Chapter 166: Suppression

Chapter 166: Suppression

Whoosh——!

The air screeched and howled, as if a round ball of flesh was plummeting from mid-air with staggering momentum, like a cannonball tracing a parabolic arc down from overhead.

With a tremendous crash, the enormously fat “cannonball” slammed into the earth. The cement-covered ground shattered instantly under the immense force, leaving behind a massive crater.

Dust and sand sprayed everywhere, countless fragments of stone scattering like shrapnel.

Yamamaru roared angrily; he realized he hadn’t landed on his enemy and crushed him to death. Naturally puzzled, he couldn’t help but look around left and right.

This man, fat all over and nearly two meters tall, had an exaggeratedly huge build. Both he and Demar were not normal humans but monsters known as Corpse Hounds.

“…Hey! Fatso, I’m over here.”

Fang Jing, dragging Demar, had leaped aside at extreme speed the moment the fleshy cannonball landed.

“Let go of Demar, or you’re dead.”

Yamamaru, round as a meatball, had a slightly shrill voice, more like a child’s tone than an adult’s.

His eyes were very small and narrow, like tiny slits.

And those narrowed eyes gleamed with hatred.

Yamamaru, the Corpse Hound companion brought by Demar, glared furiously at Fang Jing.

“You want me to let him go?”

Fang Jing’s gaze held a hint of coldness.

He noticed that Demar, whom he was holding, had been beaten into a pulp but was still rapidly regenerating.

(He had killed him nearly twenty-seven times in a row, with some attacks targeting the heart, destroying the brain, or breaking the spine, yet this Corpse Hound named Demar could still maintain his regenerative ability…)

Indeed, judging by this instance, it seemed only the Exorcism Blade could suppress the Corpse Hound’s regenerative power.

However, “regenerative ability” did not mean immortality.

The fact that Demar could be turned into mush by his attacks proved one thing: as long as the destructive force exceeded the regenerative ability, the regeneration would slow down.

If he threw a Corpse Hound into scorching lava, could they survive? Or if he froze them with liquid nitrogen, could their cells remain active in such extreme temperatures? Alternatively, if he destroyed the Corpse Hound’s body at the molecular level, could they still regenerate?

Such thoughts raced through his mind at high speed.

“…Sure!”

Fang Jing reached out and tore off one of Demar’s arms that had just regenerated.

With a swish, the arm was flung through the air toward Yamamaru.

“Ahhhhhhhhh! Don’t bully him——!”

Yamamaru, as if provoked, charged forward like a wild boar.

At the same time, Fang Jing activated the Secret Luo Hand to infuse Cadaveric Toxin into Demar’s body. In an instant, black poisonous smoke seeped from between his five fingers. Demar’s skin, eroded by the toxin, turned pale gray, and countless yellow-spotted sores erupted all over.

Even though Demar was a Corpse Hound, he couldn’t help but vomit blood profusely at that moment.

Earlier in the fight, to test the limits of the Corpse Hound’s regenerative ability, he hadn’t used this move. He wanted to see how far conventional destructive force could push a Corpse Hound.

Now he understood that trying to kill a Corpse Hound with just his fists and feet was nearly impossible.

“Since you want me to let him go, I’ll give you this left arm too…”

He tore off Demar’s left arm as well and threw it toward Yamamaru.

One chased, the other fled, like two whirlwinds spinning rapidly across the area.

Relying on his greater speed, Fang Jing moved swiftly while dragging Demar. In his eyes, Yamamaru was just a fat pig, too slow to catch up with him now.

The fifteen minutes needed to open an “Inner Ghost Gate” had ended. Fang Jing had now opened another Ghost Gate, leaving him full of energy. His strength, speed, and physique had all doubled. In this state, Yamamaru seemed nothing more than a big, fatty pig with slow movement speed and only the advantages of high health and defense.

“The Corpse Poison Curse is having some effect. Demar’s recovery speed has slowed down considerably, at least halved compared to his previous super-fast regeneration.”

After about a minute and a half, Demar’s two severed arms hadn’t fully regenerated.

The Cadaveric Toxin must have affected him, but Demar wasn’t dead. His breath was weak, yet an abnormal energy inside him was slowly restoring his limbs. However, the Cadaveric Toxin didn’t seem able to kill the Corpse Hound either; the power of this Corpse Poison Curse appeared to suppress the regenerative ability.

Fang Jing could now conclude that Corpse Hounds couldn’t fully control their regenerative power—at least Demar couldn’t forcibly accelerate it. On the contrary, the Cadaveric Toxin released by his “Secret Luo Hand” seemed to make the regeneration extremely slow.

“Let’s test it on this fat pig too!”

He muttered to himself, then grabbed Demar and hurled him high into the air.

With a whoosh, a gust of wind surged from the ground. Fang Jing’s figure cut through the air like a fleeting shadow, and with a shockwave of fierce wind, he punched Demar directly.

It was a terrifying critical hit. A series of cracking sounds came from Demar’s body, and the next second, he exploded mid-air as if a bomb had been set off inside him. A spray of blood mist and pulverized flesh and bones shot out in all directions.

Fang Jing had finally dropped his playful attitude and was getting serious.

“Demar——!”

Yamamaru roared, his entire body seeming to swell another size. He charged forward furiously, like a rushing chariot.

“Come on!”

As soon as Fang Jing’s feet touched the ground, he executed a ghostly displacement step.

Sickle Foot.

He instantly entered a speed so fast that Yamamaru’s dynamic vision could barely track him. Crouching low, he slipped like lightning to Yamamaru’s right side.

Boom!

He punched, and Yamamaru’s fat flesh dented inward. Fang Jing let out a surprised gasp; his fist felt like it had hit a slippery, greasy surface, and the force was bounced back.

His knuckles ached slightly, as if recoiling from his own strength.

“Shrrrp!”

Suddenly, Yamamaru’s mouth moved. His face contorted fiercely, half-transforming into a beast-like visage. A long tongue covered in fine bony spines shot out of his mouth like a spear.

A single strike could pierce Fang Jing’s forehead, leaving a bloody hole.

But Fang Jing wasn’t foolish enough to stand still. A vein bulged on his temple as he swiftly reached out and grabbed the strange tongue.

(Just like with Kuraruka back then, this must be the Corpse Hound’s trump card move.)

Without wasting words, he yanked the tongue hard. The force was so great that even Yamamaru lost his balance, stumbling forward toward him.

“If punching doesn’t work, then I’ll stab!”

Fang Jing had realized from his earlier rebounded punch that the fat on this pig’s body could absorb the impact of his strikes.

First, he exerted force and tore off the tongue, throwing it to the ground. The cartilage-like tongue still squirmed after landing.

Yamamaru let out a strange cry and, using the remaining momentum from his lunge, threw himself forward with all his might.

“Perfect timing!”

So, he aligned the five fingers of his right hand and formed them into a Nukite thrust.

It was worth noting that the strength in Fang Jing’s five fingers was as hard as iron. Especially after cultivating the Poisonous Hand Fist’s Secret Luo Hand, the power in his fingers and fists was frighteningly formidable. A single Nukite strike could probably pierce through a concrete pillar, let alone human flesh.

Thud!

His Nukite pierced through the fat man’s body as if plunging into water.

—Something’s wrong! There was no sensation of piercing solid flesh! And no bleeding!

In the next instant, Fang Jing realized things were very wrong. His entire right hand was stuck, sucked in by some force, and he couldn’t pull it out.

“Damn! This Corpse Hound’s ability is a bit Strange Phenomenon?”

It was as if he was trapped by the fatty’s flesh.

Right at that moment, Yamamaru let out a series of laughter.

“I want to eat you!”

The flesh on his belly squirmed, sucking onto Fang Jing’s right hand and pulling him inward desperately. At the same time, a vertical crack split open across his entire stomach, turning into a wide mouth filled with tiny, sharp fangs. His two arms reached out left and right, trying to grab hold of Fang Jing.

“I’ve had enough of this—!”

Fang Jing did not bother to say more. The Secret Luo Hand on his right arm erupted fully. The black and yellow corpse spot tattoos condensed and spread from his forearm up his arm, forming patterns that coiled around half of his limb. The swirling black mist of Cadaveric Toxin rumbled and ignited like flames, surging in a large area.

The Corpse Poison Curse was released from the point of contact and began to erode the entire body of the fatty Yamawang.

Ahhhhhhh! It hurts! It hurts so much!

The fatty’s abdomen turned ashen gray. The curse power imbued with death toxin rampantly expanded, eroded, and continuously destroyed his cells, tissues, and organs inside his body.

The vitality of the Corpse Hound was absurdly strong; even suppressed by the Cadaveric Toxin, it could still recover somewhat. But just looking at how half of his body had turned ashen gray from the toxin, it was clear the effect was still very significant.

Fang Jing pulled out his palm. On the other side, Demar, who had been beaten badly, was still heavily suppressed by the Cadaveric Toxin, no longer even human-shaped, just a mass of rotting flesh squirming on the ground.

The force of that earlier punch had shattered his entire body into three sections, with bones and flesh scattering all over the ground.

“Impossible! What are you? Why are you just a human? Why! How can you suppress me to this extent?”

This was something Demar could not understand. If the other party was the Corpse Hound’s greatest natural enemy, a Fang Hunter wielding the Exorcism Blade, that would be one thing.

But the other party was merely a human. From start to finish, he used no weapons, relying only on his bare hands to crush both him and Yamamaru. This was naturally unacceptable to him; it made no damn sense at all!

“The head regenerated again!”

Fang Jing kicked out again, sending a fist-sized piece of brick flying. With a whoosh, like a soccer shot, it struck Demar’s head squarely.

Splat!

Demar’s head exploded once more.

At the same time, Fang Jing took a step with his right leg, darting out over five meters, and charged straight at Yamamaru.

“You know, it’s been a while since I used this move!”

Torrential Rush·Hundred Forms.

Fang Jing’s muscles all over his body suddenly bulged. A powerful, immense force surged from every part of his body.

His hands moved in a blur, fists and palms shifting and leaving afterimages. As his figure moved, a continuous rain of fist shadows pounded fiercely against Yamamaru’s body, like rapid drumbeats. His speed was so fast that in one move, dozens to hundreds of strikes landed; even feints could blast the air apart.

Moreover, with the force emitted by “Torrential Rush,” the power was overwhelming and unstoppable.

As Fang Jing unleashed his attack, he roared furiously. His hands turned into countless overlapping shadows of fists and palms, crashing into Yamamaru’s flesh-and-blood body.

Terrifying fist force exploded at every inch. Even Yamamaru could not withstand it. Each punch and palm strike left deep craters on his body, with flesh and blood continuously exploding outward. His original ability to defend and counter had lost its effect at this moment.

Boom boom boom boom! A chain of fist forces erupted violently, directly sending the fatty, now soft like mud, flying into the air. Before he even hit the ground, he was kicked again, crashing through a thick wall of the burning factory and being kicked into the heart of the fire.

Flames, Cadaveric Toxin, and destructive fists made Yamamaru scream in agony.

His regeneration ability was suppressed. Flames ravaged his body, and he began to let out continuous, pained screams.

Yamamaru wanted to crawl out, but his entire body was shattered. Even the bones in his fingers and arms were crushed to pieces. He could not even move his body an inch.

It hurts! It hurts! It hurts so much!

Yamamaru’s hoarse voice kept crying out. His burning flesh and limbs squirmed endlessly, trying to escape the flames. Just as he got close to the wall, another immense force kicked in, sending him deeper into the fire.

Boom!

The fire burned even more fiercely. The twisted mass of flesh roared incessantly from within the depths of the flames, but it could not stop its fate of being burned to ashes.

“Using just Cadaveric Toxin alone still can’t kill these monsters. But at least it can suppress their ridiculously strong regeneration. Without regeneration, these so-called monsters are little different from a bunch of chickens waiting to be slaughtered…”

After all, he had not even opened the second stage of the Inner Ghost Gate.

“It’s time to deal with the other problems.”

Fang Jing turned his gaze toward Demar, who now resembled a pile of dung stuck to the ground.

…

“Run!”

Susaka and his men used all their strength, fleeing toward the forest.

They dared not head toward the main gate.

After all… everyone in the factory had been killed by that man in the military raincoat.

(Damn it! That old hag tricked me. If she had leaked the information to me earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this…)

With the secret factory burned down, the police were bound to show up. Such a big fire would surely prompt someone to call for help and report the disaster.

Moreover, they could not go to the city area. Since the other side sent assassins, there might be other ambushes.

The only safe direction was the sea, and Susaka had planned an escape route from the start.

Starting from this safe passage located in the forest, they could circle around and find the boat he had secretly hidden by the shore. By taking the boat, they could escape to safety.

“Well, well! You’re quite fast…”

The raincoat man emerged from the dense forest ahead of them, stepping forward slowly like a death god coming to claim lives.

“But even if you’re fast, it doesn’t mean you get to live today.”