Chapter 82: Self-Rescue

Chapter 82: Self-Rescue

Not good… he’s taken hold of… my Spirit Body Threads… As a veteran Beyonder, a half-god, half-human existence who had dealt with Faceless, Marionettists, and Bizarro Sorcerers—and even directly fought them—Qonas Kilgor was not unfamiliar with his current situation. On the contrary, he was quite familiar with it and had some understanding.

Therefore, he knew very clearly that he had fallen into a fatal trap, and that the time available for saving himself would not exceed fifteen seconds!

And within those fifteen seconds, the sluggishness of his thoughts would grow more and more severe. The operation of his ideas would become slower and slower. Toward the end, merely thinking of a method might take several seconds, and having his stiff, rigid body put that idea into practice would also require a considerable amount of time. In other words, Qonas Kilgor had, at most, a little over ten seconds he could use for self-rescue!

Of course, he had previously considered how to handle the final few seconds. That method was to directly relinquish control over himself and reveal his mythical creature form, using this to lengthen the time needed for him to be turned into a marionette and, through his very existence, interfere with the enemy and make him suffer a certain impact.

However, if he did that, even if he successfully broke free from marionettification—or even defeated the enemy—Qonas Kilgor had little confidence he could continue living.

He was not the kind of demigod who could freely switch between human form and mythical creature form. He had little confidence that he could maintain his reason while in mythical creature form.

In other words, the most probable outcome of using his mythical creature form to escape marionettification was that Qonas Kilgor the “man” would die on the spot, and a monster bearing the same name would occupy his body.

Precisely because of that, unless he truly had no other method, Qonas Kilgor would not make such an attempt.

While his thoughts were not yet too sluggish, and while Revere’s Desperate Scream rang in his ears, this military demigod rapidly formed his first self-rescue plan.

At a speed that was not too slow, he moved his right thumb slightly.

Fallen Count—Magnify!

What Qonas Kilgor wanted to Magnify was not a state of his own or an attack from a Sealed Artifact, but the negative effect of Revere’s Desperate Scream!

This peculiar revolver would make its holder occasionally hear despairing screams. For creatures without divinity, this was extremely serious. It could easily lead to loss of control, madness, a torn spirit, or a blank mind. However, upon reaching Sequence 4, because one already possessed a mythological aspect, the effect of those screams was greatly reduced.

For Qonas Kilgor, the screams could only make his mind grow a little dazed and his emotions somewhat manic. They had no major influence, and he had even initially adapted to them.

At this moment, he intended to Magnify that “desperate scream” until even a demigod found it somewhat unbearable, using it to make his spirit feel as though pierced by pain and thereby break free from the control over his Spirit Body Threads!

Because Magnify required no obvious movement and took effect extremely quickly, Gehrman Sparrow—wearing a half top hat, holding the Death Knell revolver, surrounded by a fierce wind, and floating in midair opposite him—could not stop it in time. The Fallen Count successfully used this Beyonder power.

But in the next second, what Qonas Kilgor waited for was not a scream that had become terrifying, but a patch of tranquility.

Even the normal “roar” that had existed before had vanished!

This was the random mutation brought by Concerto of Light and Shadow!

How… unlucky… Qonas Kilgor’s thought slowly flashed by, but he had no time to feel dispirited. He immediately began his second self-rescue attempt.

He lifted his right hand in a halting motion, using Revere’s Desperate Scream to aim at Gehrman Sparrow within one hundred and fifty meters and preparing to pull the trigger.

At the same time, the gale blowing directly toward his right hand suddenly disintegrated from within, quickly collapsing into scattered currents of air.

Fallen Count—Confusion!

Qonas used this to withstand Gehrman Sparrow’s interference.

Immediately afterward, bang bang bang sounds rang out. Revere’s Desperate Scream was like a machine gun, madly spewing dangerous bullets and not stopping for quite some time.

Gehrman Sparrow, wearing a black windbreaker, shook repeatedly, yet he was not struck.

Those bullets grazed his outline, flying into the distance, shattering the windows and walls of Rose Song Manor and causing one of the buildings to quietly collapse.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

The subsequent storm of bullets continued. Finally, Gehrman Sparrow was hit—many times in succession!

Amid streams of spraying blood, Gehrman Sparrow looked like a paper figure in a gale, constantly swaying and struggling, as though he might be torn apart at any moment.

Bang! Bang! Bang! That peculiar handgun finally stopped this “scream.” Aside from his head, Gehrman Sparrow now had one savage bloody hole after another across his body.

Normally, this was a state that could only belong to the dead. But Gehrman Sparrow seemed unaffected and continued manipulating the Spirit Body Threads.

The exaggerated wounds on his body slowly yet firmly healed.

This was the effect of the Ring of Blood Flower.

This Gehrman Sparrow was, in essence, Winner Enuni!

The reason he had not perished under that storm-like attack was because he had released his accumulated luck—and because Qonas Kilgor was sufficiently unlucky!

As for the “desperate scream” carried by the bullets, to a marionette, it was equivalent to nothing.

Seeing that his violent attack had not achieved the expected effect, and that the time available for self-rescue was shrinking further, Qonas Kilgor followed the plan he had devised earlier almost without thinking and slowly loosened the fingers of his left hand.

The “tin” pocket watch immediately left his palm and fell downward.

At this crucial moment, Qonas Kilgor decisively gave up Concerto of Light and Shadow, making it leave the battlefield in order to avoid the influence of random mutation.

Next, he might only have one or two chances to save himself. If another unfavorable mutation appeared, he would have no way to recover!

As the Sealed Artifact whose dial was half-orderly and half-chaotic swiftly fell, Qonas Kilgor arduously moved his finger toward Gehrman Sparrow, whose wounds were quickly healing.

He should originally have had two options. One was to follow his third self-rescue plan from the beginning and act without needing to think. The other was to Magnify the wounds on the enemy before him and make him die on the spot.

However, when Qonas Kilgor had still been able to think quickly, he had failed to predict that after “Gehrman Sparrow” had been struck by so many shots, not only would he not die, even his manipulation of Spirit Body Threads would be unaffected. There was no corresponding follow-up in his plan.

And at this moment, his head felt as if it had been stuffed full of paste. He could not think too much, and he did not wish to waste time because of it. He could only act according to his predetermined plan.

Whoosh!

Around Gehrman Sparrow—who wore a transparent glove and held an iron-black revolver—the gale carrying him suddenly became violent, spiraling upward into the sky.

Whoosh!

Gehrman Sparrow was wrapped by the gale and, witnessed by the huge crimson moon, rushed into the pitch-black night sky.

Fallen Count—Magnify!

The gale helping Gehrman Sparrow fly had been Magnified into a tornado!

In this way, the distance between him and Qonas Kilgor would very quickly be pulled beyond one hundred and fifty meters, and marionettification would lose effect because of it!

Seeing that his goal had been preliminarily achieved, though he had not yet broken free from control, Qonas Kilgor’s expression suddenly turned complex in a stuttering, halting manner.

That tornado rapidly expanded, sweeping over him as well and flinging him toward the sky. It made it impossible for the distance between him and Gehrman Sparrow to completely widen.

Truly unlucky.

Under the night, within the crimson moonlight, the two figures grew smaller and smaller.

Very soon, the tornado returned to normal, and the upward trend of the two was eased.

Seizing this opportunity, Qonas Kilgor’s almost-solidified thoughts issued another command:

“Stop…”

He stopped the power maintaining his flight, borrowing the pull of the earth like a meteor and swiftly falling downward, rapidly increasing the distance between himself and Gehrman Sparrow.

Then, ignoring the fact that Gehrman Sparrow was driving the gale and turning back to chase, he slowly pulled his left arm before him, as though his joints had rusted.

This was a “closing a door” motion.

He wanted to use a Fallen Count’s Distortion to create a wall-like aerial seal, blocking Gehrman Sparrow so that he could not catch up.

Just then, the remaining marionettes below—those Gehrman Sparrows—raised their left arms at the same time and made firing gestures.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

One bullet after another shot out, covering Qonas Kilgor in midair.

When the shockwave scattered, several bloody holes had already appeared across Qonas Kilgor’s body.

After being struck by the first few bullets and shells, he relied on the intense pain and the shaking of his body to finally break free from the control over his Spirit Body Threads, allowing his thoughts to recover their speed.

Then, at the crucial moment, he Confused the subsequent shots and Distorted the injuries he suffered. In the end, he actually did not die, and was merely heavily injured.

Meanwhile, Gehrman Sparrow, who was falling from high above and carrying many mystical items, was blocked by the “invisible wall” he had created and failed to catch up.

With another Distortion, Qonas Kilgor’s falling speed instantly slowed, and he gently landed on the ground.

Before he could do anything else, his body stiffened again and froze in place.

He felt that his hands and feet were fighting against him, disobeying his commands. He felt that some unfamiliar thing was hiding inside his body!

Then, under the illumination of the giant crimson moon, he saw a figure walk out from the room belonging to the manor’s owner in Rose Song Manor’s main building and stand on the balcony.

The figure had black hair and brown eyes, wore a silk top hat and black windbreaker, and had deeply defined contours and cold, hard lines. It was another Gehrman Sparrow.

This Gehrman Sparrow had also held his right hand in a firing gesture. Then he retracted it, brought it to his mouth, and blew lightly.

This was Klein himself.

What he had just fired was not an air bullet, but a Parasitic Bullet pushed out by the force of an air bullet!

A Parasitic Bullet made from a Worm of Time left behind by Amon’s avatar!

It could create a Worm of Time that could not survive for very long, allowing it to “parasitize” itself inside the target’s body and be controlled by the user.

Klein had specifically taken this bullet out and held it in his own hand, waiting for an opportunity—waiting until Qonas Kilgor had thrown away Concerto of Light and Shadow and had also entered a state where he could neither dodge nor Distort.

The former had been foreseeable after the Fallen Count’s Spirit Body Threads were initially controlled, because the other party would not let random mutation interfere with self-rescue. The latter required patience.

Just now, patience had received its reward. The opportunity had appeared. Klein had been the first to raise his hand and fire. Without random mutation interference, he had accurately sent the Parasitic Bullet into Qonas Kilgor’s body!

If the bullet that had taken effect earlier had not been the Deception Bullet but the Deprivation Bullet, then it would have been another way of fighting.

Temporarily unable to control his body, Qonas Kilgor watched as the Gehrman Sparrow on the balcony, under the huge crimson moon, removed his hat, pressed a hand to his chest, and bowed slightly toward him.

As the other party’s black windbreaker lightly stirred, even Qonas Kilgor’s thoughts grew sluggish.