"So what the hell is this thing, exactly?"
Or rather, what was so special about this unknown Ethereal that made it worth such concern? After all, pretty much every Hollow had its own boss-class Ethereal. So why was headquarters taking this one so seriously?
Maybe Zhu Yuan had never thought about that question. She was just too pure-hearted, so pure that sometimes it made her seem a little adorably dense.
But Fang Wen was different.
From the very beginning, he had never trusted those great aristocratic families who wielded power at the top of New Eridu.
Especially not after what happened with his mother. Back then, the investigation had been so sloppy it practically screamed cover-up. And in all the years since, he had never been able to find anything else.
It was as if the evidence had all been destroyed.
Fang Wen refused to believe that the gentle, kind mother in his memories—the woman who had adopted dozens of children—could possibly have caused a city-destroying catastrophe like that.
Someone up top had to be pulling strings.
He just didn't know who.
Which made headquarters' sudden obsession with a dead Ethereal feel deeply suspicious.
What exactly was so special about it?
Fang Wen looked up. The enormous Ethereal corpse had almost completely dissipated by now. With a few heavy metallic clanging sounds, the Hollow Investigation Association researchers gathered around it all shook their heads.
Too fast.
Why was the corpse of this overlord-class Ethereal dissipating so quickly?
Fang Wen heard them grumbling.
"Huh? Why hasn't the Hollow activity changed?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, the average activity reading for Hollow 113 on the carrot we received is somehow almost the same as it is now."
"But the overlord-class Ethereal's already been killed, hasn't it? It just turned back into ether particles right in front of everyone." Another researcher frowned. "Did you misread the numbers?"
"No way. Let me check again."
The two kept arguing, and Fang Wen suddenly remembered something—
The panel had never told him the mission was complete.
He summoned the panel, and sure enough, the daily commission The Shadow Hidden Beneath the Surface was still marked as unfinished—
Which meant the special Ethereal wasn't dead at all!
"Everyone on alert! That thing's not dead yet!" Fang Wen suddenly shouted, startling Grace and the Bangboo beside him.
He drew his standard-issue sidearm at once, but his warning still came a beat too late.
An Ethereal just slightly larger than an adult man appeared from nowhere and slammed into several researchers near the memorial tower at terrifying speed, catching them completely off guard.
The crack of bones breaking rang densely in his ears in an instant.
Only afterward came the short, piercing screams.
Fang Wen locked onto its position without wavering, not allowing himself to get distracted by the urge to save people.
Because from the sound alone, he already knew—
Those people were beyond saving.
The areas hit had already turned into soft, collapsed pulp.
Their organs were shredded to mush.
It was like getting run over by a freight truck—reduced to a speed bump on impact.
Swallowing hard, Fang Wen fired the first shot in the hunt for the special Ethereal.
"Fang Wen! Earpiece!" Zhu Yuan shouted. While still firing, Fang Wen caught the comm earpiece she threw to him and jammed it into his ear.
After several volleys, Fang Wen realized that their police-issued, small-caliber firearms simply could not penetrate this thing's defenses.
It dodged most of the bullets, and the ones that did hit flattened immediately, as if they'd struck an ultra-hardened steel plate, clattering uselessly to the ground.
Apparently, it had realized those weapons posed little threat to it.
It started accelerating again, charging without restraint toward the scattering researchers.
"Harassment formation! Fang Wen, you take command! Senior Qingyi, the two of us will pin it down together!"
"Got it!"
Zhu Yuan and Qingyi rushed straight at it. Fang Wen took over field command from Zhu Yuan.
"All units switch to anti-riot rounds and provide suppressive fire! Cover them, and watch your lines—do not hit friendlies!"
"Roger!"
Half a minute later, the special Ethereal had been forced into their encirclement. At the center of that kill zone, two agile figures kept it tied up, denying it any room to build speed.
Fang Wen observed and adjusted the formation constantly. The moment it tried to break out of the close-quarters zone where Zhu Yuan and Qingyi were engaging it, concentrated fire from the outer ring forced it back.
No, they couldn't pierce it.
But momentum was still momentum.
And any delay was enough for Zhu Yuan and Qingyi to re-engage.
Still, fighting a battle of attrition against an Ethereal inside a Hollow was about the dumbest thing you could do.
The best way to kill an Ethereal was to shatter its ether core—a spherical object that usually glowed with a shifting rainbow sheen.
But what the hell—
Why didn't this thing have an ether core?!
Just then, Zhu Yuan's Violence Bringer K22 seized an opening and roared several times in succession. A few large-caliber buckshot rounds finally punched through its defenses, blasting several huge holes in its grotesque body.
Black fluid poured out continuously from the ruptured gaps.
The special Ethereal let out a pained roar.
Then its attacks grew even more frenzied and vicious.
This couldn't go on!
"Belobog Heavy Industries, prepare to engage!"
"Clear the way, boys!"
"Construction zone! No entry!"
"Brother, let's do this together!"
Before Fang Wen could stop them, Belobog's agents were already rushing into the fray shouting things about courage and bonds.
Fang Wen blanked out for a second.
Where the hell had this turned into?
Not far away, the Bangboo gave him a little nod too.
Fang Wen took a few deep breaths.
"All units! Support Belobog Heavy Industries! Bring this Ethereal down!"
"Roger!"
…
With Belobog's people joining the battle, Zhu Yuan—who had been fighting bitterly for several minutes—finally got a chance to step back and catch her breath.
Unlike Senior Qingyi, who was still in the thick of it swinging her three-section staff, Zhu Yuan was a full-blooded human.
Her combat skills might be terrifyingly strong, but not to the point where she could barehandedly brawl with an overlord-class Ethereal from a subsidiary Hollow like some kind of monster.
Constant evasion had drained a huge amount of her stamina, and she could only squeeze in the occasional brutal hit with the K22.
As for Qingyi, being a robotic construct, her "stamina" was really just battery power.
But even she couldn't outlast an Ethereal forever.
"This thing is insanely tough." Fang Wen still remembered seeing Zhu Yuan's shotgun blasts doing little more than barely scraping off its skin.
And Qingyi's staff—trailing sparks and crackling electricity the whole way—could only char its surface black. Only when she struck one of its wounds did it actually freeze up for a moment.
Zhu Yuan was breathing in great heaving gulps, her swollen chest rising sharply with each breath.
At this point, she hardly had the strength to speak. Fang Wen supported her and continued laying out his observations.
"This thing's wrong. The rate its wounds are healing is way too slow for an overlord-class Ethereal, and even now I still haven't found its ether core."
Zhu Yuan nodded. As someone who had fought it directly, she could feel that even more clearly.
"To be honest… compared to an Ethereal, it feels more like a living organism…"
Zhu Yuan's guess made Fang Wen's heart tighten.
Maybe that was what made it special.
He turned back toward the battlefield. At that exact moment, the tiny little president swung her half-body-tall powered hammer. Flames burst from the hammerhead as she smashed it into the creature, leaving it dizzy and staggering.
Then the slower but massively built bear Thiren came charging in from somewhere with a support pillar bigger than Fang Wen himself—thicker than his waist, taller than his entire body. Like a runaway truck, he drove it forward. It looked slow, but unstoppable, and slammed the special Ethereal—already near collapse—hard against the memorial wall beside it.
The whole monument visibly shook.
Now!
Fang Wen's gaze sharpened.
And clearly, the agents who lived by combat understood that too.
With a thunderous roar, that man raised the pile driver on his left arm and charged in without hesitation, driving it straight into the Ethereal's eye socket before it could recover!
"GURREN LAGANN BREAKTHROUGH!!"
DUANG! DUANG! DUANG!!!
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