Chapter 45 Death by Rusty Plague

Chapter 45 Death by Rusty Plague

Brass Puppet stepped forward confidently, leaving flaming footprints on the ground that melted even the sturdy iron floor.

Part of Adam's face was covered in severe burns, and the sharp metal debris had left many cuts on his body, making him bleed.

'Adam! Adam! Get up! You have to do something!'

Silvana's voice rang in his ears, but Adam heard nothing. The Brass Puppet blow had given Adam a severe brain concussion, and he was barely staying awake.

The only thing Adam saw - was an approaching fiery silhouette with a massive key in its hands. Adam could feel the heat from the fire even ten meters away, and the feeling of imminent death left his body with nothing else to do but squeeze everything out of itself.

'Get up.'

A calm voice spread through Adam's mind, strange and mechanical, the same as it had been in the battle against the Prime Stone Goliath.

Adam took a deep breath, scratching the floor with his fingers in an attempt to get up and continue the battle.

'No flame can burn forever. Everything has a beginning and an end, especially a fire this bright. Even the greatest stars will extinguish at some point, this is just a spark in comparison. You need to survive that period, and you can only do that by igniting your own flame.'

'You know that... And you were ready for it...'

Tremble. Tremble. Tremble.

Evolution Tree and Initial Gene shuddered just as they had the last time Adam had entered Resonance. However, now Lock and especially the chains were also affected.

The chains shook vigorously, and a few of them broke, it was still a long way from fully releasing Lock, but some of the energy was able to escape through the vortex heading up the Evolution Tree, causing it to grow.

Then, Adam's eyes filled with blood, his veins swelled, and his breath began to emanate a frosty vapor as if from the farthest reaches of the north.

"Hey... Looks like I have a second stage too, doesn't it?" Adam smirked, clutching the needle tightly as his blood trickled along it.

Brass Puppet stopped in shock, staring at his opponent. He didn't seem to expect that a human could get out of this position and become stronger - just like he had done with his key.

Whooooooooooooosh.

Brass Puppet swung his key, unleashing a fiery blade. Adam ducked, repeating the previous episode, and Brass Puppet's fist was right in front of Adam's face.

Suddenly, in their earbuds came a worried voice that proceeded from their Operator in charge of this mission. The Operator had just received information from Silvana.

'He's fighting against his Beginning Monster! You must get to a safe distance as soon as possible!'

Zaron wanted to say something to his squad, but Pamela stopped him.

"Come on. Some newbie's Beginning Monster isn't going to hurt us. We have a whole squad of Phantoms here and..."

A sharp gear covered in flame swept through her, slicing Pamela's body in two, with blood bubbling outward.

"Agh...?" Zaron's eyes went wide in disbelief.

Then, red-hot metal legs came crashing down on top of him, nailing him to the ground and crushing his head.

By then, all the other Phantoms and Harvesters had realized what was happening, and Adam reached the ground, finding himself among them.

However, neither the dead Zaron and Pamela, nor the shocked Phantoms and Harvesters caught Adam's attention. It wasn't that he didn't care about them, it was the Resonance.

All of his genes had been activated to the limit for only one purpose - to defeat Brass Puppet. That way, even if the world was about to end, Adam would only focus on his opponent.

Whooooooooooooosh.

Brass Puppet bounced off several buildings, flying high up and creating new gears.

Then, flames rained down hail upon Adam, squad, and monsters, destroying everything in its path.

For Brass Puppet, Adam was the main target and that was why everyone else had to disappear. "No! Run!" Someone exclaimed, only to be left headless a second later.

One Phantom after another fell to the ground unable to resist the flaming gears as well as the Harvesters, who didn't stand a chance.

The number of casualties was steadily increasing, and not only among the humans, the hunted monsters were already dead as well.

In this scorched earth, among the destroyed iron buildings, only Adam and Brass Puppet remained surrounded by corpses.

However, they continued to fight, trying to tear each other apart as if they were not the cause of this massacre.

At the same moment, one squad a few hundred meters away was trying to escape from a monster with a humanoid physique - one of the Crown Type. But, it was unlikely that any of them would be able to survive.