novelraw Chapter 155: The Only Straight Line
Chapter 155: The Only Straight Line
A death nebula composed of floating giant boulders rotated above the valley, casting a shadow deeper and more suffocating than the night itself.
Each rock was a sword hanging overhead, their fragile equilibrium ready to be shattered at any moment by the "artist" on the cliff face, transforming into a devastating rain of stones that would level this place.
The air carried the ozone scent of disintegrating rock molecules, mixed with the tense, heavy breathing of the group.
In this realm of despair dominated by the UMA, conventional tactical thinking had lost all meaning.
The retreat path was sealed off, sturdy cover was useless against an enemy that could "dissolve" matter, and the omnidirectional attacks from above had drastically compressed their survival space.
This was a dead end.
An unsolvable trap laid by the Petrification Worm using the violence of physical laws and geology.
"Damn it!" Gretchen's voice held anger and powerlessness as her Mauser Pistol continuously spat tongues of flame, trying to hit the culprit writhing on the cliff face.
"The bullets can't hit it! Its mucus layer is too thick!"
The facts were as she said.Those specially made bullets infused with alchemical materials, upon contacting the slippery mucus secreted by the worm, had their kinetic energy absorbed and deflected, ultimately sliding weakly to the side, only managing to spark a few points of fire against the hard cliff face.
William was also facing extreme difficulties at this moment.
He could only pour round after round of ammunition into the cliff face around the UMA, trying to disrupt its movements with explosive shockwaves, but the effect was minimal.
The Petrification Worm grew impatient with these mosquito-bite-like annoyances.
It stopped manipulating the death nebula overhead, the faceless "head" at the front of its body turning towards William, who was unleashing the fiercest firepower.
Immediately, several floating rocks around it adjusted their angles, hurtling towards the cover where William was hiding with acceleration far exceeding free fall.
"Sergeant, watch out!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Relying on combat instinct, William rolled and dove to the side the moment the boulders struck, avoiding the fatal attack.
But the massive rock cover where he had been hiding shattered into pieces under this precise "divine retribution from above," becoming a field of rubble.
William temporarily lost his cover, exposed within the UMA's attack range.
Seeing this, a look of determination flashed in Klaus's eyes.
He knew they could no longer continue passively defending like this.
Although his [Unyielding Wall] was powerful, each time it withstood an attack consumed his vitality and the armament's own spiritual energy reserves intensely. Cracks were increasing on the barrier's surface;
he couldn't hold on much longer.
They had to find an effective method to attack the UMA's main body before the barrier collapsed.
Conventional physical attacks had already proven ineffective.
So, the only remaining choice was...
Klaus's gaze sharpened, landing on the Eastern youth in the team.
He saw Lin Jie.
He saw the Webley Revolver in Lin Jie's hand that had only fired one shot from the start of the battle until now.
"Mr. Lin!" Klaus's roar echoed across the battlefield.
"Your gun! Barton mentioned in his report, your gun is different! If there's anything that can penetrate that damn mucus, it's that!"
Klaus didn't know the specific ability of [Serene Heart], but he chose to trust the judgment of that shrewd and cautious colleague from the London Branch.
In this gamble, he placed his final chips on Lin Jie, the biggest variable.
Lin Jie didn't answer;
he responded to Klaus's trust with action.
He stood up from behind cover, ignoring the floating boulders circling overhead, exposing himself within the worm's line of sight.
For a moment, the entire battlefield fell silent.
Everyone's gaze focused on this slender Eastern scholar who looked least like a warrior.
Lin Jie's expression was calm.
Inside, he felt no fear, no tension, only a clear emptiness.
In his world, only two coordinates remained: himself, and the fatal worm entrenched on the cliff face dozens of meters away.
He slowly raised his right hand holding [Serene Heart].
The deep-sea hearing bone on the grip emitted a faint yet pure, soft moonlight-like pale blue halo in the dim valley.
It was this halo that, as Lin Jie raised the gun, constructed a "Zen" domain independent of the chaotic battlefield for him.
The shouts of companions, the threat of death from above—everything was shut out.
His heartbeat became slow and powerful, his breath merging with the cold wind of the valley.
A line appeared in his eyes.
A line of intent extending from the sights in his hand to the midsection of the worm's body.
The Tatzelwurm also locked onto this suddenly standing fragile human as its new attack target.
Several boulders around it began adjusting their angles, preparing to launch the next round of deadly aerial assault.
But Lin Jie was faster.
Just as the boulders were about to be launched a moment before.
He pulled the trigger.
"Bang!!!"
The gunshot was crisp, yet not loud.
Compared to William's thunderous gunfire, this shot resembled more a restrained, precise musical note.
A .45 caliber bullet wrapped in silver-salt alchemical material spun as it left the barrel.
The moment the bullet left the muzzle, the azure blue scale below the barrel suddenly lit up.
A translucent energy film composed of pure "protection" divinity, difficult to see with the naked eye, enveloped the entire bullet.
This film granted the bullet a "conceptual" privilege that defied physical laws.
That was [Stable Trajectory].
Wind resistance could not deflect it.
Air humidity could not slow it.
The slightly distorted spiritual energy field around the worm due to its presence could not interfere with it.
This bullet's flight path was an absolute, pure straight line from start to finish.
"Pfft!"
A soft sound like a hot iron entering oil.
Under everyone's incredulous gazes, the bullet ignored the slippery mucus that rendered all physical attacks ineffective, effortlessly drilling into the worm's tough keratinous skin.
A burst of thick, dark green bodily fluid splattered from the wound.
"Roar——!!!"
A sharp shriek erupted from the silent UMA's mouth.
The sound was a high-frequency spiritual scream, stinging everyone's eardrums painfully.
Success!
Lin Jie's attack was effective!
This was the first time since the battle began that they had caused substantial damage to the UMA's main body.
The team's morale was immediately ignited.
"Well done, Lin!" Klaus let out an invigorating roar, "Continue! Suppress it!"
But an injured beast is often the most dangerous.
The Petrification Worm's massive body twisted and rolled frantically on the cliff face from the intense pain, countless rocks dislodged by its movements.
Its originally indifferent aura was replaced in this moment by pure savagery.
It abandoned attacks on the others.
It focused all the anger ignited by its injury on the only tiny Eastern youth who could harm it.
Its head suddenly turned towards Lin Jie.
More accurately, it turned towards the technical expert analyzing the battle situation behind cover between Lin Jie and William, Gretchen Schultz.
Its intelligence far exceeded everyone's imagination.
In an instant, it judged that among the five people present, this woman who seemed non-combative but had been operating instruments was likely the "brain" or "technical core" of this team.
Capture the leader first.
Without any warning.
The front end of the Tatzelwurm's huge sac-like body contracted inward, then opened into an abyssal maw usually unseen.
A stream of mucus a hundred times thicker than its surface mucus, displaying a nauseating gray-green color like semi-solidified cement, was violently shot like a cannonball from its mouth.
The target of the mucus wasn't Lin Jie, wasn't William, but Gretchen, who was behind cover between the two with almost no defensive capability.
"Gretchen!!"
Klaus's eyes widened with fury;
he wanted to rescue her, but the crushing weight of the boulders above him prevented any movement.
William was reloading ammunition, too far away, also too late.
Everything happened too fast, too fast for anyone to react.
Just as that fatal "petrification cement" was about to entomb the young genius technical expert behind her cover.
At this life-and-death moment.
A burly figure crossed several meters at extreme speed, positioning itself with undeniable resolve in front of Gretchen.
It was Klaus Weber.
No one saw how he did it.
It was as if he had forcibly drained all his energy and the last reserves of [Unyielding Wall] at the final moment, using the barrier to deflect the boulder's crushing pressure to complete this extreme displacement.
He erected that already crack-covered, dimly glowing energy barrier as the final bulwark between Gretchen and the deadly mucus.
Splash!
The mass of thick petrification mucus was completely blocked by the energy barrier of [Unyielding Wall].
Gretchen was saved.
But the cost was severe.
With a crisp "crack" sound, the energy barrier on the verge of collapse could no longer suppress the spread of cracks across its surface after directly withstanding the mucus impact.
Then, an even more terrifying scene occurred.
The gray-green mucus smeared on the barrier possessed stronger "petrification" and "assimilation" abilities than the UMA's surface mucus.
The golden energy barrier emitted a "sizzling" corrosion sound upon contacting the mucus, its energy structure rapidly petrifying.
The barrier's glow was visibly turning from gold to stiff, dead stone gray starting from the contact point at a visible pace.
Klaus let out a pained grunt.
The terrifying petrification force was reverse-eroding his body through the spiritual link between him and the Grotesque Armament.
The skin on his left arm, the arm desperately holding up the shield, was visibly losing color, becoming pale and hard.
"Supervisor!!" Gretchen let out a desperate cry.
Klaus clenched his teeth, an uncontrollable expression of pain appearing on his face.
His arm was becoming increasingly stiff, increasingly heavy, as if merging with the mountain itself.
The final light of [Unyielding Wall] was about to extinguish.
And this unyielding warrior was about to meet his own petrified eternal end.