svetikya Chapter 117, Section 14: Scale 2
Chapter 117, Section 14: Scale 2
Chapter 117, Section 14: Scale Two (Important event point; skipping this section may affect subsequent content)
Arnold, who had crawled out of the air vent, fell to the ground in a frenzy, getting covered in mud.
After crawling through the ventilation ducts for a long time, his bald head was covered in dust and cobwebs, and his elbows and knees were scraped.
Blood seeped through the shirt and stained the coat red.
"Useless Annie! Quickly wipe the mud off my face!"
The puppet in his arms opened and closed its mouth, angrily waving its short limbs.
"I'm sorry, Scarface!" Arnold carefully wiped away the mud and held Scarface in his arms.
He then noticed the vintage car parked in the corner. After scanning left and right and confirming that no one had noticed him, he crouched down and ran over.
"Useless Annie, you're not thinking of escaping in that car, are you? That's a terrible idea. I think I smell something suspicious."
This car exudes a malevolent aura; if you were to get in, something bad might happen!
"Then what should we do? Maybe we should call the police and go back to Black Gate Prison? Then they...they won't bother me!"
Arnold, now without a clear direction, cowered under the car, muttering to himself in a trembling voice. This poor man with dissociative identity disorder had projected his vicious personality onto this wooden puppet and was communicating with it through ventriloquism.
Arnold was never the boss; "Scarface" was.
"Foolish Ani, are you going to abandon me? Don't forget who made you who you are today."
Suddenly, a black hand burst through the window, and amidst the flying shards of glass, it grabbed Arnold's meager remaining hair at his temples.
"Since you're already here, won't you come in and have a seat?"
Qin Wei's devilish whisper echoed in the darkness, and before Arnold could refuse, his hand violently grabbed him and dragged him into the car.
"The enemy, the enemy!"
Scarface yelled and opened fire, his Mini Thompson trembling as he fired a volley of bullets into the roof of the car.
Having listened through the car door for so long, Qin Wei had long since guessed the other party's identity. "Scarface" and the Ventriloquist—these two guys had caused him considerable psychological trauma in the Batman TAS cartoons of his childhood.
He grabbed the ventriloquist's arm and broke it with a knee strike. The scarred man, out of control, fell to his feet. Now, all Qin Wei had left was a trembling mental patient.
"Spare me! I didn't do anything! It was all Scarface's doing!"
Arnold was being choked and pressed against the back of the seat. Qin Wei's grip tightened, seemingly forgetting that the scarred Arnold was just a helpless, mentally ill old man. Arnold's feet stomped futilely on Qin Wei's abdomen, his eyes bulging from their sockets, the sounds escaping from deep in his throat growing weaker and weaker.
The rain began to intensify, and a blinding flash of lightning ripped through the night, revealing Qin Wei's ferocious face in a fleeting glimpse.
Just then, the vintage car wobbled and then flipped over to one side.
Having lost his balance, Qin Wei was forced to let go and grab onto the back of the seat.
Boom!
The vintage car was overturned by a tremendous force, and the messy raindrops pounded against the car body, making a crisp metallic sound.
"Hahaha, I knew you ran outside! So you knew Arnold would escape through the ventilation shaft!" Killer Croc's cold laughter, mixed with rumbling thunder, echoed in the courtyard. "You haven't forgotten our bet, have you? You dared to place such a big bet, were you prepared to lose?"
"By the way, you'd probably accept my suggestion to fight amongst ourselves, wouldn't you?"
boom!
With a kick, the car door flew open, the broken metal door scraping against the grass and crashing into the flower bed.
Qin Wei charged out into the pouring rain, his silent opening act being a swift and fierce diving straight punch.
The heavy punch shattered the rain curtain and landed heavily on the killer crocodile's bluish-gray skin, like a bomb that had been ignited. Ripples spread across the abdomen where it was hit, and the enormous energy penetrated the muscles and bones, rampaging through the crocodile's body.
In a split second, Killer Crocodile's expression went from disdain to shock. He clearly heard the sound of ribs cracking, and even his liver probably couldn't escape the powerful penetrating force.
After being knocked back several steps by a punch, Killer Crocodile clutched his abdomen and collapsed to his knees in pain.
He simply couldn't believe that the terrifying power emanating from this seemingly "thin" body was something even his ancestral body couldn't withstand. To make matters worse, the damage to his liver caused him to break out in a cold sweat. Now, he couldn't even raise his hand to fight back, and the pain was so intense that he couldn't even make a sound.
But Qin Wei, blinded by rage, would not stop there.
Killer Croc is extremely tall, and its kneeling posture exposes its head as a vulnerable spot.
With a sprint step followed by a spinning kick, Qin Wei used the power of his turn and hip twist to smash his right leg into Killer Crocodile's cheek like a baseball bat swung with all his might.
Boom! With a thunderous roar, the sudden gust of wind from the leg dispersed the rain in an instant, and the killer crocodile's massive body was blasted dozens of feet away, crashing headfirst into a camphor tree in the yard.
Amidst the rain of falling black camphor seeds, Qin Wei strode forward, his fists clenched so tightly they cracked.
In his dazed state, Killer Crocodile felt a pair of arms choking him.
He opened his mouth, letting the rainwater moisten his dry lips:
"I feel so bad—I'm dizzy."
"Take a deep breath; dizziness is normal."
While constricting the killer crocodile's carotid artery, Qin Wei didn't forget to whisper devilish words in the victim's ear.
However, Killer Crocodile's ancestral body is really tough. Regardless of whether an ordinary person can withstand the blood strangulation for four or five seconds, the previous punch and kick alone are enough to take a person's life.
The killer crocodile's blood vessels were throbbing weaker and weaker, and it looked like it would soon be sending him to hell.
But as Qin Wei gradually relaxed his vigilance, a strange sensation traveled through his arm to his brain. It felt as if something was wriggling under the skin of the other person, about to burst out.
Click! Click!
Amidst the creaking of gears, the clock of fate struck the next mark, and that familiar feeling returned, enveloping Qin Wei's thoughts like bubbles rising from fermenting malt.
"Oh ha ha ha ha! The gates of a new era are open for you. Who knows whether what seeps through the cracks are mad tentacles or dazzling holy light! But one thing is certain—you've taken another step closer to me!! Come, come, step on this shattering world and come to my side! I can't wait to see your lovely face!"
In a daze, a long-lost voice boomed in my ears, its sharp and hoarse tone concealing undisguised madness.
The only difference was that it had become clearer. With the violent throbbing of his head, Qin Wei could almost feel every vibration of the other person's vocal cords as they spoke.
At first he thought the voice belonged to the clown, but now it sounds different from both of the clowns' voices.
Qin Wei struggled through a flood of hallucinations, trying to open his eyes.
They've finally escaped, but the current situation seems even more troublesome.
The killer crocodile has broken free of its restraints.
A dark shadow came into view, giving Qin Wei no chance to react; it slammed straight into the center of his face.
A long stream of blood from the nose was mixed with the heartbreaking sound of bones breaking.
Qin Wei was struck head-on by the swing of a sledgehammer; he flew high into the air and crashed into the low wall of the courtyard.
His blood surged, and his eyes turned bloodshot.
A huge black shadow, swaying its thick arms, approached step by step. The killer crocodile's skin had been covered with a layer of hard scales, and its ten thick, sharp claws tore open the flesh at the tips, showing off their bloody sharpness.
When did the killer crocodile undergo a second atavism?
But this was not what Qin Wei feared most.
Out of the corner of his eye, he knew that it wasn't just Killer Crocodile who had changed; the entire courtyard's structure and even the whole environment seemed like a set of building blocks that had been smashed and reassembled by a naughty child.
It's completely different!
The lush camphor tree in the courtyard has been replaced by withered branches, and the vintage car has been transformed into a sports car. The rows of mansions outside the courtyard have been replaced by skyscrapers, the lawns are dry as if it had never rained, and a sharp waning crescent moon pierces the gaps between the high-rises.
However, the current situation did not allow Qin Wei to think too much. Killer Crocodile stared at the germanium-colored foundation smeared on his fist and questioned Qin Wei's identity for the first time.
"You—you've been faking your identity! You're not Matchstick Marlon!"