My avatar is becoming the final boss

Chapter 324 The Black Chrysalis's Time Stop (Seeking Monthly Tickets)

“Let’s not beat around the bush, Mr. Ghost Bell, I want to steal your abilities for a bit,” said Black Chrysalis.

"..."

It was noon on August 12th, and there was only one and a half days left before the official start of the battle on the nameless island.

The Osaka bookstore is located one floor below, in the basement.

Gu Zhuo was wearing a white vest. He had just finished exercising in the stuffy basement, and his forehead was still covered in sweat. His muscles, red from blood stasis, were undulating slightly.

Seeing that he didn't react, Black Chrysalis pondered for a moment, then rested her hand on her chin and said:

"No, the word 'steal' is too dirty and filthy. To be precise, it should be 'borrow.' Doesn't that sound much better... Hmm, why are you glaring at me? Is it to make your eyes look bigger?"

"Steal my superpower?" Gu Zhuo asked in a deep voice, wiping sweat with a towel while looking down.

“That’s right.” Black Chrysalis nodded. “Here’s what happened. I heard from Mr. Su Wei that your ability has evolved, right? Now you can reliably stop time.”

"And then?" Gu Zhuoan looked up.

"Then I will steal your abilities, and naturally I will also be in the evolved form, which is a win-win situation for both of us."

Where is the win-win situation?

Gu Zhuo draped the towel over his shoulders, turned his head, and looked coldly at Hei Chang.

"Please, we're partners." Black Chrysalis lifted the restraints, rubbing her forehead in disappointment. "How can you say such cold things? Are you satisfied if I die in front of you?"

“You can hurry up and die,” Gu Zhuoan said coldly, without a second’s hesitation.

Black Chrysalis squinted, and the two stared at each other. Candles lit up the basement, illuminating their figures. Su Wei had moved a stool and a tea table and was sitting down to drink tea.

Seeing that the atmosphere had suddenly become tense, Su Wei spoke up to break the silence.

"The Zhuo case." Su Wei said, then suddenly rubbed the bridge of her nose, hesitated, and added, "Never mind, never mind..."

"In short, I need your cooperation so I can tie you up with restraints." Black Chrysalis put her hands on her hips. "That way I can copy your abilities. From now on, I'll be the Black Clock Tower Man, and you'll be the Terrifying Clock Tower Man. We'll be the Clock Tower Man father and son."

"No chance." Gu Zhuo'an said firmly, "If you want to steal superpowers, go find Mu Long, or you can steal the superpowers of those bastards from Hong Yi and play with them. Don't bother me."

"I'm annoyed with you, I'm annoyed with you." Black Chrysalis whistled.

Gu Zhuo'an's lips twitched slightly.

"Let him give it a try," Su Wei said without looking up. "Don't have so many opinions."

Gu Zhuo frowned, crossed his arms, and remained silent for a moment before finally sighing reluctantly, "Fine... since my father-in-law has said so."

"Hey, don't be so shy. We're all family. It's no big deal to be close." The black pupa's restraints waved in mid-air, seemingly ready to pounce.

"Hurry up and finish, or I'll have to sew your mouth shut."

"Ok."

The black cocoon grinned, extending its restraints forward to wrap around Gu Zhuo'an's entire body. He could see that Gu Zhuo'an's body was still somewhat resisting.

The power of a natural disaster was indeed not to be underestimated. The restraints struggled against the bulging muscles in his forearms. After a while, the other party restrained his strength, and the restraints successfully surrounded Gu Zhuo'an, leaving only his head to breathe.

Under the effect of the "restraint belt detection", the attribute panel of Gu Zhuo's case was presented in front of Hei Chang.

[Achievement conditions: Touching the target's body, and activating the passive skill "Restraint Detection."]

[Target Gender: Male]

[Target Attributes: Strength: S++; Speed: S; Spirit: A++]

Superhuman

Even when he was still at the Quasi-Cataclysmic level, Gu Zhuo'an's power attribute was the most outstanding among the three attributes. And after advancing to the Catastrophe level, Gu Zhuo'an's power naturally became even more terrifying.

As the saying goes, "When God closes a door, he opens another." Although God closed the door to the Ghost Bell's intellect, He made up for it with his physical abilities. Isn't this a manifestation of great love?

"S-rank attributes should be above SS-rank, right? SS-rank should be the data that only Mythic and Restricted ranks can achieve... No, Restricted-rank attributes should be a string of question marks?"

Black Chrysalis scratched his chin, looking at the attributes of Ghost Bell as he pondered.

Gu Zhuo'an kept a straight face. He forced himself not to look up and glare at this guy, lest he be scolded by his father-in-law for no reason again.

"I'm so excited! This is the first time I've ever actually stolen the ability to reliably stop time. I can't wait to show it off."

As Black Chrysalis spoke, she activated "Power Stealing".

In an instant, the restraints began to writhe like snakes, tightening their grip on Gu Zhuo'an's body. After a while, the restraints slowly shimmered with a silvery sheen, as if they had been washed by the river of time, thus acquiring a new color.

[Note: Your restraints have stolen the supernatural abilities of the ability user "Ghost Bell," which can be released within 48 hours (the stored supernatural abilities will automatically disappear after "releasing the skill" or "exceeding the time limit").]

[Special Ability Introduction: "Shadow of the Clock Tower"]
1. Create a clock tower where the hour hand rotates to a specified point in time every 5 seconds. The clock tower at each point in time will exert different powers. (The hour hand cannot rotate to the same point twice consecutively.)

2. Raise your shadow from the ground and make it your most loyal warrior. (The shadow itself has no power, but it may change according to the clock tower's hour.)

At this moment, the power of the twelve clock towers flowed into the black pupa's mind, like water dissolving into water, the entire process proceeding smoothly.

This amount of information is negligible compared to the vast amount of memories that flooded into the brain when the machine was created. In just a moment, the Black Chrysalis mastered the use of twelve abilities and constructed a combat system in its brain.

“My God…” Black Chrysalis looked up and said with a sigh, “Is this ability real? Why would a muscleman like you need twelve abilities? It’s unfair.”

"Are you done yet?" Gu Zhuo asked impatiently.

"Of course it's done."

As the black pupa spoke, it extended a restraint strap that shimmered with a faint silvery hue.

The moment the end touched the ground, a ten-meter-tall clock tower rose from the ground and stood in the very center of the basement, followed by a faint chime. "Only ten meters?" Gu Zhuo'an frowned. "It's a whole head shorter than me. Are you sure this piece of junk will work?"

“I understand, I understand. You’re the kind of person with a confrontational personality that’s talked about online, Mr. Ghost Bell. Can’t you say a few more words of praise? Do you usually treat your child like this? If you praised your son Blue Arc a few more times, he might not have done that… Okay, let’s not talk about him anymore, and don’t look at me like that.”

The black pupa rambled on and on, leaning against the surface of the clock tower.

Su Wei squinted at the tall clock tower, paused for a moment, then couldn't help but adjust her glasses, a slight smile playing on her lips.

He thought to himself, "As expected, Gu Wenyu is a true genius among those with superpowers."

Whether it's Gu Qiye, Gu Wenyu, or even Su Zimai, in Su Wei's eyes they are all exceptionally talented ability users, but this is also thanks to their parents—Su Ying was originally a genius exorcist, but she wasted many years and lost her resonance with the Sky Exorcist; Gu Zhuo'an is even more of a time-type catastrophe-level ability user, and you can't find many people of this type even if you search through history books.

“Su Ying, although you want your children to live an ordinary life, their talents don’t allow them to do so…” Su Wei sipped her tea and murmured with a sigh.

"Let me see, turning to twelve o'clock means a two-second pause, right?" With that, Black Chrysalis knocked on the clock tower, and the hands on the huge clock face began to turn, then stopped abruptly, pointing straight to the number "12" at the top.

Watching this scene, Gu Zhuo narrowed his eyes slightly, seemingly not believing that the black chrysalis could really steal his time-stopping ability.

But at that very moment, the clock tower roared. Amidst the trembling, a vast expanse of mercury-silver spread out, enveloping every inch of the basement floor, then the walls, and even the ceiling, all stained the same color.

In the utter silence of the world, mercury was scattered across the ground like moonlight, or flowed in a hazy, river-like manner, gradually engulfing everything.

Gu Zhuo'an's expression froze on his face, his pupils contracted slightly, and his eyebrows almost knitted together.
Not far away, Su Wei placed her teacup on the table, her face showing undisguised surprise.

Black Chrysalis raised its right hand and released the restraint avatar in half a second. The avatar took half a second to form and then half a second to bind Gu Zhuoan with the restraint avatar.

He wanted to try and see if he could steal a clock tower himself, and then have his avatar steal one as well. That way, he could stop time twice, and if one time wasn't enough to deal with the enemy, he could do it again.

Unfortunately, he failed.

[Note: Unit 1 cannot steal the same target's ability twice consecutively within 24 hours (this rule applies to both clones and the original unit).]

"There's a 24-hour cooldown period, so the main body and the clone can't steal the same ability," Black Chrysalis thought to herself, looking down. "What a pity, I was planning to steal two time-based abilities to use in the finals."

In that instant, the silvery hue that had enveloped the world faded away, like the tide flowing back from the beach into the sea. The clock tower chimed again, causing the black pupa to scratch its ears.

The flow of time only paused for 1.5 seconds. The Black Chrysalis had ultimately stolen a clumsy version of the superpower, unable to extend the time stop to 2 seconds like the Ghost Bell.

But that's enough. The battlefield is ever-changing, and having 1.5 seconds to control time is enough to change the situation—this shows how powerful Ghost Bell's ability is, and how clumsy the user's mind is.

From Su Wei and Gu Zhuo'an's perspective, it was as if the black pupa had instantly created a clone. Then, that clone instantly bound Gu Zhuo'an's body with restraints.

They were stunned for a moment, then they immediately came to their senses and realized that the black pupa had just paused time.

"Is that... a clone?" Su Wei narrowed her eyes, her focus instead on the restraints released by the black cocoon that transformed into the clone.

"It actually works." Gu Zhuoan murmured, "Looks like you, this worm, aren't as useless as I thought."

"Thank you for the compliment," Black Chrysalis said. "Aren't you curious why it's my clone who's binding you now?"

Gu Zhuo looked at the crooked, not yet fully formed restraint strap avatar.

"What else do you want to do?" he asked.

“Actually, I wanted to try having my clone steal your ability too, but I failed.” Black Chrysalis shrugged. “I can’t steal a target’s ability twice in a row, and my clone is no exception.”

"You've got quite a few tricks up your sleeve." Gu Zhuo took a deep breath. "Are you satisfied now? Let me go."

“Satisfied.” Black Chrysalis said, and the restraints transformed and retracted from Gu Zhuoan’s body. Then, his entire body turned into a cloud of scorching steam and evaporated.

He clapped his hands and continued, "The war will begin in the early morning of the 14th. I must steal your abilities again before then, which is the afternoon of the 13th."

Gu Zhuo was about to say something when Su Wei interrupted him.

“Listen to him, Zhuo An.” Su Wei sat on the wooden stool and opened the lid of the teapot.

"Come find me in a day." Gu Zhuoan draped the towel he used to wipe his sweat over his shoulders, walked to the tea table, and slowly sat down on the stool.

He hung his head, drenched in sweat, and closed his eyes to rest, while Su Wei quietly brewed tea.

“That’s right, we’re comrades.” Black Chrysalis nodded in satisfaction. “Enjoy your last moments of peace, you two.”

Just then, a white-haired boy walked down from the passageway at the basement entrance, with a round, blue little shark sitting on his shoulder.

“We’ve arrived, Mr. Ghost Bell, Mr. Su Wei, and Mr. Big Fluttering Moth,” Caesar said with a smile.

Why am I Mr. Fluttering Moth?

“Ah, because Agubaru often calls you that, I misspoke.” Caesar covered his mouth.

"Never mind, it doesn't matter." Black Chrysalis put her hands on her hips. "Since you're here, why don't you show your little companions to our two collaborators?"

"We'll wait and see." Su Wei smiled gently, picked up the teapot, and filled several teacups with tea.

Gu Zhuoan kept his head down and remained silent.

From the very beginning, he had no hope for the child or the mysterious shark. He thought to himself that no matter what, he shouldn't entrust the task of revenge to outsiders, especially since this outsider was just a teenager.

"This place is too narrow; it's not enough to show even half of Shark's power," Yagubaru said, crossing his arms with his fins and scoffing. "Couldn't we find a better spot?"

“Half their strength is enough,” Black Chrysalis said. “Let’s quickly open their eyes to a whole new world.”

"Why is this shark just like you, so talkative?" Gu Zhuoan asked casually. "Can't you guys be a little less talkative?"

"What did you say? Shark has been putting up with you for too long—!" Yagubalu was furious, and then angrily leaped off Caesar's shoulder and pounced forward. At that moment, its size expanded rapidly.

In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a colossal creature whose full form was obscured, its bloody maw opening wide toward Gu Zhuo'an.

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(End of this chapter)