Free Web Novel“What the hell are you now?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Muen glanced at Donna’s transformation, and the corner of his eye abruptly twitched.
Although he had long since guessed that this Donna was not simple, he had not expected her to be this not simple.
No, this was no longer a question of whether she was simple or not. This thing, really... was she human?
Those huge tentacles, that octopus face—had Cthulhu descended?
No, that was not right either.
Even if Cthulhu had descended, in this Evil God worldview, it did not seem like something impossible to understand.
What truly made one’s expression turn strange was... Saint Peron V had been rolling around in bed with this thing the entire time?
“O... Olive?”
At that moment, Saint Peron V also seemed to be startled awake by Donna’s roar. He opened his eyes in a daze. Reflected in his muddy pupils was Donna’s current hideous, nauseating appearance, and then they suddenly shrank.
“Mon... monster? Why is there a monster here? Olive, my Olive, where are you?”
Saint Peron V shuddered in terror and instinctively wanted to retreat, but his own body could barely move. And only then did he realize that there was another person right in front of him, gradually closing in.
“You... you’re Muen Campbell? Why are you here? Where’s Olive? Where is Olive?”
“Stop barking, damn it!”
Muen cut Saint Peron V off and sneered.
“Still haven’t realized it? This is the Olive you’ve been yearning for day and night. You’re truly blessed. One look at this thing and anyone can tell she could wring you dry. I underestimated you before. Now I apologize. I said you’d turned into a mummy, but just being alive after this is already impressive. This thing could probably suck an iron barrel into a vacuum.”
Squelch.
As if verifying Muen’s words, those tentacles suddenly coiled, and the thick pillar beam in the bedchamber was directly ground to pieces.
Saint Peron V shuddered again. For some reason, a phantom pain arose in him, and he subconsciously reached down.
Then his hand came away covered in a sticky sensation.
He lowered his head in disbelief and discovered that the sheets, which had originally been soaked with a certain fluid proclaiming his battle record, were now covered in a viscous liquid. It was absolutely not something a human could secrete. It was practically like... someone had fought three hundred rounds with a tentacle-covered monster.
Not only the bedsheets. Even that part of him, his body, and even his mouth had that sticky feeling and foul fishy stench.
It seemed that his earlier pleasure had not been him joining his dearly yearned-for Olive among the clouds, but rather playing some exciting game with a pile of tentacles...
“No... impossible!”
Saint Peron’s face turned deathly pale. He still wanted to deny all of it, but while the self could be deceived, the body’s reactions could not be faked.
“Urgh—”
Saint Peron V retched, but nothing came out.
“Oh, you look like you really want to die.”
Looking at Saint Peron V like this, Muen suddenly leaned down and said with incomparable gentleness,
“Don’t be afraid. Since you want to die... I’ll help you right now!”
Black flame covered the blade. Muen had already been waiting, fully prepared. At this moment, he no longer cared what Donna’s true form actually was and directly aimed the blade at Saint Peron V’s chest, stabbing down violently.
Boom!
It was clearly a simple thrust, yet it made a tremendous roar like mountains and rocks collapsing erupt all around them.
That roar did not come from Muen’s blade, but from somewhere even farther away, from... the entire Grand Barrier!
Within the Grand Barrier, it was as if two forces had suddenly collided, invisibly causing the entire city to shake. If someone could observe the outside of the city at this moment, they would discover that cracks were surfacing across that deep void.
However, what was breaking was not the void, but rather the collision inside the Grand Barrier had affected its stability to a certain extent, causing this city, which had currently broken away from the timeline, to shake as well.
“Damn it!”
Muen’s expression darkened.
Relying on the Grand Barrier’s central core, he had successfully approached Saint Peron V and had successfully stabbed the blade down.
But the tip of the blade, wrapped in black fire, still stopped when it was only one centimeter away from Saint Peron V’s chest.
A powerful force was repelling Muen’s attack. At the same time, the Grand Barrier core in Muen’s hand continuously emitted scorching heat, helping Muen press closer little by little.
The two forces canceled each other out, then reached a stalemate.
This was the origin of that collision.
Muen could control the Grand Barrier. Saint Peron V could as well.
Thus these two completely different commands had caused the current internal tremor within the Grand Barrier.
“You want to kill me?”
Saint Peron V’s eye sockets were sunken deep, his cheekbones protruding, his whole appearance like a mummy that had just crawled out of the earth.
But he had no time to first pursue the culprit who had reduced him to this state.
He felt the threat of death, and he also sensed the aura of the other Grand Barrier core he had searched for more than ten years.
And so his expression abruptly turned savage.
“I never imagined that thing would actually be in the hands of an outsider like you. But so what?”
“You think you can kill me with it?”
“If that were possible, that old thing would have done it years ago. Would he have needed to wait until now?”
“You can’t kill me, Muen Campbell!”
Buzz, buzz, buzz...
Muen felt both his arms trembling. No matter how he burst out with strength, he could no longer make his blade descend even the tiniest bit.
Saint Peron V had controlled the Grand Barrier for too long. Even if the two of them possessed the same authority, his degree of control over the Grand Barrier was entirely beyond anything Muen could compare to.
The reason they had fallen into a stalemate now was largely because most of the Grand Barrier’s power had been diverted to maintain the city’s independent existence outside the timeline. Instead, this allowed Muen to rely on his own strength to slightly erase the gap between them.
But that was only erasing the gap. It could not completely tilt the scales toward him.
“So what now? Wear him down?”
Muen stared at Saint Peron V’s ugly, savage face. He could feel that using the Grand Barrier core also consumed physical strength and mental strength. He did not have much mental strength left, but no matter what, he could outlast this old thing who had already been wrung dry.
The problem was...
“Muen—Campbell!”
Here, the one constantly chanting his name like some obsessive lunatic was not only Saint Peron V.
In the stalemate, Muen instinctively split off part of his attention toward the humanoid octopus Donna at the side.
She was still baring fangs and brandishing claws. Thick tentacles continuously stirred through the bedchamber. Because she could not touch Muen, she had begun smashing everything she could reach.
If this continued, it probably would not be long before the entire bedchamber was demolished.
Of course, even if it was demolished, that did not count as anything to Muen. He did not care about these things.
The problem was that, along with Donna’s movements, he faintly had an ominous premonition.
“Is it because of these things?”
Muen turned his head, his gaze falling on the things scattered all around them... the slime.
The slime was clearly secreted from Donna’s tentacles. There were two kinds. One carried a strong acid and foul stench, constantly destroying the surroundings with Donna’s movements.
But the other kind was completely different.
The other slime was transparent. It looked like some kind of sex toy, or a slime from a story, sticky and gooey, seemingly without the slightest threat. Yet at this very moment, that slime seemed to be emitting a faint light, echoing something.
“Don’t tell me...”
Muen’s gaze suddenly sharpened, and he lowered his head to look.
Sure enough, the slime on Saint Peron V’s body was also faintly glowing now, and the frequency of its flickering was visibly resonating with the slime outside.
And along with that resonance, from the outside, Donna’s hideous appearance gradually blurred.
But from Muen’s perspective, Donna was gradually becoming clear.
It was as if an illusory image was becoming solid, little by little.
“She’s gradually invading this place too!”
Muen immediately understood what this phenomenon meant.
Right now, Donna still could not attack him.
But along with her “invasion,” sooner or later she would truly arrive at the “position” where Muen was.
Just as Muen had arrived at Saint Peron V’s “position” in an attempt to kill him.
But... how was she doing it?
She did not have a Grand Barrier control core!
“You think... I was simply trying to please this old thing?”
Donna roared and grinned savagely.
“I am a demonic fish that lives in the deep sea. Unlike you ridiculous, filthy humans, I am a higher life-form!”
“I can imitate. Imitate your intelligence, imitate your techniques, even imitate your aura, as long as there is enough contact time!”
“Therefore, I can also imitate my own aura and posture until they are the same as his, deceiving the Grand Barrier!”
As she spoke, those tentacles tangled and interwove with one another, truly faintly outlining a familiar, withered silhouette.
“And as long as I leave a mark on him, I can follow that mark here. No matter where the Grand Barrier hides you, I can find you!”
“So... wait for me there, Muen Campbell! As the price for toying with me and forcing me to reveal this beautiful body, I will swallow you alive!”
Donna became more and more solid.
When several tentacles swept past Muen, he could even smell that fishy odor, similar to seafood.
“Imitate everything? Leave marks? ...Tracking? I see. No wonder Gaius made you responsible for this old thing. You really are absolutely impossible to shake off.”
Muen’s expression was grave.
It seemed that Donna’s troublesome points did not only lie in her caution.
She herself was trouble.
It could even be said that she was the greatest insurance Gaius had left beside Saint Peron V. This insurance even surpassed the Witch of Repentance, because even the Witch of Repentance could not invade the Grand Barrier.
She, too, existed specifically to deal with that one-in-ten-thousand probability.
But...
“You think something designed by a certain rotten old brat is that easy for you to exploit?”
Muen sneered.
Donna was indeed difficult to deal with.
But this ability of hers had too many limitations. Compared to the Grand Barrier itself, she was also far too small.
If she were a Crowned, combined with this ability, then what Muen would be considering right now was whether he should risk his life and restart another run.
But she was not.
Then as far as the Grand Barrier was concerned, there were far too many solutions to her ability. For example, right now, Muen could control the Grand Barrier and change the position of himself and Saint Peron V.
This was the terrifying part of the Grand Barrier. He and Saint Peron V seemed to both still be here, but in reality, they could be anywhere in the city.
Although that still would not allow him to escape Donna’s tracking, it could significantly slow her progress.
This was a game of time. Whoever was one step ahead would obtain victory.
“Unfortunately, you’re only the pursuer, and you can only ever be one step slower.”
