Chapter 341: Target |
Shimizu Yu lay in Hoshino Gen's arms. Her heart pounded furiously against her chest, yet her body was so weak she barely dared to breathe.
This certainly was not out of shyness from their physical contact. She had just genuinely brushed past the edge of death! How could she possibly have the presence of mind to care about anything else?
Besides, she wasn't blind. She understood their current predicament perfectly well. They were surrounded by a mob of gun-toting thugs in suits, led by someone who had explicitly uttered the word "Transcendent." And this leader, who looked anything but normal, was glaring at them with burning intensity...
No matter how you looked at it, this was a dire situation—
Suddenly, Shimizu Yu felt a firm push on her shoulder.
"Huh?" she murmured in surprise, then watched helplessly as Hoshino Gen shoved her aside with a single hand.
Hoshino Gen casually tossed two talismans at her. In an instant, a shimmering membrane of golden light enveloped Shimizu Yu.
Only after doing this did Hoshino Gen finally look straight at the somewhat deranged, hunchbacked youth. His voice was calm and light: "A quick question. Is your target actually me, or the idiot standing next to me?"
"Huh?" The hunchbacked youth's eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, his gaze darting frantically back and forth between Hoshino Gen and the securely shielded Shimizu Yu.
The words were highly arrogant and seemingly devoid of any useful information, yet Hoshino Gen understood perfectly. "To think someone is actually targeting this idiot. There really are all kinds of people these days..."
"Hey, hey... hey, hey, hey, hey! What the hell are you mumbling and making wild guesses about, you bastard? It's really pissing me off! Argh—I've decided. I don't care who the original target was anymore, I'm going to kill you right now!" The hunchbacked youth's face twisted grotesquely, glaring at Hoshino Gen as if his words had inflicted some grave, unforgivable insult.
"I am not making wild guesses." Hoshino Gen casually tossed his schoolbag straight through the shield and into Shimizu Yu's arms. He took a step forward, his voice maintaining its serene calm. "After all, if I truly were the target, the person backing you would never have sent a single fool like you."
"Your purpose is just to draw my attention and lure me away, isn't it? Makes sense. It wouldn't require a spectacle of this scale just to assassinate a high school girl."
"However..." He paused, the corner of his mouth curving into a faint smirk. "Knowing that I am here, yet still daring to play this little game."
His figure vanished in a blur. When he reappeared, he was already standing directly in front of the hunchbacked youth. Palm Thunder erupted in a blinding flash, and he violently thrust his hand forward.
Squelch—!
Flesh tore effortlessly. Hoshino Gen's lightning-clad palm blasted straight through the left side of the youth's chest, whose face remained frozen in utter bewilderment. He lowered his voice, his tone turning absolutely freezing: "What, do you have an SSS-Rank backer too?"
"Do you think that because I couldn't wipe out The Holy See, I can't slaughter all of you?"
The Palm Thunder bursting through the youth's body scattered into a dazzling spray of lightning. It fell like a massive, searing white net over the thugs in suits, who had completely failed to process what was happening.
Bzzzt—!
Electric sparks danced with wild abandon. Following a chorus of agonizing shrieks, the thugs in suits, who had been fierce and aggressive just seconds before, were reduced to a heap of charred, carbonized corpses scattered across the ground.
Hoshino Gen began to pull his hand back...
But—Smack! His half-withdrawn arm was suddenly grabbed. It was the hunchbacked youth, the very man whose heart had just been pulverized. He tilted his head back, his expression twisted into a ferocious mask of pure anger. "That really hurts... you bastard!"
As his words fell, Hoshino Gen distinctly felt a massive suction force emanating from the gaping hole in the youth's chest. Shifting his gaze slightly, he saw that the wound had somehow morphed into a viscous, bubbling mass of blood. A gaping maw lined with jagged teeth had formed within the gore, and it had already clamped shut, swallowing his hand whole.
"Now, why don't you tell me..." The hunchbacked youth grinned, letting out a maniacal cackle. "Who exactly is the fool here?"
The next second, his entire body dissolved into a violently surging tide of blood, lunging directly at Hoshino Gen at point-blank range.
As if caught completely off guard, Hoshino Gen was instantly engulfed by the monstrous wave of blood, swallowed up without a single ripple of struggle.
The tide of blood writhed and surged, quickly reforming into a human shape. The hunchbacked youth's form was completely restored, and even the gaping hole in his chest had vanished without a trace.
Within the safety of the golden shield, Shimizu Yu stood with her mouth slightly agape. "No way..."
The situation had escalated far too quickly, catching her completely off guard.
Just a second ago, Hoshino Gen had been displaying awe-inspiring power. He had blown a hole straight through their most formidable opponent in a single strike, the residual shockwave frying all the other bad guys to a crisp. Yet, in the very next heartbeat, he had simply been devoured?!
This... this... Shimizu Yu simply couldn't process it. Her brain completely short-circuited. She collapsed onto the ground, a sharp stinging sensation rushing to her nose as tears spilled down her cheeks like pearls scattering from a broken necklace.
The hunchbacked youth tilted his head, letting out a maniacal laugh. "What a deeply disappointing opponent!"
He took slow, deliberate steps toward Shimizu Yu, raising his hand to smash it viciously against the golden shield.
But halfway through his swing, his gaze suddenly froze. A bone-deep chill washed over his entire body. He clutched his chest, his expression contorting into a mask of ferocious agony.
"Urgh... Ahhhhhh—!"
The youth's hunchbacked body violently whipped backward, bending at such an extreme angle that the top of his head nearly scraped the pavement.
Bubble... bubble... bubble... The surface of his body emitted sickening sounds, much like a thick liquid boiling over. In the blink of an eye, he regressed into that massive, bloody, slime-like state, writhing madly across the ground.
Suddenly, the mass of blood began to swell, bulging outward as if something huge was expanding from within. The outer surface of the gore stretched, contorting until it formed the vague, terrifying shape of a colossal serpent's head.
The serpent's head reared back toward the sky and unhinged its massive jaws.
"No... no..." The youth's distorted, terrified voice echoed from within the mass of blood. "Stop... Stop it...!"
Boom—!!
A terrifying pillar of purple light erupted from within, tearing straight through the bloody mass and blasting apart a cluster of clouds in the sky above.
At the exact same moment, a body was violently flung into the air, only to plummet right back down under the pull of gravity, crashing heavily into the ground.
Clad in a long black coat and encased within the spectral manifestation of the Orochi Skull, Hoshino Gen turned. He walked purposefully toward the fallen youth, whose entire chest and abdomen had been blown completely hollow.
The pavement beneath the youth was already saturated with blood. Though his eyes remained open as he stubbornly clung to life, the frothy blood continuously bubbling from his lips was a clear sign that his miserable existence was rapidly drawing to a close.
"Khh... khh-ghk..." He looked as though he wanted to say something, but only meaningless, gurgling rasps escaped his ruined throat.
Hoshino Gen stared down at him with cold, apathetic eyes. "I stand by my previous assessment," he said calmly. "You are the fool."
With that said, he leaned down and pressed his index finger against the youth's sunken forehead.
There was no need to keep him alive for an interrogation. When dealing with this kind of enemy, he preferred to extract the information directly through Soul Reading.