Today's release count [4/4]
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Just as expected, the fight between the two ended in a draw.
If Shimada's heart hadn't already been damaged by the police bullets, it would've been impossible to say who would've won.
"Get back!" Ivan stepped forward hard and hurled the glass bottle of sulfuric acid with everything he had.
The bottle whistled through the air and reached Shimada in a flash.
Shimada reacted fast, swinging a tentacle to smash it mid-flight.
"What the fuck is this?"
The liquid exploded outward on impact. Most of it splattered straight across Shimada's face. The burning agony made him instinctively pull his tentacles back and clutch his melting cheeks with both hands.
"Don't go near him," Ivan warned sharply.
Shinichi had thought this was the perfect chance to strike, but Ivan's serious tone stopped him cold.
BOOM!!!
The searing pain drove Shimada completely insane. His entire head burst open as two monstrous tentacles exploded outward, thrashing wildly at everything around him. In a second, everything within two meters got shredded to pieces.
Good thing Shinichi hadn't moved forward, or he would've been turned into minced meat.
"Use this." Ivan bent down and snatched a dropped gun off the floor.
He aimed and pulled the trigger. Only two bullets left, but his luck held. Both rounds slammed into Shimada's body. The parasite had lost all reason and didn't even try to dodge. The only thing left in his mind was to kill every single person nearby.
Shimada charged straight at them, the sheer pressure of his approach making Shinichi's breathing turn ragged.
Five meters… four meters… three meters!
"Time to end this," Ivan said coldly, raising his right hand.
Only then did Shinichi notice that Ivan's right palm was missing its index finger.
As soon as Ivan finished speaking, Shimada Hideo's high-speed charge froze like someone hit pause.
Then countless blades burst out from inside his chest, ripping straight through his torso. His upper body turned into shredded meat as his heart got completely torn apart.
Two razor-sharp blades stopped dead, hovering less than ten centimeters from Ivan's head and heart.
But that tiny distance might as well have been a mile.
Shimada finally collapsed right in front of Ivan. His corpse dried up and shriveled at a visible speed.
"Actually, what I shot wasn't just bullets…" Ivan crouched beside the body and reached into the ruined chest, pulling out a steel-wire ball packed with tiny blades. "It was also… my finger."
He crushed the ball in his fist. Since all the cells had lost their activity, it crumbled like dry chalk.
Just like Shimada's withered blade tentacles, it fell apart at the slightest touch.
"What the hell just happened?" Shinichi still hadn't processed the last few seconds.
"He used his transfer and splitting ability to detach his index finger, shot it into Shimada's chest, then morphed it into a clump of thin, long blades. It shredded the heart almost instantly," Migi explained.
Shinichi might not have caught it, but Migi sure did.
"I see…"
Shinichi let out a stunned breath after Migi's breakdown.
"Let's go. If we stay any longer the backup cops will spot us."
"You're not coming?" Shinichi asked, already turning to leave, but he saw Ivan still standing over the corpse, slashing it repeatedly with his sword to create all kinds of extra wounds.
"Those cops aren't idiots. His wounds look way too weird. Gotta make it look normal. Besides, if you stay here you'll only expose the parasite stuff. Me? I can stay and pass any check they throw at me."
Ivan's shapeshifting talent worked more like an active skill. As long as he didn't trigger it, the mutated parts of his cells stayed completely dormant.
"Good call, Shinichi. He's right. You can't expose what you really are yet. Human society probably isn't ready to accept parasites."
"Fine. Just be careful. Don't let the cops catch you doing anything weird." Shinichi left the scene quickly.
A few minutes after he disappeared, the middle-aged police sergeant arrived on the floor with another squad.
The thick stench of blood in the hallway made Sergeant Fujita's face twist. The veteran cop immediately raised his gun and signaled the men behind him to stay alert. Their leather shoes made wet, sticky sounds as they stepped through the pools of gore.
"Who's there?" Fujita barked the second he spotted the figure in the corridor, aiming his pistol straight at Ivan.
"The terrorist is dead. I'm Ivan Greevs."
Ivan walked straight toward him. "I was in the hospital when you visited. You should recognize me."
Parasites could copy a person's appearance, but they couldn't steal their memories unless it was a full transfer.
"Don't move," Fujita ordered, still on high alert. He kept his grip tight on the gun and stared hard at Ivan. "Inoue, go check the situation. See if there's a terrorist corpse."
"Yes, Sergeant Fujita."
A few minutes later, Officer Inoue leaned in and whispered into Fujita's ear, "There's definitely a parasite corpse inside. It's covered in bullet holes. Looks like the one we were chasing. But there are also a lot of fresh sword wounds on the body. Preliminary guess is someone finished him off with a blade afterward, probably to make sure the thing didn't come back to life."
Fujita finally lowered his gun, breathing out in relief. "Sorry about that. I was out of line. Please forgive me."
...
After that…
Ivan was taken back to the police station by Sergeant Fujita for questioning about the exact details of what happened.
Since the school had no working cameras, Ivan lied through his teeth without even blinking.
"Yeah, I killed him with the sword in the end. The guy was insanely fast, but after I smashed that concentrated sulfuric acid into his face, his attack power dropped a lot. I only managed to finish him off by pure luck. Total fluke."
"You've killed two parasites by yourself now. That doesn't sound like simple luck to me," Fujita said, sitting across from him behind a solid wooden table.
"Please take a look at these files." Fujita took a thick envelope from another officer, tore open the seal, and spread more than a dozen sheets of paper across the table in front of Ivan.
Ivan glanced down. Most of them were photos of parasites, some sketches, some stills from security footage.
"I believe you already know about them. Their heads can morph into the most lethal killing weapons. They also have incredible mimicry abilities and can blend perfectly into crowds. That means your friends, family, or even your classmates… any of them could be a parasite. We've named them Parasytes."
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Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69