Margaret was the first to charge in.
The swarm of insects actively parted to form a path before her. Lake’s Swarming Worms avoided the area within half a meter of her, unwilling to come into contact with the aura emanating from her body.
She raised her right hand, palm forward, fingers slightly curled. Her movements were casual, no different from when she would pick up items from the shelves in the branch’s warehouse.
In the next moment, the moisture in the entire area was forcibly torn away.
The humidity within the workshop ruins, the dampness in the cracks of the walls, the water in the muddy ground, and the last traces of mist in the air were all violently stripped away in the same instant, dragged toward Margaret’s palm. Even a thread of the bodily fluids seeping from the gaps in Nine’s carapace was siphoned off.
The black liquid around J bore the brunt of the effect.
The pitch-black torrent pouring from his body suddenly collapsed as she raised her hand. The water was pulled directly from the black water; without its medium, the liquid thickened and dried rapidly, its volume decreasing by more than half within a few breaths.
J tried to replenish it, but the new liquid was dispersed before it could even take shape.
J’s expression darkened. The medium for his black water was, indeed, water. She was competing with him for the same resource, and her method was devoid of any finesse—she was simply using overwhelming power to swallow every drop of moisture within range.
The humidity in the air had dropped so low that he could feel his skin tightening, and the black water he condensed happened to be the most concentrated source of water in the vicinity.
Staying at range would be suicide.
J did not retreat.
He withdrew the black liquid spread out in the distance, pulling it all back to his side and compressing it, wrapping it around his arms and torso to form a layer of flowing black armor-membrane.
The liquid on his surface no longer spread outward; instead, it spun at high speed against his skin, locking all the remaining moisture inside.
Then, he lunged forward.
Lowering his center of gravity, he kicked off from the black water beneath his feet, hurtling straight toward Margaret.
The black armor-membrane on his right arm condensed into the shape of a short blade during his sprint, its pitch-black surface shimmering with a moist luster.
If he couldn't win at range, he would fight up close. Siphoning water required distance and time; she wouldn't be so composed once he was on top of her.
As for Margaret, the moisture she drew in was not wasted.
The massive amount of water vapor and liquid surging into her palm did not dissipate. A pale blue film of water rapidly spread from her palm up her forearm to her elbow and shoulder, its density and flow speed climbing swiftly.
Something was taking shape inside the water film. The outline was still unclear, but its volume continued to expand. A salty, briny scent spread from her entire body, so thick that the air itself became viscous.
She was still siphoning, with no intention of stopping.
Kraus and the attendant moved almost simultaneously.
The dark green light on the bone sword flared. Two afterimages lunged from behind Kraus, one after the other, forming a three-way pincer movement with the original body against Nine.
The attendant cut in from the right flank, his narrow-bladed longsword fully unsheathed. Purple light enveloped the blade as the tip pointed directly at the site of Nine’s old rib wound.
Nine did not retreat.
He released his aura completely, so intense that a greyish-white luster appeared on the surface of his carapace. The thickness of his entire armor suddenly nearly doubled, and a new layer of carapace was forced over the wound on his ribs.
Crossing his arms, he aimed the bladed edges of his carapace in two directions—his left arm meeting Kraus’s bone sword and his right arm parrying the attendant’s narrow blade.
The bone sword hacked into the left arm’s carapace, the collision of green light and greyish-white surface sending fragments flying. Power surged through the blade, and Nine’s feet dragged deep furrows into the ground. The purple sword struck almost at the same time, its tip sinking half an inch into the right arm’s carapace. Purple light scorched the surface along the wound, leaving a ring of charred marks.
Nine held his ground. With his physical power fully exerted in a desperate defense, the two impact points on the greyish-white carapace groaned.
But he knew he couldn't hold out for long. Kraus’s two afterimages remained poised behind him, waiting to exploit an opening. The attendant’s purple light continued to burn, penetrating faster and faster.
More critically, the vibration from the impact had already caused fine cracks to appear in the new carapace covering his old wound. The residue of the crystalline erosion inside throbbed with pain, the cracks widening with every ounce of strength he exerted.
Jie moved.
The moment she stood up from the ruins, her body began to contort.
Her spine bulged along her back, the muffled sound of shifting bones echoing from beneath her skin. The outline of her shoulder blades expanded rapidly, and her originally thin torso swelled in size within seconds.
The crystalline scars Kraus had left on half of her face stretched and cracked during the expansion, and dark red blood seeped from the fissures. She didn't even flinch.
The expansion continued. Her limbs grew thick, her knuckles lengthened, and the angles of her joints began to deviate from the human norm.
Something writhed beneath her skin as her muscle fibers twisted into patterns that shouldn't exist in a human body. Bulges rose across the surface of her swollen torso as a second skeleton began to stretch her flesh from within.
Every bone displacement was accompanied by a wet, sickening crack. A greyish-white slime with a faint, briny scent seeped from the cracks in her skin.
With this still-transforming body, Jie lunged toward the flank of Kraus and the attendant.
Nine was already at his limit facing the two of them head-on, the cracks on his carapace expanding rapidly. Jie’s timing in cutting in from the diagonal rear was perfect. Her swollen left arm swept toward the attendant’s back with a level of power completely different from the wounded person who had been gasping in the corner earlier.
The attendant sensed the change in the aura behind him. He withdrew his narrow-bladed longsword from Nine’s carapace and parried behind him. The purple light collided with Jie’s swollen limb, and the attendant skidded back half a step.
With the attendant pulled away by Jie, only Kraus remained pressing down on Nine. The cracks on Nine’s carapace were still there, but he finally had a moment to breathe as a thin layer of greyish-white luster reconsolidated.
Kraus didn't seem to be in a hurry. He even sent one of his afterimages to strike at an opening on Nine’s right side, while the other remained poised, keeping an eye on Jie.
On the other side.
The two hooded Nightwatchers had detached themselves from behind Kraus the moment the chaotic battle began, not participating in the frontal assault.
They stepped onto the carpet of insects Lake had spread across the ground, moving toward the flank. The bugs actively made way for their feet before closing back up, swallowing their forms into the writhing grey mass.
The entire area was covered by Lake’s swarm. As the two moved through the insects, they blended into the crawling mass, their auras completely masked.
They circled to J’s rear flank. J was currently in a close-quarters exchange with Margaret, his attention entirely on the woman who was siphoning his moisture. When the two hooded figures silently emerged from the insect carpet, they were already less than three paces behind J.
Q arrived before they could strike.
Black liquid surged silently from the cracks in the stone floor, bringing with it a cloying rot-sweet scent. The liquid converged at an incredible speed, coalescing into a humanoid form the instant before the hooded pair could reach their positions, blocking the path between them and J.
Even after Q solidified, the liquid did not settle. Black liquid constantly seeped from and was reabsorbed by the surface of his skin. With every reabsorption, countless tiny particles vaguely surfaced beneath the liquid, writhing slowly and occasionally causing small bumps to rise and fall on the surface.
There was no expression on his greyish-white face, but the air within three paces of him became noticeably viscous, making every breath feel heavy.
Q didn't say a word. He struck immediately, black liquid erupting from both arms to form two liquid whips that lashed out at the two hooded Nightwatchers.
The liquid whips trailed a scent of cloying rot-sweetness through the air. The writhing tiny particles on the whips were flung outward by the strikes, splashing onto the ground and walls. White smoke rose from the stone surfaces, leaving behind corrosion pits the size of fingernails.
The two hooded figures dodged in opposite directions, silently and swiftly avoiding the impact points of the whips.
However, Q’s form had completely blocked their route to J.
He only needed to do one thing: stall these two and prevent them from getting close to J.
After dodging, the hooded pair didn't rush to counterattack. Instead, they stopped.
The two of them glanced at each other across Q.
Their expressions were hidden in the shadows of their hoods, but their pause carried a jarring sense of ease. This rank 4 opponent covered in corrosive liquid seemed to be nothing more than a joke to them.
The one on the left moved first.
His chest cavity suddenly tore open from the center, his ribs springing apart to the sides. A pale white figure erupted from within his chest. It was not human; its body was extremely long and flat, trailing a winding tail, and its head-end sprouted a pair of massive claws that shimmered with a bone-white luster in the night.
Across a distance of only a few meters, the pale white figure shot from the chest with instantaneous speed, reaching Q in a flash. The claws clamped onto Q’s shoulders and waist.
“Got you!”
The voice came from the direction of the torn chest, its tone light and playful.
Q’s black liquid surged frantically the moment he was caught, attempting to corrode the claws. However, while white smoke rose from the bone-white surface, the claws remained unmoved; the corrosive liquid simply slid off the bone-white exterior.
Q’s gaze tightened suddenly.
He had never encountered anything that wasn't afraid of his corrosion. His black liquid was his core technique—anything it touched would dissolve. This was the foundation that allowed him to stand firm at rank 4.
When those claws clamped onto him, he had instinctively increased the concentration and output of the corrosive fluid, yet they hadn't been budged in the slightest.
The strength coming from the claws was incredibly brutal. The claw gripping his shoulder tightened inward, forcibly compressing and deforming the surface of his black liquid body.
Q tried to liquefy his entire body to slide through the gaps in the claws, but the claws tightened in the same instant he liquefied, firmly pinning the core of his liquid form.
This thing could sense the position of his liquid core.
For the first time, Q’s expression changed.
The other hooded Nightwatcher was no longer where he had been.
His arms were transforming. The skin began to burst open in circles starting from the shoulders, like the peel of a fruit being sliced off, spiraling and shedding away. Beneath the skin, rows of tightly packed bladed teeth were revealed, extending from his shoulders to his fingertips, every tooth vibrating slightly.
The two arms bristling with bladed teeth closed in on Q.
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