Heh, heh, heh!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The great gasping and the violent pounding first alternated, then overlapped, jolting the spirits of Klein and the others to the breaking point — as if they were hearing some evil whisper.
Seizing the moment when Ail, Dunn, and Lorrota's attention was briefly drawn away, the swallow-tailed Clown abruptly drew a long paper strip from his pocket.
Snap! His right hand flicked sharply, 'shaking' the paper into a long whip burning with pitch-black flames; he lashed it next to his own ankle.
A wavering yet sharp scream rang out as the swallow-tailed Clown shook off the unseen shackle and did a backflip.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Dunn, Ail, and Lorrota's bullets all hit nothing, burying themselves in the wooden crates.
The swallow-tailed Clown did not linger; pressing his right hand on the wound, he sprinted madly in the direction away from this warehouse zone.
His speed was extreme; in the blink of an eye only a receding back remained.
Before he vanished, the right hand that had been pressing his belly suddenly flicked over to his own left arm, and the wound on his stomach disappeared — restored as if it had never been.
The left arm where his hand had brushed, in turn, became a bloody mess, with a silver bullet faintly visible.
Dunn and the others did not give chase, because the gasping in the innermost warehouse had grown so loud that it made their brows twitch, their spirits ill at ease.
Boom!
The door of the innermost warehouse suddenly burst apart, splinters flying in every direction.
Right after, something wrapped in rags flew out and landed not far in front of Klein.
Klein focused his gaze and saw that it was actually an arm: the blood-colored sinew and flesh had been gnawed to pieces, and the bare white bone was broken irregularly, jutting outward.
Pap! Pap! Pap!
One thing after another flew out — first an eyeball with blood seeping out and dilated pupil, then a torn-off earlobe that looked as if it had been ripped off alive, then half of a still-beating heart, then a bowel full of brown matter.
Had Klein not seen a more disgusting 'giant view' at Riel Biber's home, he probably wouldn't have been able to keep from vomiting at this moment.
His emotions nearly snapped. He barely managed to suppress the urge to fire blindly into the pitch-black doorway, then ejected the spent shells and loaded fresh Monster-Hunting Bullets.
Bang!
Dunn returned, steadied himself, and let off a single careful shot into the warehouse interior.
But his bullet was like a stone falling into the sea — no reverberation came back.
Heh! Heh! Heh!
The huge gasping grew quicker and quicker; a grey-white color filled the 'open' doorway.
With two bangs, Ail Hassen's and Borgia's bullets pierced the grey-white, but they still couldn't stop that 'color' from welling out, nor did they leave a wound on it, nor make any fluid spill.
Klein held his breath and didn't fire blindly. He watched the 'grey-white' gradually reveal its full outline.
It was a humanoid creature over two meters tall, with every joint of its limbs twisted unnaturally in reverse, as if someone had forcibly snapped them.
One white bone after another jutted out from under its skin; the overall grey-white surface was full of furrows, like a human brain stripped of its 'shell.'
The monster's whole body oozed grey-white, rotten, viscous fluid; its head was relatively normal, with deep nasolabial folds and pale skin.
When its mouth opened and closed, one could see a porcelain false tooth about to fall out, a few blood-colored strings of drool stretched into long filaments, and shattered remnants of muscle and bone.
Riel Biber… does this still even look like a human? — Klein silently drew in a breath; his heart was thumping wildly.
Bang!
Leonard's Monster-Hunting Bullet struck Riel Biber's forehead and went straight through, leaving a deep hole.
Grey-white fluid spilled out, dripped onto the floor, then writhed with a fizzing sound and turned into one milky-white, fat maggot after another.
But the monster was utterly unaffected. Not particularly fast nor particularly slow, it lunged at Borgia, who was nearest to it — but its real target seemed to be the iron-black box, the Sealed Artifact '2-049.'
"Beyonder power out of control…" Dunn shouted in a low voice, "Lorrota, it looks like a death-entity — find its weak point as fast as you can."
"Got it." Lorrota said no more and raised her hand to press over her own eyes.
Her pupils turned grey-white, then colorless, as if she had entered the world of spirituality and the realm of the dead, looking down at the enemy from a higher level, searching for that all-important 'node.'
Klein, seeing that normal gunfire was ineffective, did not waste his own bullets; he raised his hand, lightly tapped his brow, and activated Spirit Vision, intending to aid the 'Gravedigger' Lady Lorrota with it.
In his sight, the 'monster' Biber had only one spirit-light remaining — pure grey-white, a grey-white full of madness.
Apart from this, Klein could see nothing.
At that moment Ail Hassen and Leonard Mitchell began to chant together:
"Ah, the dangers of dread, the crimson hopes."
"At least one thing is true: this life flees in haste."
"One thing is true; the rest are all lies."