Love, death, and false man

Chapter 21. Guilty Gear
“Be careful. His Soulfire has a very unusual property. It can project all sorts of strange weapons. According to the pattern I discovered, this property can extract a ‘mold’ from any object and then project it. The projected weapon has the physical properties of the extracted object, excluding rest mass. However, after each extraction, only the current weapon can be projected and cannot be changed. When I met him this morning, the last weapon he used was a triangular road sign with a pole that limits speed to 70.”

"That's definitely quite unconventional..."

"However, his soul fire is far weaker than mine, and he is already injured, so we cannot be careless."

After entering the building, before going upstairs, Xia Bing shared some intelligence about the enemy with Fang Yan.

"I see."

Fang Yan knew that if the Soulfire's heat was not hot enough (in Joules), even the most powerful skills would be useless. For example, a skill that enhanced a percentage of the base attribute would deal 300% damage, but if the base attack was only 10 points, it could only deal 30 points of damage.

Similarly, it can be concluded that even if the enemy's projection characteristic is somewhat useless and he was seriously injured by Xia Bing, if the Soul Fire intensity is 10000 joules, Xia Bing may not be able to break through the defense. Moreover, if the opponent projects a super-aggregated speed limit sign, a swing of the sign could probably cut it in half.

Numerical values, mechanics, strategies, and experience are all important; each is key to determining the outcome of a battle.

The two then followed the hunting dog upstairs.

Locksmith services, rental services, mortgage loans, beautiful women offering door-to-door services—countless phone numbers are densely packed on the hallway walls like talismans.

Fang Yan was still not used to the failure of these physical rules. The lighting was already very low, and it was even more difficult to see clearly in the black and white silent film.

Whether she was wearing stockings or not is really puzzling. It's already the beginning of autumn, it must be very cold outside without stockings. They are really long, the proportions are good enough to be used for a poster silhouette.

The black hound climbed the stairs silently without making a sound, and the two of them remained silent as well.

Fang Yan had no professional training; he was just a street thug carrying a submachine gun. His gait was casual, and seeing that Xia Bing was walking very lightly, he also tiptoed around.

The Soulfire's short range is Xia Bing's biggest weakness, but in close-quarters combat, directional blasts can play a huge advantage, especially in urban warfare or indoor CQB, where it is a true "head-patting kill".

He carried a steel pipe filled with "bullets" on his shoulder with one hand, while his other hand skillfully manipulated a one-yuan coin with the magic of coin magic, flipping it back and forth between the four fingers.

There was no elevator in the old-style tenement building. After going up to the fourth floor, the hound lowered its head, as if it had smelled blood, and ran to the right side of the straight corridor.

Xia Bing looked at the ground and saw that there were indeed bloodstains. The fake man was already seriously injured. He immediately pinched the coin in his palm like he was shooting marbles. Then, the sound of his boots stomping was quick and crisp.

Fang Yan quickly followed.

This kind of tenement building has a dozen or twenty households on each floor. The hunting dog stopped in one of the households, flapping and barking.

Without hesitation, Xia Bing aimed the steel pipe directly at the window and detonated it.

boom!
The deafening explosion caused the front half of the steel pipe to glow a faint, branding red and smoldering, while Xia Bing's special high-temperature resistant gloves were burning hot.

All the steel balls inside were scattered by the terrifying impact, causing devastating damage. Fang Yan felt the building tremble slightly and heard the sound of the walls collapsing.

He swallowed hard, seemingly indicating that he didn't need to do anything himself.

Xia Bing nimbly climbed through the completely destroyed window and searched the area.

"Your hound must be mistaken; there's no one here."

Xia Bing gripped the coin tightly, entered the room and scanned the surroundings, but Fang Yan's hunting dog was still barking incessantly outside.

Fang Yan also climbed through the window and entered the house. It was a normal residential building, except for a collapsed wall that exposed the load-bearing steel bars inside. There was nothing unusual about it.

Because of the impact, the old-fashioned three-blade ceiling fan above the living room was on the floor, swinging back and forth.

"Hmm... since it's a projected object, it possesses physical properties other than mass, so does that include things like color..."

Before Fang Yan could finish speaking...

"careful!"

Suddenly, an octopus-like whip burst out of the refrigerator, its protoplasmic flesh covered in chitinous barbs, and it twisted toward Fang Yan's head.

There was a dull thud.

The steel pipe slammed into the tentacle like a baseball player's swing, but Xia Bing was entangled by the tentacle and immediately disarmed by the enormous pulling force.

Just as Fang Yan had imagined, they could indeed extract the "mold." This meant that not only weapons could be used, but also to mimic and conceal themselves. This person had already been overwhelmed by Xia Bing, and was even less of a match for her now that he was severely injured.

Even if steel pipes are not needed.

boom!
With her thumb, Xia Bing flicked the coin out. While it was in mid-air, she made a gun gesture with her hand and gently raised her index finger. It exploded immediately, and the coin pierced through the tentacle. The cavity effect caused extensive damage, and the wide-area scattering impact of the directional explosion further tore off a layer of skin from the tentacle, leaving it covered in blood and flesh.

Unable to maintain its mimicry any longer, the refrigerator, which had no static mass or density, suddenly vanished, revealing a pseudo-human that was already severely injured, struggling to stand, its body swaying to the side, and its body tattered. Its arms could each transform into two tentacles, but it was now extremely weak.

Fang Yan didn't rest either. Although he couldn't see the real-time intensity of the soul fire, he knew it would definitely surge in combat. He split off another hound, and the two hounds attacked together, biting at his other tentacles.

The MP5 also fired at the same time.

This fake human also possessed [armor], generating a defensive force field. Bullets were weakened when they hit him, but still managed to embed themselves. Two hunting dogs held him tightly, completely restraining his already weakened body.

But he launched a desperate counterattack, using his last strength to use a tentacle to roll up the ceiling fan that had fallen to the ground, extract the mold, and then generate a projection.

An extremely unusual scene unfolded: the tentacles wrapped around the base of the ceiling fan projection, and the projection began to spin rapidly, with all the heat from the soul fire concentrated on it, completely disregarding the hounds. [A] completely disappeared, and the remaining tentacles were pulverized by the hounds, their flesh and bones torn off, causing blood to gush out.

However, the three fan blades were stimulated to their maximum intensity by the heat of his soul fire, completely transcending the category of ceiling fans and becoming comparable to a precision milling machine in a factory workshop.

This was his desperate attack. He raged wildly in the living room, instantly snapping the coffee table and sofa, carving grooves in the walls, and lashing his tentacles at the two people who were trying to dodge.

Bang! Crash! Bang!
Xia Bing could also use a directional blast, turning her index finger into a shotgun, to blast away the violently spinning tentacles.

"Fuck you..."

As Fang Yan dodged, he saw the steel pipe that Xia Bing had dropped earlier at his feet. This thing seemed to be very tough and was a material specially designed to withstand the impact of explosions.

He picked it up, and instinctively channeled the most raw and primal soul fire energy into his arm, then poked it into the ceiling fan, trying to jam it.

The milling machine-like fan blades rotated too violently, causing the steel pipe to spark and become stuck. The fan blades were formed using a 'mold' and also suffered wear and tear, with heat constantly dissipating.

Xia Bing quickly stepped forward. Although it was a bit disgusting, she had no choice but to use the "head pat" to ensure Fang Yan's safety. If she placed her palm on the target and performed a targeted explosion, even the strongest iron would be blown apart.

While his attention was diverted by Fang Yan, he quickly ran towards the fake man's true form.

But it's no longer needed.

Because it was a desperate counterattack, the fake man had abandoned [A] and focused all his energy on the fan blades.

click!
A hunting dog bit through the pseudo-human's throat, then tore open its chest and abdomen, devoured its heart, and the twitching tentacles instantly fell off, while the wildly spinning projection completely shut down and evaporated.

He collapsed to his knees, his throat wound ruptured by his shattered heart. Without the pressure of a blood pump, the blood flowed out like water overflowing from a basin.

Fang Yan was still in shock, breathing softly.

Xia Bing chased the pseudo-human all the way to the singularity, and finally died, just as she breathed a sigh of relief.

……

It was a voice like that of a high school girl, saying █████████████

……

The soul fire uncontrollably transformed into two enormous arms, as black as seawater, beyond Fang Yan's control. One arm gripped the corpse's waist, while the other held its head.

boom……

The head and spine were ripped out, blood gushing out. Finally, a large hand gripped the head and squeezed it hard in the palm, completely crushing it and absorbing data like the noise of a CRT television.

Another string of scarlet code, not branded in the eyes, but branded in the consciousness.

The Guilty Gear.EXE file has been generated.

(End of this chapter)