Second Genesis

Chapter 375: Choke

Grey’s gaze focused. He was going to stop fucking around now.

He didn’t have much stamina to play around with, so if he was going to end this, he was going to have to keep that in mind.

He leapt out of the way of another fan of palms, exhaling a deep breath.

Was he making things harder on himself by trying to plan this out like he was?

Yes.

But also fuck these people.

He wasn’t just interested in scraping by and surviving alone. If he didn’t make their lives a living hell, he wouldn’t be Grey Temolt.

BANG.

A hand suddenly shattered the ground just beneath Grey. It grabbed his ankles, both at once. It snapped his feet together and Grey found himself falling.

’Shit.’

He underestimated the rotting spirit a bit too much. While its power was running out, it had prepped the battlefield to the point there was hardly a single place you could stand without suffering under its influence.

’Alright, time to ball.’

Grey’s gaze sharpened further and as his body fell forward, his Last Paladin Frame activated.

A shrieking howl came from the mask.

’Useful.’

BANG.

Grey’s legs split and he palmed the ground, slapping at it and launching himself up and into a spin.

His toes landed first but his heels never got the chance. He quickly tapped at the ground continuously accelerating back in a zigzagging pattern to dodge and slip out of the way of another array of violent attacks.

Grey leapt up, diving through a hole between an array of rotting hands, his eyes darting back and forth.

’Come on, come on.’

His back quickly rolled across the dirt patches, a foul pustule bursting and spurting with acid at him from the side.

’Ew.’

Grey swapped to his Dark Solveign Frame and incinerated it to ash just before it touched his skin.

’That’s it.’

Grey grinned ear to ear. The last of his idea finally slipped into place and he stopped running. Well, he stopped running aimlessly, that is.

With a burst of speed, he rounded a tree and slashed at it, seemingly without aim.

He slipped to the other side, only to find a beam of foul light coming right at him.

Without the slightest hesitation, he unwound the Turning Shield from his wrist, hiding behind it the moment it formed into its tower shield form.

BANG.

Grey slid back across the ground, but that didn’t stop him from swiping at the tree again, and then again.

—

[FinchTheDiddler: That better not be what the fuck I think it is.]

[SpellSeeker: He’s insane. Clinically insane.]

[GreyDominion: RAAAAAAAH!]

—

"Hey, you big tub of rotting shit, can’t you aim better?"

Grey hardly got the word out before he dove again. The rotting spirit roared with fury and it seemed to become a size larger.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.

The ground surged with rotting zombie hands as large as giants. The joints weren’t right, some of them had three, or even four elbows. Some of them had as few as three fingers, and others had as many as twelve.

’Shit.’

Grey swapped from his blood blades to his spear, his Last Paladin Frame roaring with life as he thrust out continuously.

He punched burning, heavenly fire holes through each one of them. For whatever reason, the moment these zombies touched the faintest hint of holy energy, they started combusting from the inside out.

But Grey certainly wasn’t going to complain about it.

Instead, he listened to the rhythm in his head, alternating between carving at the tree and dodging the relentless assault.

His lungs started to burn, not just from fatigue, but a foul, poisonous air hanging above him. The rotting stench seemed to be much more than just a foul smell.

Luckily for Grey, his holy energy seemed to be burning at that as well.

’Done.’

Grey swiped at the top of the tree just one more time, the head lopping off and leaving a pristinely polished statue.

’Not fucking bad,’ Grey said with a grin, ’a perfect replica.’

Grey vanished as he activated his Shadow Forces. He appeared behind the rotting mask and hit the blunt end of his spear over its head.

He smashed it down into the ground and it spun in a fury. Grey disappeared as it bit at him. It missed, hitting nothing but air as Grey dodged back, his body flickering and dancing in weaving shadows. It felt like there wasn’t a single aspect of the battlefield that he couldn’t take into account, every step was under his perfect and undivided control.

Even as his lungs heaved for air, his grin was only widening. He could see it now.

—

[EpicPelvis: He’s dead. The Great Udon will do whatever he can to make sure he dies in the most humiliating way possible. There’s no way he lets this stand.]

[SpellSeeker: ... is it still possible for me to get a refund?]

[FinchTheDiddler: I have legit tears in my eyes, what is wrong with this dude, man? How does his brain work?]

[GreyDominion: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!]

—

Grey’s back hit against his carved statue, but it was almost as though he was looking for exactly that. His gaze flickered, his body paused for just the briefest instance, and then he vanished.

This time, he appeared right on top of his statue, grinning ear to ear as rotting hands and the mask lunged at him just one more time.

The mask seemed to have grown used to his pattern and had sensed exactly where he would appear. So, it wasn’t long before its mouth had opened wide and it was biting down at Grey from above.

Grey almost couldn’t help but burst out into laughter and he vanished just one more time, appearing right above the rotting spirit. It never imagined that Grey could teleport into the air. All this time, he had followed a very specific pattern of retracing his steps. But...

His Shadow Forces were very different when his Steel-Toe Shroud was activated.

BANG.

The rotting spirit was slammed down from above, its open mouth forced onto and around the shadow, and because it was little more than a floating mask, there was nothing to stop the statue from skewering it all the way through.

Last Ascension.

Grey activated his sword controlling Paladin Ability and his statue blazed with Holy Energy.

The rotting spirit began to scream, but it was stuck, and now it was burning up from the inside out.

The zombie arms lost control and they began to act erratically. They swiped at Grey, but the spirit couldn’t seem to track him properly any longer, especially after Grey formed a large span of butterfly wings and shot even higher into the skies to admire his handiwork.

He nodded and smiled to himself.

Unfortunately for it, while the statue Grey had carved was certainly a sword, it was a very organic one.

"You should be proud, actually. Not just anyone gets to gag on that. I’m very selective, you know. You don’t even have a nice pair of tits. Just think about how nice I’m being right now."

The rotting spirit died choking on a perfect replica of his dick. A dick the entire universe had probably seen by now.