Chapter 1617 (2/2)

Like sharks, Evick’s minions inhaled deeply through their noses to catch the scent of blood. Then they charged forward and unleashed a flurry of blows toward the Ghosthound to try and secure the honor of incapacitating this foe of the Swacc Family.

A muscled individual brought a heavy iron rod down at the Ghosthound in an overhand blow that the Ghosthound noticed at only the last second, lost as he was in the color of his own viscera. Yet such was the current unstable state of the Ghosthound’s body that the block whipped upward so fast that it passed through the impact point before the goon’s attack could make it. In the process, the Ghosthound’s back and shoulder erupted in a bloody mist.

It looks like… his body cannot handle his movements…? Lay’mel blinked.

Due to the Ghosthound’s miscalculation, the heavy iron rod smashed into his shoulder. But it appeared the rumors of his physical prowess weren’t exaggerated; he didn’t even stagger after getting hit by such a heavy blow. His skin and muscle continued to shred as the Ghosthound shifted, but it was almost like… receiving the attack hadn’t inflicted any damage at all.

“Bahaha! This almost isn’t even fun!” A goon with a wide smile across his face cackled as he pounced to right behind the Ghosthound. The Ghosthound swept his spear around with enough force that the ground began to rumble, but the blow again was almost helplessly prescient. It cut the air a short distance in front of the triumphant goon so quickly that Lay’mel realized that the man hadn’t even noticed.

A shallow cut appeared across the bridge of the man’s nose.

The goon smashed his cudgel against the Ghosthound’s unguarded side and was rewarded with an explosion of blood. Those tears spread so that his entire torso began ripping like paper soaked in water. The goon steadied his stance and raised his weapon for another strike, but another goon was faster.

This attack was the most bombastic and exaggerated of the assault on the Ghosthound thus far; this man had built up a head of steam then leapt into the air to deliver a dropkick toward their target’s back. The Ghosthound jerked around and knocked the man backward with his left arm, but the man’s display was rewarded with the largest explosion of blood.

Shredded skin and blood splattered across the surface of the Nether Pinion.

The goons smiled at each other with a knowing look, enjoying how helpless the Ghosthound was under their combined assault. The Ghosthound, for his part, now stood on the shattered Nether Pinion with his shoulders heaving. His torso was bare and slick with blood. Yet the worst of it was the hanging masses of mangled flesh around the locations where he had been struck.

With that strange look on his face, the bloody Ghosthound reached over with his metal left arm and began to tear off large chunks of his flesh. He ripped from his arm, from his stomach, from his back, his waist… then he reached down and began to rip away at his legs. Evick Swacc and his henchmen were more than willing to allow him to do so; in their minds, watching their prey struggle was half the fun.

To their eyes, this was desperation.

Yet the Ghosthound’s face didn’t convey even the hint of pain. The confusion had slowly receded, revealing only a steely determination. He didn’t flinch as he methodically ripped away the torn flesh of his body and tossed it to the ground. Yet strangely, the Ghosthound didn’t appear to have lost any of his muscle mass even as he tore himself to shreds.

If anything, he seemed even more ominous than he had previously. And Lay’mel couldn’t help but notice that although he was slick with the blood from the earlier strikes, there were no wounds that he could see. As the Ghosthound tore away the broken excess of his flesh, what remained beneath was smooth and whole.

“I can’t believe we fucking shelled out the money to hire Velio Dunn for you,” Evick Swacc hissed. He advanced slowly, as though he was simply going for a stroll, with his ax raised. “That some shit like you could really- keh!”

Evick Swacc swayed. Instinctively, he dropped his ax and brought both hands to his neck, where a spearhead had just flicked up and out so quickly that he hadn’t noticed that the wound until he realized he couldn’t bleed. Evick staggered, looking at the Ghosthound with disbelief on his face. The next second, his eyes flared with fury and life.

The air trembled and the metal-masked butcher flared to life, its arms raised and its cleaver bloody. Even looking upon its back, Lay’mel couldn’t help but tremble. The raw power the image possessed was enough to crush him.

The Ghosthound simply shrugged, the wide smile creeping back across his face. “Sorry. My body hadn’t caught up to my improvement yet; I had to adjust a bit. But now that I’ve lost the rust… time to get serious.”

Light began to ebb and run around his left eye. A milky and bright event horizon appeared there, and within that boundary was a deep and endless blackness. The metal-masked butcher screamed in fury, but all those emotions were sucked away. Soon its fury turned to fear as its edges blurred and the visceral colors of its shape began to vanish. Before the pull of that darkness, nothing could endure.

Evick Swacc gestured frantically for help right before his image vanished and he collapsed. The goon stood around with blank expressions on their face, unable to believe what they had just witnessed.

Was Evick Swacc… someone who could really be so easily suppressed…?

The Ghosthound spun his spear and then snapped it to a stop in a horizontal position. Then he crouched down so he was closer to the ground and then slowly raised his spear. And quite ominously, a giant, sideways stone pillar rose with the spear.

“What the-” One goon gasped, just before the Ghosthound thrust his spear forward and that stone pillar accelerated so quickly that one second that goon was a person and the next he was just paste.

The other goons finally began to panic, but the Ghosthound’s movements were so quick that it was impossible for them to react. His spear swam gracefully in front of him, cutting through air and flesh without any perceivable change in difficulty. In his wake, he left a trail of slumped bodies. As the last goon turned to flee, the Ghosthound cut from afar and used the brutality of the stroke to bisect the man with air pressure. The torso kept falling forward while the legs stumbled and collapsed.

The Ghosthound chuckled and turned to the frozen Lay’mel. “And you… what should I do with you…?”