Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
In the room that had been reduced to shambles, Klein, whose top hat had fallen to the side and clothes had become tattered, was about four meters away from Kircheis, who was a behemoth with bat wings. The situation was so quiet, as though a puppet show was being played.
In fact, Klein still had the means to do something else.
Back when Marionettist Rosago forcefully controlled both him and Sharron, he could resist the Wraith’s possession and use Flame Controlling to summon a flame to destroy the shadow pulled in by Sharron. If he hadn’t made a serious mistake by targeting the Sequence 5 Wraith, Rosago could’ve diverted his attention to killing Klein, snuffing out any chance of him using the Language of Foulness charm. Now, although Klein was definitely inferior to him, there was also only one enemy!
Of course, there wasn’t really much he could do. Under the premise of not losing control over Kircheis, he could move, but he couldn’t do it too hastily or quickly. He could use Beyonder powers which didn’t expend too much of his spirituality, but he couldn’t divert his attention to power the mystical items he carried, or use actions that required too much movement like drawing a gun.
And when a target was controlled to a certain extent, several attacks could nudge or stimulate the target, allowing them to resist the control of their Spirit Body Threads to a greater extent and even show signs of escaping from his control.
Therefore, Klein had to wait.
At that moment, his heart rate suddenly sped up as an uncontrollable sense of horror and anxiety surfaced in his mind.
He couldn’t help but suspect that Kircheis’s companions who had their intentions affected by Distortion were about to return!
No good! My emotions have been stirred! Klein was first taken aback as he tried to use Cogitation to forcefully calm his agitated heart.
Haha… He has… emotional stirrings… A chance… Kircheis was delighted as a slow thought flashed through his mind.
Then, using his Beyonder powers, he attempted to magnify Gehrman Sparrow’s horror and anxiety, planting an emotional seed in him.
As long as he succeeded, all he needed was to completely “trigger” it, maiming his opponent, making him unable to influence him further!
No… How can it… be ineffective… His… emotional stirrings… have disappeared… Kircheis’s bloodshot eyes constricted slowly as it was gradually filled with shock, alarm, and anger.
Klein, who imagined that he had given the Desire Apostle a chance to counterattack, discovered that nothing had happened after completely calming himself down. The curled goat horns on Kircheis’s head were ignited, but he didn’t attempt to use his emotional stirrings!
Moments after having this thought, Klein roughly understood the situation.
It wasn’t that Kircheis didn’t wish to control his horror and anxiety, but it was that he had failed!
From the moment he sensed the emotional stirrings, he had to take a few seconds to digest the situation before using two to three seconds to make the decision. Finally, he spent even more time to organize his thoughts before channeling the corresponding Beyonder powers. All of that took him at least ten seconds to complete.
Klein only took a total of three to four seconds to calm his mind after detecting the problem.
Therefore, Kircheis’s Beyonder powers naturally failed to be effective against an enemy who was in normal condition.
To put it simply, the delay was too long! Under such situations, don’t try to fiddle around with highly intricate matters… Klein lampooned before suppressing his sense of schadenfreude.
After another ten seconds, Kircheis finally understood the source of the problem. He no longer considered targeting desires and emotions, and instead, while flapping the bat wings on his back with great difficulty, he relied on a Devil’s powerful body and Spirit Body to resist the control stemming from the Spirit Body Threads. He tried to make the swirling light blue flames slowly coagulate into a fireball.
Klein could almost foresee fireballs bombard him; hence, he didn’t hesitate to split off some of his spirituality, snapping his fingers using his right thumb and middle finger.
Pa!
The light blue flames suddenly soared before they truly took form and collapsed completely. They were like fireworks blooming behind Kircheis.
Magician’s Flame Controlling!
Kircheis continued struggling, but his actions became even slower as he resembled a rusting puppet. As for Klein, he casually moved his feet to dodge the Devil language Kircheis had launched with all his strength.
Three seconds, two seconds, one second… Klein suddenly stopped as his eyes locked onto Kircheis’s head which had lost its curved goat horns.
At that moment, he still needed two and a half minutes from controlling this Desire Apostle to turn him into his marionette, but Klein didn’t have such plans. He never had such plans in the first place!
It took too much time, allowing Kircheis’s companions to rush back in time!
Klein only had one ultimate goal—it was to control Kircheis to a certain extent so that attacks within a certain limit wouldn’t help him escape his predicament!
The bloodshot eyes, grimacing expression, and sharp teeth with drooling saliva reflected in Klein’s eyes. He opened his mouth and said a word, “Bang!”
Air Bullet! An Air Bullet of a Sequence 5!
This was already comparable to a bullet shot from a steam rifle!
Bang!
The Air Bullet accurately hit Kircheis’s forehead, causing him to throw up his head, yanking the Spirit Body Threads.
In between his brows, a bloody hole that wasn’t too deep had appeared. It wasn’t a mortal blow.
To a Devil, a Desire Apostle, their bodies seemed to be cloaked with thick and hard armor. Their blood and flesh had extreme elasticity and defensive strength.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Klein kept creating Air Bullets while making gunshot sounds, striking Kircheis’s forehead, again and again, slowly leaving it a contiguous mess. At the same time, he stably controlled the Spirit Body Threads to prevent him from using the feedback to weaken his influence.
Kircheis let out an angry stuttering roar as he tried moving forward in a bid to counterattack, but Klein was a lot more agile than him!
And his plans to liquefy undoubtedly failed because of the control of the Spirit Body Threads.
Bang!
Another Air Bullet struck Kircheis, completely shattering his forehead, penetrating his brain.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The subsequent bullets flew in, one bullet after another.
Bang!
Kircheis’s skull was finally sent flying as black crevices filled his brain. At that moment it was a complete mess.
The aura of this Slaughterer worth 9,500 pounds quickly dissipated, but he didn’t close his eyes, as he had already lost them.
Bit by bit, he collapsed to the ground slowly as Klein walked over and extended his left hand.
Two blood-red eyes split open in the middle of the glove.
A cold and eerie wind appeared as Slaughterer Kircheis’s Spirit Body, as well as his black fog-like Beyonder characteristic shot towards Creeping Hunger amidst screams before fixing itself to a blank finger.
Soon, the glove turned black once again, but this time it was profound and pure, resembling countless squirming dots of the same color formed one layer after another.
Klein sensed the changes for two seconds before walking towards the shattered window, feeling somewhat disappointed and also somewhat delighted.
When Grazing Kircheis, he had actually considered which Beyonder powers he wished to receive and which he didn’t wish to receive. The one he didn’t wish for was the danger premonition of a Devil, as this needed to have Creeping Hunger constantly activated while maintaining Kircheis’s soul. And this meant that he needed to feed the glove every day, which spelled an extreme inconvenience for himself. Furthermore, this also overlapped with his powers as a Seer to a certain extent.
As for whether the danger premonition of a Devil worked after making it into his marionette, Klein believed that it was targeted on the marionette and had nothing to do with its controller.
What Klein wished for the most was to “draw” the Desire Apostle’s Beyonder powers of using a target’s emotional stirrings or the use of any of the Language of Foulness, with the best being Death or Corruption.
At that moment, he had been quite lucky to obtain three Beyonder powers. One of them was Language of Foulness, but it wasn’t Death or Corruption, but Slow. This allowed all targets in a seven-to eight-meter radius to instantly turn numb or even come to a halt. However, it could only be maintained for two seconds.
The second Beyonder power was Sword of Lava. It could create a flaming sword with extremely high offensive power. One strike could directly cleave through a thick stone column, leaving the sliced off end to appear to be melted off. This was the option Kircheis had used when he attacked maniacally.
The third was Sulfur Fireball. Not only could it create an explosion of considerable might, but it could also poison people and objects which had been stained by the flames. If matched with a Devil form’s powers, ten to twenty fireballs could be launched at the same instance. Out of that form, it maxed out at three.
That’s not bad. The damage delivered by Sword of Lava to non-undead or non-corrupt creatures is clearly higher than the Priest of Light’s Light of Holiness… Klein came to the window and happened to see the backs of Kircheis’s companions opening up a distance from him.
They haven’t shaken off the influence? No, with so much time having passed, they must’ve shaken off the influence and returned somewhere nearby. Now, they’re escaping? They sensed Kircheis’s death? That’s a little weird… Klein turned his head back and saw Kircheis’s corpse still in his Devil form. His form didn’t change back into a human as a result of his death.
He looked at the corpse for two seconds before coming up with a theory.
“Powers like the Devil form are a state that brings a body close to the state of losing control. However, they still have their reasoning and can change back while they’re in control. Otherwise, they will maintain their forms.”
Klein didn’t delay as he searched the Devil’s corpse. He discovered that Kircheis’s gigantification had torn all his clothes and pants, causing his wallet and cash to scatter across the ground. Later, they were all destroyed due to the blanketing attack from the fireballs and sulfurous flames.
“…” Just as Klein looked away, he suddenly discovered something twinkling in the giant Devil’s chest.
It was a thin and long crystal formed purely of blood. A faint smell of sulfur emanated around it.
“What’s that?” Klein frowned, unable to figure out an answer.
Kircheis’s Beyonder characteristics has clearly entered Creeping Hunger. Why would his corpse produce something strange? A question flashed across Klein’s mind.
Furthermore, as the second mate of the King of Immortality, Kircheis didn’t even carry a mystical item or Sealed Artifact. This had exceeded his expectations.
