Chapter 107 - Escaping from Burial Grounds (x.x.xVII)
Editor: Kitty
The sniping failed!
Specter could not figure out why the sniping failed. It was clear that almost everything was within his calculations. As he had clearly seen through the telescope, he really had hit the target. However, he failed because after Clown fell to the ground, he was down for less than a minute, and afterwards, he got up in a daze. Specter even saw the bullet hole on his forehead, which proved that Specter’s sniping had not failed!
But the enemy was not dead!
Specter took the scope off from the sniper gun and looked through the lens, surprised.
Clown’s face had become even paler now. Clown’s makeup, which had already been a mess, was now stained with his dark red blood. He now looked like a devil that had crawled out from h.e.l.l.
Wait, his blood was dark red in colour?
That sticky, dark red blood did not look like a living human’s blood.
From the start when he saw this fellow, he had already been dead!
Specter suddenly realized this: Clown was dead! Precisely because he had died, he looked completely different from when he was alive. It was because he was dead that his actions could be easily controlled by others. Akin to a robot, he could only pa.s.sively accept orders. Moreover, because he was dead, his body was unbounded by human restraints. He did not have to worry about whether his body was able to bear such strain and attrition. Thus, he could possess inhuman reaction speed and power.
Such a fellow, how can I defeat him?!
Specter kept asking himself that. Since his sniping had failed, he had been exposed. During such a moment, it was both the best and worst choice for Specter to turn around and flee to survive. Because Specter knew how fast this guy was, he estimated that he could easily catch up with Specter and kill him.
However, looking through the scope, Specter found that Clown was not pursuing him. He just lowered his head to look at where Specter was, and then he turned his head and continued to walk up the spiral staircase.
Specter hesitated for a moment, reloaded, aimed at Clown, and shot again. If the other party did not intend to pursue him, Specter absolutely would not be polite either.
This time, the bullet shot his heart. Clown’s body froze for a moment, but he continued to ascend. Even if he was shot full of so many holes that he turned into a sieve, he would not stop walking!
Specter narrowed his eyes and fired two more shots. This time, he shot the other party’s leg joint. Specter felt that he would like to see how he could continue walking upwards seeing his leg bone was broken. Indeed, as he saw through the scope, Clown tilted and fell to the ground, but he soon got up and carried on walking like nothing had happened.
“F*ck his mother!” Specter threw away his sniping gun. He suddenly felt that he could not afford to waste his time here. This fool obviously did not take any notice of him. Even if Specter shot several holes into him, he would not stop for Specter and would not even bother looking at him.
Specter rea.s.sembled his sniper gun and turned it into a portable pistol. This time, he did not think of hiding himself and started to run up the spiral stairs. Clown, who was in front of him, lowered his head downward and found that Specter was chasing behind him. He actually didn’t want to hide himself any longer and started running!
Thus, in this manner, the duo consisting of Clown in front and Specter behind started a race as they madly rushed to compete in who would be the first to reach the finish point.
But nearing the end of the race, Specter found that Clown, who was in front of him, gradually slowed down. His limbs seemed to start to stiffen, making his speed slow, so soon after, Specter gradually kept up with Clown’s pace and began to prepare himself to surpa.s.s the other.
After all, he was just the walking dead.
It was easy for Specter to guess why Clown’s speed slowed down. Generally speaking, after an animal died, the corpse would undergo a stage of postmortem stiffness. At first, the body would gradually become cold and lose its normal temperature, and a phenomenon of muscle relaxation would occur. Within one to three hours of death, the corpse would begin to stiffen, and in four to six hours, the stiffness will spread throughout the body.
This rigidity of the body would affect the corpse the most 12 to 24 hours after death but would gradually cease after 24 hours.
It was impossible for Specter to know the exact time of Clown’s death, but he estimated that it must have been more than three hours ago. That was to say, this guy had begun to undergo rigor mortis. The other party’s blue skin and the brown spots on his neck once again confirmed Specter’s conjecture that this fool was really a corpse.
And I actually can’t even beat a corpse?
Specter gritted his teeth in silently, but he did not dare to be careless. He got closer to Clown, who was in front of him. They were only a few meters away from one another. Clown also realized that he was being tailed. He suddenly stopped and turned his head to look at Specter.
As soon as the other party turned his head, Specter was startled by him.
The makeup on Clown’s face had been completely covered by his dark red blood, and his pair of black irises had morphed into a greyish-white colour, which was particularly frightening. Specter trembled for a moment, drew out his gun, aimed at Clown in front of him, and approached him step by step.
After his death, Clown’s body began to stiffen. His muscles also stiffened, and if he forcibly moved his body, it would certainly not be as flexible as before. In other words, this seemingly terrifying enemy would lose the advantage of his prowess in close combat and would not counterattack well against Specter’s attack.
For Specter, this was an opportunity. Even if Clown wouldn’t completely die due to some special power maintaining his life, during his rigid stage, Specter could push him down the spiral staircase, and his body would be so stiff that he couldn’t move even if he wanted to, let alone climb up.
“Do you think you won?”
To Specter’s dismay, Clown actually spoke. The muscles on his face seemed stiff, and his lips did not seem to move when he spoke.
Not only that, but Specter also found that this fool was actually talking like a normal person, which was quite different from the robot-like reaction before.
But what about it? Specter responded with a grim smile: “It doesn’t matter whether you win or lose as long as you are not given leeway to turn the tables around. At the end of the day, you’re just a walking corpse.”
“Death… It’s just the beginning.” Clown twisted his stiff facial muscles and reluctantly showed a smile, and accompanied by the bloodstain on his face, he appeared more horrifying.
“Then you can scram to h.e.l.l and start a new life again!” Specter subconsciously just wanted to pull the trigger of his pistol. He knew that the inertia of the bullet was enough to make this fool fall down the stairs, and he gauged that he would not be able to climb up for a long time.
But Specter did not expect that Clown still possessed such terrifying reflexes at this moment!
Obviously, his body had stiffened, but he still could still suddenly pounce on Specter! His strength was extremely huge and his speed was extraordinarily fast. Suddenly, he pressed himself onto Specter’s body and reached out to choke his throat.
Clown was very strong. Because he was a corpse, he could forcibly utilize his muscles and bones without restrictions. He did not have to worry about the wear and tear of his body. What he was unable to do when he was living could all be done when he died.
Specter was caught off guard when he was choked, and suddenly his vision turned black. He took his gun out, aimed it toward the enemy, and made several shots at the enemy’s chest, but he failed to bring Clown down. Clown was extremely calm when he pressed down on Specter tightly, and his fingers gradually used more and more strength.
Specter was suffocating, and his brain was short of oxygen. He couldn’t breathe as his neck was strangled, and he almost felt that his neck was about to break. However, he was worthy of being t.i.tled the oracle. Even at this critical moment, Specter did not forget to fight back. He grabbed Clown’s clothes and placed the muzzle of the pistol on Clown’s forehead.
Clown completely ignored the other party’s attack. He had previously been shot in the head by Specter’s sniping gun, but that did not kill him. Therefore, for Clown, even if he did not have a head, he could still exaggeratedly move.
But Specter seemingly felt that victory was within his grasp. Even though he had been choked to the point where he felt his eyes would fall out, he still gave a grim grin and squeezed out a few words from between his teeth: “Go—to—h.e.l.l!”
Similarly, he pulled the trigger.
Specter’s weapon was a gun that could be converted into different forms. Naturally, his bullets could also transform into different forms. He was known for collecting various kinds of bullets such as armor-piercing bullets, dumdums, and even biochemical bullets that carried special viruses.
This kind of bullet was obtained in a special secret chamber in which he found a society that took on a form and possessed technological developments completely different than current modern-day society.
Plainly speaking, Specter saw another civilization in that chamber.
And this bullet was obtained from that civilization. When the bullet entered an organism, a special virus would start to spread within the host. This would cause any kind of creature to collapse and disintegrate in just a few seconds. In short, the whole human body would start to disintegrate, and the body would melt and turn into a pool of blood.
It was a terrifying bullet because even if one was just grazed by it, it could quickly invade the body and make one die in a horrifying manner.
Specter had never used it since he got it because it was rare and precious; he only had one bullet.
But no matter how precious the bullet was, it was not more important than one’s own life.
As he expected, Clown screamed and turned into a pool of blood. As Clown melted, Specter was able to free himself of Clown’s arm in a hurry. He fled far away from him because the virus of the biochemical bullet was infectious. If he got too close, Specter himself would be affected. Fortunately, the virus would only survive in the air for less than a minute.
Seeing that the enemy had disappeared in front of him, Specter could not help but breathe a sigh of relief. He stepped over the pool of blood and continued to climb up the stairs. Maybe he was choked too hard by Clown, causing his neck to be badly bruised, but he could not speak. But Specter’s mood was somehow better. He felt that the exit was not that far away from him.
As Specter approached the exit gradually, Luo Jian was thrown off the tall tree by the G.o.d. He struggled desperately when he fell and grasped a vine to slow his fall. When he thought that he had escaped from a disaster, the G.o.d jumped down with him and floated in front of Luo Jian.
The G.o.d was obviously ill-intentioned and insisted on making Luo Jian fall to his death, but at this time, Feng Yulan and Duan Li climbed up. Seeing this scene, they naturally rushed to rescue Luo Jian, but they were too far away from him. So when the G.o.d plucked out the vines, Luo Jian immediately continued to fall downward again. The trees and vines on the ground were like a giant woven net, waiting to welcome Luo Jian.
At about the same time, Specter quickly climbed to the top of the spiral staircase. He saw a pitch-black hole in front of him. Outside the hole was a world of darkness and primal chaos.
It was the exit!
Specter was excited, but he hesitated. He was not sure whether this was the real exit. What if it was just a trap? He thought of the strange boy who had saved his life for no reason at all; the other party vanished into thin air and told Clown to find the exit in front of Specter. This was very strange because it seemed that he had purposely done so.
Specter stood in front of the dark hole and thought for a while. He could not help but get closer to observe it. He almost reached out to touch the darkness, but just as he raised his hand, Specter heard a voice from behind him
“I said—death is just the beginning.”
As soon as he heard the sound, Specter suddenly felt a pain travelling from his back. He could clearly feel that there was a slender blade stabbing into his body from his back, and it felt like the blade had penetrated his heart.
A hand was placed on Specter’s shoulder, and Specter looked at it blankly and found that it was Clown, who had turned into a pool of blood moments ago. He had reappeared, and he looked horrifying. Half of Clown’s body remained in a liquid state, and he was in a state of continuous restructuring and liquifying. In short, he seemed like those… people who were experiencing continuous resurrection while experiencing continuous death.
“You…” Specter only had time to spit out this word before blood spurted out from his throat, and his consciousness began to blur in an instant. However, Specter still refused to compromise. He tried his best to step forward, wanting to step into the dark hole. As long as he was the first to escape, his team would be able to win, and he could gain new life.
But Clown easily grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. With such a light push, Specter fell on the ground. He did not know what Clown had done to him. He had just experienced a mere stab in the back, but the knife had penetrated his heart, and as a result, Specter felt his heart aching. Yet he did not know how to describe such a horrifying feeling.
He needed to get out of here quickly. He needed to be faster……
Specter laid on the ground and raised his head, but Clown, who was standing next to him, had already slowly dragged himself into the pitch-black exit. Specter watched as the primal chaos devoured Clown’s figure, and it appeared just a b.l.o.o.d.y mouth of a beast… that chose to gobble him up.
T/N: Countdown: 0
And…everything unresolved in this arc will be explained in later arcs~! Tomorrow’s chapter will be the start of a new arc~