Chapter 314: An Unlucky Vacation (End)
The moment Gary hit the water, the helicopter overhead reacted as though its tail had caught fire. Its rotors spun furiously, buzzing loudly as it shot upward and sped away in a flash.
By the time Gary’s soaking-wet head emerged from the sea, the helicopter had already retreated more than a dozen meters into the distance.
Everly’s speedboat had also streaked several meters away to the side, carving a foamy white wake across the water.
“Wow…”
Unable to help himself, Gary let out a whistle. Grinning with excitement, he plunged headfirst back beneath the surface.
…
Everly had come to the conclusion that there was definitely something unnatural about this guy.
If you’ve watched enough slasher films, you’ll notice that the killers in those movies seem to come with built-in GPS and teleportation abilities. No matter where the protagonist runs, the killer always manages to locate their hiding place with uncanny precision, then suddenly appears from behind a door, outside a window, up in a tree, beneath the water—or any other conceivable or inconceivable hiding spot—scaring the poor protagonist half to death.
Gary was the same.
Everly had already put a considerable distance between them. Worried that Gary might catch up, she had even manipulated the currents behind the boat, pushing everything in the water away from the speedboat.
Yet as she continued driving, her heart suddenly began pounding violently.
At the same time, Buddy barked a warning.
“Woof! Woof!”
A chill shot down her spine.
She whipped her head around—and nearly jumped out of her skin.
Somehow, Gary had appeared clinging to the side of the speedboat like a drowned ghost. No one knew when he’d grabbed hold of the hull, but he was already hauling himself upward with alarming speed.
Even after everything she’d seen—the monsters, the supernatural horrors—Everly’s scalp still tingled at the sight.
This made absolutely no sense.
The speedboat was traveling at 75 km/h—about 20 meters per second.
Was that really a speed any human could possibly swim?
Abandoning the wheel, Everly snatched a handgun from the bag beside her, vaulted out of the cabin, and immediately opened fire at Gary.
Unfortunately, the one she was facing was the enhanced Gary.
Bullets that had once at least managed to punch a few token holes through his body now bounced harmlessly off his skin with sharp clack, clack sounds, as though they were made of rubber. They couldn’t even break the surface of his skin.
That alone would have been bad enough.
But when one of the bullets struck Gary squarely in the eye, he did something straight out of an action movie.
His eyelid snapped shut.
His eyelashes pressed down.
And he caught the bullet with his eyelid.
The motion looked oddly like a playful wink.
His eyelid lifted again.
Clink.
The trapped bullet fell onto the deck.
Staring at the flattened, misshapen round, Everly felt like she’d truly seen a ghost.
The handgun was useless.
As Gary braced himself on the gunwale and swung one long leg over, preparing to climb aboard, Everly immediately threw the pistol aside. She grabbed the harpoon lying on the deck and thrust it toward him, trying to shove him back into the sea.
It was just as futile.
Gary couldn’t even be bothered to dodge the razor-sharp harpoon.
When Everly drove the weapon toward him, it was like a child trying to push an elephant with a wooden stick. Not only did it fail to move him in the slightest, but because she couldn’t pull back in time, a tremendous force surged from the other end of the shaft.
She lost her footing.
In an instant, Gary used the harpoon itself to yank her straight toward him.
Thrust!
What awaited Everly was a blade that pierced clean through her.
Perhaps intending to keep her alive so he could torment her at his leisure, Gary deliberately avoided any vital organs. Instead, the knife drove into her right shoulder.
Everly let out a muffled grunt.
Seizing the precious opportunity to get close, she immediately reached behind Gary’s back and frantically felt around the sheath strapped there.
Ever since Gary had first appeared, she’d been watching him carefully, trying to figure out where he might be hiding his items.
He wore nothing more than an ordinary white T-shirt on top and a pair of brightly patterned swim trunks below.
The swim trunks had almost certainly belonged to one of the campers he’d murdered. From that, Everly inferred that the battle between the original Gary and his duplicate had ultimately ended with the original emerging victorious and absorbing the copy.
There wasn’t a single pocket on his clothes.
And insane as Gary was, surely he wasn’t stuffing items into his swim trunks.
That left only one possible hiding place:
the sheath on his back that held his machete.
It was precisely because she’d reached that conclusion that Everly hadn’t let go of the harpoon. She had intentionally allowed herself to be wounded in exchange for a chance to get within arm’s reach of Gary.
But the moment she got a clear look at the thing strapped to the young man’s back, her heart sank.
She had expected his “sheath” to be something like a multifunction shoulder bag—or at least some other kind of storage container.
Instead, what she found was a crude arrangement of unevenly tied ropes.
Lashed between those knots were multiple sheaths of varying sizes.
Gary’s beloved machete rested in one of them.
The dagger currently buried in Everly’s shoulder had likewise been drawn from another sheath attached to the same tangle of ropes.
Apart from the cold weapons and their sheaths, Everly saw nothing else woven among the ropes.
The worst-case scenario had come true.
Gary most likely hadn’t taken the other items at all.
Or perhaps he had taken them, decided he didn’t need them, and simply discarded or destroyed them, keeping only the ball of yarn he actually wanted.
Come to think of it, that made perfect sense.
Gary was the villain of a slasher film.
What he enjoyed was the sensation of blades slicing through flesh, the chorus of screams and agonized cries, and blood spraying everywhere—not casually tossing out some supernatural item to kill people from afar. Even in the movies, if the protagonists kicked a gun right to his feet, Gary would ignore it with disdain. Compared to firearms, those supernatural items interested him even less.
But if that was the case…
What was she supposed to do now?!
After a brief moment of panic, Everly drew a deep breath.
Her emotions quickly settled back into icy calm.
She had already come this far.
There was no other choice.
She could only try summoning the whirlpool first.
Everly steadied her mind and called out to the sea.
It required imagination.
She pictured a pair of unimaginably enormous hands slowly stirring the ocean in a counterclockwise motion.
Their owner shared an intimate bond with the sea. No matter how wild and untamable the ocean might be, before those colossal hands it remained obedient and utterly loyal.
But the sea was simply too vast.
Too boundless.
Too unimaginably heavy.
Even favored by the ocean itself, commanding such an immense body of water was an extraordinarily difficult feat for a mortal.
It would not happen instantly.
Hidden from all eyes, the invisible giant hands slowly began to move, centered on the speedboat.
One circle.
Two circles.
Three…
Before the giant whirlpool could fully take shape, Everly had to keep Gary occupied and prevent him from noticing anything unusual and leaving the area.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have enough psychic power left to summon a second whirlpool.
With that in mind, she ignored the risk of tearing her wound open.
She suddenly stepped backward, wrenching her pierced shoulder free from the dagger.
Then, while Gary’s attention remained fixed on her upper body, she dropped her center of gravity, drove up a knee, twisted her waist, and delivered a vicious knee strike straight at the most vulnerable part beneath his swim trunks.
Four circles. Five…
“Mm…”
The instant her knee slammed into his groin, Everly felt as though she’d kicked a solid steel plate.
Agonizing pain shot from her kneecap through her entire leg. Unable to help herself, she let out a muffled groan at the exact same moment Gary did.
Everly was definitely in pain.
Gary… seemed to be in pain too.
At least, that’s what she thought at first.
Then she watched him throw back his head and laugh.
He raised the dagger high overhead, its gleaming blade pointing straight down, then stretched out his neck and slowly licked the blood staining its edge with the tip of his tongue.
He savored the taste for a moment.
Then his eyes curved into crescents, a faint blush spread across his cheeks, and he tilted his head, flashing Everly a radiant smile.
“Everly, it’s been almost a year since we last met, and you’re just as passionate as ever. But this…” He smiled even more brightly. “This isn’t enough to kill me. You need to hit harder… be crueler… make me feel even more pain and despair…”
“…Like this!”
With that, he casually tossed aside the dagger that had pierced Everly’s shoulder.
His hand reached behind his back.
In one smooth motion, he drew the enormous machete strapped there.
Six circles. Seven. Eight…
The massive blade looked absurdly light in Gary’s hand, as if it were made of paper rather than steel.
Without any obvious exertion, he merely pushed off lightly with his right foot.
Bang!
A dull impact echoed across the deck.
The solid metal beneath his foot instantly caved in, leaving a deep crater as though it had been struck by a meteorite.
And Gary—
Propelled forward by the recoil alone—
Shot toward Everly.
Whoosh!
The heavy machete cleaved through the air with a shrill howl as it came crashing down toward her face.
Everly twisted sideways, narrowly evading the strike.
Even so, a loose strand of her hair was grazed by the blade’s tip.
The golden lock was cleanly severed, drifting softly to the deck.
Before she had even finished dodging the first attack, Gary had already reversed the machete’s momentum.
The blade came sweeping upward from below at a vicious angle, slashing diagonally toward Everly’s upper body once more.
Nine circles. Ten. Eleven…
The water always started out slowly.
But as time passed, inertia took over. The surrounding currents spun faster and faster, their movement becoming smoother and more fluid. Little by little, a whirlpool centered on the speedboat began to take shape.
Everly desperately dodged Gary’s relentless attacks.
On countless occasions, she escaped being struck by the narrowest of margins.
Fortunately, Gary had never received any formal combat training. Everything he knew was self-taught, rough, and instinctive. Combined with Everly’s ability to manipulate the waves and tilt the speedboat whenever necessary to aid her evasions, it was enough to keep her alive this long.
Even so, as her stamina and psychic power continued to drain away, the outcome was obvious.
The longer the fight lasted, the greater the chance that one of Gary’s blows would finally land.
“Why do you keep dodging? Why won’t you attack me anymore? I’m so disappointed… Is this really all you’ve got?”
After several swings in a row failed to draw blood, Gary grew visibly irritated.
Gripping the machete, he began hacking wildly, his movements seemingly devoid of any pattern.
His performance was so convincing that even Everly was fooled.
She never imagined it was all a trap.
Whoosh!
The blade that had been slashing straight toward her suddenly changed direction halfway through its arc.
By the time Everly realized what was happening, she had only enough time to throw up an arm to block.
“Mm…!”
The blade scraped past.
A burst of searing pain followed.
A deep gash was carved into her left forearm, so deep that bone was visible beneath the torn flesh.
Spatters of blood landed across Gary’s face.
He slowly licked his lips.
In an instant, his expression shifted from gloomy irritation to sunny delight. His smile even carried a trace of pity.
“I lied~ I wasn’t angry with you at all.”
“You’re only an ordinary human. Being weak isn’t your fault. You’re simply trapped by the limits of your flesh.”
“But I’m different.”
“I have no limits.”
“I can keep growing forever… becoming stronger and stronger…”
“So stop resisting.”
He smiled warmly, almost invitingly.
“Come on, Everly. Join me.”
“Let me kill you.”
“Let me eat you.”
“Let me absorb you.”
“Once you’re inside my body… you’ll get to share everything that I am.”
As Gary’s voice grew more and more impassioned, so did his assault.
The white machete sliced through the air so quickly that it left afterimages in its wake.
Twelve circles. Thirteen. Fourteen…
Just as another slash came hurtling toward Everly’s face—
Creeeak!
The speedboat beneath their feet lurched violently.
The whirlpool was complete.
A surge of joy flashed through Everly.
She stopped suppressing the ocean’s power and allowed the whirlpool to spin and devour everything of its own accord.
Creeeak… CREEAK, CREEAK…
A series of deep, groaning sounds of twisting metal erupted from beneath the hull.
An overwhelming pulling force seized the boat.
The stern sank rapidly while the bow pitched upward like an iron standing on end, spinning faster and faster as it pointed diagonally toward the distant sky.
Everly didn’t resist.
Instead, she let herself fall backward with the motion, bending into a back arch before rolling smoothly across the deck. In one fluid movement, she reached the opposite side of the boat, opening up distance between herself and Gary.
Then, enduring the splitting agony pounding through her mind, she raised her blood-soaked right hand—
And viciously flipped Gary the middle finger.
The instant the gesture was made, before Gary could even react, Everly grabbed the gunwale. Pushing off the side of the boat with both feet, she hurled herself backward.
In the blink of an eye, she vanished into the whirlpool below.
By the time Gary reached the rail, all he saw were crimson streaks spreading across the water.
Everly’s blood.
Creeeak…
The ominous groaning grew louder.
The speedboat spun faster and faster.
Had anyone been looking down from the sky at that moment, they would have seen an enormous whirlpool spanning an area the size of several sports stadiums.
At its very center was the tiny speedboat.
Directly beneath it yawned a pitch-black, funnel-shaped maw, greedily swallowing the vessel’s stern.
Against the whirlpool’s terrifying power, solid steel proved as fragile as paper.
The boat’s metal hull crumpled and twisted under the crushing force, dragged inexorably downward into the depths.
On the wrecked speedboat, Gary showed not the slightest trace of fear.
Instead, like a child discovering a fascinating new toy, he stared at the whirlpool with wide-eyed curiosity. Leaning over the rail, he stretched out an arm, trying to touch the churning waters below.
Reflected in his pupils—
was the sea rushing ever closer.
BOOM!
The boat spun faster and faster.
At last, with one long, mournful groan, the white speedboat lurched violently downward and was swallowed whole by the pitch-black whirlpool.
By then, Everly had already used her mermaid tail to swim through the whirlpool’s enormous radius—an area as large as an entire sports stadium—and reached the calmer waters beyond.
Her head hurt.
After summoning the giant whirlpool, her psychic power had already been nearly exhausted. Yet during her escape, she’d also relied on the mermaid tail to swim.
Using both abilities back-to-back had completely drained her mind.
It felt as though a chisel were hammering relentlessly into her temples. Each throb darkened her vision, and her consciousness began to blur.
But she hadn’t had a choice.
The whirlpool affected far more than the ocean’s surface.
Hundreds of meters beneath the waves, violent underwater currents twisted and spiraled just as fiercely. They were like countless invisible hands hidden beneath the sea, grabbing and dragging down anything that passed through them.
Without the mermaid tail, Everly would never have been able to swim out of the whirlpool’s deadly reach on her own.
The wounds on her shoulder and arm had been repeatedly torn open and soaked in seawater during the swim, making them even worse.
Fortunately, physical injuries could still be treated with the panacea. Two drops were enough to heal most of the damage.
Mental exhaustion, however, was another matter.
That couldn’t be recovered in such a short time.
Horror Movie Survival Rule Rule #22: Never let your guard down until you’ve confirmed you’re completely safe.
Even though she had watched Gary get dragged beneath the whirlpool with her own eyes, Everly still didn’t dare relax.
There was no way someone like Gary would be trapped by nothing more than a whirlpool.
Sooner or later, he would escape.
She had to seize this opportunity to get away.
The farther she could run before he resurfaced, the better.
With her psychic power completely exhausted, Everly could only grit her teeth through the pounding headache and overwhelming fatigue, swimming like an ordinary person.
She drove her arms and legs as hard as she could, pushing herself farther and farther away from the whirlpool.
Faster…
Just a little faster…
If luck was on her side, maybe she could hold out until UII arrived…
Splash!
A strange sound of something breaking through the water came from behind her.
Everly’s heart sank.
She whirled around in shock.
Just a few meters away, a soaked, grotesquely crooked head suddenly emerged from the sea.
The owner of the head reached up with both hands.
Crack!
With a sickening twist, he snapped his neck back into place after it had been wrenched crooked by the whirlpool.
His brown eyes sparkled brilliantly as they remained fixed on Everly.
His trembling voice quivered with morbid delight and obsessive longing.
“Ah… ah… This is… wonderful!”
“Everly… just as I thought.”
“You never disappoint me.”
“I want you more than ever.”
The moment he finished speaking, Gary abruptly sank beneath the surface once more, dissolving into a scattering of splashes before vanishing from sight.
Everly’s heart pounded wildly.
Ignoring the agonizing pain drilling through her skull, she desperately churned her arms and legs while trying once again to summon her mermaid tail.
But depleted psychic power was depleted psychic power.
No miraculous burst of strength was going to appear simply because her life was on the line.
She tried again.
And again.
Each attempt failed to gather enough water to form the tail.
Instead, forcing her psychic power beyond its limit only made the dizziness worse, her mind growing increasingly foggy.
She had no idea how long she swam.
Then, through her fading consciousness—
Slap.
A cold, rough hand clamped tightly around her ankle.
“Got you~”
A damp, sinister male voice whispered from behind her.
Everly turned her head.
Her pupils shrank to pinpoints as Gary’s grotesquely twisted grin came into view…
…along with the dagger raised high above his head.
SPLASH!
In the very next instant, an enormous wall of water exploded upward.
A colossal black-and-white figure burst through the waves.
Its gigantic jaws yawned open in midair—
aimed directly at the two of them locked in confrontation.
The sudden turn of events came so abruptly that neither Everly nor Gary had time to react.
All they could do was stare blankly as the gigantic creature burst from the sea without warning, baring rows of razor-sharp teeth at the two of them.
Boom!
After hanging in the air for a brief instant, the enormous shadow traced a perfect arc before crashing back into the ocean.
Towering waves several meters high surged skyward.
Everly was helplessly swept backward, carried a considerable distance by the force of the water.
By the time she rubbed her stinging eyes and resurfaced, the sea around her had become eerily empty.
Gary was nowhere to be seen.