Of course.
Everything seems incredibly simple and logical when you imagine it in your head.
But once you reach the stage of actual execution.
Fate always stingily shoves one or two unsolvable, fatal problems into your schedule.
For instance.
Elias was now deeply feeling the truth of that.
Just a few minutes ago.
When he had resolutely turned around, deciding to come back and help these rookie investigators who were nearly out of ammunition and hope.
Elias's gears had been spinning rapidly.
He thought that since the mountain of flesh had recklessly absorbed the living corpse of Finn.
And he just happened to have stuffed a sufficient amount of thunderclap bullets and repulsion charms into Finn's head.
Then this was equivalent to planting a remote-controlled explosive inside the enemy's stomach.
As long as he detonated that internal weakness.
Attacking from both inside and out, blooming from within.
He could end this seemingly lopsided, absurd battle almost effortlessly.
The plan was perfect.
But reality was often depressingly harsh.
When he donned the Moonlight Veil once more to mask his presence and vision.
Using the cover of night and ruins to walk silently back into the cemetery battlefield under invisibility.
He stopped in his tracks.
Looking up through his mask at the massive mountain of flesh currently wreaking havoc.
The corners of Elias's eyes twitched violently.
His "insufficient firepower phobia" was acting up.
Honestly.
He wasn't sure now.
If he only detonated those few resonance charges and charms stuffed into Finn's head.
Would that explosion yield really be enough to take down this behemoth?
Looking past the broken tombstones scattered across the ground.
This heap stitched together from countless corpses was larger than he had imagined.
Thick dark erosion energy flowed between the gaps of the meat chunks like a natural layer of heavy armor.
Forget a few thunderclap bullets.
Elias even suspected that if he brought over an alchemical cannon and fired a shot, it would probably only blast an insignificant pit in this thing.
He swallowed hard, his gaze quickly sweeping over the battlefield.
The situation could no longer be described as merely bad.
It was a complete slaughter.
The rookie investigators who had stayed behind to cover the retreat had long since lost their ability to counterattack.
The line had completely collapsed.
Only the Scale Two mystic remained, gritting his teeth and overdrawing his life force to barely hold on.
Beside him.
The other two investigators, without exception, had fallen into the muddy pools of blood.
They lay on the path the mountain of flesh had to cross.
Their status was unknown.
Fortunately.
Elias keenly noticed that the two fallen men hadn't immediately turned into zombies.
One of them was Luke's former partner, Henry.
Old Ed guessed that before the young man lost consciousness, he had shown the foundation of a proper initiate Life Scholar.
He might have cast 【Life Support】.
A faint green light full of vitality flickered in this death-shrouded mud.
It stubbornly held onto the last breath of the two men.
This prevented them from dying after falling and being absorbed into the disgusting embrace of that mountain of flesh.
On the other side.
A tireless metal figure was darting frantically across the battlefield.
It was the brass alchemy puppet.
It was jumping around the mountain of flesh.
The silver greatsword in its hands swung constantly, attempting to cut through the obstructing meat chunks to retrieve the lost pendulum from the core.
And thanks to that.
After the mountain of flesh lost Elias, its primary target of obsession.
It only wanted to break through the gates of the Lily of the Valley Convent.
To kill Luke, who had schemed against it while it was alive.
Therefore.
The vast majority of the monster's attention was either focused on slamming into the convent's building or being pinned down by the alchemy puppet.
Countless severed limbs and tentacles were clashing violently with the metal greatsword.
This accidental distribution of hatred.
Was the only reason the mystic could still survive in the gaps and hold on until now.
Elias used his Wind-Chaser Boots to lightly dodge the limbs sweeping across the ground.
He silently crept behind the mystic's cover.
Directly channeling his spirituality.
He connected to the other party's mental channel.
The moment the only living mystic heard Elias's voice in his mind.
His nerves, stretched to the breaking point, suddenly jolted.
He turned his head to look at the empty air beside him.
His eyes instantly reddened.
Tears of gratitude mixed with the mud on his face, nearly streaming down.
“Sir, please leave!”
The mystic's voice echoed in the mental channel, carrying a tragic sense of defiance.
“I probably won't last much longer.”
The fingers holding his arcane firearm were trembling violently.
“But as long as you can leave before I die and get the intelligence out, that will be enough.”
Hearing this declaration of self-sacrifice.
“Enough nonsense!”
Elias cut him off unceremoniously.
This guy was clearly moved to tears knowing he had come back to support him.
Yet he still insisted on saying such things.
Elias couldn't help but sigh in his heart.
He felt that perhaps the people with the most conscience in all of Velen were all assigned to the front lines of the Seventh Agency.
Doing the hardest work and taking the most brutal beatings.
However.
Thinking of traitors like Luke.
Elias also felt.
That perhaps the people with the shadiest backgrounds in all of Velen were also clustered in the management of this official organization.
High-level games, low-level lives.
It was truly ironic.
“Wipe your tears and follow my lead.”
Elias didn't reveal his form as he quickly issued tactical instructions.
“You're responsible for assisting me; I'll take the lead in the attack.”
He stared at the roaring mountain of flesh in the distance.
“Your current state is poor, and your spirituality is nearly depleted. Don't cast any more offensive spells; focus on recovery and support.”
Elias took a deep breath.
His fingers brushed against the revolver at his waist twice.
“I need to find a chance to get as close as possible to this pile of crap.”
He stated his tactical difficulty.
“But once my Moonlight Veil is dropped, or as soon as I attack and reveal myself, it will definitely notice me immediately.”
“It will then focus all of its attention on me.”
“When that happens, I need to have enough power to withstand it.”
As Elias's tactical deployment clearly transmitted through his mind.
The mystic leaning against the broken wall.
His tragic expression suddenly froze.
He subconsciously sniffed.
A look of extreme oddity appeared on his face.
Pile of crap...
The mystic looked up through the gaps in the cover.
He glanced at the massive, writhing thing in the distance.
Honestly.
He had been in such extreme terror before that he hadn't thought of it that way.
Now that the mysterious informant had mentioned it.
It really... did look a bit like that.
John's former body, which had been buried in the grave.
Because it had just absorbed a massive amount of fragmented corpses and severed limbs.
It had already completely bloated and mutated.
One could no longer see any human physical features on it.
It was like a heap of melted rotten meat.
Relying on the dozen or so severed hands and feet touching the ground to move forward in the mud like a centipede.
Moving in a disgusting and slow manner.
However.
At the very top of this mountain of flesh.
John's head was exposed there in isolation.
Serving as the high point of the entire monster and a sort of twisted symbol.
“Do you have any spells that can help me?”
Elias urged, pulling the mystic's attention back to reality.
“Like shields or enhancement spells.”
“I do.”
The mystic sniffed hard, pulling back the mucus that was about to escape his nose from his earlier emotion, and nodded.
“Though I don't know exactly what you plan to do or how you'll dismantle it from the inside.”
The mystic quickly spoke of the current battle's difficulties in the mental channel.
“But right now, the main trouble we face isn't just the mountain of flesh.”
He pointed his finger at that brass lump.
“It's that damn alchemy puppet.”
The mystic gritted his teeth as he added.
“Its state is very strange right now.”
“It's fighting the mountain of flesh's tentacles to dig out that pendulum.”
“At the same time, it won't allow any other living creature to approach the mountain of flesh's alert range.”
“When we tried to get close earlier, it actually turned its sword around and attacked us instead!”
Hearing this intelligence.
Under invisibility, the corners of Elias's mouth twitched violently.
What kind of absurd love-hate relationship is this...
Elias couldn't help but complain wildly in his heart.
Which genius wrote that iron lump's base code?
It wants to kill the opponent itself but won't let anyone else interfere.
Now it's trouble. To get close to the mountain of flesh, he'd have to get past the alchemy puppet first.
“And please don't let your guard down.”
The mystic's voice became solemn.
“Based on our tests.”
“The dark erosion energy inside this thing is incredibly vast.”
“Its energy level is at least at the Scale Five level!”
What?
He had to fight a Scale Five?
Seriously?
That was a gap of three entire realms of suppression.
“Physical attacks hit it like they're hitting cotton; they're useless.”
“Even weirder, we tried using curse-type containment objects to cut off its mobility.”
The mystic shook his head in despair.
“But they were all ineffective against it.”
Hearing this suffocating battle report.
Elias fell into a brief silence.
Scale Five physical defense, curse immunity.
This was essentially a flawless warrior.
However.
Right then.
Old Ed, who had been listening in, spoke up.
“That's because this thing's core is buried too deep!”
The old man used his sharp eyes to see through to the hopeless truth.
“John himself only has a Scale Three body.”
“While the overall scale level is close to five, in reality, if you want to destroy it from the inside, it's not impossible.”
“And to make a curse spell work, it must land precisely on the target's original physical form.”
Old Ed explained the basic laws of mysticism.
“Those outer layers of rotten meat and severed limbs are all physical armor it absorbed.”
“If you hit the armor with a curse, how could it possibly affect what's inside?”
Elias immediately understood the old man's meaning.
“You're saying John's corpse is the core?”
“Exactly.”
Old Ed gave tactical guidance.
“Actually, you don't need to guess blindly here.”
“You can just use Moon Vision to see the flow of energy directly.”
Elias didn't hesitate for a second.
He immediately activated his Rational Circuit, letting his spirituality flood into his eyes.
Moon Vision opened.
Sure enough.
Lines of dark green dark erosion energy flowed between the meat chunks.
Elias followed the direction of the energy convergence, looking all the way up.
From the massive base, he tracked it to the top of this nearly eight-meter-tall mountain of flesh.
Under those layers of blood and meat.
All the energy lines eventually converged on a hidden node.
It was a shriveled corpse wrapped in the deepest part.
The Soul Pendulum was there as well.
That was the real John.
Elias stared at the head at the peak of that magnificent eight-meter mountain of flesh.
“Holy crap!”
“It's that small?!”
Rate on N.U.
