Are Informants These Days Really This Fierce?!

Almost at the exact moment John's withered head locked onto Elias, the scroll in Elias's hand lit up.

He was going for a total lack of sportsmanship.

A blue bolt of lightning, so bright it stung the retinas, erupted from Elias's hand and shot straight for John's face!

The mountain of flesh's massive body shuddered.

It instinctively sensed this world-ending energy and tried to dodge in a panic. But its bloated, mountain-like size doomed it to be a sitting duck. Not to mention, redeploying the surrounding limbs to stack another layer of corpse armor on its face was out of the question. There simply wasn't enough time!

In this life-or-death moment, the mountain of flesh made the fastest reaction possible.

It changed the spell resistance of its Heart of the Storm!

Along with a surge of negative spirituality, the energy field on its surface shifted rapidly, forcefully switching to lightning resistance.

A nice thought, and a quick reaction.

Unfortunately, one mustn't forget that this was a Scale Four 【Lightning Bolt】!

"BOOM—!!!"

A deafening thunderclap exploded in mid-air, and the scent of ozone instantly filled the air. The deep blue lightning bolt, as thick as an adult's forearm, slammed into John's shriveled head with unrivaled destructive power!

It was pure, violent suppression.

Even though the mountain of flesh had granted itself temporary lightning resistance, it was futile. The wild electrical current coursed through its massive body, charring the stitched-together chunks of meat.

The mountain of flesh was dazed, its giant body reeling backward uncontrollably. The most fatal reason was that John himself, who formed the head, had only been a Scale Three transcendent when he was alive. His physical toughness couldn't withstand a direct hit from a Scale Four spell!

But it wasn't over.

Before the blinding light of the Lightning Bolt had even fully faded, an agile figure leaped from the mountain of flesh's shoulder, following the wake of the lightning and lunging straight for John's head!

The mountain of flesh was stunned. Its pitiful brain capacity couldn't fathom it.

After blasting someone in the face with a high-tier spell, shouldn't a normal person back away? How did this madman dare to close in for hand-to-hand combat?!

In mid-air...

Thanks to the enhancement of 【Slow Fall】, Elias's descent was exceptionally slow.

The shackles of gravity were greatly weakened. This made the distance of his leap unimaginably far, like a flying squirrel. The wind whistled past his ears.

With the mountain of flesh's two charred giant hands failing to stop him, Elias maneuvered precisely and slammed into its face!

He gripped the knife in a reverse hold and plunged it deep into the layers of corpses next to John's head!

Viscous black blood splattered his hand. The blade wedged into someone's ribs, serving as a perfect anchor.

John's shriveled face, smoking from the electricity, was inches away.

"You... die...!"

His withered muscles strained against his vocal cords, forcing out two words full of venom.

"Die your ass!"

Elias wasn't buying it. He had only one thought: before this monster recovered from its stun, he needed to stack as many resonance layers as possible on John's body!

His left hand immediately channeled Frostbite.

Bone-chilling frost spread from his palm, freezing the knife and the surrounding mass of corpses solid. He was completely stabilized.

Then, his free right hand reached for his waist in a clean motion.

The Roaring Cane was drawn!

"You die!"

"Bang!"

The base of the cane slammed into John's nose bridge with a gut-wrenching crack.

"Look at you, you look like a pile of shit!"

"Bang!"

Another heavy blow shattered several of John's teeth.

"Still talking?!"

"Bang!"

"I'll give you 'possession'!"

"Bang!"

"I'll give you 'acting tough'!"

Elias attacked like a relentless pile driver, jabbing the base of the cane into John's face repeatedly. Accompanied by the high-intensity verbal abuse of the modern internet, each strike grew heavier than the last.

"ROAR—!!!"

It was unclear whether Elias's thuggish, disrespectful fighting style had utterly enraged the mountain of flesh, or if the arcane energy mixed with the physical bludgeoning from The Roaring Cane—now enhanced with Arcane Weapon—had actually hurt John.

The mountain of flesh let out a roar of absolute fury.

Then, its two giant arms came whistling through the air, both slamming toward its own face! It intended to squash Elias into a pulp!

"Are you a sore loser?!"

Elias cursed. No hitting the face—how could this guy resort to self-harm?

He didn't linger. Before the giant hands could close, he let Frostbite fade, kicked off the mountain of flesh's face, and lunged downward.

He plummeted through the air.

The moment he left its face, the mountain of flesh instantly cast a spell from one hand, targeting where Elias had just been! A dense layer of violent lightning suddenly coated one of the closing giant palms.

Upon realizing Elias had escaped, the lightning-wreathed hand twisted at an impossible angle in mid-air and snatched downward!

A powerful electromagnetic suction instantly enveloped the slowly descending Elias.

His body jerked to a halt in mid-air. Then, he was captured by the giant lightning hand!

At that moment, Elias went numb. Physically, truly numb.

The violent current from the hand created a terrifying traction, dragging him upward uncontrollably. High-voltage electricity crawled frantically through his pores, seeping into his blood and piercing his marrow.

He felt as if tens of thousands of army ants were gnawing at every inch of his body! His nerve endings screamed, and his muscles began to spasm uncontrollably. Weightlessness took over, and his vision was bleached white by the electrical glare.

"How can there be such an unfair spell?!"

Elias gritted his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of blood on his tongue. Enduring the tearing numbness and agony, he tucked The Roaring Cane back onto his waist.

He glanced at the runes on the cane out of the corner of his eye. Only five resonance stacks. Nowhere near the threshold for detonation!

Damn it, I'm going for it!

Braving the electrical bombardment, Elias reached into his tactical pocket with a trembling hand and pulled out an alchemy bomb—one he had lifted from Finn earlier.

He channeled his remaining spirituality into it without hesitation. Then, forcing his spasming body to twist, he hurled it at the descending giant lightning hand above!

Thanks to that lethal electrical traction, the alchemy bomb rose with incredible speed.

In the blink of an eye, the bomb reached the exact center of the giant hand.

"KABOOM—!!!"

A massive explosion, even more exaggerated than the previous Lightning Bolt, tore through the night sky. A ball of brilliant, blinding fire erupted! It was holy, pure, and carried an aura that burned away all evil.

The light instantly illuminated Elias's electricity-distorted face.

Not just an explosion, but radiance damage too?!

"Holy shit?!"

Elias's eyes widened in mid-air, completely dumbfounded. "This thing is that powerful?!"

How could a broke guy like Finn afford a strategic-level nuke like this?! But he had no time to think. The terrifying explosion successfully shattered the spiritual structure of the mountain of flesh's hand, forcing its spell to cancel. The traction vanished instantly.

Elias began to drift toward the ground headfirst.

Only then did his eyes, watering from the blinding light, manage to clear enough to see the distant scene.

Not far away, next to the mystic who had been struggling earlier, stood ten uniformed figures in a neat row.

One of them held a complex scepter high in the air.

From the tip of the scepter, a world-ending radiance energy, like a laser cannon, blasted continuously at the mountain of flesh's face! It actually managed to pin the monster in place.

Oh... so that earth-shattering explosion wasn't thanks to the crappy alchemy bomb in his hand after all...

But that was fine. It meant Ms. Cecil's reinforcements had finally arrived.

In the distance, among the squad of investigators maintaining their formation and outputting damage, a sharp-eyed one noticed the strange figure drifting slowly through the air headfirst.

"Who's that?" the investigator asked, startled.

The person next to him squinted to get a better look and gasped.

"That's Ms. Cecil's informant!"

"Are informants these days really this fierce?!"

"Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a monster that big?"