Chapter 257: Thousand Faced Stone Statue

"Then how do we make that strange existence wake up now?"

"Isn’t it simple?"

Asagiri replied with a smile and casually waved his hand.

"Persona, Meta."

As the beautiful blue haired girl with twin tails, a sweet face, a red sweater, and a blue skirt appeared before them, the White Suit Man could not help but freeze for a moment. He looked at Crazy Mita, then asked in curiosity,

"Is this the legendary mysterious blue haired girl? Where are her hat and gloves?"

Before he could finish, Crazy Mita suddenly turned her head. Her eyes locked onto him with killing intent, and her voice carried an unmistakable chill.

"You bastard, do you want to die?"

Crazy Mita’s natural personality was the very definition of a cyber killer girlfriend. Only when facing Asagiri, or his girlfriends Yuuki Asuna, Iwanaga Kotoko, and Kato Megumi, would she restrain herself and speak as calmly as possible. Toward outsiders like the White Suit Man, she had no intention of being polite.

And mistaking her for Hat Mita, in Crazy Mita’s eyes, was the greatest possible insult.

"Don’t talk nonsense."

Asagiri stared at the bewildered White Suit Man with a serious expression and spoke slowly.

"My life has always been like walking on thin ice, taking every step with caution. Don’t suddenly create a Shura field for me."

Then he turned to Crazy Mita and smiled, soothing her.

"Alright, don’t be angry. Let’s begin."

"Hmph. Fine."

Crazy Mita shot the White Suit Man another cold glare, then pulled a grenade from her inventory, yanked the pin, and threw it out. While waiting for the explosion, she even took out a washed apple, bit into it, and happily waited for the blast.

Boom!

The moment the flames erupted and the sound rolled through the hall, joy lit up Crazy Mita’s eyes. The corners of her lips curled up as she muttered,

"As expected... destruction is the most fun."

She finished the apple in three quick bites, then immediately pulled out another grenade, yanked the pin, and threw it as well. One after another, she kept going, her smile growing brighter and brighter.

But the brighter she smiled, the colder the White Suit Man and the others felt.

Is there even a single normal person in that team?

As for Asagiri and Iwanaga Kotoko, the White Suit Man had already noticed during the earlier battle that the two of them were completely unaffected by the crying of those faces. Their mental resistance was so terrifyingly high that it no longer seemed human.

The swordswoman in the crimson cloak and the black haired girl carrying the pitch black longbow had shown some reaction, but they recovered almost immediately after the fight ended. They did not break down like ordinary Players, nor did they show fear. It was as though such horrors were nothing unusual to them.

And then there was the blue haired twin tailed girl, who was obviously not mentally normal.

These people were monsters.

Just then, a gigantic mouth suddenly split open across the wall of the banquet hall and roared from within, the voice sharp and full of anger.

"Stop bombing! Stop bombing...!"

"Stop bombing?"

Asagiri reacted almost instantly. Before the giant mouth could finish shouting, he snatched the grenade from Crazy Mita’s hand, pulled the pin, and threw it straight into the giant mouth with a motion worthy of a professional baseball pitcher.

"Eat this grenade."

Boom!

The explosion blasted the soft flesh inside the mouth into a mangled blur. Just looking at it made the White Suit Man and the others feel pain on instinct.

"You... jia... fo..."

"Blew your tongue up, did we?"

Listening to the giant mouth’s slurred speech, Asagiri chuckled and interrupted it.

"If you can’t speak clearly, then don’t speak. We have plenty of grenades here. We can bomb this whole floor all over again. Just thinking about it sounds great."

"You... you... unforgivable!"

The flesh inside the giant mouth quickly regenerated, and at that moment the entire floor began to tremble violently.

The smile in Asagiri’s eyes vanished. He took out his usual chain Rope Dart from his inventory. At the same time, the black gun shaped summoner appeared in his left hand, and he spoke in a calm voice.

"It’s coming."

Amid the quake like shaking, the banquet hall, which had once looked magnificent, finally revealed its true form.

The walls were made of gray blue stone bricks, every inch covered in densely carved human faces. Every face was different, yet each wore the same twisted expression of despair. Their mouths hung wide open, and though no sound came out, anyone looking at them would feel as though they were silently crying for help.

The carpet, once embroidered with gold thread, had turned a vivid blood red. It was so bright it looked like a rolling sea of thick blood, and it gave off a faint fishy stench.

At the center of the banquet hall, a stone statue nearly fifteen meters tall slowly rose from the ground, its head almost brushing the chandelier overhead. Its general shape was humanoid, but its surface was covered, like the surrounding walls, with countless distorted human faces. Only the area where its own face should have been remained smooth, making it look even more unnatural. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

There was not a trace of fear in Iwanaga Kotoko’s dark blue eyes. Faced with the sudden change, she merely glanced around and immediately noticed something.

"Leader, hundreds of the human faces on the wall are covered in black."

At her words, everyone looked more carefully. Sure enough, scattered across the walls were sections of faces hidden beneath a black light. The surrounding stone faces showed expressions of terror, as though they feared that same blackness would spread to them as well.

But compared to the thousands of faces filling the walls, those few hundred blackened sections were little more than a negligible fraction.

"Do you realize now? My power stands far above yours."

The stone statue took a step forward, and the mouths of the faces across its surface opened all at once, their voices overlapping into one thunderous sound.

"I just don’t understand what exactly you’re pretending to be."

Faced with the overwhelming pressure of the towering statue, Asagiri showed no fear at all. His tone remained perfectly calm.

"You’ve already run out of parasitic Player puppets. The faces still left on the walls must be the ones whose former bodies were only ordinary people, right? In the end, you have no trump card left. If you hadn’t overheard me say that I couldn’t use that ability again, you wouldn’t have dared to show yourself. Putting on airs when death is right in front of you is honestly ugly."

The Thousand Faced Stone Statue fell silent for several seconds. Then every face on its body opened its eyes at once, and their expressions changed from despair to fanatical distortion.

"So you saw through it. But..."

As it spoke, the human faces along the surrounding walls suddenly began peeling away and falling to the floor. Once they landed, they rose again as humanoid figures with hollow eyes and stiff expressions.

"Even by numbers alone, I can grind you down to death."

Looking at the dense mass of parasitic puppets surrounding them, Yuuki Asuna tightened her grip on Gleaming Light, her eyes sharp with vigilance.

"What do we do?"

Yuuki Asuna knew that Asagiri could use [Supreme Magic Bullet] again, but she also knew that it was a move reserved for absolute necessity.

Only twelve hours had passed since the Players entered the Dungeon. There were still sixty hours left before the time limit. If the rules this time were not like the Floating Corpse Evil Spirit Dungeon, where clearing the hidden boss let them leave early, then using [Supreme Magic Bullet] twice in a row would completely cripple Asagiri through sheer mental exhaustion. He would need at least eight to ten hours of proper rest before he could even barely recover.

Neither Hoder Franklin’s [Sacrifice] nor a Persona’s [Reversal] could restore lost mental and physical energy.

If Asagiri lost his fighting ability now and something else happened later, the consequences would be dire.

"That stone statue is the true body of the cursed existence."

Iwanaga Kotoko narrowed her eyes as she stared at the Thousand Faced Stone Statue at the very back. The faces across its surface twisted into sinister smiles.

"We break straight through. Get close to that thing and attack together. That is the only option."

"Then let’s do it."

Asagiri raised the black gun shaped summoner in his hand and aimed it at his own head. The hem of his black hunter’s windbreaker fluttered even without wind.

"Persona, Human Asura."

"You preserve your strength. We’ll clear the way for you!"

The White Suit Man’s white suit began to transform, turning into a layer of bone armor over his body. His martial artist teammate also put on a pair of gloves.

The perception type Player’s eyes glowed as he rapidly scanned the mass of parasites in front of them. Then he pointed to one section.

"The ones over there are the weakest!"

"Go!"

With a cold bone spike extending from his right palm, the White Suit Man charged forward. He and the martial artist took the lead from the left and right, following Human Asura as it crashed toward the dense wall of parasites.

"Wind Blessing."

Yuuki Asuna’s eyes turned resolute. She cast Wind Blessing on herself and on the blade in her hand. Her crimson cloak cut through the air like a streak of red as she also rushed into the parasite swarm with her sword.

The real boss fight had begun.

.....

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One Piece: My Crew Is Full of Monsters