Chapter 85: The Nameless One

“Buy me some time!”

Amano Daishi exhaled a breath of hot air, his whole body rippling as the temperature around him surged. His long blade slid from its sheath, erupting in crimson flames exceeding two thousand degrees. With a fierce shout, a massive golden shield phantom leapt from Samuel’s shield, pushing back all the human swine.

The self-proclaimed General Yuanmeng lifted his elephantine leg and, with a casual swing, sent the defending paladin flying like a shattered golden weight, smashing him into the wall, suffering the same fate as Adonsa.

Daishi’s blade paused, barely exposed, his brow drenched in sweat, his right hand trembling as he wrestled with some unseen force. He exhaled sharply, his voice laced with murderous resolve, drawing his blade in a horizontal arc—a classic draw-cut technique.

“Wild Crow!”

This blade art, born from assassination techniques and transformed by supernatural power, unleashed a terrifying destructive force. The arc of fire, hot enough to melt stone, swept out like a wild bird, unstoppable. It cleared not only the human swine but also melted stone, casting a dark red glow.

Yuanmeng roared, his massive hands clapping together, grasping the fiery blade as if it were a small bird. After a brief moment of stiffness, a violent explosion blasted Yuanmeng’s hands to ash, though the attack lacked the power to cleave him in two.

The human swine behind scrambled onto Yuanmeng’s body, melting willingly into him. In moments, his shattered hands regrew anew. Daishi, exhausted, protested bitterly, “No, it’s not enough, not enough!”

He seemed intent on unleashing another attack beyond his limits, gripping the hilt with a trembling right hand. But Su Jin pressed his hand, preventing him from drawing.

“Wait, this isn’t our fight.”

Rubble fell as Adonsa, previously thrown aside, rejoined the battle. Its delay wasn’t due to confusion, but rather a brief self-modification. Its patchwork body needed only a shift in modular structure to spawn a new combat variant. Now, the chimera had shed organs designed for fighting pulse-users, saving energy for an even greater muscular burst.

—

From the darkness emerged a wolf-beast shaped like an arrowhead, shoulders and head splitting open into sharp, gaping maws, its body radiating explosive agility. Adonsa crushed the earth with a paw, its charge like a fully loaded truck, smashing Yuanmeng back into the cavern from which he’d emerged.

The cave’s depths spanned a space as vast as a football field, countless human swine slumbering within. As the battle intensified, they stirred faster.

The human swine attacked relentlessly, harrying Adonsa and sacrificing themselves to fuse with Yuanmeng, enlarging the black giant as if a human were beating a wild dog. Yet, Adonsa, having chosen this form, refused to face off directly. Yuanmeng’s attacks were deftly dodged—despite its several-ton weight, Adonsa moved like a wild beast, seizing every opening for primal assault.

Three giant lamprey-like jaws tore chunks of black, twitching flesh from Yuanmeng, leaving him no time to repair. His massive body grew clumsy from the missing pieces. One wolf maw expanded grotesquely, its corners splitting to the shoulders, biting off half of Yuanmeng’s bear-like waist, tearing black fibers and exposing writhing human swine, who emitted dull hisses.

Yuanmeng’s entire existence was the sum of countless human swine forming a single personality.

Samuel, blood at the corner of his mouth, stared in astonishment at the two titans brawling before him, feeling so small he might be crushed in an instant.

“God, what kind of nightmare mission is this?”

Su Jin bit her lip. “No wonder the task requirements are so simple—just a bit of flesh or blood. Surviving here must be the real challenge!”

Yuanmeng, unfazed, smashed down with his fist. Adonsa withdrew, dodging and spewing flames again. This time, not only methane—Adonsa added an accelerant, causing the fire’s temperature to soar to two thousand degrees. Even the human swine could not withstand such heat.

Yuanmeng writhed, roared, and raged in the searing white flames, but was ultimately reduced to ashes, unable to regenerate.

But the human swine nest within the cave erupted in chaos. More and more awoke, once again merging into humanoid forms. From the depths came Yuanmeng’s chilling roar: “I am the Right General of the Black Death Emperor’s Army! I am immortal! Whoever you are, whatever your purpose, you have committed a capital crime! Die! Die! Die!”

A single stone stirred a thousand waves. Countless human swine bellowed “Die!” in a cacophony, their sonic assault laced with aggressive Delta waves, forcing the four outside the nest to clutch their ears in pain.

With so many human swine, Adonsa’s fuel was nowhere near enough to destroy them.

Adonsa stood like a reef at the tip of the storm, gazing at the overwhelming tide of human swine, then suddenly his body collapsed.

—

His monstrous skin shed effortlessly, Adonsa’s core essence oozed out in violet jelly from eye sockets, mouth, ears, and other openings.

Several tons of purple jelly spilled over the ground, even defying gravity as it climbed the walls.

Human swine charging forward stepped onto the thin layer of essence, sinking as if into a swamp, struggling briefly before dissolving without a trace. The essence expanded imperceptibly.

Adonsa had completely decoded the unique plant cell structure of the human swine. Simply activating the surface glycoprotein receptors triggered a chain reaction, dissolving the entire organism.

Although the human swine could evolve to constantly change their receptor configurations, against Adonsa’s immense computational power, it was hardly more difficult than cracking military-grade passwords.

It could only be said that the Qilin Legion, crafted personally by the Black Death Emperor, was defeated by the limitations of its era.

Barely a centimeter thick, the essence was like a bottomless abyss, devouring every human swine who set foot upon it, steadily expanding its territory.

The essence’s fluorescent purple gradually claimed a corner of the human swine nest, a surreal, dreamlike glow banishing the darkness.

Moreover, the essence emitted Delta waves akin to hypnosis, numbing the entire human swine network’s personality models and luring them back into Adonsa’s embrace.

“Invaders, you will not pass, you will not disturb His Majesty! I am the Qilin General—”

Yuanmeng roared, growing weaker and weaker.

The human swine, though tenacious in life, were singular in attack. Faced with the sea of essence, their perfect counter, they could not fight back.

Yuanmeng manifested as a giant once more, even larger and more robust, stomping so hard the ground shook, stalactites falling and stabbing into the sea of essence.

The giant swung his arms, churning the essence into billowing waves, yet he could not prevent the essence from stripping chunks of human swine from his body.

“Come, come, come—”

Adonsa’s hypnotic waves easily shattered the feeble wills among the human swine, utterly consuming them.

Yuanmeng’s ankles dissolved, forcing him to his knees. He hammered the ground with his fist, splattering more essence onto himself. Beneath the stripped muscle, a vast expanse of purple had already appeared.