Deep in the Living
Chapter 355 - 343 Flash

Chapter 355: Chapter 343 Flash

The end of the hotel’s first floor.

A large number of living maggots crawled out from the room,

toward the door where the body was completely smashed into minced meat, each piece still growing small Iron Pillar fragments, with even the human form no longer present, and the entire head was pulverized.

These living maggots continued to gnaw at the minced meat, trying not to leave even a bit of residue.

Agatha, wearing a metal mask, had steam continuously gushing from between the metal pistons on her back.

She was riding atop this shattered corpse, not satisfied even with all the minced meat, still staring intently at every piece of flesh.

Not only that.

Agatha’s metal left arm was inexplicably missing; the wound looked as if it had been twisted off by something alive, quite dramatically.

Holding the Plague Staff, Calen, wearing a guild robe, stood ten meters away in the passage.

His chest had five varying depth holes, seemingly pierced through by fingers. Fortunately, the internal Hardened Tumor Crystal blocked it, narrowly avoiding damage to the Tumor Core.

He did not pay attention to the corpse at all.

Instead, he used his eyes and the staff’s eye to observe the surroundings with a 360° view, especially the passage behind him.

Strangely,

though the target had been crushed into minced meat, Calen displayed a type of unease. It was his most unsettled moment since leaving the lighthouse, even more than encountering ancestors, because he could not comprehend the current situation, a first for him.

The passage on the first floor of the hotel was left with only Agatha’s breathing.

As this breathing slowed, the first floor gradually became silent.

Though nothing was seen, though the environment had no material activity.

Snap!

The sound of the shutter rang out, a flash appeared before the two, strong and stimulating.

As the glow ended,

Agatha remained in her position, her arm still broken, but the minced meat corpse beneath her had completely vanished.

Yet she was not surprised, as if this had already occurred once before.

"Calen! Did you see that?"

Agatha’s question received no response. She suddenly turned her head, pupils dilating.

The man who should have been utterly crushed was somehow standing behind Calen, already tearing off his own entire head, waving towards Agatha.

However,

having his head twisted off, Calen seemed to have anticipated this conclusion.

He had preemptively embedded a Hell Spell within himself, activating it upon suffering severe injury, rendering his flesh unstable.

Whether the head grasped by the man or his body, all burst with light,

using the flesh as a lead,

a small-scale plague explosion,

the powerful thrust causing Tumor Crystals within him to shoot out like shrapnel grenades towards the surroundings.

The nearest man was instantaneously shredded by the explosion, his body further hacked into chunks by the scattered Tumor Crystals, landing in the passage and nearby guest rooms.

One piece symbolizing Calen’s core shot farthest, landing precisely in the hotel’s counter area, connecting with the owner’s corpse.

Representative of the Hell Item, the Tumor Crystal rapidly sucked in the remains of the owner’s corpse, super-fast reproduction, burgeoning with clusters constructing Calen’s embodiment.

The staff and robe lying in the passage flew over autonomously.

Yet such self-detonation and complete regeneration greatly diminished his vitality, and many Tumor Crystals within had already lost their usual luster.

Even though his body had not fully formed, Calen constructed a mouth first and provided critical information.

"There is no photographer, there is no light source... the flash seems forcibly appearing within our vision."

Agatha offered an opinion: "Try closing your eyes?"

Calen shook his head, "It’s useless, closing eyes merely covers the surface of the eyeball with a biological structure. Since the flash can appear directly in our visual field, closing eyes is of no significance.

We can only try this..."

Saying so, Calen reached into the lower end of his eye socket, his intention clear.

Agatha didn’t hesitate either,

even a moment’s hesitation in facing this scenario might lead to death.

Both simultaneously reached into their eye sockets, severing the eyeballs and connected nerves inside.

Agatha completed this naturally, such pain was negligible, after the incident she could find a way to regenoptically reconstruct using metal.

Calen, the strongest in regeneration among Tumor Citizens, accomplished this easily too.

However, due to his work at the lighthouse, cultivated by Lord Eye, he was most dependent on ocular visual. With complete severance of optic nerves, he plunged into an unsettling darkness.

Both had their sight completely stripped, using other means to perceive their surroundings.

The next step was to quietly await the opponent’s total death, hoping the flash would not reappear.

Meanwhile,

they slowly drew closer to each other in the darkness, back to back.

Time ticked by,

the flash had yet to come, surpassing the last occurrence’s duration.

"Did that guy really die this time?"

Just as Agatha posed the question,

Snap!

The shutter sound clicked near their ears.

Upon hearing this sound with the eyes stripped, a potent primitive emotion swiftly spread within their thoughts, the defense of their minds steadily dismantled.

Followed by,

the flash directly appeared in their thoughts.

It seemed it had never been a visual issue, but something deeper. As the flash appeared, Calen shouted one word, "Run!"

He rapidly reformed his eyeballs, restoring his most reliant visual sense.

Now positioned in the lobby at the first floor, the hotel entrance was right ahead.

With one stride he dashed out of the counter, pushed open the door, and plunged into the rainy night.

Yet Agatha didn’t flee, she stuffed the metallic eyeball back into her socket, using internal metal linkages to swiftly restore sight.

As the Hell Monk, as the Iron Pillar Nun, she represented the external forces of the Great Monastery, unable to retreat before sinners, even if it meant dying here.

But upon regaining visual, scanning around her.

Although the man’s exploded corpse had vanished, his appearance was not in sight.

"Where did he go?"

Agatha extended metallic wires from her left arm’s wound, regenerating her broken metallic arm... Her body was special, regenerating a high-purity metallic arm required much energy and proceeded slowly.

Ring ring ring!

Suddenly, the welcome bell chimed.

The hotel door pushed inward,

a pair of pink soft shoes stepped in,

a gentlemanly man wearing lipstick and glasses walked into the hotel, smilingly gazing at Agatha in the counter.

"The rain outside is so heavy, can you offer me a warm room?"

Though ordinary words, they utterly broke Agatha’s defenses, intense Fear engulfing her mind, unable to respond, even forgetting to swing the iron rod.

Next,

the man rummaged through his snug pants pocket, fished out a gray Tumor Crystal silver coin, pressing it onto the table.

Perhaps pressing too hard, the Tumor Crystal shattered instantly.

"Oops, sorry~ broke it, can I credit the amount and pay tomorrow?"

Gazing at the shattered Tumor Crystal, a surge of anger temporarily overcame the Fear, Agatha violently swung her right arm, slamming the iron rod.

However...

Snap!

With the pause brought on by the Fear erosion, the man had removed the camera from his neck and snapped a frontal shot of her.

Synced with the photo, her movement completely prohibited.

"I’ve wasted too much time on you, and frankly, the metal now on your body doesn’t interest me, turning originally soft, delicate skin into hardness. Truly disappointing... time to seek my real target.

Wu Wen should be here, right? Gone to great lengths to lure me here, thought there was a trap, only to find the ones lying in ambush were still a bunch of trash."

The man strode into the counter area with his pink shoes, stood behind Agatha.

Rolled up his sleeves, set down the lower one, prepared to conduct his unique execution, one tailored to satisfy his peculiarity.

Just as he was about to act,

Thud!

Thud!

Thud!

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the staircase,

the enormous noise seemed to stomp directly onto the man’s heart, forcing him to halt his action, gather the photograph, and glance sideways at the stairway.

A pair of size 45 gigantic shoes stepped into view.

Meanwhile,

the man detected an unfamiliar scent not belonging here,

"Huh? How come a fellow came along with me here?"