Today, they too are going to their deaths.

The explosives failed to detonate, the cult leaders escaped, and a monster appeared before them.

Clearly, the monster is related to the Snake Worship Cult.

Cui Xun wasn't sure whether it was an angel from a cult or the deity worshipped by the cult itself, but as long as they were related, it was doomed!

The monster also felt it should kill this murderous human.

All its eyes turned to Cui Xun.

It's a strange feeling to be stared at by eight eyes at the same time, especially the eyes of a monster.

Cui Xun could sense that those gazes had weight, warmth, and even a smell—a dry smell, with the scent of ozone and metal, like the kind of smell that permeates the air before a thunderstorm.

Those gazes were like a bolt of lightning, striking his mind.

At that very moment, Cui Xun noticed something.

He changed.

Not physically, but something deeper, something more fundamental.

It felt like he was wearing glasses with the wrong prescription, and now they were suddenly smashed to pieces by a hundred-ton truck coming straight at him, but he was still standing there, surprised to find that the world could be seen so clearly.

A force was surging forth from the depths of his body, as if it were an extension of his mind and limbs, possessing the power to reshape the world at will.

Cui Xun had a thought.

As a result, the wings of the gliding cape trembled slightly, abruptly extending by nearly half a meter, and the curvature of the wings became sharper, causing his flight speed to surge.

Cui Xun tried to think of the word "ascend".

So he suddenly drew a steep upward arc in the sky.

In this strange space, facing the monster before him, his willpower seemed to transform into a tangible force.

In the words of those novels, is this called awakening, mutation, or sublimation?

It doesn't matter anymore. All he needs to know is that he's become stronger and has a greater chance of killing the monster in front of him.

Cui Xun used his willpower to suspend himself in mid-air, observing the monster in the distance that suddenly became tense.

Its eyes were fixed on him, its pupils contracted to their limit, and its arm movements were faster than before.

It truly sensed the threat.

A monster and a human stared at each other.

Cui Xun suddenly smiled.

He had made up his mind to kill the monster in front of him, but only at this moment, only when he awakened this power and felt the monster's vigilance, did he suddenly realize that this was a great thing, something worth giving his life for, rather than something he simply wanted to do as usual.

It was as if Don Quixote had encountered his own giant, and the madman's delusions and folly were suddenly proven to be correct.

It's not that he's crazy, but that everyone else is too foolish. He is the true hero and knight, and he will save everyone.

Even with only a skinny horse, ill-fitting armor, and a spear, he would fight with all his might to plunge the spear tip into the giant's heart.

Because only he could do it, only he could accomplish it.

Faced with such romance, what man could resist smiling?

A monster that doesn't understand romance can't laugh; it only wants to kill its opponents.

Its pupils suddenly dilated, and eight bright blue beams shot out from its eyes in succession, each as tall as a person.

Long after the beam of light pierced the air, a sharp, intermittent cracking sound finally rang out.

Cui Xun couldn't catch up with the beam of light, but he was faster than the monster's eyeballs in terms of rotation and focusing.

He flipped at an impossible speed and angle, like a leaf caught in a gale, passing through the gaps between beams of light.

The first beam nearly grazed his left shoulder, the second passed close to the top of his head, and the third, fourth, and fifth beams shot from three directions simultaneously. He suddenly stopped and fell, letting the beams cross overhead.

Next came the sixth, seventh, eighth... and forty-second beams.

None of the monster's attacks hit their mark, and Cui Xun found a suitable shooting angle while dodging.

He raised the crossbow, aimed, and pulled the trigger in one fluid motion.

The sound of the crossbow bolt leaving the bowstring was very soft, insignificant compared to the crackling sound of the beams tearing through the air, but its flight trajectory was very steady, easily passing through the gaps between the beams and flying towards the eyeball on the monster's first left arm.

The moment the crossbow bolt struck his eyeball, Cui Xun's willpower surged through a connection he couldn't even explain.

He didn't consciously think about it; he just instinctively hoped that the crossbow bolt would fly faster, more accurately, and more ruthlessly, preferably piercing deep into the monster's body and destroying its eyeballs.

This intense killing intent replaced the explosives, releasing a more concentrated explosion, flames, and shockwave after the crossbow bolt pierced the monster's eyeball.

Faced with such a ruthless blow, it was no surprise that his eyeballs exploded.

Large amounts of pale blue liquid spurted from the ruptured eye socket, flying through the air in a trajectory that pleased Cui Xun.

The monster then let out a sound.

It wasn't a roar; he wasn't that angry. Nor was it a scream; he wasn't that terrified. The sound was extremely low in frequency, like someone striking the inside of a giant bell, the echo lingering long afterward, conveying a command to everyone who heard it.

Perhaps this is some kind of mental ability.

But it was ineffective against Cui Xun.

Cui Xun didn't give the monster time to react.

He loaded his second crossbow bolt, adjusted his height, and darted past the monster, making sure he remained at the edge of the beam's field of fire, like a matador circling a mad bull.

Then, they launched another attack.

It hit; the second eyeball exploded.

The monster's body trembled, whether from pain or some other purpose, its copper-green scales stood up, revealing their silvery-white inner surfaces.

Unable to guess the answer, Cui Xun chose to press his advantage.

The third, fourth, and fifth attacks were just like the monster's previous pursuit of him, but Cui Xun's counterattacks were more precise and deadly, each strike clearly removing an eyeball and weakening the monster's power.

Until the sixth crossbow bolt was fired, the monster was left with only two eyes.

So it chose to close its eyes.

The thick scales deflected the seventh crossbow bolt.

The maximum amount of willpower that a weapon can withstand is extremely low. No matter how Cui Xun imagined killing the monster, he could not break through the scales' defense with his crossbow bolts.

The monster clearly realized this, so it changed its tactics.

It loosens its grip on the office building, stretches its body, sways freely in the air, and then launches a decisive collision.

Its over fifty-meter-long body burst forth with astonishing acceleration, stretching into a blurry streak of light as it moved at high speed, so fast that Cui Xun had absolutely no chance of escaping by gliding alone.

Instead of panicking and dodging, Cui Xun chose to use his grappling hook.

The moment the rope taut, his body was pulled sideways away from its original position. The monster's impact grazed past him, and the airflow swirled him around twice, almost causing him to loosen his grip on the grappling hook. However, he ultimately landed unharmed inside a nearby commercial building.

After rushing a distance, the monster realized it had missed its target.

It turned its head, briefly opened its eyes, crossed numerous obstacles to lock onto Cui Xun, and then launched a second attack.

This attack was accompanied by the monster's roar, which was even more violent than the previous bell chimes. It was like an earthquake rumbling from the depths of the earth, making Cui Xun feel his bones tremble.

At that moment, Cui Xun had just leaped out from the other end of the building and returned to the air.

He was just a hair's breadth away from being hit by the monster, but because of that, he clearly saw how the monster destroyed the building.

It's very easy, like swimming through a seaweed field.

The steel frame, facing forces unimaginable to humankind, emitted a piercing shriek, bending, breaking, and being uprooted from its concrete foundation as the monster advanced.

The entire 60-story building was smashed in two like a piece of paper. The upper half detached from the base, carrying countless shards of glass, twisted steel bars, and rolled-up concrete slabs, and slowly and irreversibly fell into the void above the upside-down city.

The fragments glittered under the streetlights, like a snow falling backwards.

Cui Xun used his grappling hook to grab something from the snow.

A steel bar, a threaded steel bar, about two meters long, was just the right thickness for him, like a lance, so he tucked it under his arm.

With a lance in hand, the knight naturally needed an opponent.

The monster emerged from the collapsed building. Apart from the blue blood that spurted out when its eyeballs burst, it had no other wounds on its body. The fragile building was clearly no match for it. Only the knight's lance could pierce its flesh.

Cui Xun revealed a somewhat ferocious expression.

He recalled that Wang Yu once showed a documentary about medieval jousting in the studio, pointing to a guy on the screen who had been stabbed off his horse by a lance and saying, "Look, the lance will break at the moment of impact. It is designed with this structure because if the kinetic energy is not released, the rider's arm will be ruined."

Cui Xun didn't know if willpower could help him release the kinetic energy.

His arm might be ruined, but that's a problem for later.

The cloak's wings tightened abruptly, and Cui Xun plummeted straight towards the monster like a hawk crashing into the water.

The simultaneous beams of light from both eyes grazed past his head, and the caresses of four arms failed to disrupt his trajectory in the slightest. He passed through all the monster's protection, heading straight for the location of the seventh eye.

The force that seemed to manipulate reality surged wildly into the steel bars, causing them to radiate a cool, silvery-white light from the inside out, like moonlight compressed into a single line.

The light spread, rotated, and accelerated along the spiral, finally piercing the scales and penetrating the monster's body.

The seventh eye exploded, and pale blue blood splattered directly onto Cui Xun's body, seemingly trying to corrode his clothes. However, it retreated and slipped away in the face of his resolute willpower, leaving only an indescribable smell.

The monster's body convulsed violently, its eight arms stretched outwards at the same time, and its last eyeball turned towards Cui Xun, its pupil dilating to almost fill the entire iris.

Before it could deliver its fatal blow, Cui Xun loosened the steel bars and flew out along with the monster's momentum.

But this time, he failed to dodge the beam perfectly.

The beam sliced ​​through the air, through concrete fragments, through steel bars, and through everything that blocked the monster's view, ultimately severing a small piece of Cui Xun's shoulder and half of his cloak.

Cui Xun's flight path veered slightly as a result, but the gushing blood replaced the cloak, and the crimson mist, under the command of his willpower, transformed into flowing blood-red wings, dragging his body through a perilous roll, bringing him to a position close to the monster's head.

When the monster opened its eyes, all of them opened at once. Thus, the shattered eye sockets of the eyeballs were revealed on the arm near its head.

This is perfect for stuffing something in!

Cui Xun took out the second explosive charge he had prepared for Kailong Saike, pulled off the fuse, and then stuffed it into the wound.

Blood immediately submerged it, but the explosives still detonated successfully.

This was the first time Cui Xun had heard the monster's painful roar.

It could no longer endure it. The sound, which was originally deep and solemn, like the tolling of bells or an earthquake, became sharp and piercing, and in the end, only hatred and madness remained.

The explosive power far exceeded Cui Xun's expectations. This weapon, which he had personally crafted, seemed to have become beyond reason because it carried too much of his determination, so much so that the diameter of the exploding fireball exceeded forty meters.

Even though Cui Xun had fled at full speed and used his willpower to protect himself with his cloak, the shockwave still caught up with him, causing him to tumble and roll in the air more than a dozen times.

His left calf struck a flying shard of debris, and after a dull pain, his entire leg began to lose sensation.

But it was all worth it.

The monster was almost completely destroyed by the explosion. Most of its head was mangled and rotten, leaving only a few broken bone fragments, a thin layer of skin, and something that looked like nerves twitching in the air.

Its blood cascaded down like a waterfall, forming a luminous river, and its seaweed-like tail, in some kind of spasmodic instinctive reaction, actually began to sway in that river.

Cui Xun never imagined that he would describe the near death of a creature as absurd.

In fact, if the monster were a normal creature with a brain, it should already be dead by now.

But it is not something weak; it is a monster that transcends reality, defies common sense, and emerges from fantasy.

It is still alive, and even healthier than Cui Xun imagined.

Its body contracted violently, and the copper-green scales softened, flowed, and reshaped around its last remaining eye, like wax.

The body length of fifty meters shrank to twenty meters, ten meters, five meters, and finally only three meters, and all the injuries disappeared along with this shrinkage.

It transformed into a smaller, more compact form, and the color of its scales changed from verdigris to a deep, almost black, dark green.

The last remaining eyeball was fixed in the center of the monster, its pupil forming a cross shape, revealing an eerie holiness.

A streamlined body, a tail like a whip blade, and four slender, long, and sharp arms that are as agile as blades.

Just like after being attacked by Cui Xun, it remembered what hurt it and thus underwent targeted evolution.

It was no longer a dragon unable to react to the knight's charge, but a fully armed master who was proficient in the dance of slaughter.

Cui Xun let out a deep breath.

He doesn't like gambling.

But if someone were to place a bet on this second round of battle, he would definitely bet everything on the option of dying and winning.

Death was his self-awareness, victory was his confidence and desire.