Chapter 125: Coffin of Flesh and Blood

[Power level reached its limit, meeting the standards for enslavement. Effective duration: 15 minutes.]

Monsters sealed within the manual can be summoned, but once this option is chosen, the sealed monster will vanish permanently.

"Gurgle..."

Amidst a roar that made one's skin crawl, Fan Li did not hesitate for long, silently chanting the command to enslave Suffocation.

Instantly, a black mist emerged from Fan Li’s backpack. The mist slowly coalesced, taking the shape of a massive, sludge-like creature covered in countless heads. Suffocation was a deformed mass; its eyes had been squeezed into mere slits by layers of fat. Perhaps due to its long imprisonment, its consciousness was filled with malice. The numerous heads attached to its body lifted in unison, and within an instant, foul-smelling fluid sprayed onto the body of the Corpse Giant.

The Corpse Giant possessed the ability to control remains. Its previous form was a result of the many survivors it had slaughtered, but now, it had undergone a metamorphosis using human-faced beetles. It had transformed into a second state, its entire body composed of insect carcasses. Faintly, one could see the faces beneath the countless beetles emitting silent, agonizing screams.

The viscous fluid from Suffocation’s mouth clung to the Corpse Giant as usual, attempting to restrict its movements. As it vomited, the heads on Suffocation’s body withered one after another like fleeting blossoms, losing their fullness.

"Waa!"

At the same time, Ellie shrieked, and a massive, phantom-like torso descended behind the Corpse Giant. It was a spherical creature dominated by a gaping, tooth-filled maw that occupied seventy percent of its body. At the very top sat a single eye, and dozens of nerve-like tentacles sprouted around it. The tentacles spread out, wrapping layer by layer around the monster that had transformed into a giant human-faced beetle.

Between the slime vomited by Suffocation and the phantom form summoned by Ellie, the monster’s movements were effectively restrained.

"Bang!"

Ellie leaped, smashing her hammer down on the creature’s head blow after blow. The destructive force stacked up, driving the monster to the ground as it let out a roar that sounded nothing like a human.

Within the dense clusters of eyes on the Corpse Giant’s body, blood-red radiance erupted, coalescing into orbs of bloodlust, cruelty, and madness. It struggled to prop itself up, only to reveal, beneath the beetle shell, a humanoid figure covered in insect husks. A series of insects hung from its head like long hair, and its silhouette was notably softer—clearly, all signs indicated that before its mutation, it had been a woman.

The hallmark of the human-faced beetle was the insect upper body with a human face beneath the shell. After its rebirth, the Corpse Giant had adopted this form. Just then, the woman, roughly two meters tall and located beneath the torso, detached rapidly from the beetle shell and charged straight at Suffocation.

The creature’s speed was blinding!

A single punch slammed into Suffocation’s body. Before the creature, still in the midst of its spraying motion, could even react, it was reduced to a pulp of meat. In that moment, the Corpse Giant had split itself into two: one part, the beetle form, fought Ellie, while the other, the woman, had killed Suffocation and regained its freedom.

The shrunken Corpse Giant glared at Fan Li, its eyes turning crimson as if stained with red ink. Delicate, intricate patterns spread outward from its sockets, forming countless tiny arms that surged forth, attempting to drag Fan Li into its own body. It seemed to have identified the one pulling the strings and focused its attention on him.

The creature's grotesque appearance and unimaginable power induced a sense of paralysis in Fan Li—a paralysis that pierced straight into the depths of his soul. His brain seemed to stop functioning at that moment, and his body involuntarily took a step forward. He felt like a sleepy person lying on a bed; in the next second, or perhaps the next instant, he would lose the light and be swallowed by endless darkness.

Fan Li knew he had to react, or he would likely become just another piece of the Corpse Giant’s body. He moved his arms and realized he could still act, though he felt as if he were intoxicated, unable to maintain absolute clarity.

"This is enough!"

"Nightmare."

Fan Li whispered the word, and immediately, Nightmare—a creature with six mismatched, uneven legs—transformed into black mist and appeared before him.

The Corpse Giant’s power was beyond imagination, a result of the many survivors it had slaughtered and the countless corpses in the hospital morgue it had relied upon. These accumulations had turned it into an unfathomable entity. Nightmare’s ability was to create illusions, which required the enemy to possess some level of consciousness. However, after its multiple transformations, the Corpse Giant had descended into total dementia, rendering Nightmare’s most important advantage useless.

Fan Li was well aware of this; compared to combat, Nightmare’s true purpose here was as a vessel!

The Corpse-Suppressing Talisman!

[Because the summoning medium does not exist, when summoning the Kui, a coffin is required as a host!]

[Affinity: Absolute Obedience!]

This was the reward Fan Li had gained from completing the "Hundred-Man Slayer" achievement—a monster that could only temporarily descend by using a coffin! There was no wooden coffin here, but Fan Li could provide it with a coffin of flesh and blood!

This was a gamble. Driven to the edge, Fan Li had to see this game through. Gritting his teeth to hold onto the last shreds of his sanity, he pressed his right hand, holding the Corpse-Suppressing Talisman, against Nightmare’s back.

Nightmare’s body began to tremble. Its waist, ribs, and spine swelled as flesh writhed; then, two pale, bloodless arms sprouted from its sides, their pitch-black fingernails clearly teeming with potent venom. Simultaneously, Nightmare’s body grew taller, and a pair of equally pale, long legs extended from beneath the flesh, sending ripples of deathly silence outward.

Nightmare seemed to feel unbearable agony, emitting a sound hundreds of times more painful than childbirth. In the blink of an eye, it had transformed into a bizarre monster with four arms and eight legs!

This was the fusion of two monsters!

Nightmare took a step forward. Its eye sockets now held double pupils, and a violent, frenzied aura radiated from it. As it approached the Corpse Giant, it seized an opening and drove its black nails straight through the Corpse Giant’s body.

Both were mindless monsters, lacking systematic attacks or blocks, relying solely on the destructive instincts etched into their existence!

Nightmare threw another punch at the Corpse Giant’s head. The immense force caused the creature’s neck to tilt to the side, unable to straighten. The Corpse Giant, not to be outdone, kicked out. Countless dense mouths emerged on its toes, and the strike tore a chunk of flesh right off Nightmare.

But this level of damage meant nothing to Nightmare. Moreover, as the Corpse Giant kicked him, Nightmare’s flesh split open like muck, trapping the creature’s limb deep within his own body. Nightmare’s form continued to crack, as if something were trying to burst out from within. Driven by this agony, Nightmare vented his rage on the Corpse Giant, opening his arms and slamming them down onto the creature's head.

"Bang!"

The Corpse Giant’s head exploded completely, like a shattered watermelon, spraying fragments and fluids everywhere. Nightmare’s body split open, his abdomen becoming a black hole devoid of light. A massive suction force erupted from within, and countless transparent phantoms were torn from the Corpse Giant’s body and pulled inside.

On the other side, the giant demonic maw summoned by Ellie from the void was also frantically draining energy from the beetle. With no Corpse Giant to anchor it, the energy within the beetle shell was sucked dry. It turned brittle, like weathered iron, and crumbled into dust on the ground.

Fan Li stood where he was, his back drenched in sweat. The continuous drain of using sealed items and the sheer pressure exerted by the Corpse Giant had left his spirit severely overdrawn.

[Kill count +200]
[660/500]
Summoning quota: 1

[Summoning conditions met. Proceed with summoning?]

Only upon seeing the familiar scarlet text did Fan Li exhale a breath of relief. That single movement seemed to exhaust the last of his strength; his legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the ground.