The monster charged at Valentine. The ground cracked beneath its heavy feet, launching its enormous body forward like a cannonball.
Valentine narrowed her eyes. Crackling lightning erupted around her fist, wrapping her hand in bright blue energy. Stepping into the charge, she threw a heavy punch.
The creature raised a blood-covered arm to block the strike. The crushing impact sent a shockwave rippling across the ruined battlefield, kicking up clouds of dust. Valentine skidded backward, her boots carving deep lines into the dirt. Giving her no room to breathe, the monster pressed the attack. Its blood-red spear flashed straight for her chest.
Valentine twisted her torso just in time. The spear scraped against her armor, leaving a deep groove in the metal. Using her momentum, she spun and planted a lightning-coated kick square into the creature’s side.
The monster flew backward, crashing hard into the rusted shell of a ruined vehicle.
Giving it no time to recover, the nearby soldiers opened fire. A relentless rain of bullets and missiles showered the wreckage. The beast threw up both arms to shield its head right as a chain of fiery explosions swallowed its massive frame.
As the thick smoke drifted away, the damage became clear. The creature’s arms hung in shreds, and giant chunks of flesh had been blasted from its chest. Yet, pools of thick blood from the surrounding dirt started crawling toward the beast. The open wounds stitched shut. Its ruined arms rebuilt themselves into perfect shape in a matter of seconds.
Valentine’s face turned grim. The brutal fight dragged on. With every strike she landed, the monster simply drew in more stray blood to patch its broken body. The soldiers kept up their steady stream of covering fire from a distance, keeping the pressure high so the beast couldn’t focus all its rage on Valentine.
But the longer they fought, the more Valentine noticed a chilling shift. The monster was changing. In the beginning, it swung like a mindless wild beast. Wide punches. Clumsy kicks. Basic thrusts with its spear.
Step by step, those sloppy movements tightened. It started throwing feints. It learned to counter her strikes. It even adjusted its footwork, using actual fighting techniques to catch Valentine off guard.
She narrowed her eyes.
"Its learning..."
The monster vanished from sight.
Valentine’s danger sense screamed in her mind. She threw her arm up in a desperate block. A massive fist slammed into her lightning armor, shattering the ground beneath her and sending her flying backward through the air.
Before she could even land and find her footing, a heavy, crushing pressure invaded her mind. Her vision blurred into a dizzying smear of colors. A terrifying, formless voice echoed deep inside her skull.
Valentine gritted her teeth against the pain.
"Damn... another mental attack."
The lightning armor coating her body flickered, threatening to die out. Thanks to her own strong willpower and the armor’s lingering energy, she managed to push back the mental wave before it crushed her completely.
The reality of the situation sank in. The monster was evolving way too fast. If they kept playing this game of tug-of-war, the creature would grow impossible to kill.
Valentine wiped a streak of blood from the corner of her mouth.
"Fine..."
Bright blue lightning sparked and gathered around her moving form.
"If you’re going to keep evolving..."
High above, dark thunderclouds rolled over the battlefield, roaring in response to her growing power.
"Then I’ll finish you before you get the chance."
She raised one hand high toward the dark sky.
"Gregory Secret Technique..."
Countless bright flashes of lightning lit up the entire ruined landscape, casting long, sharp shadows over the dirt.
"Thunder Dragon’s Breath!"
A massive, roaring dragon made entirely of pure, crackling lightning dove from the black clouds. It opened its glowing jaws wide. The beast crashed directly into the monster with a deafening blast. A blinding white flash swallowed the entire battlefield, forcing everyone to shield their eyes.
Valentine stood firm at the center of the raging storm, her chest heaving as she gasped for air. Adrian and his soldiers stared toward the crater, holding their breath. Not a single person dared to speak. They all waited for the thick smoke to clear away.
As the dust finally drifted into the wind, Valentine’s eyes went wide.
Right where the monster had been standing, only two blood-red legs remained. Everything from the ankles up had been completely wiped from existence.
Complete silence blanketed the ruined land.
Then, the surrounding pools of blood started to twitch. Countless red streams snaked across the cracked earth, rushing straight toward those two leftover legs.
Valentine’s face fell.
"No..."
The liquid wrapped around the severed ankles. New flesh wove itself together. Muscles stacked over forming bones. Dark organs pulsed into shape. A massive torso pushed its way out of the bloody mess, followed by thick arms and a wide head.
The monster was rebuilding itself all over again. In a matter of heartbeats, its body stood complete.
This time, the horror didn’t stop there. The creature’s body kept expanding outward. Its muscles swelled to double their size. Its arms stretched longer, and its legs grew thick as tree trunks. The bloody form shifted and morphed, taking on the shape of a towering, muscular ape.
Valentine could only stare in pure disbelief. When the shifting finally settled, a giant, blood-red ape stood towering over the battlefield.
Yet, its face held no human features. It had no nose. No mouth. No ears. Instead, a single, grotesque eyeball covered the entire front of its head. Hundreds of tiny, twitching pupils darted wildly across the wet surface of the eye.
Valentine swallowed hard.
"Even that didn’t kill it..."
The creature lifted one heavy hand. Thick blood pooled around its open palm, hardening and twisting until it formed a massive, jagged spear. The monster’s hundreds of pupils shifted as one. Every single black dot locked onto Valentine. It knew she was the biggest threat on the field.
Valentine balled her hands into tight fists.
"Come on."
Faint sparks of lightning crackled back to life around her battered armor.
Before she could launch an attack, the monster blurred out of sight.
Valentine gasped.
"So fast—!"
The deadly point of the blood-red spear materialized right in front of her chest. She brought her arm up in a desperate bid to block. The heavy weapon smashed right through her lightning armor with a deafening crack.
The sheer force of the blow launched Valentine across the dirt. A harsh cough tore from her throat, spraying blood into the air as she flew backward. Her glowing armor shattered under the pressure, breaking apart into a cloud of fading sparks until nothing was left to protect her.
"Fire!" Adrian threw his hand forward, signaling the command.
The soldiers aimed their weapons, ready to unleash another heavy barrage. Before a single trigger could be pulled, the beast unleashed a bone-chilling roar.
A violent, invisible wave of mental pressure washed over the entire battlefield.
Men dropped their guns and clutched their heads in agony.
"AAAAARGH!"
Even Adrian stumbled, gripping his forehead as pain spiked through his skull. Dark red blood began dripping from the soldiers’ noses and leaking from their ears.
Being the closest to the monster, Valentine took the brunt of the mental strike. Her vision swam in a sea of gray. Through the haze, she noticed a horrifying detail. The fresh blood dripping from the screaming soldiers was crawling across the dirt, drawn straight toward the giant ape.
Valentine locked her jaw.
"No..."
She pushed all her remaining willpower into her core, fighting with everything she had to keep her own blood inside her veins. Her knees shook as she struggled to push herself up from the ground.
A shadow dropped right in front of her before she could stand.
Zeltan.
The man pulled his leg back and delivered a brutal kick, driving Valentine straight back down. Her back slammed against the hard earth, knocking the wind from her lungs.
Zeltan stepped closer, looming over her battered form. A wicked, blood-red blade shaped itself in his open grip.
"Weren’t you arrogant before?"
He hoisted the sword high above his head.
"Now..."
His eyes turned dead and cold.
"Go die."
Right as the blade swung down, another presence warped onto the battlefield, stepping into the path of the towering blood ape.
A quiet figure hidden beneath a dark hood. A strange, heavy revolver rested firmly in his grip. Glowing, complex magic circles sparked to life, stacking in bright rings around the gun’s long barrel.
The monster’s giant, pupil-filled eye shifted its focus to the newcomer. Unbothered by the towering beast, the hooded man calmly raised his weapon and took aim.
He muttered under his breath, "Annihilation Bullet."
A tiny, pitch-black sphere slid out from the barrel. It didn’t look like a bullet; it looked like a literal hole punched straight through reality, swallowing the light around it. With a silent flash, the dark sphere shot forward, tearing a path straight for the monster’s chest.
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