Morris didn't waste any words, throwing a punch straight at Gregory's face.
The three rank 2 Pathfinders coordinated with perfect chemistry, their blows landing like the wind, gradually gaining the upper hand in pure physical combat.
Although Gregory was rank 3, his combat style relied too heavily on machinery.
Without the enhancement of those parts, his fighting skills were far inferior to these three Pathfinders who had spent years struggling in the wilderness.
Heller executed a shoulder throw, slamming Gregory onto the ground.
Vincent followed up with a kick to his abdomen.
Gregory let out a muffled groan and spat out a mouthful of blood.
But Lu Yuan's expression didn't relax in the slightest.
Before entering the courtyard, he had told Morris that Gregory was conducting symbiosis experiments and that a parasite had incubated inside the Mayor.
Morris's response had been, "Deal with Gregory first; we'll worry about the bugs later."
The Pathfinders' judgment was that Gregory was the core threat and the bugs were merely byproducts.
But Lu Yuan didn't see it that way.
Standing in the corner, his right hand was permanently pressed against the Timekeeper in his shirt, his gaze not on the fight but scanning every shadow in the courtyard.
Where was the bug?
Gregory had been hiding in the Mayor's house for so long; he couldn't possibly be without a backup plan.
Just then, his gaze froze.
In the shadows of the courtyard corner, something was moving.
A mass of flesh-red shadow, much larger than the one inside Reid, was crouching at the base of the wall.
It wasn't in a hurry to strike.
It was waiting.
Lu Yuan's pupils shrank violently.
The thing was nearly half a person tall, its body covered in ring-like grooves, with no eyes, only a massive circular mouth.
The mouth was open, filled with a dense cluster of eyes.
They were identical to the eyes inside the mutated sandworm's mouth.
Those eyes were staring at the people in battle, flickering with a certain greedy light.
At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text quietly surfaced:
【Detection target: Parasitic Matriarch (mutated sandworm variant/adult form)】
【Traits: Extremely fast, extremely high attack power, high intelligence, chooses the best moment to attack】
【Warning: Extremely dangerous!】
Lu Yuan's heart sank upon seeing this.
This thing had been waiting all along.
Waiting for the Pathfinders and Gregory to exhaust each other.
"Watch out!"
But before Lu Yuan could finish his warning, the bug had already moved.
Its speed was incredibly fast, several times faster than the larva inside Reid.
A flesh-red blur streaked across the battlefield.
Pfft!
Vincent's body stiffened.
He looked down, staring in disbelief at his abdomen.
The bug's mouth was plunged into his stomach, blood gushing out.
"Vincent!" Heller roared, trying to rush over.
But the bug reacted faster, its body twisting as its tail swept across, sending Heller flying.
Heller hit the courtyard wall with a groan, unable to get up for a long time.
Morris's expression changed drastically.
"Damn it!"
He tried to go to their aid, but Gregory took the opportunity to counterattack, springing from the ground and grabbing him by the throat.
"Hahahaha!"
Gregory let out a crazed laugh.
"This is my masterpiece! The perfect symbiote! Three years of effort! Once I achieve symbiosis with it, I will be able to set foot on a new path!"
His gaze was insane, his face filled with a morbid fanaticism.
"That waste of a Mayor thought he could control it? He wasn't even fit to be its food!"
The situation reversed in an instant.
Vincent lay on the ground, blood still flowing from the wound in his abdomen, his fate unknown.
Heller leaned against the base of the wall, struggling to stand, but his body was weak.
Morris was being choked by Gregory, his face turning red, unable to break free.
And that bug was slowly turning around, all the eyes in its mouth focusing on Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan stood in the shadows, his gaze cold.
His right hand was already gripping the Timekeeper pocket watch in his shirt.
The Timekeeper's third ability: Deprivation.
It could deprive a target of their time, though Lu Yuan wasn't sure of the specific effects; judging from the performance of the first ability, it shouldn't be too far off.
The cost was a minimum of 80 Sanity.
He currently had 75.
And there were two targets before him.
Gregory and that bug.
Lu Yuan's gaze fell on the slightly warm metal ring on his wrist.
Morris had said he could draw from the others' Sanity.
He had also mentioned that Lu Yuan's Sanity might be low and to focus his attention when drawing from it.
The current situation left Lu Yuan no time for second thoughts.
He focused his mind on that metal ring and activated the Timekeeper's ability simultaneously.
Drain.
In an instant, the metal ring grew burning hot.
Three waves of Sanity fluctuations were clearly presented in Lu Yuan's perception.
Very faint.
So faint they were like three small trickles.
Lu Yuan frowned slightly.
So little?
The one from Morris felt like it was only in the low fifties.
Heller's was even less, around forty.
Vincent's was the weakest, likely due to his heavy injuries, leaving only about thirty.
Three rank 2 Pathfinders added up to only a bit over a hundred and twenty?
Lu Yuan was somewhat surprised.
He thought the amount of Sanity this metal ring could transmit was limited, which was why the perceived values were so low.
After all, Morris had said this thing was for "temporary support."
Since it was support, it certainly couldn't share all of their Sanity, right?
It should only be a portion.
Lu Yuan didn't think twice and decisively drained it all.
In one go, not a single drop left.
The situation was dire, and he couldn't afford to care about much else.
Three torrents of Sanity flooded into his body.
Lu Yuan had originally thought it might be a bit strenuous.
After all, it was the Sanity of three rank 2s; even if it was only a portion, it wouldn't be a small amount.
But the actual sensation...
Was unexpectedly easy.
When those three streams of Sanity entered his body, it was like three small brooks flowing into an ocean, not even creating a splash.
They were accommodated with ease.
One hundred.
One hundred and fifty.
One hundred and ninety...
The numbers climbed rapidly, yet there was no sense of discomfort.
Lu Yuan was stunned for a moment.
He had expected some strain, but it was so easy—yet in the next second, his attention was drawn to something else.
The bodies of the three Pathfinders were undergoing drastic changes.
Morris's gaze was the first to lose focus.
He had still been struggling, trying to break Gregory's grip, but in the next second, his body suddenly went limp as if all his strength had been sucked out.
Heller was even worse.
He had just propped up half his body when his eyes suddenly rolled back, and he collapsed backward, his body convulsing violently as he foamed at the mouth.
Vincent, already unconscious from his heavy injuries, almost stopped breathing entirely, the rise and fall of his chest becoming so weak it was nearly invisible.
Lu Yuan's expression froze for a moment.
Wait.
This reaction wasn't right.
If he had only drained a portion of their Sanity, it wouldn't be like this, would it?
Unless...
He hadn't drained a portion.
He had drained everything.
Lu Yuan suddenly realized a problem.
He had always felt that the three Pathfinders' Sanity was "so little."
But what was this "little" relative to?
Relative to himself.
His Sanity limit was 120.
The three rank 2 Pathfinders combined were only about the same as him alone.
Lu Yuan fell silent for a moment.
No wonder Morris had said his Sanity "might be a bit low."
In their eyes, how high could the Sanity of an injured Nightwatcher with a medical mark on his badge be?
Lu Yuan glanced at the three men lying on the ground, knowing he had to hurry, or his three teammates would die at his own hands.
But now was not the time for guilt.
Gregory froze in place, the madness on his face gradually replaced by bewilderment.
"What... what is going on?"
He looked at the limp Morris in his hand, then at the convulsing Heller on the ground, completely unable to understand what had happened.
The parasitic matriarch also stopped its movements, the eyes in its mouth rolling in confusion.
Lu Yuan stepped out from the shadows.
He looked at Gregory, then at the bug.
Two targets.
They were very close.
Perfect.
At the edge of his vision, greyish-white text quietly flickered:
【Current Sanity: 195/120 (Overload)】
【Warning: Sanity severely overloaded, please release immediately】
The next moment, two invisible ripples spread out from the pocket watch.
The air stagnated.
Centering on Gregory and the parasitic matriarch, a distorted domain quietly took shape.
Gregory's pupils shrank suddenly.
He felt it.
The world had changed.
The air became viscous, as if he were deep underwater.
His limbs were incredibly heavy, every movement requiring ten times the effort.
"This is..."
He wanted to speak, but the speed at which the sound was squeezed from his throat was agonizingly slow.
Time.
Someone was manipulating time.
The parasitic matriarch let out a piercing shriek.
Its body began to shrivel violently, the ring-like grooves growing deeper as its skin started to crack and peel. The eyes in its mouth closed one by one, withering and turning to ash.
Ten seconds.
Twenty seconds.
Its life was draining away at a visible rate, a century of time compressed into this brief instant.
Finally, the bug crashed to the ground, turning into a pile of shriveled remains.
But Gregory was still standing.
His skin was aging, wrinkles appearing, but that mechanically augmented body continued to function stubbornly.
Lu Yuan frowned, a surge of anxiety in his heart.
One burst of Deprivation could kill the bug.
But it couldn't kill Gregory.
The vitality of a rank 3 mechanical augmenter was more resilient than he had expected.
What should he do?
Lu Yuan's gaze fell on Gregory's chest.
There, he could faintly see the outline of a metal piece pulsing beneath the skin.
The mechanical core.
The lifeblood of every mechanical augmenter.
Lu Yuan gritted his teeth.
A second burst of Deprivation poured out.
This time, he didn't envelop the entire body.
Instead, he concentrated all the power onto that single point.
Gregory's movements froze.
In the next second, his eyes widened suddenly, a look of unbelievable terror surfacing on his face.
A sharp pain radiated from his chest.
It was the alarm for core damage.
Impossible.
Gregory lowered his head, trembling as he looked at his chest.
He could feel the mechanical core that had accompanied him for over a decade disintegrating.
The metal was rusting, the gears shattering, and those precise structures were collapsing under the erosion of time.
"No... impossible..."
His voice was raspy and desperate.
He tried to reach out to protect his chest, but his arm froze in mid-air halfway up.
The core stopped completely.
Gregory's body swayed, his knees hitting the ground before he fell straight forward.
His eyes remained open, filled with resentment and fear.
Until his death, he couldn't understand how a mere rank 1 Nightwatcher doctor could possess such power.
Rate on N.U.
