Building My SSS-Rank Universal Empire: From Trash to Cosmic Overlord-Chapter 54: So you’re not dead
Each step the man took made the air dry. Green vomit poured out of his mouth, fell to the ground with a spat, and spewed out the stench of rotted flesh. Maggots wiggled in it, and some soon turned into flies that buzzed around the room.
I shuddered inwardly. ’What type of technique is that? That’s more than disgust! It’s horrific!’
And then suddenly, Arvas stumbled and fell. The bone in his left leg broke with a crunch as blood burst out. Arvas grunted and twisted his neck to stare at Etan, who had gotten close to him when Lim fired his attack.
Etan had used his good-bad luck to his advantage and made Arvas break his leg. He began to approach the man slowly, holding on to his sword of glass. He still remembered how the first attack rotted into dust!
"Your bad luck is better than I thought. It’s almost too good; that would get really dangerous at higher ranks. Too bad you had to face me today." Arvas didn’t seem too bothered by his blood draining out of him or the odd angle his leg was in. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎
"I’ll tell you something for free. My technique is called The Plague because that’s what it does. The closer you get to me, the more I can make all diseases mutate and grow at an anatomical rate." He grinned.
Etan froze when he heard that. He turned to hurry away but then began to cough, a bone-shaking cough that made him jump and rattled him. He went down on all fours and continued coughing until he began to spit out blood with each cough.
He held his chest and throat, his racked cough like the dying of an animal held in a death grip. Then he suddenly stopped coughing. His body shivered, trembled, and then stiffened. Etan sucked in a sharp breath through a bloody mouth, and then he coughed so loudly and hard that he vomited his own intestines onto the ground.
He fell to the ground after that and stopped twitching. His body lost the glass-like look. As they watched, his body rotted, swelled, busted, and bred maggots.
I wanted to close my eyes, but I was still locked in place. I wasn’t feeling much of anything anymore. I was numb. This wasn’t the first time I had seen death; I’d killed before. But this was the first time I was seeing one so slow and brutal.
The room was silent for a while, and then Lim shouted out in pain and anger. "Etan! Etan! I’ll kill you, you rotten bastard!"
Arvas laughed so hard his body shook. Brown mucus flew out of his nose, and it looked as if his lungs would give out with the way he was whizzing.
"Lim, stop!" Emily shouted, holding the soul drainer so tightly that she squeezed two dolls and two workers died for it.
Lim didn’t answer. He brought his hands down like a whip, splitting the air with a howl. Arvas didn’t dodge and let the attack slam into his body.
A loud crunch sounded as his head was sent into an odd angle, and the other hand slammed into his chest, crushing it with a snap, the spike pinching through the lungs to the back. But before Lim could retract his hand, Arvas reached forward like a striking cobra, gripped the right one, and then he proceeded to vomit on the hand before he released him.
"What did you do...!!!" Lim shouted. His hand began to burn. Angry red boils appeared on his right hand, quickly spreading to other parts of his body. He began to scratch his body, his spikes and fingernails digging in and ripping away flesh. "What’s this! What did you... huh! Shit... ahhh...!!!"
His boils began to burst with a slow pop, and yellow-green pus came out with a smell like rotted flesh. Lim slowed down when the boil that had grown on his eyeballs bursted, his eyes, blood, and pus ran down his cheeks like tears.
Then he tried to take a step, stumbled, and fell, never to stand again.
A chill ran down my body as something occurred to me. ’If I stay here longer than I should, I’ll catch a disease that will mutate and grow so fast! It’s time to finally make my move, but I must be smart about it.’
Emily looked at her dead companions in horror and backed away. Arvas tried to stand up, but he slipped on the ground, which was soiled with his vomit and shit. His leg was healed, and his crushed chest now looked like a bloody wound that wouldn’t heal.
His head was still at an odd angle, but he pushed himself up and looked at Emily. His voice was slurred. "Right, you’re next."
Just then, the room darkened, and a pool of darkness spread from the ceiling, dripping down like leaking water. A voice rang out, a very familiar voice. "Arvas, so this is the technique you’ve been hiding. The real Kren would have been jealous of you."
Arvas stopped walking and sneered. "Kren. So you’re not dead."
"Of course not! I told you, you can destroy my body, but what about the real me?" The darkness that fell sloshed together and formed into a figure. It was shapeless at first, but then it outlined Kren, wearing his glasses, all made of thick shadows.
Arvas stared at him. "This is your original body?"
"Yes. Now then. Shall we continue our fight?"
Arvas opened his mouth, but no words came out. Instead, a shockwave blasted out in a ripple, scorching the ground and the air like desert winds, straight at Kren.
Kren smiled, raised his hand, and shadow formed into a thick shield in front of him. The scorching breath met it and couldn’t pass through, not even a scratch.
"Ah. It’s really been long since I used my powers. I’ve been forced to use those alchemist powers all this time. Let’s see if I still have it." Then Kren raised his hand, and purple light flooded into his fist.
