North Shore of Conquest, outskirts of Navaja City.
In the afternoon, under the hazy sky, on the suburban beach far from Navaja City, the cold seawater relentlessly washed over the rocky coast. The force of the tide poured into the crevices of rocks and sand, the sound of waves crashing one after another.
On the gravel beach, Massimo, seriously wounded and missing an arm, stood in stunned surprise, staring at the young man who had appeared nearby and was smiling at him. At this moment, he could smell a familiar aura on the man, the aura of the button found in Bins's hand, and the person pointed to by that aura was none other than Thief K!
"Thief K... you are Thief K? As expected... you are a Blood Darkness Path spider guy!"
Looking at the young man before him, Massimo said through gritted teeth. Costa had told him before that Thief K might be a Blood Darkness Path Extraordinary capable of disguising himself. The person appearing here now had a completely different physique and gender from the one he had encountered on the shining white pearl previously, something only a Blood Darkness Path Extraordinary could achieve.
"As for what my identity is... hasn't it been obvious for a long time? There's no need to be so surprised, Mr. Massimo."
With a slight smile, the young man looked at Massimo and said provocatively in Iweig. Hearing his words, Massimo spoke again with a resentful tone.
"You guy... how did you escape from that ship without anyone noticing? How did you know I was here? That Spirituality mist that exposed us just now, that was your doing too, wasn't it! What exactly did you do?"
"Oh my, you have so many questions, Mr. Massimo. You're not really expecting me to answer them one by one, are you? You're a dying man now, what good would knowing these things do you?"
With a look of contempt, the young man looked at Massimo and said. Massimo's anger intensified after being mocked by the other party, but it was quickly suppressed again. He straightened his weakened body, raised his head, and said with a cold laugh to the young man before him.
"Hmph... it seems we were in your hands from beginning to end. You're appearing before me now to humiliate me, wanting to savor the taste of victory, aren't you?"
"Naturally~ After all, who else won in the end but me? As a half-crippled person, you can't possibly defeat me. This taste is the enjoyment I deserve."
Spreading his hands, the young man looked at Massimo with an expression of extreme mockery and said. After hearing his words, Massimo's face twisted slightly, then he let out a cold laugh and spoke.
"Heh... yes, being severely wounded now, I probably can't defeat you. But first, you shouldn't be too arrogant, and unfortunately, you haven't managed that."
"Don't be so self-important! Thief K!"
Suddenly, Massimo let out a roar. At the same time, he swung his remaining single arm. Under the swing of that arm, the gravel ground beneath the young man's feet began to show a slight movement. Several water columns burst through the scattered stones, rushed out of the ground, and stabbed directly towards the young man.
"What!"
Facing this sudden situation, the young man's face showed a look of astonishment. He quickly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the water columns stabbing at him. However, the water columns around him turned into water barriers, restricting his movements, and Massimo's counterattack had only just begun.
"Good dodge, but it's useless!"
Along with Massimo's words, the water columns around the young man burst apart. Under the manipulation of some strange force, they turned into streams of water surging towards the young man. In just a brief instant, the young man's entire body was covered by suspended water, his whole body wrapped inside a large sphere of water.
All of a sudden, the young man was abruptly transitioned from land into water. He was trapped inside the large water sphere suspended in the air. He struggled desperately, but because there was nothing to push against, it had no effect whatsoever. Bubbles continuously came out of his mouth, and a look of pain appeared on his face due to suffocation.
While the young man was completely unprepared, Massimo used the water streams gushing from underground to create a water prison, trapping the young man directly inside. No matter how the young man struggled, he couldn't escape this water prison. Seeing this situation, Massimo immediately burst into laughter.
"Ha! You were careless, Thief K! You didn't expect that there was water under your feet that I could also manipulate, did you!
"You waited until I was far from the sea and walked all the way here before appearing, afraid that I would directly control the water in the sea, right! But I'm telling you, this rocky beach is full of pores washed out by the sea underneath! That means there's water everywhere under your feet that I can utilize! You miscalculated!"
Looking at the young man struggling painfully in the water prison, Massimo said loudly, the previous frustration and anger on his face completely gone.
"Stop struggling, Thief! Once you're controlled by the Wave Chanter's water prison, no matter how strong your power or how agile your movements, you can't break free! Even if you transform into a bat, you can't escape the water current! Hand over the deep blue heart immediately now, and perhaps I might spare your life!"
Facing the young man struggling desperately in the water prison, Massimo continued to speak. Just as he was focused on maintaining control of the water prison over the young man, several men holding firearms rushed out from behind some rocks not far behind him. They aimed their revolvers at Massimo and fired simultaneously.
All of a sudden, gunshots erupted on the rocky beach. Bullets shot out from the revolvers, heading towards Massimo's back. The already injured Massimo was currently focused on maintaining the water prison and had no time to react to this sudden sneak attack from behind. Although he dodged at the last moment, he was still hit by at least five bullets directly in his body, creating bloody holes. One of them even pierced his neck, causing Massimo to cough up blood.
"Cough, cough... there are... henchmen too?"
Enduring the newly added pain on his body and pushing through what would be fatal injuries for an ordinary person, Massimo, while continuing to maintain the water prison, stared with bloodshot eyes at the men who had shot at him. He naturally assumed these were Thief K's henchmen arranged here, who wanted to come out and save him after seeing Thief K trapped.
Staring intently at the armed henchmen, Massimo once again activated his ability. This time, the ground beneath the feet of the armed henchmen suddenly shattered. Countless high-pressure water columns jetted out from the broken cracks. The armed henchmen, caught off guard, were directly pierced and fell down amidst painful wails.
And just before hitting the ground, one henchman used his last bit of strength to light a stick of dynamite and threw it towards Massimo. Seeing this, Massimo caused water droplets to gather in the air, wrapping the thrown dynamite. Just like that, the dynamite flying towards Massimo was encased in a newly condensed small water sphere in mid-air, unable to continue flying towards Massimo, and the already lit fuse was extinguished by the water.
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And just as Massimo was feeling fortunate for successfully stopping the dynamite, inside the dynamite, the skin of a tiny flying insect that had been placed there beforehand suddenly flashed with electric light. Instantly, the explosive charge inside the dynamite, which hadn't had time to get wet, was ignited.
"Boom!!"
A powerful explosion occurred with a violent roar. The thin layer of water covering the explosive's surface was blasted away, but its suppressive effect prevented the explosive from unleashing its full power. It merely kicked up a cloud of dust in mid-air some distance away from Massimo, not harming him in the slightest.
Initially, Massimo was slightly surprised after seeing the bomb explode. However, upon seeing that the explosion didn't affect him, he momentarily relaxed. Yet, in the very next moment, an unexpected situation occurred.
From within the dust cloud raised by the explosion, an extremely fast and sharp figure shot out directly, attacking Massimo at high speed.
Looking closely, it was clearly a woman wearing light black men's casual clothes, with her hair tied up, wearing a half-mask, and possessing a good figure. The sharp vertical pupils beneath the half-mask were identical to the pair Massimo had encountered on the bow of the shining white pearl a few nights prior.
"It's you!"
Facing the Thief woman who had rapidly attacked and was now before him, Massimo's eyes widened. Only then did he realize he had restrained the wrong person. So he quickly withdrew the water prison that had held the young man and redirected his limited energy to prepare to create a new water prison in order to control the real Thief before him.
However, it was all too late. The Thief rushed in front of Massimo with agile movements, and the dagger she held in her hand slashed down fiercely towards him.
At the critical moment, Massimo extended his only remaining left arm, directly blocking the dagger in the Thief's hand. The Thief's dagger cut into Massimo's arm. Given the Thief's strength, this strike could definitely sever Massimo's arm directly. However, Massimo forcefully tensed the muscles in his arm with great strength, pouring in more Spirituality, causing the toughness of the muscles to instantly increase several times over. For a moment, the Thief's dagger only cut into his arm a little bit, not even hitting the bone.
Massimo controlled the powerful physical strength of his Chalk "Cup" Extraordinary to withstand this critical blow!
"Die, Thief!"
Roaring in anger, Massimo prepared to counterattack. But at this moment, a powerful force transmitted through the Thief's body reached the dagger she held and was then transmitted through the dagger to Massimo's body.
At this moment, Massimo once again experienced the abnormal stinging sensation he had felt on the bow of the shining white pearl that night, except this time it was more intense and severe, and not just in his hand, but throughout his entire body.
For a moment, powerful currents began coursing through Massimo's body. Stimulated by this current, Massimo let out a painful shriek. Under this powerful current that permeated his entire body, Massimo completely lost control of his body; he lost the ability to control his hand muscles.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Thief used great force, directly severing the arm that was blocking her dagger. Then, while grabbing Massimo's shoulder to ensure continuous discharge, she continued to slash towards Massimo's throat. His already injured neck was directly cut open two-thirds of the way by this strike. And that wasn't all; to completely kill the opponent, the Thief finally plunged the dagger into Massimo's head.
Just like this, amidst the gush of blood, Massimo, with wide eyes, slowly fell. Lying on the ground, his body was still twitching uncontrollably, his mouth opening and closing, as if trying to mutter something unknown. Finally, after twitching for several minutes, Massimo finally stopped all movement, becoming a motionless corpse.
Standing beside Massimo, the Thief, without a word, used the vertical pupils beneath her mask to gaze at the final struggles of Massimo, this senior executive of the Sea Abyss Church. After finally confirming his death, the Thief took off her mask, revealing Naifnis's indifferent face. Possessed by Soul Xu, she calmly faced the death of her prey.
Suddenly, a translucent lynx spirit body drilled out from Naifnis's back, drifting casually in the air. After the spirit body emerged, Naifnis's expression became momentarily dazed. Then, after realizing what had happened, she looked at the bloody corpse before her and the blood-stained dagger in her hand, jumping back slightly in fright and taking two steps back. The dagger in her hand nearly slipped and fell.
"Uh, uhm, he seems to be completely dead, Miss Dorothy."
Turning her head, Naifnis, with a hint of unease, looked towards the young man not far away who had just gained freedom from the water prison. The other party said while tidying his soaked clothes.
"Cough cough... That was really tough, Senior Nefelnis. Leave the rest to me now. You should have your own things to attend to, right?"
"Mhm... That's right. My teachers and classmates are still waiting for me in the City. I need to go right away. Uhm... I'll go change now, okay? I'll leave this place to you."
While speaking, Naifnis, accompanied by Soul Xu, hurriedly ran towards the distance. The young man, being a Corpse Puppet, watched her leave, then turned his gaze back to Massimo's corpse.
"Well then, it's time for loot~"
In the roadside viewing pavilion not far from the coast, Dorothy, sitting inside, began to mutter with a smile. Then she began to control her group of Corpse Puppets on the coast, starting the aftermath work of clearing the battlefield.
By now, Massimo and Costa, these two troubles that had given Dorothy headaches for several days, finally vanished like smoke. Dorothy could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Back when she was still on the shining white pearl, to prevent Costa and the others from giving up entirely, Dorothy deliberately used Bins to provide them with the button scent as a clue through her design, letting them see hope of bringing back the deep blue heart. While preventing them from going all-in, she led them into a dead end.
After that, Dorothy knew that the two of them would definitely look for someone using this scent, and they would do so when everyone disembarked and gathered. So she designed for Costa and Massimo to be exposed to the Church at that time. What Dorothy used were a few mosquitoes.
Dorothy had one remaining Eight Point Nest smoke bomb liquid coagulant in her hand. So Dorothy controlled several fly Corpse Puppets to each suck up a little, then she let these small flies fly onto Costa and Massimo. By deliberately losing control of the Electrification state to destroy the fly's body, she allowed the absorbed Spirituality mist to spread out in a small area, attracting the attention of the Church at the scene.
Besides the fly Corpse Puppets that had absorbed the coagulant, Dorothy also controlled some other fly Corpse Puppets to burrow into Massimo's pockets. After Massimo jumped into the sea to escape, Dorothy relied on this fly Corpse Puppet to locate Massimo's position and swimming trajectory.
Dorothy determined his landing spot based on Massimo's trajectory. So, having already disembarked, she immediately pulled Neff, riding a tireless Corpse Puppet horse that had been stored in the magic box for a long time. They quickly arrived at the opponent's landing spot. Because Massimo was severely injured, his swimming speed was affected, therefore Dorothy and the others arrived here first.
"Phew... I didn't expect to encounter such troublesome things just by going on a long trip. Not to mention the days of battling wits and bravery... Even the ship sank in the end. But at least there was a good outcome in the end, right? The cult guys are finished, almost everyone was saved, but quite a few resources were consumed. I hope the final harvest isn't too bad at least."