Chapter 201: Hormonal Rampage |
The bespectacled middle-aged man emerged from the gloomy prison, step by unhurried step.
He removed his half-face gas mask, revealing the ordinary visage of a pale, somewhat sickly middle-aged man.
Yet, this seemingly unremarkable man commanded an undeniable presence as he walked out.
His demeanor was too calm, as if nothing could faze him, a stark contrast to the battlefield around him.
The man was none other than the leader of the Umbrella Organization, the "Forensic Expert" Severus Gerald.
His name was known to few.
Even within the upper echelons of the Umbrella Organization, few had truly seen his face.
As he emerged, the members of the two great Oliver families immediately became alert.
This man bore an unsettling resemblance to the SS-class fugitive Su'en. Their gazes held a chilling indifference, as if they were looking at corpses rather than living beings.
Trash?
The tone was unmistakably arrogant, clearly not that of an "ally."
And this man's sudden appearance at the rear of the group forced the two families to be on guard.
***
Gerald completely ignored the guns pointed at him.
He continued walking forward, removing his coat to reveal a proper dress shirt underneath, rolling up his sleeves as if preparing for a fight, unconcerned by the onlookers. His eyes were fixed solely on Su'en.
As he rolled up his sleeves, Gerald asked, "I'm curious, how did you know I would be here?"
His tone was flat, as if exchanging pleasantries with an old friend.
"Just a guess."
Su'en squinted at the middle-aged man in the distance, the only one who could sense the surging intent to kill beneath that calm expression.
But the red gleam in his own eyes showed no fear, instead, a fervent eagerness for battle, "I figured if I were you, I'd follow the Reiss main house here too... after all, it's the most logical clue. Didn't you guess I would show up?"
"Yes."
Gerald smiled indifferently, "Knowing I would come, it seems you have a reliable source of information."
He had long recognized that they were cut from the same cloth, a single glance was enough.
"What do you think?"
Su'en returned the gaze with a sly smile.
Such a man could not be easily deceived; the slightest clue could reveal much.
Gerald seemed to guess something, pushing up the glasses that had slipped down his nose.
Yet he said no more, simply smiling faintly, "Since you've shown yourself, you must be confident you can kill me. But that's not enough. I'm also curious, what other tricks do you have?"
"No certainty. But I'd like to try."
Like the calm before a storm, Su'en's sinister grin seemed to betray a loss of reason, yet his words were eerily composed, "Whether it's killing Mr. Gerald or, by some chance, being killed by you, Mr. Gerald, the thought is exhilarating..."
Their discussion of life and death was eerily calm, as if they were discussing the fate of someone else.
Gerald's face rarely showed a hint of mutual respect, "Your remarkable abilities indeed impress, spatial powers, puppeteer skills, understanding of laws beyond your tier... Any one of these would mark you as a genius. Old London is full of talent, but among those I've seen, none compare to you."
After a pause, he added, "Pity, if we weren't enemies, we could have had a good chat."
Su'en flashed a grin, "Yes, a pity indeed."
With those words, the tension between them escalated further.
***
The two conversed as if no one else was present, leaving the onlookers baffled.
The eerie atmosphere deterred anyone from interrupting.
They tried to glean something from the exchange between the two men.
The situation for the two families was strange; blocked by Su'en at the front, and now another had appeared at the back.
Both men seemed to exude an invisible force, pressing the crowd of hundreds to retreat step by step.
Gerald paid no heed to the families, but since he had emerged from the crowd, he naturally had to approach the main group to leave.
The still-living young master of the Ailey family had been cornered.
The commander, sensing something amiss with Gerald's approach, had no choice but to confront him, asking, "Who are you, exactly?"
The delicate balance was disrupted, and Gerald glanced at him, his gaze suddenly sharpening like a tiger disturbed during its meal.
The killing intent that had been focused solely on Su'en now turned towards the commander.
In an instant, as if needles pricked his eyes, the commander felt as though he saw endless mountains of corpses and seas of blood in Gerald's gaze.
Gerald's aura erupted, and a pale blue flame similar to Su'en's enveloped him – he was also a "No Servant"!
With a flick of his fingers, his nails transformed into scalpel-sharp blades.
No one saw what happened next, only a flash of the blade, and the commander, clad in heavy knight's armor, fell to his knees, armor pieces falling off, drenched in sweat as if pulled from water, still breathing but with a vacant gaze, as if his soul had been extracted.
Without a word, Gerald had attacked, showing no mercy.
The families reacted in kind.
Gunfire erupted.
But then, something strange happened.
Gerald moved like a drunkard, his image blurring as if there were multiple afterimages, making it impossible to pinpoint his exact location.
In the blink of an eye, his phantoms were everywhere.
His ghostly movements left a trail of bloodshed.
Wherever he passed, bodies fell like mown grass.
The wounds on the bodies were precise, like surgical incisions on vital arteries, blood spurting out. Even the heavily armored mechanical warriors couldn't survive a single encounter.
Whether first or second tier.
Anyone who blocked his path perished.
Gerald left a swath of death in his wake.
The young master Ailey was petrified, cornered and awaiting death
But to everyone's surprise, Gerald did not intend to kill everyone.
Not that he couldn't, it just seemed too troublesome.
If no one stood in his way, he spared them.
He ignored the families and stopped not far from Su'en.
Standing with his back to the crowd, no one dared to fire.
Gerald clapped his hands, and a red alchemical circle lit up beneath him, muttering something.
In the next instant, the life force from the corpses behind him was drawn into the circle.
As the ritual began, Gerald greedily absorbed the blood essence, his face showing pleasure. His body involuntarily tensed, his muscles bulging impressively.
He looked just like Su'en not far away.
Both men's eyes reflected a deep, sick madness, their red glows intensifying.
At that moment, as if a threshold had been reached, Gerald's face suddenly displayed a black and white clown mask.
On closer inspection, the mask shifted to red and black.
***
"Ha ha ha ha ha..."
A low growl came from Su'en's throat.
It was a laugh, yet also a roar. He tilted his head, eyeing Gerald with the red clown mask, licking his lips, "Red-faced clown, underestimated... I heard Mr. Gerald has an even stronger black-faced state?"
Gerald replied, "I hope you get the chance to see it."
He didn't rush to act, as if waiting for something.
Red eyes met red eyes, two madmen, sharing an unspoken understanding.
After this final exchange, Su'en slowly closed his eyes.
The light before him narrowed to a slit, and the last shred of reason dissipated into darkness.
Suddenly, blood streamed from his seven orifices, his hands spread as if to embrace the entire world.
For the first time, he fully released the restraints in his heart, letting his suppressed emotions spiral out of control...
The beast within leapt from its cage.
Su'en's eyes snapped open, a deep crimson.
In an instant, a wave of invisible psychic force exploded from him.
He looked around as if surveying a new world, a wicked smile on his face, "So this is what it feels like..."
As his words fell, a "BOOM" of air burst forth.
A visible ripple of air shot out from beneath his feet, and after a second's delay, the cobblestone ground cracked like a spiderweb.
This stomp was much more powerful than before; Su'en's foot seemed to stomp on the very fabric of space, making everyone feel the air ripple around them.
This step was several times faster than before!
The release of emotions was not just a psychic change but also a hysterical state, causing a violent secretion of hormones.
This would unlock the safety valves of muscle fibers, allowing muscles to exert many times, even tens of times more strength!
Who among the third-tier professionals could claim to be ten times stronger than Su'en, enhanced by the X serum?
His body could now withstand much greater bursts of power than an ordinary person.
This was a terrifying speed that even third-tier professionals could not match.
In the blink of an eye, Su'en, engulfed in cold flames, charged at Gerald, his golden fist like a cannonball slamming into the middle-aged man's abdomen.
Caught off guard, Gerald was sent flying, crashing into the Oliver family crowd. The impact sent several people flying, spitting blood, and creating a huge dent in the wall.
The shocking speed stunned everyone on the battlefield.
Everyone thought the battle was decided,
But unexpectedly, Gerald stood up from the broken bricks as if nothing had happened.
He instinctively went to push up his glasses, only to remember the mask on his face, and muttered to himself, "Interesting... I thought I was the only one who knew this technique, but you know it too."
Gerald dusted himself off, his hands forming a sorcerer's seal: "Flesh Alchemy: Hormonal Rampage!"
Something changed, and his aura surged dramatically.
In the next moment, his figure dissolved on the spot.
Almost simultaneously, a piercing metallic tearing sound echoed throughout the prison.
After the transformation, Gerald's speed was even faster than Su'en's,
So fast that the second-tier professionals present couldn't catch a glimpse!
His blade-like nails glided over the golden skin, sparks flying, a continuous "sizzle" sound.
Gerald, like a wisp of breeze, flickered around Su'en, front, back, left, right...
His deadly blade claws sparked against Su'en's body.
The "Vajra" was a flesh alchemy technique solidified from gold elements, nearly impossible to break through with sufficient dark spiritual power for a third-tier professional.
Gerald, capable of easily wounding second-tier professionals with his claws wrapped in "No Servant" cold flames, could only inflict superficial wounds on Su'en.
But suddenly, Su'en felt something was wrong with his condition.
Limb confusion?
Hormonal disarray?
Gerald's attacks were not merely physical damage.
The "Forensic Expert" had a deep understanding of human anatomy, nerve control, and certain hormone secretions.
The bioelectricity created by the blade entering the skin immediately disrupted Su'en's brain control over his limbs. The brain intended to move the left hand, but the right hand moved; it wanted to move fingers, but toes twitched instead...
And fighting this man, one's hormones were involuntarily affected, with negative emotions like fear artificially induced...
A normal person facing him would be weakened as if afflicted with a "feeble state," already at a disadvantage without fighting.
Red-eyed Su'en, though bereft of reason, still had his fighting instincts.
His emotions now seemed as if multiple minds were calculating the battle, overcoming the "limb confusion" in an instant. As for emotions... both were using them, and masked Gerald was not necessarily crazier than Su'en.
With no advantage in speed and unable to inflict damage in close combat.
Su'en formed the sorcerer's seal with both hands, once again conjuring the "Puppet Theater."
Silver threads wrapped around space, dozens of puppets attacking simultaneously.
This time, the "Puppet Theater," deemed unsolvable at the same tier, showed its limitations in a tier-crossing battle.
A single thread could be easily cut by the blade-like nails, and when bundled, he could dodge with his ghostly movements...
Gerald was like a fish swimming agilely through seaweed, the witch's hair causing him little trouble.
The main force of the attack was still the puppets.
Su'en multitasked, controlling dozens of puppets to attack simultaneously, as if one person had dozens of hands and feet.
But the "Nightmare Dolls," which could affect the minds of second-tier professionals, were useless against the Umbrella Organization's leader. And his armor-stripping technique didn't even need to shatter the dolls to dismantle them into parts.
Soon, the battlefield resembled a horrific slaughterhouse, with puppet limbs and torsos scattered in the air...
But the dismembered limbs still attacked Gerald relentlessly.
Both faces bore a numbness as if they were impervious to pain,
And in the central prison, where dark spiritual power was rich, Su'en could sustain the fight for a long time!
Moreover, with the super recovery power brought by the "X serum," it was impossible for him to be defeated in a short time.
The two engaged in a fierce battle.
***
The onlookers were stunned by the duel.
A bizarre one-on-one fight had turned into a clash of titans.
The families then realized that this unassuming bespectacled middle-aged man was a third-tier professional, and an exceptionally strong one at that!
Looking at Su'en, they also understood just how formidable this SS-class fugitive was, even without using the Black Scythe.
"This..."
"What speed! Even Chairman Nero might not match them..."
"Both have used it, especially Su'en, he might not live much longer..."
"Let's go! Whoever wins, it's bad for us!"
"Right, let's figure out how to break this cursed space and get out."
"..."
The remnants of the two families chose not to watch but to flee.
Meanwhile, Kay and the others at the second-floor passage saw the red-eyed Su'en and, despite their concerns about the battle, entered the second level of the prison without hesitation.