The air was torn apart, emitting ear-piercing shrieks.
Qing Luan, Shadow, and Hua Yao stood at three different positions, their expressions grim as they stared at the eerie twin Abnormal Being at the center of the encirclement.
One body, two souls.
Abilities twin-born.
From the start of the fight until now, no matter how Qing Luan and the others attacked, the moment their assaults touched its body surface, they were quickly absorbed entirely by a strange ripple.
Sweat mixed with blood slid down their temples, their breathing heavy as bellows.
That specific twin Abnormal Being had already regarded this area as its hunting ground—within its four scarlet pupils, aside from the pleasure and anticipation of slaughter, only mockery and derision remained.
It did not think these three would be its match.
As for the trio.
Qing Luan’s shoulder was already charred black—a burn left by a high-energy blast from the Abnormal Being that had grazed her.
Under her Oracle, ninety-nine percent of incoming attacks would be absorbed and converted into stored energy.
These were also the “Bravery Value” and “Affection Points” that Chu You used to talk about.
But this time, Qing Luan had actually been injured.
The reason was simple—when a single attack exceeded the upper limit of what she could absorb and convert, she could no longer avoid the pain she was supposed to suffer.
After joining the Night Hunt squad, Qing Luan had not been injured for a very long time.
She clenched her teeth and casually discarded the grenade launcher.
With a single glance, Shadow on the other side tossed over the exaggeratedly designed Barrett heavy sniper.
The twin Abnormal Being watched this scene with interest but did not stop it… since its birth until now, this was also the first time it had fought against an Oracle as special as Qing Luan.
This was far too interesting.
Or rather, this human was a super genius in Oracle development.
But Qing Luan did not care what the Abnormal Being was thinking.
She steadily caught the Barrett thrown by Shadow, raised the gun to aim, and the crosshair in the scope lined up with the left head of the twin Abnormal Being—
“Boom—!!!”
The bullet tore a scorching trajectory through the air.
The power unleashed by this shot was even more terrifying than the grenade launcher from earlier!
However, the left head of the twin Abnormal Being merely waved its arm lightly, and a newly formed dark purple rune flickered.
The bullet’s trajectory suddenly deviated by an extremely tiny margin mid-flight.
By that hair’s breadth, the projectile grazed past the body and exploded into a ball of fire on the distant ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
“Damn!”
Qing Luan couldn’t help but curse.
This Abnormal Being, in both ability and reaction, was absolutely not something the remnants of the Night Hunt squad could handle.
To hunt an Abnormal Being of this level, at the very least, the entire Night Hunt squad would need to be present and coordinate with each other for even a slim chance.
Meanwhile.
Shadow was in the best condition among the three, but also the most frustrated.
His ability specialized in shadow lurking and one-hit kills, yet it was almost ineffective against this twin Abnormal Being.
Every time he emerged from the shadows to deliver a fatal blow, the strange ripple flowing over the Abnormal Being’s body would spread out.
No matter what material his weapon was made of, he simply could not break through the defense.
“We can’t go on like this!”
Blood seeped from the corner of Hua Yao’s mouth.
Her ability consumed heavily; maintaining plant growth and battlefield control left her face pale as paper.
“Qing Luan, can you pull off something big?”
“I can!” Qing Luan had no time to dodge and took an energy blast head-on.
Her expression shifted sharply, and she grunted, “But only one shot!”
This time, Hua Yao did not answer Qing Luan.
The three exchanged glances in an instant—a tacit understanding forged through years of life-and-death experiences.
Hua Yao held nothing back, fully driving her Oracle.
Vines grew and spread at an incredible speed, soon blocking the twin Abnormal Being’s path.
Almost at the same time…
Shadow emerged from the twin Abnormal Being’s own shadow.
His right arm, holding the blade, along with the long saber, was wrapped in Oracle power, flickering like a shadow itself, and he decisively stabbed toward the twin Abnormal Being’s ribs!
“Eat your fill!”
Qing Luan gritted her teeth and shouted in a low voice.
A faint luster coated her pupils.
The Barrett’s muzzle trembled slightly.
As her finger squeezed the trigger, the burst of fire exploded instantly, almost blinding to the eyes.
At the same time, a crack suddenly split open amidst the wildly growing vines. The armor-piercing bullet, carrying destructive momentum, was nearly upon the twin Abnormal Being’s chest in an instant.
This time, it had no way to dodge!
“Boom—!!!!”
The earth trembled under the roar of that shot.
The ripple covering the twin Abnormal Being’s body rippled in concentric waves.
Where it had easily handled the trio’s attacks before, this time it finally took a step back.
The dust cleared.
The twin Abnormal Being lowered its two heads, looking at the burned skin on its body.
Simultaneously, a flash of anger passed through both pupils.
“You… are asking for death!”
The low, hoarse voice fell—
Sizzle sizzle sizzle—!!
The twin Abnormal Being raised all four arms at once.
Blazing green energy shot out instantly, colliding with the rapidly growing vines, producing a harsh hissing sound.
The vine wall Hua Yao desperately maintained was quickly withering.
However, this was just a feint!
Just as the trio’s attention was drawn to the frontal blaze, the Abnormal Being’s four arms suddenly accelerated!
It did not attack the three.
Instead, it generated four dark purple runes around its body, which then shot toward four different directions!
The runes sank into the ground.
The next moment, Qing Luan, Shadow, and Hua Yao all felt the ground vanish beneath their feet!
It was not a cave-in—the concept of the ground beneath them seemed to be briefly distorted!
The solid sense of support disappeared, replaced by a weightless, directionally confused feeling of instability!
Although this sensation lasted less than half a second, in a battle of this level, a half-second lapse was enough to be fatal!
“Watch out!”
Shadow reacted first, but his warning came too late.
Exploiting the momentary opening it had created, the massive horse hooves stomped hard on the ground, and its enormous body charged forward at unprecedented speed!
It smashed its two fists, burning with blazing green flames, like battering rams, viciously toward Qing Luan and Hua Yao, who were staggering from the lost footing!
No way to dodge!
“Qing Luan!” Hua Yao screamed, disregarding herself, and with all her remaining seeds, she wove a thick, thorn-covered plant shield wall in front of Qing Luan.
As for herself, she only had time to condense a few relatively fragile vines in front of her.
Bam! Boom—!
Two thunderous sounds came almost simultaneously.
The plant shield wall shattered instantly under the burning fists.
The residual momentum of the punch struck solidly against Qing Luan’s crossed arms.
Crack!
The clear sound of bone breaking rang out.
Qing Luan let out a pained grunt, blood spraying from her mouth.
Her whole body flew backward like a torn sack, crashing heavily onto a misshapen rock, then sliding to the ground.
For a moment, she could not get up, her left arm clearly twisted.
On the other side, Hua Yao’s vine defense was torn apart like paper.
The burning fist slammed viciously into her abdomen!
“Ahh—!” Hua Yao let out a short, shrill cry of pain.
Her delicate body arched, eyes almost bulging out.
The terrifying impact not only damaged her internal organs, but the green flames, like clinging bone leprosy, invaded her body and burned fiercely.
She flew far like a broken kite.
After landing, she rolled several times, curled up on the ground, twitching violently, her face deathly pale, her aura rapidly weakening.
“Hua Yao! Qing Luan!” Shadow’s eyes nearly split with rage.
He instantly materialized from the shadows, two pitch-black daggers in his hands like poisonous snakes striking, charging with a suicidal momentum toward the back of the enraged head that had just finished its attack and seemed slightly exhausted.
However, the twin Abnormal Being had already anticipated this.
Without turning its head, it merely raised the horse hooves from its lower body, blocking Shadow’s path.
Then, what greeted him was the Abnormal Being’s fierce punch as it spun around, along with three dark purple mental spikes as solid as steel needles shot from its other palm!
Puff! Puff! Bam!
Shadow barely avoided the vital spots, but his shoulder blade was still grazed by the punch, the bones making a teeth-grinding grinding sound.
At the same time, two mental spikes broke through his hastily condensed shadow shield and stabbed deep into his mental world.
“Hmph!”
Shadow grunted, blood seeping from all seven apertures.
The intense mental pain darkened his vision and blurred his consciousness.
His movements completely distorted, and he was flung away by the residual force, crashing through a dead tree before barely stopping.
He knelt on one knee, propped up by his daggers, gasping heavily—already at the end of his strength.
Within a few breaths, the trio was thoroughly routed—two severely injured!
The twin Abnormal Being did not rush to deliver the finishing blow.
Both heads were panting heavily, the green flames in their eyes flickering, as if they had also expended considerable energy.
The cold head looked calmly at Qing Luan and Hua Yao lying on the ground, and at Shadow struggling to stand.
Its emotionless thoughts sounded again: “Why… can’t you… just obediently die?”
“Struggling… only adds drama…”
“Pitiful… laughable…”
The situation seemed to be developing toward an increasingly dangerous state.
…
…
…
Meanwhile, in the southwest direction.
The battle here was a different kind of despair—suffocation under pure power crushing.
Tie Jiang swung his door-sized alloy battle-axe, each strike heavy and mighty, with a roar that could split rocks and shatter stones.
But his opponent, that quasi-king-level Giant Strength Aberrant, was like an immovable mountain of flesh.
The axe slammed into the Aberrant’s cyan-gray skin, most of the time leaving only a shallow white mark or chipping off a few sparks.
Occasionally, a full-powered strike could break through the defense and leave a wound, but a dark red light flashed at the wound, and the muscle fibers wriggled and healed at a visible rate, restoring in just a few breaths!
Its rocky skin and powerful self-healing ability made Tie Jiang’s most proud strength seem like a joke.
“Roar—!”
The Aberrant seemed enraged by Tie Jiang’s continuous attacks.
It stopped toying, slammed its fists together, and a dark red berserk energy erupted from the patterns on its body like a volcanic eruption.
It stopped taking hits and began to attack!
One punch smashed down, leaving a several-meter-deep crater on the ground, spraying shattered rocks like bullets.
One leg swept across, breaking a dead tree that required several people to wrap their arms around, the trunk whistling toward Tie Jiang.
Tie Jiang could only rely on his rich combat experience and ferocity to dodge and block in the narrow gaps.
The battle-axe clashed with the Aberrant’s fists and arms, producing deafening metallic clangs.
With each collision, Tie Jiang felt his arms go numb and sore.
The wounds on his tiger’s mouth split open again and again, blood staining the axe handle.
“Yu Chan!”
Tie Jiang roared, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
He felt like a small boat struggling in a stormy sea, on the verge of being smashed to pieces.
Yu Chan’s face was as pale as paper.
She had been driving her Oracle at full power, ignoring the cost, constantly healing Tie Jiang’s injuries and transferring them to the Aberrant.
But using her Oracle at high frequency, the backlash from the transfer grew stronger and stronger.
She felt her auditory nerves and energy circuits throbbing with pain, and darkness flickered before her eyes.
Yet the Aberrant?
The contamination aura it radiated had barely weakened!
Hearing Tie Jiang’s shout, Yu Chan bit her tongue to force herself to focus, driving her Oracle to transmit healing power through threads, mending Tie Jiang’s wounds!
“Here we go!” Tie Jiang’s eyes were bloodshot.
His body condition recovered again, his muscles bulging and blood vessels protruding.
He poured all his remaining strength into the battle-axe—
The axe lit up with a blinding white light.
With a strike meant to split a mountain, it hacked viciously at the relatively fragile knee joint on the Aberrant’s side!
At the same time, Mongoose, who had been lurking in the shadows, appeared like a ghost behind the Aberrant.
She abandoned the twin curved sabers she had been using—those were useless against this thing’s thick hide.
Instead, she held a high-explosive micro-ion grenade in each hand, using all her strength to press them hard toward the gaps between the Aberrant’s spinal vertebrae!
Their cooperation could not have been more seamless, their timing not more precise.
However—
Just as the axe was about to hit and the grenades were about to embed themselves at the critical moment!
The chaotic red light in the Aberrant’s eyes hardened sharply!
A psychic shock far more berserk and chaotic than before, mixed with the boiling dark red energy inside its body, erupted outward from it like an uncontrollable flood!
This was not a conscious attack, but more like an instinctive, indiscriminate energy discharge after being stimulated!
The first to bear the brunt was Yu Chan.
She was already at the end of her rope; this berserk recoil hit her fragile senses and spirit like a heavy hammer.
“Pwah—!”
Yu Chan spat out a large mouthful of blood, even containing tiny fragments of internal organs.
Her eyes rolled back, and without even a whimper, she collapsed limply to the ground.
Her breathing instantly grew faint—life or death unknown.
Tie Jiang’s axe hit its target, but the explosive energy torrent weakened its power, leaving only a wound deep enough to see bone behind the Aberrant’s knee, far from fatal.
He himself was flung away by the erupting energy.
In midair, he spat several mouthfuls of blood, crashed heavily to the ground, his battle-axe flying from his hands.
He struggled a few times but could not get up.
Mongoose got the worst of it.
She was closest to the Aberrant’s energy core.
The erupted dark red energy, like solid flames, engulfed her instantly!
Although she reacted extremely quickly, driving her Oracle power to resist and retreat at the last moment, the hastily constructed defense was fragile and utterly useless.
The terrifying impact and high heat still struck her body fully.
“Ah—!”
The shrill scream cut off abruptly.
Mongoose, like a ragdoll hit by a train, her entire body charred black and smoking, flew back even faster, crashed through half a broken wall, and was buried under rubble and debris.
No further sound came.
In just one instinctive burst of recoil, three members of the Night Hunt squad—one at death’s door, two severely wounded—completely lost combat capability!
The Aberrant looked down at the wound behind its knee.
Dark red energy surged, and the wound quickly stopped bleeding and contracted.
Its chaotic red eyes swept indifferently over the three fallen figures, then it stepped forward, walking one by one toward the nearest Yu Chan.
“Yu Chan, get up!”
“Wake up, Yu Chan! Danger! Danger!!!”
Tie Jiang lay in the mud, watching helplessly as the Aberrant grew closer to Yu Chan.
He shouted desperately, but Yu Chan lay on the ground, no response.
“Yu—Chan—!!”