of his body to land right over the edge of the large square hole!
Ketis wasn't done yet. After barely managing to roll from beneath the Grey Watcher's bulk, she rapidly turned and climbed to her footing before launching one final attack with all of her remaining strength.
She stabbed her cutlass forward in the most vulnerable rear end of her monstrous opponent!
One of the lessons her fellow Swordmaidens had taught was that no matter how strong of an exobeast she faced, targeting their orifices was always effective!
As she sung her cutlass deep into the soft flesh of her formidable foe, the mutated Grey Watcher released a pained cry unlike another!
At the same time, a reflex caused the monster to kick his hind limbs, causing him to inadvertently push the rest of his body through the hole!
"NOOOOOOOO!" The mutated monstrosity roared as the artificial gravity dragged his immense bulk through the tunnel!
The transformed cultist fell all the way down until he landed in a sea of half-processed nutrients!
He fell into the same huge vat that had already welcomed all of the other bodies that had fallen through the hole.
The monster may be strong, but he was not a swimmer! Soon enough, the Grey Watcher's mutated body became submerged under a complicated soup of ingredients.
Ketis pulled her head from the hole after confirming that the monster wasn't able to climb or fly his way out.
Even if the nutrient processing plant failed to kill the Grey Watcher, at least he was no longer able to threaten her life!
"Blessed body, huh?" She muttered as she distanced herself from the hole. "How many nutrient packs can you fill?"
