Conan: Begins to collaborate with Miss Bayonetta and become famous

Darkness, like a viscous tide, kept encroaching from all sides of my vision, accompanied by a buzzing roar in my ears and excruciating pain as if my bones were shattering.

The face of the baijiu was no longer defined; there was only a numb burning sensation and a constant flow of warm liquid with a rusty taste.

Each attempt to breathe felt like a dull knife churning inside his chest. The dust and blood he inhaled made him want to gag, but he didn't even have the strength to vomit.

The sounds he could hear became faint and distant: rapid breathing, muffled thuds of bodies colliding, the shrill whistling of blades cutting through the air, and her occasional suppressed groans of pain came from Vermouth's side.

These sounds seemed to come through thick frosted glass, yet they made his heart clench more than any threat that was right next to him.

The grip on his hair suddenly loosened, followed by a tremendous force that sent him flying.

He felt like a discarded, tattered doll, his body lifted into the air, then crashing heavily onto the cold, hard concrete floor, tumbling and smashing through a pile of discarded metal parts, clanging and rattling.

The world tumbled and spun upside down, eventually lying face down in a muddy mess of oil and its own blood.

Dust choked my nostrils, mixed with the smell of blood, making it hard to breathe.

He used the last bit of his consciousness to force himself to open his eyes, which were swollen shut and barely open.

Through his blurred vision, he could see the massive, mountain-like gunman taking heavy steps, one after another, approaching him.

The sound of military boots pounding the ground was like the drumbeats of death.

The other person wore a cruel grin, their eyes filled with sadistic pleasure, as if they intended to end his resistance completely in the most primal way.

On the other side, through the swirling dust and the gaps in the swaying figures, he could barely see that Vermouth's battle with the "surgeon" had reached its most dangerous moment.

Vermouth's movements remained swift and ruthless. A fierce elbow strike slammed into her opponent's chest, producing a dull thud. But the man in surgical scrubs only let out a muffled groan, managing to withstand the blow with terrifying physical strength and endurance. His large, gloved hand, like an iron clamp, suddenly shot out, clamping down on Vermouth's slender yet deadly neck in the instant her strength was exhausted and she hadn't yet mustered any new power!

"Ugh—!" Vermouth's breath was abruptly cut off, her icy blue eyes widened instantly, and she instinctively tried to pry the other's fingers apart, but the force was astonishing!

The eyes above the surgeon's mask were devoid of any emotion, displaying only a cold precision akin to performing surgery. In his other hand, a long, sharp scalpel stained with someone's blood was already raised, its tip gleaming coldly, precisely pressed against Vermouth's carotid artery. With just a gentle push, the lifeline would be severed.

The blade was millimeters away from her skin! Vermouth could even feel the bone-chilling cold emanating from the metal tip. Her struggles were futile under the overwhelming power, and the lack of oxygen caused her vision to blur.

All of this was captured in the blurry, blood-stained vision of the baijiu.

Time seemed to be stretched out and frozen.

The heavy footsteps approaching.

A deadly blade pressed against the side of the neck.

Vermouth's blue eyes gradually lost focus.

And there's the increasingly faint, yet still persistent, heartbeat in my chest.

No.

A voice roared from the depths of his shattered consciousness.

That's not how it ends.

The instinct for survival, the unwavering determination to protect his companions, and the deep-seated rage against the enemy, like three twisted steel wires, suddenly tightened around his dying spirit. A surge of power, seemingly from nowhere, mixed with the final burning of adrenaline, forcefully pushed past the limits of his body and the lingering effects of the numbing agent.

Just as the burly man grinned and raised his foot, preparing to crush his skull—

Just as the "surgeon" slightly tightened his wrist, the scalpel tip about to pierce Vermouth's neck skin—

Baijiu's right hand, which was buried in the blood and debris beneath him and was already a bloody mess, suddenly moved!

My fingertips touched a cold, hard, familiar object—a heavy iron hammer with a wooden handle soaked in years of dirt, which had rolled off the workbench during the earlier scuffle or had been there even earlier!

Without thought, without hesitation, all the strength, all the will, all the anger and resentment were poured into this arm, into this hand!

He didn't even try to get up; he simply used the last of his strength to roll his body violently to the side! This movement aggravated his broken ribs and countless wounds, and the excruciating pain almost made him faint instantly, but it also gave his arm a very brief but deadly opportunity to swing!

“Ah——!!!”

A hoarse, inhuman roar was squeezed out of his broken throat!

The hand gripping the hammer, carrying the momentum of his rolling body and the final burst of all his life force, was like a hammer of vengeance swung from hell, drawing a desperate and violent arc from bottom to top!

His target was neither the burly man approaching him nor the "surgeon" who had taken Vermouth hostage.

Instead, it was the back of the head of the "surgeon" behind Vermouth, who was leaning forward slightly due to his full-force restraint on Vermouth, completely unguarded!

It all happened so fast, so unexpectedly. Everyone's attention was focused on their prey or the struggle before them. The "surgeon" was completely absorbed in the impending "execution" and never imagined that the man, who should have been lying limp like a dead dog in the distance, would launch such a desperate counterattack at this moment!

The sound of the hammer cutting through the air was drowned out by other sounds.

until--

"Pfft!!"

The dull thud was unlike metal hitting bone; it was more like a heavy object crashing into a wet sack full of liquid.

The surgeon's forward and downward thrusts abruptly froze. The cold, precise light in his eyes was instantly replaced by disbelief and a sudden, spreading darkness. The fingers clamping Vermouth's neck abruptly released their grip.

Vermouth was struggling with her last bit of strength when she suddenly felt the grip on her neck loosen. Immediately afterward, a warm, viscous liquid with a strong, fishy smell poured down from the back of her head like a sudden rain, instantly soaking her blonde hair and flowing down her neck into her collar.

Before she could even process what the heat was, she heard an extremely strange, chilling cracking sound right behind the back of her head—like a hard shell being smashed open, and the soft contents inside being violently squeezed and shattered. The sound of tofu pudding being mashed with an iron spoon, amplified tenfold.

Time seemed to stand still for a frame.

Then, the "surgeon's" tall body, as if all support had been removed, fell straight and heavily backward, and the scalpel in his hand that had almost taken Vermouth's life fell to the ground with a "clatter".

The back of his head was now dented into a horrifying blood pit, red, white, viscous, and fragmented... all mixed together, a shocking sight in the dim light.

The hammerhead was deeply embedded in it and did not even come off immediately.

The sprayed hot blood mostly came from the fatal wound that burst open in an instant.

Vermouth stood frozen in place, the lingering pain and suffocating sensation of being strangled still present in her neck, yet the feeling of warm blood flowing down her skin was still so vivid.

She slowly turned her head and looked behind her.

What I saw was a corpse slowly falling backward, its head split open.

What I saw was behind the corpse, lying in the bloodstains, maintaining a hammer-wielding posture, his right arm hanging limply at his sides, the figure almost unrecognizable as human—Baijiu.

What I saw was his hand, still tightly gripping the blood-stained hammer handle.

Inside the factory, a deathly silence fell.