"Too careless!"
Seeing the crimson tide surging toward him once again, giving him no breathing room at all, the Clown Eren showed a hint of resignation beneath his mask.
"Well, that's that. No more fun."
Even as he spoke, the Clown Eren's body froze.
In the next second, countless blood-hued tentacles—like a raging crimson wave—swallowed him whole. They tore him to shreds, scattering pieces of paper all over the air like confetti.
"Another fake…"
Hiding his bloated head behind that huge, rotting giant hand, Kingpin peered through the gaps in the decaying flesh.
Seeing that the shredded body was yet another paper decoy, his eyes flared with rage. The fury roiling inside him threatened to burn what little remained of his sanity.
But that spark of anger was forcibly suppressed by his iron will soon enough.
Regaining his composure, Kingpin glared at the spot where the Clown had once stood. While maneuvering the decayed flesh to form a fleshy shield around his head, he also directed the blood-red tentacles—now spread across the slaughterhouse and the dining area—to sweep in every direction.
This broad-range sweep, he believed, would soon flush out that pesky little clown no matter where he was hiding in the butchery or the hall.
Only…This time, Kingpin had miscalculated.
Judging that he couldn't easily bring down Kingpin—who had already deeply mutated—Clown Eren, with an injured ankle, decided at once to make a strategic retreat.
He had secretly planted a paper-substitute version of himself near the corridor exit well in advance. At the critical moment, he swapped places with it. The instant his real body landed, he pressed the button on his belt.
The next second, a faint electric crackle sounded from a button-like device about twenty meters away. A brilliant spark flared.
Catching the flash in the darkness, Eren's eyes glinted with a smile.
As a magician, he would never perform without preparations.
Realizing earlier that something was off about Kingpin, the Clown had been leaving more than a few surprises along the way, from the hidden paper-substitute near the corridor to the small incendiary patches stuck here and there—each one a backup plan.
Relying on that sudden burst of dazzling flames that lit up the darkness, Eren vanished from the spot in a blink—only to reappear amid the firelight a moment later.
Using the incendiary patches he'd laid all along that tunnel, he continuously performed Flame Jumps, leaping in bursts of flame through the increasingly corrupted corridor.
A few such jumps brought him clear of the passage that Kingpin might already have under control.
At last, Eren emerged in a relatively untainted part of the hallway. The sharp pain in his ankle made him collapse to a seated position against the wall.
"Hsss…"
He sucked in a breath, the pain in his foot flaring anew. Quickly, he pressed his left hand to his injured ankle.
Injury Transfer.
A strange power rippled out. The wound on his ankle wriggled unnervingly, shifting onto the pinky finger of his left hand instead.
Ten fingers share one pain. The left pinky swelled up like a radish, its pain so piercing that cold sweat beaded on Eren's forehead.
But relief also washed over him.
Pain in a finger was every bit as agonizing as an ankle injury, but at least his mobility was restored.
Meanwhile, as Clown Eren made his escape through Flame Jump, Kingpin also sensed how Eren had fled through the corridors.
Consumed with rage at being toyed with, Kingpin's near-lost sanity sparked anew. Veins bulged beneath his massive head.
Roaring in fury, the gargantuan, fleshy Kingpin finally moved his enormous body out of the slaughterhouse drenched in darkness. This time, what little rationality he had left didn't hold him back.
His instincts screamed that he absolutely could not let the Clown leave the tower. If Eren managed to slip away and expose Kingpin's current monstrous appearance, it would mean endless trouble in the future. He had to keep that meddlesome clown here.
With that resolve, wave after wave of pulsating, blood-red veins emerged from Kingpin's flesh, dragging corpses beneath his mountainous body. Countless arms and legs fused into new limbs, propelling him forward.
In this nightmarish mass of flesh, Kingpin crawled along at surprising speed—yet it still felt too slow for him.
"Not enough…not nearly enough…"
Snarling, Kingpin willed forth more tentacles that fused together into something like caterpillar tracks. These grotesque, living treads wound around his lower body. Additional tentacles latched onto the floor and walls, dragging him onward.
With that boost, the enormous mound of flesh lurched even faster.
At the same time, Kingpin's giant body stretched out and began to elongate. Part of it forced its way into the corrupted corridor.
With Kingpin's gargantuan flesh squeezed into that diseased passage, the rate of corruption skyrocketed. Dark-red blood water, already filling the corridor, now gushed forth in torrents.
Eren, having transferred his ankle wound and just reached the blasted-out passage entrance, heard the sound of rushing liquid from behind. He turned to see a flood of dark-red blood racing his way.
Simultaneously, the hallway under his feet trembled. Whatever massive thing lurked deeper in that passage was on the move.
"The vibration's getting stronger. Don't tell me that big guy is really coming up here…"
Sensing the steadily intensifying shakes, Eren narrowed his eyes and paused instead of leaving. He stood there waiting quietly.
He didn't have to wait long.
Before long, a looming presence emerged in the corridor behind him. It was a gigantic sphere of flesh propelled by dozens of pale, rotted arms and countless twisting tentacles, filling the passage to capacity.
Eren narrowed his gaze and let out a breath. Though surprised at the sight, he also wore an expression that said, I knew it.
Sure enough, the monstrosity that squeezed itself into this tight hallway was Kingpin, still covered in rotted, blood-red tissue.
"This corridor's not that big, yet you still managed to cram yourself inside. Guess you're more flexible than I thought!"
Compared to that colossal form Eren had glimpsed in the slaughterhouse, the Kingpin now before him had shrunk considerably. Perhaps it was just a fragment of that monstrous shape, or some blood-flesh clone that had split off.
Eyeing the collapsed corridor ahead that had once served as a doorway, the rotting giant head in Kingpin's center twisted into a terrifying grin.
"Heh…you're not getting away…""Become one with me…"
Eren scratched his ear, which still buzzed from the monster's booming voice. "Sorry, I have no interest in merging with another man."
"Still," he added lightly, "you've shown such 'enthusiasm' in escorting me out… Let me return the favor."
"Look at me—lowly spawn!"
With that bellow, the Dread Gaze Eren had been preparing unleashed straight into Kingpin's eyes.
"Raaaargh!"
As Dread Gaze burst forth, an ancient draconic roar seemed to echo around Eren. A horrific aura erupted, as if Eren had transformed into a six-eyed primordial dragon that blotted out the sky. With an earth-shattering might, that presence plunged into Kingpin's gaze.
Boom! Boom!
Almost instantly, Kingpin's partially rotted eyes could not withstand the mental shock and blew apart in a gory mess.
Yet that was only the beginning—Dread Gaze surged into Kingpin's inner world, ramming headlong into the last vestiges of sanity that had kept his monstrous corruption barely in check.
Thunder rumbled through Kingpin's mind. A dreadful psychic storm churned his consciousness into chaos. His iron will—once impervious—was thrown into disarray.
"Raaaaaagh!"
Stripped of the last thread of reason, Kingpin let out an inhuman roar. All the blood-hued tentacles hidden in his massive, rotting body went berserk, swelling to many times their former thickness and shooting out like spears in every direction.
Meanwhile, a wave of foul decay radiated outward, polluting and corroding everything around him—walls, pipes, even the rebar hidden within them rotted away at horrifying speed.
But by that time, Eren was no longer there to witness it.
Right after unleashing Dread Gaze into Kingpin's eyes, the Clown had used Flame Jump to appear in the wrecked elevator lobby.
Thanks to the explosion there, flames and dangling electric wires were scattered around. Fire burned in the wreckage, letting him skip using any backup devices he had planned; a convenient patch of flames let him jump straight into the ruined lobby.
Deep underground, the rampaging Kingpin—now lacking any target—surrendered to his ravaging instincts. Spreading an aura of putrid rot, he barreled crazily upward toward the surface.
Sensing that terrifying presence surging ever closer from below, Eren paused.
In the tower above, chaos reigned. The earlier massive explosion had frightened the criminal underlings into a blind panic. Everyone rushed for the lone exit on the ground floor, desperate to escape.
Watching the frenzy, Eren curled his lip into a giddy smile."Wow, what a scene. I love it."
Snap.
He snapped his fingers crisply. At once, illusions and a psychic field shrouded him, disguising him as just another fleeing figure.
Merged seamlessly into the crowd, he surged toward the exit along with countless others.
(End of Chapter)
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