On the remaining half of Durand's face, the human shock and incomprehension were completely swallowed by a more primitive, pure agony.
It was no longer a sound a human could make.
It was a non-human wail, saturated with endless torment, coming from the depths of a flesh-and-blood Hell.
"Aaaaaaaagh—!!!"
His body seemed to have been injected with some violent and chaotic catalyst, twisting and deforming violently in a way that completely defied all biological common sense.
The "crack-crack" sound of bone hyperplasia beneath his skin was like a dense series of popping beans, making one's teeth ache.
That well-tailored white research lab coat was torn inch by inch by rapidly expanding, deformed muscles, turning into fluttering, filthy scraps of cloth.
Muscle tissue, like balloons being blown up with high-pressure gas, bulged crazily, tore, and then regrew.
Strands and clusters of oily black-red tentacles, which had originally been hidden inside his body, now seemed like hungry prisoners breaking out of their cages.
They scrambled to drill out frantically from every pore of his body and every wound blown open by bullets.
They stretched and danced greedily in mid-air.
This process lasted for less than three seconds.
A refined, paranoid man who called himself a messenger of God had completely disappeared.
In his place was a deformed monster stacked with pure, twisted, and insane flesh and tentacles.
However, this insane mutation seemed unstable.
The monster's massive body had just formed when visible signs of collapse began to appear.
Large chunks of hyperplastic flesh peeled off its body like melting wax, falling to the ground and turning into puddles of foul-smelling black pus emitting white smoke.
The newly grown chitinous appendages supporting its body also began to show ominous cracks.
"Heh... Heh..."
From the monster's head, of which only half remained after being blasted, came a raspy breath filled with pain and resentment.
It suddenly lifted the part that could no longer be called a "head."
Several of the thickest tentacles, with tips like sharp bone spears, suddenly whipped backward.
"Screeech—!!!"
A piercing sound of twisting metal, loud enough to tear eardrums, suddenly rang out.
The tentacles, like indestructible claws, forcefully tore several irregular metal plates the size of tabletops from the thick metal wall where Noah had previously blasted a human-shaped indentation.
The complex wiring and circuits inside the wall were instantly exposed, with electric sparks flashing crazily with a "zzt-zzt" sound.
The monster let out an angry roar.
Its deformed, giant arthropod-like arm swung violently.
The heavy metal plates, carrying a sharp whistle that tore through the air, smashed fiercely toward Noah and Claire.
The heavy sense of oppression even made the air feel thick.
Almost at the same time, the two of them made incredibly swift evasive maneuvers in opposite directions.
Noah's center of gravity sank abruptly as he performed a clean and agile slide.
Like a black falcon flying close to the ground, he passed perilously through the fleeting gap between two metal plates.
Boom!
Boom!
The metal plates smashed heavily onto the spot where he had just been standing.
The hard metal floor was smashed into two terrifying pits with deep, curled edges.
Debris and sparks sprayed out frantically in all directions.
On the other side, Claire's movements were filled with a beauty that combined flexibility and explosive power in a completely different way.
She performed a sudden backflip, her entire body tracing a graceful arc in the air.
A metal plate whistled past, almost grazing the tips of her hair.
The resulting gust of wind blew her reddish-brown ponytail into a wild dance.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, she didn't stop for even a moment.
Her toes tapped against the metal floor, which was stained with semi-dried blood.
A powerful explosive force surged from her legs.
Her body, like a light feather caught in a gale, drifted back several more meters.
In the very next instant after she left the spot.
Another metal plate crashed to the ground with the force of ten thousand tons.
The deafening roar echoed endlessly throughout the hall.
However, the monster that had thrown the lethal metal plates did not follow up on its attack.
At the moment Noah and Claire dodged the attack.
Its massive and slightly unstable body suddenly turned.
Dragging the continuously collapsing and dripping black pus.
It stumbled toward the center of the hall, toward that giant blood pool that looked like a Lake.
Splash—!
A loud crash.
It smashed its massive and deformed body heavily into that viscous crimson liquid.
Blood plasma shot into the sky.
It was like a rain of blood, filled with sin and ill omen.
The monster opened its terrifying mouthparts, which no longer showed any human organs.
It began to frantically devour the crimson liquid in the pool, which was formed by countless lives, like a whale swallowing water.
As it devoured.
The water level of the blood pool began to drop rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
And the collapsing flesh and cracked appendages on its body also began to repair and reorganize at an astonishing speed.
A more powerful, more stable, and more evil aura began to spread from its body.
Outside the hall, in the circular corridor lined with hundreds of giant Cultivation Tanks.
Those deformed limbs that had originally been unconsciously slapping against the glass walls in the blood-water suddenly began to twitch violently.
It was as if an invisible giant hand had instantly sucked away all their life essence.
Those deformed limbs, which had been full of morbid activity just a moment ago.
Began to collapse and melt at a terrifying speed.
Skin, muscle, bone... all tissues instantly turned into the purest crimson energy liquid.
The blood-water in those Cultivation Tanks was being channeled through some kind of piping System hidden beneath the floor.
It was being continuously transported into the main blood pool in the center of the hall.
Replenishing the energy being frantically absorbed by the monster Durand.
The entire blood pool was a giant, complete living sacrifice array.
And the monster before them.
Was the evil god eventually nurtured by this array.
Roar—!!!
A roar grander and more filled with a sense of power than any previous one suddenly exploded from the center of the blood pool.
The monster slowly rose from the blood pool again.
No, it could no longer be called "standing."
Its lower body had completely disappeared.
It had completely melted into a giant, writhing heap of meat that was constantly bubbling.
Countless black-red tentacles of varying thickness grew out from every corner of this meat heap, like a patch of black seaweed swaying in blood-water.
It could only rely on its two giant, deformed claw-arms, which had mutated to look like battering rams, to support the movement of its upper body.
It became incredibly massive.
Like a mobile fortress piled up with flesh, white bones, and endless insane resentment.
Although its movement speed had become exceptionally slow.
The dozens of long, flexible, snake-like hideous tentacles, each over ten meters long, extending from the writhing meat heap on its back.
Perfectly compensated for all its deficiencies in speed.
Under the energy replenishment from the external Cultivation Tanks, the liquid in the blood pool that had been absorbed began to rise slowly again.
Everything seemed to have fallen into an unsolvable, terrifying cycle.
Noah and Claire looked at each other.
In each other's eyes, there was an unprecedented solemnity.
They did not hesitate in the slightest.
At the moment the monster completed its final form.
The battle began once again.
Bang!
Bang!
The desert eagle and the magnum revolver.
The two large-caliber handguns, representing the violent aesthetics of human individual weapons, let out deafening roars once more.
Two armor-piercing bullets containing immense kinetic energy trailed visible spiral air currents.
From left and right, in a crossfire, they accurately blasted toward that mobile fortress made of flesh and blood once again.
Squish!
Squish!
The bullets sank deep into Durand's deformed body, which no longer showed any human form.
What burst forth were no longer simple blood blossoms.
But clumps of disgusting mixture like mud, mixed with black shredded meat and viscous pus.
However, such terrifying wounds, sufficient to kill an African elephant on the spot.
Seemed to have no substantial impact on this flesh-and-blood behemoth before them.
The giant blood holes blasted open by the bullets only writhed slightly.
Then they were rapidly filled and healed by the surrounding new granulation tissue.
The whole process took no more than a second or two.
Roar!!!
This trivial attack completely enraged the newly born terrifying behemoth.
The dozens of tentacles on its back were like black lightning that had instantly come to life.
With sharp whistles that tore through the air, they whipped frantically toward Noah and Claire from all directions.
Some tentacles swept across like long whips.
Others were like venomous snakes, descending from the sky and stabbing straight down.
Some of them even coiled around heavy, shattered metal plates and concrete fragments on the ground.
Like primitive catapults, they hurled them violently toward the two people.
For a moment...
The entire hall was filled with the sharp hissing of tentacles slicing through the air.
As well as the deafening roar of heavy objects crashing to the floor.
Noah and Claire were like two small boats in a raging sea, liable to be overturned at any moment.
They relied on their superhuman reaction speeds and combat instincts.
In this web of death woven from tentacles and rubble, they constantly dodged and maneuvered.
Every dodge was heart-stopping, like brushing past the Grim Reaper himself.
The desert eagle in Noah's hand and the magnum revolver in Claire's hand did not stop for a single moment.
Gunshots rang out continuously in this bloody Sanctuary of Slaughter.
However, all their attacks were like throwing stones into the ocean.
Aside from splashing clumps of disgusting flesh and blood off the monster's body...
They were simply unable to cause any effective damage.
Just then.
Claire, who had been moving at high speeds searching for an opening...
Suddenly noticed an extremely bizarre detail.
Every time that Flesh Behemoth swung a tentacle or threw a heavy object...
In the center of its chest and abdomen, formed from countless layers of stacked flesh...
A fist-sized area would unnaturally and violently writhe.
The color of the flesh there seemed more vivid red and more active than the surrounding area.
One could even faintly hear a series of faint but incredibly sharp shrieks coming from deep within that writhing mass of flesh.
That sound was identical to the hissing of the leech-like parasite that had previously burrowed out of the security guard's back.
A core!
The word instantly flashed through Claire's mind.
This massive monster, which seemed nearly impossible to kill...
Its core weakness was right there!
She spotted a fleeting opportunity.
Just as the monster concentrated most of its tentacles to attack Noah, whose positioning was more threatening...
Claire came to a sudden halt, her arms snapping up.
The rugged-looking magnum revolver was as steady as a rock in her hands.
Her breathing seemed to stop at that moment.
All the sounds and sights of the world rapidly receded from her vision.
Leaving only the crosshairs of the scope and that cluster of violently writhing crimson flesh in the distance.
"BANG—!!!"
A gunshot rang out, completely different from before, filled with firm conviction.
The bullet was like a bolt of silver lightning tearing through the darkness.
It struck the writhing core flesh with incomparable precision.
"AOOO——————!!!"
A shrill howl of extreme agony, filled with disbelief, suddenly erupted from the monster's mouth.
That sound was no longer the powerful, angry roar from before.
But a painful wail originating from its very life Origin.
The monster's massive body suddenly stiffened.
All the tentacles attacking Noah lost their strength in an instant.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, they hung down limply.
Immediately following that.
Its two huge, deformed claw-arms, which were like battering rams...
Suddenly pulled back.
They tightly shielded the vital spot on its chest and abdomen where the bullet had struck.
Bright red blood with a certain active luster continuously poured out from between its claws.
It worked!
Noah had just rolled to the side to dodge a massive, whistling metal plate.
He saw Claire's incredible shot and the monster's unprecedented reaction of pain.
Without hesitation, he gave a thumbs-up to Claire, who was not far away.
They had finally found a way to kill this monster!
The duo's combat strategy shifted instantly.
They no longer blindly attacked the monster's massive and resilient body.
Instead, they used their flexible movement to constantly draw the monster's attention.
Then they looked for any possible opening to attack.
They had only one target.
The core in the chest and abdomen that the monster was shielding with its claws.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!"
The Flesh Behemoth that Durand had become fell into a state of total fury and agitation.
It was like an injured venomous snake that a hunter had precisely struck in its vitals.
Possessing world-destroying power...
Yet unable to touch those two hateful humans who flitted around it like the most agile butterflies.
It roared, and its massive, mound-like lower body suddenly sank down.
"Puchi!"
"Puchi!"
Two giant fleshy spikes, thicker and more hideous than any previous tentacle, suddenly grew out of its back.
They then slammed into the hard metal floor beneath its feet.
Like two massive ship anchors.
They completely fixed its massive body in place.
It gave up on moving.
It held its two giant claw-arms like the sturdiest of shields.
They were welded tightly in front of the vitals on its chest and abdomen, leaving no gap whatsoever.
With no more concerns about defense...
The dozens of black-red tentacles on its back were completely liberated.
They were like a pack of bloodthirsty pythons that had broken their final restraints.
In a manner even more frenzied and reckless than before...
They swept toward Noah and Claire.
The density and speed of the attacks increased several times over in an instant.
The entire hall seemed to turn into a meat grinder made of tentacles.
Noah and Claire's space to dodge was compressed to the limit.
Several times, Claire felt the tips of the tentacles, covered in foul-smelling mucus, whistle past her cheeks.
The fierce wind made her skin sting.
Noah's situation was equally grim.
The pressure of the attacks he bore was even greater than Claire's.
Several times, at the very last moment before an attack hit his body...
He relied on the force-deflecting techniques of his boxing, which combined hardness and softness.
He forcibly diverted the direction of the tentacles' attacks by a fraction.
Even so.
The massive force of the near-misses caused his Qi and blood to churn.
The battle instantly fell into a stalemate, or one could even say an absolute disadvantage.
In the midst of this suffocatingly tense struggle...
Noah's gaze quickly swept across the entire battlefield.
His brain was working at high speed, analyzing any detail that might break the deadlock.
Suddenly.
His gaze landed not far behind the monster Durand.
On that massive and sophisticated cylindrical Cultivation Tank.
On the person floating quietly in the pale gold liquid.
The blonde woman with a serene expression, as if lost in an eternal sweet dream.
Emily.
Noah keenly captured a key detail they had overlooked.
From the start of the battle until now...
This Flesh Behemoth, which had completely lost its human reason...
All of its movements, all of its attacks, and all of its defenses...
Had a subconscious premise.
That was to use its massive body to firmly protect the Cultivation Tank behind it.
It was protecting her.
Or rather...
It was protecting the source of all this evil.
A plan so bold it was nearly insane...
Instantly took shape in Noah's mind.
"Claire! Cover me!"
Noah shouted to Claire, who was not far away.
Just then.
Three hideous tentacles arranged in a triangular formation, carrying three sharp sounds of breaking air...
Came from three completely different, tricky angles.
They sealed off all of Noah's evasion routes.
Stabbing toward his head, heart, and abdomen simultaneously.
It was a certain-kill situation.
However, at this critical moment...
There was not the slightest hint of panic in Noah's eyes.
He looked at the three tentacles about to pierce his body.
With a bizarre footwork that exceeded human limits...
He suddenly moved forward instead of backward, toward the central point of the three tentacles' attacks.
Crushing Fist, Inch Power.
"BANG!"
His right fist, containing terrifying explosive power, struck with incomparable precision at the convergence point of the three forces.
A visible airwave exploded outward from the surface of his fist.
The three unstoppable, hideous tentacles were actually forced outward by a fraction by the power of his punch.
That fraction of a difference was the distance between life and death.
Noah escaped from this fatal triple attack by the narrowest of margins.
He did not pause for a second.
He didn't even look back at the roaring Flesh Behemoth.
The silver desert eagle in his hand...
Its muzzle was raised steadily, and it was no longer aimed at any part of the monster.
But at the giant Cultivation Tank in the distance, which was emitting a bizarre and Holy Light.
"BANG—!"
The gunshot rang out loudly.