Chapter 90 - Chapter 87: Original Flavor

Facing this storm-like attack, Nairn made a move that no one expected.Instead of retreating, he took a step forward, meeting the "rain of trash."On his face, that cynical smile—as if everything was under control—reappeared."The game should enter the next phase now."His figure became blurred again amidst the flying trash.At this moment, the flying paper knives, stones, and wooden sticks, like a swarm of locusts endowed with life, let out sharp whistles and were about to submerge Nairn in an instant.However, just a second before these "weapons" were about to hit him, something eerie happened.The paper knives at the very front suddenly took a mysterious turn in mid-air, grazing Nairn's clothes and flying past, stabbing fiercely into the opposite wall.Next, a whistling brick, just centimeters from Nairn's forehead, seemed to hit an invisible wall; its speed dropped sharply, and it fell limply to the ground.A sharp wooden splinter, looking like it would pierce Nairn's shoulder, broke into two pieces on its own in mid-air.Hundreds or thousands of attacks, yet not a single one could actually touch Nairn's body!They either deviated from their trajectory, mysteriously lost their power, or disintegrated on their own in mid-air.The whole scene looked like a farce that had been rehearsed countless times but then botched.Not far away, the Monster controlling all this had its single eye filled with confusion and rage.It didn't understand why the ability it was so proud of had become so unruly.It could only instinctively increase its spirituality output, making more trash fly and smash more frantically at that hateful enemy.However, the result was the same.Nairn strolled leisurely through that storm of death and filth, without a single leaf touching his body.His pace wasn't fast, but it carried a strange rhythm, as if he wasn't dodging attacks but conducting a grand symphony made of trash.The special spiritual intuition granted by the Trickster allowed Nairn to dodge these attacks based purely on instinct!"Too crude, too crude."As Nairn walked, he shook his head and muttered to himself, like a picky art critic."Look at your power; can't you control it more precisely? The trajectory of the paper knives has no sense of beauty at all.""You make a wooden stick fly like a noodle; are you doing justice to this stick? It used to be a tree!"With every sentence Nairn spoke, the red light in the Monster's eye grew brighter."As expected, just a big idiot with nothing but strength," Nairn concluded. "Fortunately, fortunately. If Amon were operating this body, sequence 8 power alone wouldn't be enough.""Roar!!!"The Monster was completely enraged.It gave up on these flashy long-range attacks, arched its whole body forward, went on all fours like a hunting leopard, and charged at Nairn!It wanted to use the most primitive and savage force to tear this talkative guy into pieces!Its speed was extremely fast, pulling out black afterimages on the ground, and a foul-smelling gale hit him in the face.However, just as it was about to pounce in front of Nairn, the floor tile where its front claw landed suddenly dented and became as elastic as rubber.[Trickster] Ability—[Prank: Elasticity Granting]!The Monster stepped into empty air, its whole body lost balance, and its massive frame was suddenly bounced upward by that highly elastic floor tile.It was like a clumsy gymnast doing a flip in the air, then "thud," face-first, it slammed solidly onto the ground.Its bulging belly was flattened by the huge impact, and the things inside made a "squelch," as if something had been squeezed and burst."Oh dear, zero points for the landing, and the splash control was poor too."Nairn walked to the side of the Monster lying on the ground, looking down at it, and continued his sharp-tongued commentary.All of this was, naturally, Nairn's masterpiece.The core of the Trickster is not just creating pranks, but on a deeper level, a keen perception and utilization of "loopholes."This is the passive ability of the Trickster.In Nairn's eyes, the world was full of various "loopholes" available for use.For example, the trash the Monster controlled with Turning Paper into Soldiers had countless tiny "gaps" in their flight trajectories that could be interfered with.Nairn only needed the weakest spirituality, at the most opportune moment, to give a tiny "push" to the most critical "gap" to trigger a chain reaction, causing the entire attack formation to collapse completely.This was a "skill approaching the Dao," a subtle manipulation of physical rules and causal chains.And the Monster itself was full of loopholes!It was forcibly stitched together from multiple incompatible Beyonder characteristics and corruptions; its spiritual structure was inherently unstable, like a shaky tower built haphazardly with blocks.Every seemingly casual "trick" by Nairn was an extremely precise act of "removing blocks."He didn't need brute force to topple this tower; he only needed to gently pull out that one block at the most critical position, and the entire structure would collapse on its own."Roar—"The Monster struggled to get up from the ground; the aura on its body had weakened significantly.Continuous failures and being toyed with caused the energy inside it to be heavily consumed in meaningless rampages.It gave up all its fancy abilities, and its remaining reason was completely replaced by bestiality.Its massive body suddenly shook, and an invisible wave centered on it spread out instantly![Prometheus: Steal]!This time, it was no longer trying randomly; driven by enraged instinct, it firmly locked the target of its theft onto this human who had brought it immense suffering!It wanted to steal Nairn's ability and use his own methods to torture him!Nairn instantly felt a cold, greasy force, like a venomous snake, entwine his spirituality, trying to "steal" something from within.However, in the next second, something eerie happened.That "stealing" force, upon touching the source deep within Nairn's spirituality that was closely connected to the Chaos Theater, was like an ordinary thief kicking open a door only to find that behind the door wasn't a vault, but a spinning black hole capable of swallowing galaxies!Nairn's Beyonder abilities did not come from potions, but from an "advance" from the Sefirah.Its essence was the Chaos Theater's "temporary rewriting" of reality.Stealing this kind of ability?This was equivalent to a programmer trying to use "copy-paste" code to steal the low-level permissions of an entire operating system."Buzz—!"The Monster's stealing ability not only stole nothing but instead triggered a violent backlash because it touched a higher-dimensional power!A stream of information, chaotic to the extreme and full of contradictions and paradoxes, flowed back into the Monster's brain along the path of the "theft"!The Chaos Theater didn't even bother to actively attack; its mere passive "Existence" was enough to cause a "logic Error."The Monster's arm that tried to steal, as if injected with boiling lava, suddenly swelled up, with countless screaming human faces appearing on the skin's surface, then with a "bang," it exploded into a bloody, mangled mess!The look in its eye toward Nairn finally carried a deep—fear.It instinctively felt that the enemy before it could not be understood with common sense at all.He was like a ghost, a bug, a player who didn't follow the game rules, always able to use the most incredible ways to turn all its attacks into nothing.The Monster began to retreat.Its instinct told it that it must leave here immediately, the further away from this terrifying man, the better."Want to leave?"Nairn saw through its intention, and the smile on his face turned somewhat cold.As soon as he finished speaking, at the exit of the alley, the light and shadow distorted.A blurry figure flashed past.[Trickster] Ability—[Light and Shadow Trick].The Monster's attention was drawn by that figure; it suddenly stopped and looked warily toward the exit.And in that split second of distraction, Nairn's figure appeared directly above it as if teleporting!Finally, it used its forbidden final form—a pale hand covered in red patterns reached out from that opening.Then a second, a third—One after another, arms belonging to different creatures burrowed out of its body, like tree roots breaking through the soil, frantically grabbing at everything around.This was the mottled Outer Deity corruption within it, starting its final backlash and rampage after losing the suppression of the main body.Those arms grabbed the walls, the ground, and even each other, forming a writhing, nauseating ball of flesh made of arms."Tsk, truly uniquely ugly."Nairn frowned, feeling physiological discomfort at this sanity loss scene.Can't drag this on any longer.If this out-of-control corruption is allowed to spread, it might turn this entire vicinity into a corrupted demon realm.[Trickster] Ability—[Phase Trick: Distance Deception]!The space between him and the Monster was "folded" extremely subtly by an invisible force.It looked like he was smashing down onto the Monster's head from above.But in reality, he bypassed that lethal toxic mist and appeared directly at the back of the Monster's head!Activate [Character Card—thousand faces]![Dread].An absolute suppression force originating from life level came crashing down.Next was [Character Card—Lovers]![Connection], which allowed Nairn to see and slightly nudge the invisible "Connections" between targets arising from fate, emotions, transactions, and so on.It only felt a chill at the back of its head, as an irresistible force with strong "intrusion" and "analysis" implications stabbed fiercely into its skull!"Crack!"A soft sound like glass shattering.That wasn't the sound of bones breaking, but the sound of the spiritual structure being forcibly pried open!But just this, even with the addition of the Sefirah, wasn't enough to play a decisive role.[thousand faces—Deception]!Obtain the power of Identity Planning he once possessed![Create Character]—Mode:—Overwrite Existence!"Aaaaaah!!!"The Monster let out its most shrill and painful scream ever.Its body convulsed violently, and what sprayed from its orifices was no longer fire, but streams of chaotic spiritual pollution composed of various colored light spots.Nairn's Beyonder ability was like a master key, forcibly opening the "safe" within its body composed of countless Beyonder characteristics and corruptions!In Nairn's spiritual vision, he "saw" it.He saw the core secret of this body.It was a writhing mass of gray flesh composed of countless painful human faces; this was the foundation of the Magician after losing control.Atop this mass of flesh perched a faint but extremely pure, bug-like Error; that was the characteristic of Prometheus left behind by Amon.And entwined around these two were over a dozen black chains of different colors, emitting auras of depravity, desire, hunger, and so on; those were corruptions from Outer Gods.The three were entangled and corroding each other, forming a fragile and dangerous balance.And Nairn's final blow smashed precisely on the weakest node of this "balance"!"Found it."Nairn's eyes flashed with excitement.His goal was never simply to kill this Monster.Killing it was too easy; just detonating the corruption inside it would blow it to pieces.But in that case, the precious "materials" inside would be wasted.Especially—that sliver of Error aura left by Amon!Although it was only a Sequence 6 and sequence 7 characteristic, it was "Original Flavor" that had been parasitized and assimilated by Amon!For the Chaos Theater, which didn't yet have its Uniqueness, this was simply a supreme delicacy!What Nairn had to do was like a most brilliant surgeon, precisely and completely "excising" this "tumor" without triggering a big explosion!"little theater, get ready to eat!"Nairn shouted in his heart.The will of the Chaos Theater descended instantly, a greedy and joyful emotion flowing into the Monster's sea of spirit along that Spiritual Crowbar.On the Sefirah-level "dining table" of the Chaos Theater, any resistance was futile.Nairn felt as if the little theater had successfully "pried" a hard candy out of a mass of thick jelly.In the next second, that core of corruption inside the Monster, along with Amon's residual characteristic, was pulled out completely and instantly disappeared from this world.They were—"eaten" by the Chaos Theater.The alleyway fell silent instantly.That massive, deformed Monster emitting a terrifying aura collapsed limply to the ground like a skin bag whose bones and soul had been removed.All the corruption on its body had been stripped clean.Nairn took a long breath and retracted the Spiritual Crowbar in his hand.He could feel the Chaos Theater in his mind letting out satisfied and joyful "burps," as if it had eaten an unprecedented feast.A stream of extremely pure energy, carrying the Error and various Outer Deity auras, began to feed back from the Chaos Theater, gently pouring into Nairn's spirit body.This was—the "return gift" for the master after digesting the "food."Although it was just a few scraps, for the current Nairn, it was already a great supplement."Finally—it's done."Nairn rubbed his throbbing temples, feeling a wave of exhaustion wash over him.This battle seemed easy and casual, but in reality, every step was taken on the edge of a knife.The grasp of timing, the use of abilities, and the consumption of spirituality all had to be pushed to the limit.This was definitely the most dangerous and "technical" battle he had fought since he transmigrated.Although it was also the only battle he had experienced since transmigrating.