Chapter 660: Do I Know You?

Chapter 660: Do I Know You?

The emergence of the Dragon God Armor allowed Karen to timely check the giant's positioning. With the blessing of Little Conna, Karen instantly became completely composed, for she had made up for his final shortcoming, forging him into a "hexagon" warrior in the truest sense.

Yet the reversal of the situation was not entirely complete.

Perhaps because the weather today was unusual, the sky seemed particularly prone to raining children.

Just as Little Conna had come down on this side, Ventura also descended from the heavens on the other, hurtling directly toward the giant below like a cannonball.

The giant raised his hand, intending to catch him; if nothing unexpected happened, the next motion would be to crush him to death.

But Ventura’s originally small body instantly petrified in mid-air, his volume expanding by unknown multiples until he matched his opponent on equal terms.

"Boom!"

Ventura knocked the giant over, and the two behemoths began to grapple on the ground.

There were no spectacular exchanges of moves or techniques; instead, it resembled two middle-aged men with beer bellies locked in a deathly, messy embrace on the road in front of a night market food stall.

The two sides bit, struck, pulled, and even gouged at each other in every conceivable manner;

Dull sounds of friction rang out continuously, with flesh and shattered stone flying everywhere.

It was plainly visible that Ventura was at a disadvantage, but it was also plainly visible that, in terms of sheer momentum, Ventura far surpassed his opponent.

After all, the adversary was receiving treatment while fighting, and even though he was executing a mission given by his own organization, it was hard to change his fastidious regard for his own life;

As for Ventura, he was entirely prepared to die to protect Karen.

The portrait of the old grandfather that had hung on the living room wall at home since childhood was equivalent to a loyalty to Karen that accumulated day by day.

The giant suddenly stood up, his right arm trapping Ventura’s neck, raining continuous heavy punches upon Ventura’s chest. He then attempted to snap Ventura’s neck, but due to Ventura’s desperate resistance, he failed to succeed.

Left with no choice, the giant delivered another barrage of heavy blows to Ventura’s back, then flipped his entire body to the ground.

"Bang!"

The ground, which had already transformed into magma, was smashed into a massive magma crater. The surrounding magma began to flow downward, gathering toward Ventura’s body.

In the rear, the skeleton, having replenished a new piece of magic crystal stone, began to operate its incantations. Far from burning him, the magma that had gathered around Ventura began to rapidly enter and repair the damaged sections of Ventura’s petrified form.

Seeing this, the giant leapt into the air, intending to deliver a fatal blow to Ventura, but the magma around the crater immediately solidified to form layers of defense. By the time the giant broke through layer after layer, Ventura below had already vanished.

"Hum!"

With a crisp sound, Ventura burrowed out from the ground on the other side, beating his chest at the giant and releasing a roar that refused to show weakness.

"Step back a bit," Karen spoke.

Upon hearing Karen’s command, Ventura’s bloodshot eyes instantly flickered with emotion. He then continued to roar at the giant in front of him while backing away, truly ensuring that neither his mouth nor his body suffered a disadvantage.

A bird’s cry echoed from the sky, followed by Sandy, adorned in colorful feathers, circling down in an extremely elegant manner. Seated upon her back were Ashley, Blanche, and Richard.

Swooping down, Sandy landed quickly, and the "passengers" upon her all leaped off.

It was just that Sandy herself had not anticipated the temperature of the ground magma to be so terrifying; her feathers were merely brushed by the magma lines before being ignited. The pain caused Sandy to instantly lose her prior holy demeanor, and she began to shriek and roll around, attempting to extinguish the flames upon her body in a habitual manner;

But the problem was... the ground was covered in magma lines. The more she acted this way, the larger the area of fire upon her body became. In the end, enveloped entirely in flames, she completely dissipated into nothingness with a final wail and a sharp "pop" of her phantom form.

This was not the first time Sandy had returned to the factory immediately upon her entrance;

But it was absolutely Sandy’s most miserable and depressing time.

The corner of Ashley’s mouth could not help but twitch; as a summoner, she felt deeply ashamed.

In fact, when she had previously met up with Blanche and Richard before preparing to enter, she had specifically asked her teammates which phantom of a demon beast they wished to choose, and the result was that her teammates unanimously requested Sandy.

Meanwhile, at this moment, inside the special space laboratory in the suburbs of York City, within the large, transparent cage specifically used for raising Sandy, the

She even closed her eyes, completely shutting out her own emotions, unhesitatingly allowing her tempo and reactions to lag by half a beat; she was dead set on a mutual destruction, determined to inflict at least a permanent, crippling wound from which he would never recover for the rest of his life.

When it came to putting one's life on the line, to recklessness, to an absolute indifference toward existence, Philomena truly held the premier right to speak.

This shift made things excruciatingly difficult for the assassin; in the end, he retreated, paying the price of a gash across his arm from the Succubus's Blade.

Yet the moment they separated, a sudden blessing descended upon the assassin, causing his aura to surge violently as he launched a renewed ambush at Philomena, who had just touched down.

Philomena was only just opening her eyes at that very moment; facing an opponent whose strength had actually grown despite his injuries, it was clearly a fraction too late for her to mount a proper response.

"Thud!"

A massive shield slammed down at that precise juncture, perfectly jamming the assassin's trajectory and shielding Philomena behind it.

The assassin still intended to bypass the defense to find a breakthrough from another angle, but the rapid slashes of a short sword swiftly sealed off those vulnerabilities.

By this time, Philomena had already readjusted her stance, leaving the assassin with no choice but to retreat of his own accord, bringing this particular clash to an end.

Muri stood in front of Philomena, round shield and short sword in hand.

As the traditional captains of the High Priest's guard for generations, the Benda family excelled not in offense, but in defense.

At that moment,

Karen looked up, gazing toward the sky, and said in his heart:

If you don't show up soon, there won't be any leftovers for you.

...

Alfred's figure appeared inside the palace structure, his hand pushing open a door to reveal a spacious studio within.

Diagonally across from the studio lay the old king's bedroom, where the monarch himself and his female relatives were currently hiding.

This very studio had been utilized for public relations when the old king was a mere three-year-old prince, intended back then to showcase the heir's artistic excellence—a bit of propaganda to gild his reputation.

Except such a narrative could be used at three, thirteen, or even thirty, but it became rather unseemly by forty, fifty, or seventy and eighty.

Nevertheless, the old king's actual artistic proficiency was quite respectable, and one could clearly discern the gradual transition of the paintings on the studio walls, evolving from rigid adolescence to uninhibited, venting release.

Furthermore, the Eye of the Succubus could perceive those paintings that truly unleashed his innermost desires, hung within a secret chamber concealed inside the walls, almost all of them themed around "family harmony."

Alfred picked up a drawing board and pigments, pushed open the window, and leapt out, arriving at the rooftop; there, he set up the board, mixed his colors, and gently swayed his brush before the paper while watching the scene below.

Vick's figure materialized beside him, stepping up to Alfred's side to ask:

"Are you not going down?"

Alfred shook his head: "I was a bit hurried at first, but now I am in no rush."

If Karen was the final student taken in by Mr. Hoffen, then Alfred was the last auditing student.

The breach in the barrier had been made so cleanly that, without a second thought, it had to be the young master's "grandfather" taking action; with "grandfather" present, grandmother would surely be there as well.

As a former teammate of Lord Dis in his youth, just a few pointers from her had allowed Philomena's strength to advance by leaps and bounds; it could be said that, under the premise of not mobilizing forces out in the open, this grandmother was absolutely a terrifying existence.

Coincidentally, everyone happened to be operating in total silence this time.

"Then when should I go down?"

"No rush, you must wait until the wrap-up to go down; remember to exhort those remnants of the Light under your command to make them behave themselves." Saying this, Alfred pointed to the drawing board again, "Hey, what do you think if I paint the two of us in this bottom right corner to enhance the sense of immersion in the picture?"

"I think... it is excellent."

"Then I shall take an appreciative posture, and you a startled one; you won't mind, will you?"

"Sir, whatever makes you happy."

...

The battlefronts on both sides had degenerated into a tense, agonizing stalemate when a swarm of blood bats suddenly blotted out the moon, bringing with them an immense, oppressive weight.

The skeleton looked up, remarking with a sigh, "The entrance of a troll is looking more and more like a villain's, meow."

The bats filling the sky fell rapidly, suddenly exploding en masse into a vast sheet of blood-water carrying a terrifyingly corrosive power, enveloping the third man in black within it.

The clothing on the man in black began to shred, the concealing spellwork failing to reveal half his face, yet it was enough to recognize his identity—Bernie, the former Director of the Enforcement Department of the Whip of Order in York City.

Looking at the human form gradually condensing amidst the rain of blood, Bernie smiled and said:

"I did not expect it to be you."

Neo, who possessed no face, feigned bewilderment and asked:

"What, do I know you?"