Chapter 212: End of Nightmare
After his Talent returned, Lithe Snake regenerated his arm. He made it to the rooftop in time and jumped down from the fifth floor along with Gao Yang and Yellow Butterfly. Utilizing the great momentum generated by the fall, he stabbed her in the back from above as soon as she lunged at Gao Yang.
Even so, the rebar merely pierced her back and failed to penetrate through her chest.
The heavy blow brought Yellow Butterfly to her knees. She couldn’t feel much of the pain, however, and she threw Lithe Snake off her back with a swing of her arm.
She reached back to grip onto the rebar in her back.
Suddenly, Gao Yang felt a pair of soft hands cover his ears.
Although he couldn’t see her, he knew it was Can with her Invisibility.
“Yeeyayeeyayaaaa—”
At the same time, a scream that scrambled and broke the mind rang, a prolonged torture in sonic form.
Ronnie’s Disorientation!
Yellow Butterfly fell to her knees again and instinctively covered her ears. In less than two seconds, she overcame the sonic attack and, when everyone was momentarily deprived of the ability to think and act, she rose back to her feet, trembling.
Growl!
But then a furious, piercing growl came from above. Gao Yang looked up to see a giant gray bear pouncing down under the moonlight.
Gray Bear!
He hadn’t died, and had instead sprung back into action.
A few minutes before, when the five of them dealt with Xiang Xiaoqin on the rooftop of the teaching building, Nine Frost and Gao Yang had immediately noticed the return of their Talents and reminded Black Sparrow and Gray Bear. To confirm, Gray Bear had reflexively activated his Talent.
That saved his life.
It hadn’t been more than a few seconds until a bullet hit him in the head, but during those few seconds, Beastly had been quickly activating inside his body, and the transformation prioritized the hardening of his bones over his skin and hair.
When he was shot in the head, his skull had already become hard enough to block the bullet.
The headshot was intercepted, but it was still a threatening attack that ended up knocking him unconscious.
Meanwhile, Lithe Snake, who was resting on the flagpole platform, noticed with his keen senses that his Talent had returned, which meant those on the rooftop had acquired the second Rune Circuit.
Yet not long after, he heard a series of gunshots.
With the Rune Circuit acquired, the enemy must have been dealt with as well. Why would there be gunshots?
Lithe Snake used to be a mercenary, and he had been backstabbed by his comrades before, which gave him a healthy distrust in human nature. He immediately concluded that there must be a traitor among them.
Without hesitation, he grabbed a rebar and rushed to the teaching building, leaving behind Ronnie and Can.
When he got to the rooftop, he saw Yellow Butterfly charging at Gao Yang, and the two of them broke through the railing and fell off.
Lithe Snake also saw Black Sparrow dead in her own pool of blood, the unmoving Nine Frost, who might or might not have died, and Gray Bear, who was bleeding profusely from the head but had regained consciousness. Gray Bear was crawling toward the supply bag, grabbing a syringe of Medicine C to jab at his own neck.
Lithe Snake didn’t have the time to worry about Gray Bear. His top priority was joining the fight.
A glance was enough for him to get a clear look of the monster Gao Yang was fighting. He had never seen something like that. Its presence itself was insidiously and dangerously oppressive. Gao Yang alone wouldn’t be able to defeat it.
Lithe Snake sped to the edge of the rooftop where the two of them had fallen off and looked down.
Without pause, he jumped off and seized the fleeting opening, piercing the rebar into the abomination’s back.
Ronnie and Can hadn’t been sitting idle either. As her Talent awakened in her, Can came to. Lithe Snake had moved as soon as the gunshots rang from the top of the teaching building, while Ronnie had waited for Can to wake up, thus moving out a little later.
They saw two figures falling from the rooftop the moment they reached the teaching building. One was Gao Yang, and the other a monstrous creature covered in black spots. While it seemed to be an adult woman judging by its curvy body, never could Can and Ronnie imagine that it would be Yellow Butterfly.
All they knew was that their captain was in danger.
Can quickly went invisible with Ronnie, sneaking him to the battlefield.
As for Gray Bear, the Medicine C he injected himself with had quickly healed the skull that was almost shattered by the bullet and the wounds all over his body. Moreover, after the near death experience, his energy seemed to undergo a second awakening, and not only did he recover all his stamina, he was also hit with a great pleasure of being born anew.
He knew his Beastly had leveled up.
Two years ago, Gray Bear leveled up his Talent to level 4 with the Buff Rune Circuit, owned by the Qilin Guild, and his Talent had been stagnating since then.
He sought out a good number of senior members for advice, and he was told that past level 4, Talents didn’t require Rune Circuits to level up. The path to progress further was one he would have to find on his own.
Some leveled up after an epiphany, some, after a surge of intense emotions, and others, after a breakthrough at a moment of crisis.
Gray Bear’s situation was obviously the third one. To be more specific, he had leveled up after escaping death. It was as the saying went:
—What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!
Although Gray Bear hadn’t witnessed Gao Yang’s fight with Yellow Butterfly from the start, he had started to regain consciousness going into the latter half of the battle and heard their conversation, piecing together the truth.
Putting aside the details, he was certain that Yellow Butterfly was the bastard that shot him in the head. She was the enemy!
Thinking about it fueled the fury burning in him, and Gray Bear transformed into a gargantuan bear bigger and stronger than ever before, more divine beast than animal.
With a furious growl, he jumped off the rooftop.
Bam!
The powerful current sent Gao Yang staggering back a few steps, and he involuntarily squinted. When he was able to see better, there was already a large crater on the ground.
Gray Bear—or a titan of a bear descending from heaven—had landed on Yellow Butterfly, smashing her into the ground.
Ronnie stopped screaming then.
Growl!
In a raging frenzy, the bear raised its claw and tore into Yellow Butterfly. Blood and flesh splattered from the center of the crater.
Gao Yang shouted, “Pin down her heart! I’ll take care of the rest!”
Gray Bear had been lost in his murderous intent. It was Gao Yang’s voice that pulled him out of it.
He looked down to see that although his sharp claws had torn into Yellow Butterfly’s flesh and exposed her bones, she was still alive, and her injuries were healing at an unnatural speed.
Even in beast mode, Gray Bear couldn’t help but shudder. What manner of monstrosity had she become?!
This was neither the time nor place to dwell on it. He grabbed the rebar pierced into Yellow Butterfly’s back with both hands and pushed down, putting all his strength into it.
“Gah!”
Yellow Butterfly let out a blood-curdling scream as the rebar pierced through her spine and the macabre black heart, pinning her to the center of the crater.
“Move!”
Gao Yang activated Fire with both hands.
Gray Bear quickly climbed to his feet and crawled out of the crater on all fours like a real bear.
“Fire!”
Two streams of flames intertwined into a great pillar and poured into the crater. Gray Bear almost got burned in the rump.
Waves of intense heat rippled outward. Everyone took a few involuntary steps back, shielding their eyes with their arms.
“Ahhhhh!”
Piercing screams rang from the center of the pillar of flames. Pinned, the figure struggled fiercely, but failed to break free.
Soon, the screams died down, and the writhing figure gradually stopped struggling before quickly melting.
Gao Yang didn’t allow himself to relax just yet; he couldn’t afford to.
The towering pillar of flames burned for almost a minute, draining him of all energy. When the flames finally relented, the crater had been charred black, the rebar heated to a bright red. And the body it had pinned to the ground was nothing but a clump of charcoal.
Gao Yang stood where he was, panting and drenched in sweat.
Pain slowly returned to his injured body, and overpowering exhaustion swept through him. He could no longer keep himself up right. He fell face-first to the ground.
A petite girl struggled to catch him from behind, but she managed to endure for only two seconds before she fell with him.
Hugging Gao Yang from the back, Can sobbed with tears and snot streaming down her face.
“Captain, I thought, I thought I would never see you again...”
Can’t she stop saying something so ill-boding?
Gao Yang was too tired to speak. He let his eyelids drop.
Finally, the nightmare came to an end.
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