Ch.72Killing Before Being Killed

All heroes were infected, and among them, the one emitting the strongest wavelength generated powerful telekinesis.

Simple yet powerful superhuman abilities rain down on me like a downpour as I resist the pressure enveloping my entire body.

Is this how D City’s S-rank hero uses telekinesis to decisively subdue powerful monsters and gain one-sided attack advantage?

Quickly grasping the tactics and characteristics of D City’s heroes amid the pouring abilities, I changed my form to resist the telekinesis.

Against telekinesis, I countered with telekinesis of my own. With a snow-white fox’s head bearing deer antlers, I created conflicting wavelengths to move my body, causing the S-rank hero who served as the host to get a nosebleed.

My ability output was superior, and the overloaded infected brain couldn’t withstand it and screamed.

Among all the S-rank heroes I’ve faced so far, this seemingly weakest one laughed maniacally while shedding red tears from bloodshot eyes.

“Impressive, a different form? So you’ve succeeded in multiple synthesis after all?”

His nonchalant reaction was followed by an abnormal surge in his output.

In an instant, the host’s ability that followed right beneath me emitted a bizarre wavelength.

The dissonance of two wavelengths—neither monster nor superhuman—caused the now equal telekinetic outputs to intertwine and creak.

“Then, is Black Cat’s form a type of Nightmare, no, Assassinator? And that powerful durability, is it Invulnerable? You can mix several monsters into one form?”

He feels no pain whatsoever.

The moment I realized this fact through the scent of his emotions, the host clapped in admiration.

Several hero-infected beings around him coupled with the host’s telekinesis.

The resonance of abilities, the increasingly powerful telekinesis began to exceed my output.

“Grrrr…!”

I opened a space to move behind the host to escape the pouring pressure and swung my claws.

However, the host reacted as if he had eyes on his back and blocked me.

It wasn’t superhuman hypersensitivity that detected my movement.

Rapidly moving gazes from around us—the gazes of other heroes were being shared with him.

The characteristic of sharing consciousness with nearby parasites—he was simultaneously many and one.

I transformed into an amorphous monster to avoid the pouring abilities.

Fire, ice, and iron bullets pierced through my body, which had become a fog-like monster.

“How many have you accepted? How can one person contain so many monsters?”

In this state, telekinesis doesn’t work properly, but I can’t attack properly either.

I reconstructed my body outside the range of telekinesis and swung my claws toward the host’s arm.

Slash! His arm was severed in one strike, but he caught the flying limb with telekinesis and reattached the clean cross-section.

Parasites crawled out and stitched the wound like needles, and he demonstratively moved his fingers freely.

“You are strong, is it because you’re number 111? Just looking at your core output, I can feel you’re a far stronger upper model than me.”

His wound regeneration speed is significantly faster than Starlight’s—is this due to the parasites?

Heightening my senses to examine his body, I could feel the parasites inside him moving strangely.

Parasites wrapped around his heart, which serves as the core in a human body, assist with ability output and replace the body that would otherwise be destroyed from exceeding output limits.

[Grooooar!]

Disgusted by this repulsive symbiotic relationship, I surrounded my entire body with crackling electricity.

If he regenerates when injured, I’ll kill him before he can regenerate.

Boom! Transforming into a Thunder Tiger, I became lightning and pierced straight through the host’s body.

The host’s entire body was charred black from the powerful ability that even an S-rank hero’s body couldn’t withstand without special abilities.

As the host fell to the ground, I thought it would just be a matter of time to deal with the rest after taking down the strongest infected, the S-rank superhuman.

But the moment I thought that, the core’s resonance intensified from the host who had fallen onto the cathedral ruins.

Thump… thump… As the wavelength grew closer to that of a monster, snow-white worms crawled out from the ruins and burrowed into the host’s skin.

The parasites, which had replaced most of his skin, organs, eyes, and other body parts, constantly disguised themselves as a flowing human form.

“Ah-ah-um, hmm, excuse me, the vocal organs are complicated, you see.”

Can this still be called an infected? The host, now with more parasites than human body parts, stabilized his undulating skin with telekinetic ability.

Contemplating how to deal with him as he gradually lost his human appearance, I said:

[Is there no need to maintain a human appearance anymore?]

“Unfortunately, I’m not such a convenient monster.”

[So you can’t use human abilities unless in human form, I see.]

“Oh my, were you probing my weakness? You got me.”

Without any signal, the heroes began pouring abilities again as the host generated telekinesis.

When a large water bullet spread out in a formation impossible to completely avoid, freezing ability turned the water into a massive net.

A huge sound wave covered it, scattering tiny ice bullets, and the host’s telekinesis caught me to prevent escape.

But mere B-rank and A-rank superhuman abilities couldn’t properly wound me even without dodging.

Even S-rank superhuman abilities barely matched my level. If I just neutralized the telekinesis, any damage I took would regenerate in the blink of an eye.

Realizing this fact, the host wriggled a clump of parasites near his eyes.

“Hmm, indeed… as expected of an experiment. A hardness incomparable to ordinary Despair-rank monsters. At this rate, there’s no point in forming a ring.”

It’s impossible for D City’s forces to kill me. The only way to properly damage me is through ability resonance between the S-rank and several B-ranks.

Ultimately, the compatibility between him and me is clear.

He’s just an annoying experiment that takes time to capture—I’m superior in output, compatibility, and durability.

But for some reason, he maintained a completely relaxed attitude.

“Hesitation always creates mistakes… regrettable, but can’t be helped.”

He sighed imitatively and spoke in a regretful tone.

Then, an unknown wavelength spread.

Woong…! With a loud resonance, infected beings touched by the circular wavelength simultaneously melted.

Acidic poison—the toxic fluid released by parasites committing suicide.

As D City’s superhumans melted and dripped from midair, the intensity of the wavelength from the host’s core gradually increased.

The infected, neither human nor monster, are neither alive nor dead.

Monsters grow stronger the more humans they devour.

Especially superhumans—they’re special nourishment for monster cores.

The superhumans melted by parasites were absorbed by the host in an unknown structure, growing the monster core.

The parasite’s core, not even Homicide-rank before, instantly changed to Homicide-rank, then to Destruction-rank level.

The monster core merged with the S-rank superhuman’s heart grew in power, rapidly increasing ability output.

“Well, is this enough to be a worthy opponent now?”

When the host generated telekinesis again, my telekinesis gradually gave way.

An S-rank superhuman and Destruction-rank monster—a hybrid of human and monster.

Crack! As the space right in front of me twisted with a sound, the corners of his mouth twisted.

“Still not enough?”

Once again, a bell-like wavelength spread, and D City’s infected citizens and distant infected heroes came running, showing no signs of fatigue.

The infected melted into brown liquid as soon as they approached the cathedral.

As more infected approached the cathedral and died, the core’s resonance approached Disaster-rank.

There is no existence evolution—meaning he already qualified as a Disaster-rank or higher being.

His characteristic, hive mind—the parasites are countless fragments of his body.

Now they’re becoming one to face me.

The telekinetic output now surpassing me after reaching equal footing.

I simultaneously used space manipulation to twist the direction of his telekinesis.

Surprised by my countermeasure of redirecting telekinesis, he calmed the ability directed at me.

“Absolute attack, absolute defense—interpretations of the ultimate have changed a lot. Multiple abilities that can target all weaknesses, and multiple characteristics that can resist all abilities… In the end, simplicity is best, isn’t it?”

Woong, the host floating in the air looking down at me turned away after making a meaningful remark.

“Fighting like this will only increase D City’s damage… can’t be helped, I’ll have to sacrifice a bit more. Humans can just consume W City to grow again.”

Whoosh, the host flew away silently, and I, left alone in the destroyed cathedral, was confused.

What was he thinking? Just now, his ability output was ahead of mine.

As I thought the situation was strange for him to have fled, the same resonance from earlier spread from far away.

Dong, after the bell-like resonance, the resonance that absorbed humans who became infected when parasites committed suicide.

“Grrrk…!”

Realizing what he was doing upon hearing that sound, I gritted my teeth and kicked off.

The simple way to counter multiple ability countermeasures is to overwhelmingly increase ability output.

Currently, his monster core is at Disaster-rank level. If he absorbs more infected to reach Despair-rank, my equal… there will be no way to kill the host.

I must stop him before that happens.

But the moment it takes for him to dispose of infected beings is just an instant.

It seems impossible to stop someone with such a bizarre hunting method—spreading wavelengths to make parasites commit suicide and devour infected beings.

However, there was a countermeasure.

To absorb more infected, he chose to move away rather than spread another wavelength.

The infected drawn to the cathedral by the wavelength melted into brown liquid only when they reached the cathedral’s vicinity.

The infected outside the range of his wavelength are still moving without dying.

This means… he can only order infected within the range of his wavelength to die.

Monsters can only use living humans as nourishment if they eat them alive.

Completely dead infected are just rotten meat chunks full of parasites.

If I can kill the infected outside his range faster than he can devour them…

I climbed to the bell tower of the destroyed cathedral and transformed into the most monster-like form yet.

A raptor’s head that can precisely locate targets even from high in the sky, a tiger’s upper body that controls lightning, a flaming bird’s lower body, a fox’s tail. A body flickering black.

There’s no need to suppress abilities here.

Kill all humans.

Boom! With a huge tremor, the monster core resonated greatly in response to my killing intent.

[Ooooooooooh!]

Clouds formed at an unnatural speed covering the sky above D City, transforming into thunderclouds.

Rumble…! Lightning bolts fell one after another, growing in number and sound.

Hundreds of infected died instantly as lightning struck precisely where I detected groups of infected.

Hallucinating infected fled to an open space they mistook for shelter, only to be instantly killed by a single lightning bolt.

A rain of fire fell from above, burning every parasite crawling out from corpses without missing a single one.

At this overwhelming speed, as ability bombardment scorched an entire area, I sensed the S-rank superhuman urgently returning from far away.