69novels Chapter 107 The Most Primal Impulse
Chapter 107 The Most Primal Impulse
Chapter 107 The Most Primal Impulse
Ding ding ding ding.
The phone is ringing.
Li En opened her eyes, and it took two seconds for her vision to go from blurry to clear.
The first thing you see is a wooden desk with a half-eaten pizza on it.
The cheese had solidified into a waxy yellow crust, and the edges of the crust were curled up, so dry they could be used as a frisbee.
The phone was placed next to the pizza box, and a constant ringing electronic sound came from the receiver.
He didn't take it. He straightened up a bit by supporting himself on the chair with his left hand, and reached over with his right hand to grab the hard pizza, bringing it to his mouth and taking a bite.
The bread was dry, and the edges felt like chewing cardboard, but the remaining salty and savory flavors of the sauce and cheese were still there, making it bearable.
He put the pizza in his mouth, chewing as he looked around.
This is a wooden house, quite large, but crammed full.
In the corner stood several old cabinets that had been bought from a second-hand market, their paint worn away to reveal the different colored base coat underneath.
A huge set of floor-standing speakers stood side by side against the wall, their cabinets larger than a washing machine, and the speaker grilles were covered with a thick layer of dust.
In the very center was a pool table, with several dried wine stains and a round burn mark on its green velvet cloth.
The air was filled with a mixture of old wood, dust, dried-out pizza, and a very faint smell of engine oil.
Li En stood up from the chair and stretched.
As the shoulder joints pulled back, the spine, from the cervical vertebrae to the lumbar vertebrae, emitted a crackling sound like it was about to explode.
The entire set of joints clicked in sequence, producing a dense and crisp sound.
He clenched his fist and felt the feedback from the muscle contraction.
The density of fibers beneath the skin, the extremely familiar firmness when contracting, the clean and crisp click between the knuckles when the fingers tighten.
This was almost exactly the same level of enhancement he felt when he reopened his eyes on the experimental bed after being injected with the dragon blood potion.
The body's basic attributes are much stronger than after being enhanced by the Dragon Blood Potion.
He walked to the desk, picked up the two pistols on it, and examined them.
In terms of appearance, it is extremely similar to the M1911 pistol.
The gun has clean and crisp lines, a grip angle that is slightly vertical, an exposed hammer, and a trigger guard with a large curvature.
Two pistols, one black and one white.
The black gun had a matte, dark finish, and the grip panel featured a portrait of a woman. It felt heavier in the hand than it looked.
The white gun had an ivory-white sheen, and the heat dissipation ripples on the barrel were denser than those on the black gun. The grip curvature was also slightly smaller, making it fit the hand more snugly.
Ebony and white ivory.
He ejected the magazine and glanced at it: .45 ACP, copper-cased bullet, primer intact.
He flicked the bullets out of the magazine one by one with his thumb, the spent cartridges clattering to the floor with a steady rhythm and effortless force.
By the time the thirtieth or so bullets were fired, the spent cartridge cases on the ground had scattered, but the weight of the magazine had not changed at all.
He stopped clicking the magazine, pushed it back into the grip, pressed his thumb all the way down, and locked it with a click.
He observed carefully for a moment and quickly came to a conclusion.
The muzzle rifling of ebony is completely different from that of white ivory.
Ebony rifling has deeper grooves and a larger twist rate, resulting in a slightly lower spin rate after the bullet leaves the barrel, but a higher initial velocity and greater muzzle energy.
White Ivory has denser rifling, a smaller twist rate, a faster bullet spin speed, a more stable trajectory, and more controllable recoil.
One aims for single-shot damage, the other for burst fire accuracy.
He gripped the ebony in his right hand, casually raised the muzzle of the gun to the wooden wall beside him, and pulled the trigger.
boom!
The gunshots were amplified to a deafening level in the wooden room, blasting a fist-sized hole in the wooden wall, sending wood chips flying and jagged edges flying, revealing a direct view of the street outside.
He raised the white ivory gun with his left hand and, almost as soon as the sound of the ebony gun faded, pulled the trigger three times in quick succession.
Bang bang bang.
Three bullets were fired in quick succession, leaving three smaller bullet holes next to the large hole in the ebony wood, arranged closely together with almost equal spacing.
Ebony wood is powerful, but its rate of fire is relatively slow.
White Ivory has a high rate of fire, stable trajectory, but slightly lower single-shot power.
He put both guns back into their holsters, turned around, and scanned the room with his eyes.
At that moment, the door was suddenly pushed open.
A bald man in a black suit walked in, his steps slow, his leather shoes making a dull, rhythmic sound on the wooden floor.
He stopped beside the pool table, turned to face Li En, his hands hanging at his sides, his face expressionless, his lips moving, and his voice low.
"You are Dante, aren't you, son of Sparta?"
Li En did not respond, his hands hanging naturally at his sides, his fingers less than three fingers' width from the ebony handle.
The bald man reached inside his suit jacket, pulled out a letter, and handed it to Li En.
The letter's cover was printed with a dark red coat of arms, and the sealing wax had faded to a dark brown.
Then he raised his foot and kicked the billiard table over, the entire tabletop crashing onto the wooden floor with a loud thud, the legs pointing skyward, the burnt cigarette butt burn mark facing the ceiling.
At the same instant, Li En drew his two pistols from his waist and, through the table that was still suspended in mid-air, pulled the trigger at the spot where the bald man had just been standing.
The gunshots from the ebony wood and white ivory exploded almost simultaneously.
The tabletop landed on the floor with a dull thud, and there was no one behind it.
The bald man had vanished without a trace, leaving not even a sound.
Li En reached out and caught the half-pizza that had fallen from mid-air and hadn't completely hit the ground yet, then stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it a couple of times.
Several gusts of wind came from above, the sharp and fine whistling sound of a blade cutting through the air.
Several gray figures plummeted straight down from the roof, wielding long-handled scythes that left arcs in the air as they closed in on him.
Li En lightly touched the ground with his feet and leaped backward a step and a half, landing just outside the attack range of all the blades.
The wooden floorboards underfoot creaked very slightly underfoot.
The four men were dressed in gray robes, the fabric of which had rotted away to the point that only the outlines of skeletons remained. When the hems of the robes fluttered with their movements, it was clear that there was nothing underneath.
Their bodies were truly just skeletons; the grayish-brown skulls were wrapped in tattered cloth, and two faint, dark red lights flickered deep in their eye sockets.
The sickle blade was covered with fine notches, and there was a ring of rust at the base of the blade.
Demon of the Demon Realm, Arrogance of Hell, also known as Little Black.
Li En pulled out the ebony wood with his right hand and fired a shot at the closest black dog that was charging at the front after landing.
The bullet shot out from the muzzle, passed through its skull, and pierced the center of the dark red dot of light.
The skull exploded from the inside, shards of bone flying backward. The gray robe, now without support, lay crumpled on the ground, and the scythe clattered to the side.
He raised his white ivory in his left hand and fired three shots in quick succession. The three bullets hit the other three that followed behind, all of them entering through the center of the forehead and exiting through the back of the head.
The three little black tadpoles lost all momentum almost simultaneously and fell to the ground.
Li En tucked the two pistols back into their leather sheaths at his waist and stood still.
He looked down at the scattered bone fragments and the slowly turning ashes at his feet, and at the toes of his feet on the wooden floor.
After a moment, he walked to the old coin-operated karaoke machine in the corner.
The karaoke machine's exterior was covered with faded band stickers, the buttons were worn so worn that the original numbers were no longer visible, and the metal cover of the coin slot was rusted in large patches.
He pressed a button randomly, but nothing happened.
He pressed the button several more times, but the broken machine didn't even flash the power light.
He raised his right foot and kicked the side of the karaoke machine hard.
thump.
The chassis dented slightly inward, and finally, sound came out of the speaker.
The bass drum and bass rhythms blasted out of the speakers, carrying the warm, slightly distorted tone characteristic of old-fashioned tube amplifiers. The drumbeats were clean and crisp, while the distorted guitar tone stretched into a rough line in the background.
The dynamic music filled the entire room, and even the walls seemed to tremble gently in sync with the bass.
As Li En listened to the drumbeats, he unconsciously nodded slightly in rhythm. Then he heard a series of faint sounds coming from outside the door.
It was the sound of claws scraping the ground, mixed with the dry cracking sound of bones and joints twisting. There were quite a few of them, and they were gathering towards the door.
He walked to the coat rack, reached out and grabbed the red coat draped over the back of the chair, tossed it in the air, and put it on his shoulders.
As the collar fell onto the shoulders, it stirred up a very slight breeze. The hem of the coat just reached mid-calf, and the fabric swayed gently in the low-frequency vibrations of the music.
He took the Rebel Greatsword down from the wall.
The greatsword's hilt felt slightly cool to the touch, and once gripped, the entire sword's weight was directly below my wrist.
He kicked the door open with his right foot, sending the door flying out and crashing into the ground outside, shattering in two.
The street was filled with little black animals, a dozen or more.
The gray skeleton glowed with a phosphorescent, dark white light in the night, and the two red lights in their eye sockets turned sharply towards him, locking onto his body.
Li En gripped the hilt of his greatsword tightly with his right hand, pushed off the ground, and charged towards them.
The soles of the shoes slammed heavily onto the gravel, making a rough, grinding sound.
Before the first little devil could even raise its scythe, the blade had already slashed diagonally from its left shoulder to its right waist.
The blade made a crisp snapping sound as it sliced through the spine, and the two pieces of the skeleton broke apart and scattered on the ground.
He then swung his sword horizontally, the spine of the blade striking the side of the second demon's skull, tearing the entire skull, along with half of its spine, off its torso, sending bone fragments flying.
As the music reached its climax, the drumbeats intensified, and the guitar sounds in the background twisted into an increasingly powerful wave of sound.
Li En swung his sword in rhythm with the drumbeats, each beat of the bass drum representing a strike.
When the bass drum beats down, the sword cleaves through a skeleton.
As the rhythm of the war drums cut in, the greatsword slammed horizontally, shattering the scythe handle of another demon.
He transformed the continuous drumbeats into a series of sweeping attacks from left to right, disintegrating the three demons that charged at him side by side in the same beat.
In no time, all of the dozen or so little black scythes were reduced to broken bones and rags on the ground, with scythes scattered everywhere.
The dark red rust on the blade gleamed faintly in the moonlight, and the air was filled with the dry smell of charred bones.
Li En stood still, propping his greatsword against the ground.
He looked down at the wreckage scattered on the ground and the slowly burning bone fragments, and a smile involuntarily crept onto his lips.
A surge of heat welled up from deep within the heart, spreading along the blood vessels to every part of the body, stretching every capillary open with the heat.
A refreshing and pleasant feeling spread throughout my body, making me feel light and airy from the inside out.
He stood amidst the ruins, with the narrow strip of night sky above him cut off by the buildings on both sides of the street. Moonlight filtered through the gaps between the buildings and fell right on his shoulders.
He spread his arms wide, fingers pointing upwards, as if trying to encircle the entire sky between his arms.
The wind blew in from the alley entrance, causing the hem of his coat to flutter wildly.
The burning sensation in my chest is still there, and the feeling of being alive is very clear.
He took a deep breath, the air rushing up his throat.
He opened his mouth, and the sound was forced out from his chest.
The volume wasn't loud, but it had extremely strong penetrating power, blasting out into the empty alley.
"Cool!"
Rumble.
A loud crash came from behind Li En as buildings collapsed.
The already dilapidated wooden house was first trampled by a group of skeletal demons.
After being shaken from within by Li En's roar, it finally couldn't hold on any longer.
The walls collapsed inwards, and the wooden beams of the roof broke one after another, splinters and dust gushing out, enveloping half the street in a grayish-white cloud of smoke.
Before the smoke and dust had even cleared, three red figures darted out from the shadows beside the ruins.
They lowered their bodies, put all four limbs on the ground, and arched their spines into an arc that could be launched at any moment.
Its entire body was covered with a layer of dark red carapace, and the tips of its fingers were sharp bone claws. Its head had no eyes, only a few irregular cracks embedded in its forehead, from which a red light shone through.
Hell Demon, Lust, nicknamed Little Red.
They didn't pounce immediately, but instead spread out in a fan shape, maintaining a distance that was neither too close nor too far from Li En.
The bone claws grazed the ground lightly, making a soft scraping sound.
At the same time, two enormous figures slowly emerged from the other side of the ruins.
They were much larger than Little Red, with two swollen abscesses on their bodies.
The surface of the abscess was translucent, and you could see the dark orange viscous liquid churning inside, constantly hitting the inner wall of the abscess with each step.
With each step, the ground trembled slightly.
Hellish demons, wrath, or bombs for short.
They didn't rush to get closer; instead, they slowly compressed the angle of the encirclement from the side.
The three little red animals moved at the same time.
They press their bodies firmly to the ground, their left bony claws bracing against the mud, their legs bent, their muscles stretched to the limit—and then burst forth.
Three dark red shadows shot out simultaneously from three directions, their speed creating a sharp whistling sound as they cut through the air.
Li En gripped the Rebellion Greatsword tightly in his right hand, took a step forward with his right foot, rotated his waist and hips, and swept the greatsword diagonally upward from the lower right.
The silver-white blade of light drew an arc in the air and cut into the waist and abdomen of the nearest little red one.
Without pausing, the blade continued to sweep across, using the momentum of the first strike to cut the second and third birds in half one by one.
The upper bodies of the three demons slid off the cut, while their lower bodies, still in a sprinting posture, took two more steps forward before collapsing onto the muddy ground.
At the same instant, he raised the White Ivory gun with his left hand, pointed it at the two bomb demons that were still slowly approaching, and pulled the trigger.
He didn't even aim properly. After firing three bullets, his left hand had already reached down to touch the ebony handle at his waist.
The bullet accurately struck the abscess on the shoulder of one of the bombs.
The abscess burst open, and the dark orange liquid expanded violently upon contact with air, and then—
Boom!
The blast wave swept up the bomb next to it, and both demons were blown to pieces at the same time, with shattered shells and burning bodily fluids flying everywhere.
After dealing with Little Red and the bomb, Li En didn't look at the still-burning wreckage on the ground.
He turned around and looked at the completely collapsed ruins behind him.
The wooden planks, roof beams, old sofas, and those giant stereos were all buried under scrap wood and plaster.
His gaze swept back and forth across the area twice before finally settling on the spot where the record player was hidden, and a slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth.
At that moment, a dark purple vortex spread out from beneath his feet.
The edge of the vortex tore through the ground, and darkness poured out from the cracks. Then, a figure suddenly burst out from the very center of the vortex.
Three black streaks flashed in succession, each a diagonal slash from bottom to top, so fast that the outline of the blades could not be seen clearly.
Li En wielded the Rebellion Greatsword and parried quickly.
Clang, clang, clang.
Three sharp metallic clangs rang out above the ruins.
He managed to block the attacks, but each strike carried immense force, causing his hands and feet to go numb.
The impact propelled his body into the air, and he only stopped when his back slammed into the wall of an abandoned building, leaving a spiderweb-like crack in the wall.
A black figure emerged from the dissipating vortex.
The black robe fluttered slowly in the wind, its edges tattered, revealing the equally dark and twisted skeletal structure beneath.
It held a huge scythe, the blade curved in an unnatural arc, as if it had been pulled out of the deepest darkness.
The vanguard from hell, Death.
Li En sheathed the Rebellion Greatsword back into its sheath on his back, and simultaneously drew out the Ebony and White Ivory swords with both hands.
With his feet planted firmly on the wall of the abandoned building, his knees bent, a crater exploded in the wall beneath his feet, and he was launched into the air.
The wall behind him finally gave way to the impact of the two consecutive waves, and the entire building collapsed with a deafening roar as concrete fragments and steel bars crashed onto the ground.
He pulled the trigger alternately with both hands in mid-air.
The heavy ebony bullets and the high-speed bursts of white ivory bullets alternately rained down on Death.
The hail of bullets was so dense that a trail of silver bullets appeared in the air.
Death was pinned in mid-air by the barrage of bullets, his body trembling uncontrollably. His robe was riddled with holes, and bone fragments flew out of the bullet holes as he was briefly paralyzed.
Li En had already rushed to Death's side.
He stomped his right foot in the air, without any support, but the stomp generated a real recoil force, causing him to spin and flip directly above Death's head.
At the same instant, he retracted both pistols to his waist and drew the Rebel Greatsword with his right hand.
The rotational inertia flowed from the waist and hips into the shoulders and arms, and then from the shoulders and arms into the sword, causing the greatsword to slash down fiercely from directly above the head.
The blade sliced into the center of Death's skull, running down the spine and splitting the entire body in two.
The cleaved body flew to both sides, turning into two plumes of black smoke as it landed, dissipating into the air.
Li En landed on the rubble, bending his knees slightly to absorb the impact.
He looked up at the sky; the black smoke was gradually dissipating, but it didn't trigger any further ripples.
He lowered his head and stood still, waiting quietly, but what he expected did not appear.
The ground suddenly began to shake, a continuous low-frequency tremor, and the gravel beneath my feet began to bounce.
His instincts kicked in faster than his thoughts. He leaped onto the roof of another abandoned building next door, landing on the cracked concrete floor.
Boom!!!
The ground suddenly bulged up where he had just been standing, the concrete road surface tore in the middle, and gravel and dirt surged to both sides.
A colossal tower rose from the ground, its body composed of countless irregular black stone slabs, each engraved with dense, glowing runes.
The top of the tower pierced the clouds, and the entire tower continued to climb upwards. The tremors spread in all directions along the ground, and the surrounding ruins began to collapse.
Li En stood on the edge of the rooftop, looking up at the giant tower, the Teminig Demon Tower, which was still extending upwards.
The sealing hub connecting the human world and the demon world.
Seeing this thing appear, he was now very clear about his current point in time.
In this world, there are demons and hell, but no angels.
Two thousand years ago, the demon army from the demon realm poured into the human world, burning the entire continent to ashes.
Later, a demon named Sparta appeared. He betrayed the demon realm and sealed it away by his own power, bringing two thousand years of peace to the human world.
Sparta fell in love with a human woman and they had two children.
The older brother was named Virgil, and the younger brother was named Dante.
The body he is currently inhabiting belongs to Dante.
Dante possesses Spartan blood and demonic power flowing through his veins.
He raised his head, his gaze following the tower upwards until he reached the top.
Virgil stood on the edge of the tower, his short white hair whipping in the wind, his dark blue trench coat fluttering in the breeze.
He lowered his head, his gaze meeting Li En's across the entire height of the tower.
Lee knew Virgil's purpose.
The other party wants to break the seal on the magic tower and obtain the complete power left behind by their father, Sparta.
The key to breaking the seal lies in the necklaces worn by the brothers on their chests and the Spartan blood flowing through their bodies.
He stood there, hands in his pockets, looking up at the figure at the top of the tower.
Should we just go up and fight?
He now wields the Rebellion Greatsword, ebony and white ivory, and possesses a physique enhanced by dragon blood potion, combined with Dante's own demonic bloodline.
Rush straight to the top of the tower, find Virgil, and bring this fateful duel to an early conclusion.
Theoretically, it's a route that allows for a quick completion of the game.
But when I roared to the sky just now, the surge of heat in my heart, that kind of emotion that I hadn't experienced in a long time, pure and without any calculation or purpose, was still throbbing in my chest.
While in Hell's Kitchen, he struggled to survive every day.
With your eyes open, you see the enemy's location and potential traps; with your eyes closed, you focus on how to leverage existing resources to create more strategic depth.
He assembled Hellsword, negotiated with the mob, dealt with probing from the military and S.H.I.E.L.D., raised money for the school, and tied vampires to the lab table.
One thing after another happened, and I couldn't even get a full night's sleep.
And recently, ever since Tony Stark officially donned the Mark armor and flew over Fifth Avenue, the world has been getting crazier at a visible pace.
Vampires are frequently appearing on the streets, and Skrulls have been infiltrating the upper echelons of S.H.I.E.L.D. for who knows how many years.
More would follow, one after another, things he could name and things he couldn't.
There was simply no time to stop.
But after he kicked the karaoke machine, a catchy melody burst out of the speakers.
He gripped the Rebellion Greatsword and charged into the midst of the skeletal demons, the drumbeats echoing the rhythm of each slash, the low frequencies of the bass making his feet go numb.
He suddenly rediscovered something from long ago.
That was when he was still using a keyboard and mouse, facing monsters on the screen, not for any strategic purpose, not for survival rate, not for level completion rating, but simply because it was fun.
happy.
That most primal and pure feeling.
How long has it been since I last experienced this?
Just then, the Grim Reaper, who had just been cleaved in two and vanished into black smoke, suddenly reappeared in mid-air.
Dragging its tattered robe, it flew to the top of the tower in a few flashes, landing behind Virgil. Its whole body curled up into a ball, its bony shoulders trembling slightly, and a hint of grievance appeared on its featureless face.
Virgil turned around.
He drew the Yamato sword from his waist, its blade flashing coldly through the air, and pierced the Grim Reaper's chest with a backhand motion.
The blade pierced through his back, and Death's body froze.
A moment later, it turned into a thicker, darker cloud of black smoke and completely dissipated, never to coalesce again.
Virgil didn't even turn his head.
He sheathed the Yamato and turned to leave the edge of the tower.
The hem of the dark blue trench coat was whipped up by the strong winds high above, then disappeared into the shadows of the tower's top platform.
Li En withdrew his gaze from the empty tower top, sheathed the Rebellious Greatsword behind his back, put his hands in his coat pockets, and turned to walk down into the ruins.
The soles of the shoes made a soft, even crunching sound as they stepped on the gravel and rubble.
Deep within the ruins not far ahead, the entrance to the bottom level of the Terminig Demon Tower is emitting a dark purple glow.
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