The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 559: No Choice

The moment Gao Yang disappeared, three bullets shot through the air.

Gao Yang teleported to Huang Qi, who twisted his body to trail Gao Yang with his gun. Before he could pull the trigger, though, two fireballs were already flanking him from left and right.

Firing two shots, he jumped back to avoid the fireballs. Then Gao Yang teleported again behind him, fist wrapped in brilliant flames.

Huang Qi had been one of Gao Yang’s closest companions, and he knew Gao Yang’s attack pattern and Talents like the back of his hands. He had already foreseen that Gao Yang would come at him from the back.

Having been waiting for it, he conjured a blinding, sharp light sword with his left hand and made a swing backward.

The light sword swung toward Gao Yang’s waist. With Teleportation still in cooldown, he could only back away as quickly as possible.

While his reflex was keen enough for him to dodge the blade, however, the fierce blade aura caught him.

Hiss. The golden arc cut Gao Yang’s abdomen open, and blood splattered. Gao Yang flinched backward reflexively.

Bang, bang, bang! Without hesitation, Huang Qi made three shots in a row and hit Gao Yang in the right knee, heart, and forehead. The bullets struck true, and the force of the shots sent Gao Yang flying for two meters.

It took only half a second for Huang Qi to realize that something was wrong.

Muscles tense, he tapped into his energy and shouted, “Sacred Shield!”

Countless light element particles converged to encircle him, taking the form of an umbrella-shaped golden shield above his head.

Clang! The real Gao Yang descended from above, hitting the golden shield with Fire Punch. Fierce flames devoured the golden umbrella whole before quickly getting scattered into multiple streams of fire. They rushed toward the ground and bounced upward into the sky, blooming into brilliant red equinox flowers.

The fire continued to pour down, and in the end, the golden umbrella failed to withstand the pressure and ended up crushed under the downpour. The blooms of flames turned into a blazing pillar, shooting up into the sky and illuminating the whole street block.

Five seconds later, the pillar dispersed; embers and golden light particles scattered in the sky like falling snow.

After using Fire Punch at full power, Gao Yang quickly backed away to widen his distance from Huang Qi.

Huang Qi dropped to his knees, covered in serious burns where his flesh and skin were melted. The ground around him was charred, mixed with some broken shards of light elements.

He threw up a mouthful of blood, having reached his limit.

In terms of both the number of Talents and their levels, as well as his six stats, he was far below Gao Yang’s level. He couldn’t win this fight.

“Don’t make me do this, Huang Qi” Gao Yang shouted. “I won’t go easy on you again!”

He clenched his fists. He didn’t have time. He must go to the Green Lotus Lake to help Qing Ling.

“Ha, you brat...” Huang Qi slowly picked himself up. “What did I tell you? I should stay far away from someone like you...or I’ll die early...”

He panted, wiping the blood at a corner of his mouth.

“As your friend, Gao Yang, I’ll give you one last lesson...” Huang Qi smiled bitterly again, yet his eyes were glinting with solidified killing intent.

“The soft ones won’t get to be the last one laughing.”

Gao Yang started. He smelled the familiar strange fragrance, like that of the Godbearer Cult’s holy water!

But upon closer discernation, it was different. The fragrance wasn’t as thick, yet it ran deeper and seemed more insidious, serene and gentle in an enthralling way.

Huang Qi had crushed the tiny vial he hid in his mouth, and some of the black holy water leaked from the corners of his mouth.

“No!” Gao Yang shouted, but it was too late.

Two dark pits quickly swallowed Huang Qi’s eyes, the melted black liquid streamed down his burned face like ink, leaving two empty eye sockets. His chest burst through his shirt and tore it to pieces, his blood, flesh, internal organs, and bones rearranged into a black spiral-shaped flower, insidious. It pounded, the strong beat pushing energy to the rest of his body through his black veins.

Huang Qi didn’t increase in size, but maintained the basic shape of a human.

Black sigils appeared on his body, as if there were countless small bugs crawling under his skin.

He had consumed the holy water Su Xi gave him, giving his energy a significant boost while he maintained part of his rational mind and his Talents as an awakener.

In that instant, his God of Firearms reached level 7, and Light reached level 5.

[Warning, Luck acquisition rate increases to 7500 times!]

Shock and pain flashed through Gao Yang’s face before it became impassive again, and a single tear fell from his one eye.

—Activate Psychic Armor.

The gut-wrenching pain in him was decreased to 4.9%, while a cool calmness took up 95.1% of his mind.

“Die!” Huang Qi growled. His hands, covered in black sigils, started to expand and lost their shapes before morphing into two hive-like gun barrels.

Rat-tat-tat-tat—

The two machine guns rotated at high speed as hundreds of light element bullets shot out from his hands every second. Empowered by level 7 God of Firearms, the bullets locked on and tracked their target.

A hail of light bullets rained down on Gao Yang.

Gao Yang quickly jumped and teleported into a building by the street. Rumble! Some of the bullets exploded upon hitting the ground, while more bullets managed to make a sharp turn and track Gao Yang into the building.

In less than ten seconds, the building crumbled.

Huang Qi stopped firing. He knew that Gao Yang could teleport through walls and must have taken hiding in a different building. He had to watch out for an ambush.

Whoosh.

Thirty seconds later, Gao Yang rushed out of a window of another building, as he had expected.

Bang! Golden elements mixed with black flames shot out of Huang Qi’s split mouth, the speed of it incredible.

Midair, Gao Yang twisted his body to dodge the attack.

The shot cut through the street lamp, billboard, and house behind him.

Once Gao Yang landed, he didn’t even have the time to steady his footing before a dense swarm of light bullets came at him from all directions—Huang Qi had made tracking shots from his gun barrel hands again!

Gao Yang dodged the relentless attacks with Teleportation, moving to the top of the signboard on the side of a building. The next second, countless light bullets followed. They wouldn’t give up until they got their target.

Gao Yang ran and jumped as well as using Teleportation at the last moment to move between telephone poles, signboards, and condenser units, moving between walls and rooftops.

It seemed as if Huang Qi would never run out of ammo and could continue to shoot light element bullets nonstop.

Hands splayed, he turned to track Gao Yang with his gun barrel hands like a golden top making sweeping shots with wild abandon. The downpour of bullets changed trajectory and rose and fell, turned and twirled like a swarm of golden birds, chasing Gao Yang doggedly but always hitting his shadow, being a second too late.

After a minute, the entire street had been bombarded by light.

Countless concrete pieces and glass shards splattered everywhere, accompanying the scattering light elements. Buildings after buildings fell, and fire after fire surged. It was pure chaos.

Gao Yang continued to jump and dodge the attacks with the help of Teleportation, maintaining a precarious stalemate as he looked for an opening to get close to Huang Qi.

After close to a minute, as Huang Qi stood at the center of the ruins of the street, his relentless shooting spree finally started to weaken. However, Gao Yang was going to run out of Teleportation uses, too.

He seized the chance to teleport behind Huang Qi, making a Fire Punch.

While Huang Qi was now blind, his senses were keen, allowing him to lock on Gao Yang during the fight and track him closely.

With an impossibly quick turn, Huang Qi faced Gao Yang, his gun barrel hands morphing back into black human ones instantly. Raising his right fist, he caught Gao Yang’s punch.

Bam!

Fire intense enough to evaporate flesh and bones instantly devoured Huang Qi, and Huang Qi was slowly getting scorched, but he wasn’t even close to getting melted. Moreover, he didn’t have any sense of pain.

Gao Yang tensed. It was too late for him to run now.