The embers of the gunshots had not yet completely dissipated in the air.
Those pure, brilliant golden eyes, looking as if they were forged from molten gold, began to flicker with a slow frequency, almost like breathing.
The entire ruined hall fell into a suffocating resonance along with this eerie pulsation.
Noah's heart was uncontrollably pulled by this invisible force, pounding wildly.
A massive warning sign, originating from life's oldest instincts, exploded in his mind.
"Crack—"
An extremely faint yet crystal-clear sound of shattering rang out abruptly.
The sound came from that massive Cultivation Tank imprisoning the deity.
A crack thinner than a strand of hair appeared on the thick, sturdy specialized glass.
Then came a second, a third... like a frozen lake in winter quietly awakening under the warm sun.
Dense, spiderweb-like cracks rapidly spread across the entire tank at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Inside the tank, the originally calm, pale golden liquid began to churn and boil violently.
Golden bubbles continuously rose from the depths of the liquid and then burst silently.
Noah's brain didn't even have time to issue any complex commands.
His body had already taken the lead, making the most primal and correct reaction.
His gaze instantly locked onto a thick metal wall panel not far from his feet, which Durand had torn off earlier.
His body suddenly sank, and his muscles instantly tensed.
In the next second, his entire being shot out like a cannonball leaving the barrel.
With one hand, he fiercely grabbed the metal plate, its edges as sharp as a knife.
His five fingers, like red-hot iron pincers, embedded themselves deeply into the cold metal surface.
"Creeeeak—"
Amidst the tooth-aching sound of twisting metal, he forcibly wrenched the incredibly heavy metal plate from the ground with one hand.
Without the slightest pause, he spun around swiftly and met up with Claire, who was running toward him.
Then, he held the massive metal plate firmly in front of them both, like the tower shield of an ancient heavy infantryman.
The two of them stood side by side, pressing tightly against the metal plate.
Almost at the same moment the metal shield was raised.
"BOOM—!!!"
A massive explosion, so dull it was enough to shatter eardrums, suddenly rang out.
The huge cylindrical Cultivation Tank completely burst apart.
It didn't explode violently outward; instead, it first underwent a violent inward collapse.
Then, all the energy, mixed with countless glass shards and scalding golden liquid, surged out frantically in all directions.
Dense, terrifying impact sounds, like a torrential rainstorm, hammered frantically against the metal shield in Noah's hands.
Every single impact contained terrible power.
The surface of the shield was instantly blasted with countless hideous pits of varying depths.
Noah only felt successive waves of massive force coming from the shield.
He gritted his teeth, his legs like ancient tree roots anchored in the ground, stubbornly resisting this destructive impact.
Claire, beside him, could clearly feel Noah's solid muscles trembling slightly and violently.
She could also smell the reassuring scent emanating from him—a mixture of sweat and gunpowder.
Scalding, viscous golden liquid splashed onto the ground past the edges of the shield.
It made a "sizzle-sizzle" sound of corrosion.
The air was instantly filled with a strange smell, a mix of ozone and a peculiar sweet fragrance.
This destructive impact came and went quickly.
It lasted for only a brief five seconds before the impact sounds gradually subsided.
The entire world seemed to be left with only the "drip-drop" of the golden liquid continuously falling and the two people's slightly rapid breathing.
Noah and Claire's arms felt waves of burning, searing soreness due to the immense load.
He slowly moved the completely deformed metal shield away from the front of them.
The sight before them caused his and Claire's pupils to shrink violently at the same time.
The spot where the massive Cultivation Tank had originally stood.
Now, only a messy metal base remained, still emitting white smoke.
Countless thick glass shards of various sizes were scattered everywhere like glittering diamonds.
The ground had been corroded by the golden liquid into deep, irregular pits.
However.
Emily's figure had disappeared.
The figure that should have appeared as the Cultivation Tank shattered was nowhere to be found.
It was as if she had never existed.
An ominous premonition, stronger than any before, flooded the two of them like a cold tide.
The air seemed to freeze.
An invisible, oppressive, and extreme malice enveloped them from all directions.
Noah and Claire looked at each other at almost the exact same time.
In an instant, they reached a perfect understanding.
They both slammed their hands against each other's palms, using the force to push off.
Their bodies, like stones launched from a catapult, quickly dodged in completely opposite directions.
The moment they left their original spot.
"BOOM—!!!"
A white, graceful, yet lethal figure descended from the sky like a meteorite.
She slammed heavily into the position where the two of them had just been standing.
The hard metal floor was forcibly smashed into a huge crater over a meter in diameter by this indescribable, terrifying force.
It was Emily.
She knelt on one knee, one hand lightly pressed against the sunken metal floor.
She struck a standard pose, as if a god had descended to the world.
Her body was perfect.
Every inch of her skin was like a top-tier white marble sculpture, emitting a soft and holy halo.
A head of brilliant, flowing golden hair cascaded behind her like a waterfall.
She was completely unclothed, yet it didn't evoke the slightest feeling of profanity.
Because there was no trace of human emotion or desire on her.
There was only an absolute divinity that stood above all things.
However, this divinity seemed unstable.
The moment she landed.
A blood-red, slender fungal filament suddenly drilled out from her smooth, jade-like shoulder blade.
It twisted frantically in the air for a moment.
Then, like a startled earthworm, it instantly retracted back into her body.
Next, it was her thighs, arms, back... one by one, clusters of blood-red filaments continuously emerged from her body and were then forcibly suppressed back by her.
She seemed to have not yet fully adapted to this brand-new body.
She was undergoing the final Fusion and stripping with the last remnants of Durand's frantic unwillingness within this body.
Slowly, she raised her head.
Those pure golden eyes calmly swept over Noah and Claire not far away.
In that gaze, there was no anger, no hatred.
There was only the indifference of looking at two lowly, interesting ants.
The filaments stopped emerging; she had completely taken control of this body.
Noah and Claire regrouped in the distance, their expressions solemn to the extreme.
Without any hesitation or delay, the moment Emily finished her adaptation.
"Bang!" "Bang!"
The desert eagle and the magnum revolver roared deafeningly once again.
Two armor-piercing bullets containing massive kinetic energy trailed visible spiral air currents.
From two completely different angles, they blocked off all of Emily's evasion routes.
They were accurately aimed at her head and heart.
The moment the gunshots rang out.
The molten gold-like light within Emily's pure golden eyes flickered sharply.
Her body moved.
It was not a movement a human could make.
It was an eerie footwork that completely defied the laws of physics.
Her upper body leaned back sharply at an incredible angle.
Her whole being was like a snapped, flexible willow branch, almost parallel to the ground.
One bullet whistled past, almost grazing the tip of her nose.
Immediately after, her waist exerted force.
Her entire body was pulled half a meter to the side as if by an invisible thread.
The other bullet also barely passed through the space where her heart had just been.
The entire evasion process was smooth and fluid, filled with a non-human elegance and eeriness.
The second after dodging the bullets.
Her body shot upward from that extreme leaning-back position.
The metal floor beneath her feet let out a sharp, overburdened wail.
Her entire being turned into a white afterimage that was almost impossible to catch with the naked eye.
In almost an instant, she crossed the distance of over ten meters and appeared in front of Claire.
On that face, which was so perfect it didn't seem real, there was still no expression.
She slowly raised that fair, jade-like slender fist.
She pulled it back sharply, tucking it to her waist.
The muscles on her arm began to bulge and tense in a visible manner.
An immense energy that made one's heart skip a beat was frantically gathering in her fist.
Claire took advantage of this critical moment while Emily was charging up.
With a swift back-jump, she opened up a safe distance from this terrifying enemy.
Noah's figure had already moved the moment Emily rushed toward Claire.
When he saw Emily's textbook-like charging movement.
Instead, he felt a slight sense of relief in his heart.
She's exposed a flaw.
This newly born terrifying monster didn't seem to possess any combat experience.
This kind of charging movement, which concentrated all power in one point and abandoned all defense and variation.
In a real life-and-death struggle, it was undoubtedly the lowest-level fatal mistake.
And what Noah was best at was seizing these fleeting, fatal openings.
At the very moment Emily was charging up.
Noah's figure had already rushed to her side like a bolt of black lightning.
His entire body suddenly sank.
The power from his feet was transmitted through the ground to his legs, then from his legs through his waist.
Finally, all the power gathered at one point: his right fist.
Crushing Fist.
There was no flashiness or hesitation.
His right fist, containing terrifying explosive power, was like an invincible siege hammer.
It spiraled and slammed hard into Emily's gracefully curved, slender waist.
"Thump—!"
A dull, tooth-aching, strange impact sound suddenly rang out.
Noah only felt as if his fist hadn't hit a human's flesh and blood.
Instead, it had slammed hard into a piece of incredibly thick, high-density rubber tire.
A massive counter-shock force frantically traveled back along his arm.
It shook his entire arm until it went numb.
However, his terrifying punch power also achieved its intended effect.
Emily's terrifying punch, which had been charged to the extreme, was forcibly interrupted by him.
The massive energy she had gathered instantly dissipated.
Her entire petite body was knocked sideways, staggering by this massive force.
Emily staggered for a few steps before barely steadying her form.
She slowly lowered her head.
With those pure golden, emotionless eyes.
She glanced at the side of her waist where Noah had hit her.
There wasn't even a single scar left there.
She slowly raised her head.
She looked at Noah not far away.
The pure gold in her eyes began to flicker frantically at an extremely high frequency.
In the next second.
Emily's body moved again.
She slightly lowered her body.
Her foot placement was almost identical to Noah's just now.
She took a sudden step forward.
Her waist twisted sharply with a posture full of explosive power.
Her right fist shot out like an arrow from a bow.
Impressively, it was also a Crushing Fist.
Although her movements looked somewhat crude, stiff, and imitative.
Her power exertion technique was also far from being as smooth and natural as Noah's.
But.
She had completely abandoned that low-level mistake of "exposing a flaw."
This punch was fast, accurate, and ruthless.
There were no longer any redundant charging movements.
Noah's pupils shrank violently.
He hadn't expected that this monster's learning ability would be terrifying to such an extent.
He didn't have time to think and could only hastily raise his arm to block this imitated punch.
"Bang!"
The two fists slammed heavily together.
Noah only felt a more pure and massive force than ever before come crashing in.
Even after jumping back to dissipate the force, he was still shaken three steps back by this massive power.
With every step, he left a deep footprint on the hard metal floor.
He forcibly suppressed the churning blood within his body.
He looked solemnly at this terrifying enemy who was naked and as beautiful as a deity.
An unprecedented feeling of difficulty welled up in his heart.
Unconsciously, he pressed the tip of his tongue against his back molars and let out a faint "hiss."
On the other side, Claire had clearly also discovered Emily's freakish combat learning ability.
Her brow furrowed tightly.
This enemy was far, far harder to deal with than the previous flesh beast transformed from Durand.