Chapter 290: Posthumous Work (9)
“Boom! Rumble!”
“Bang! Bang bang bang!”
“Splat! Splat splat!”
Everly barreled through the harbor in a fire truck, crashing recklessly from one obstacle to another and creating an enormous commotion.
Any monster that got in her way—whether mutated humans or sea anemone tentacles—was met head-on. She neither swerved nor slowed down. Trusting in the fire truck’s rugged construction, she kept her foot planted on the accelerator, plowing straight through them, sending countless monsters flying or crushing them beneath the wheels. Before long, the windshield was plastered with yellow and green slime.
Fortunately, all that muck made the truck’s exterior extremely slick. Even when monsters managed to latch onto the sides with their tentacles and suction cups, a sharp turn of the steering wheel was usually enough to fling them back off.
Ignoring every traffic rule imaginable, Everly drove wildly for nearly ten minutes. She literally forced a path through piles of monsters and wreckage before finally reaching the southeastern container yard she had been aiming for.
The magic circle she had spotted earlier was just ahead. Following the road a little farther would bring her right to it.
Along with the magic circle were more than a dozen slowly writhing flesh-mound monsters.
Everly still had no idea how these creatures attacked. However, considering that the flesh-mound monsters had been transformed from cultists, were much rarer than the mutated humans, and would probably qualify as elite enemies in any game, she suspected their combat strength was only likely to be greater, not weaker.
The fire truck’s water tank still contained more than half a tank of highly flammable gasoline.
If she drove too close and one of the flesh-mound monsters damaged the fuel tank, triggering an explosion that caught her in the blast, the consequences would be disastrous.
To avoid taking that risk, Everly decided to keep her distance.
The flesh-mound monsters remained active only around the magic circle, while the fire truck’s high-pressure water cannon had a maximum range of sixty meters—more than enough to cover the entire area where they roamed.
She brought the truck to a stop about thirty meters from the magic circle.
Click!
As soon as the fire truck came to a stop, the mutated humans chasing it surged forward like a tidal wave, surrounding the vehicle. Their tentacles lashed out frantically, hammering the truck’s body with a deafening barrage of clangs.
Mixed in among them were sea anemone tentacles that had emerged from who knew where. They were clearly more intelligent than the mutated humans. Climbing onto the mutants’ bodies, they repeatedly slammed themselves against the windows, aiming directly at Everly inside the cab. They resembled giant fleas that felt no pain, throwing themselves at the glass over and over again.
In an instant, the scene descended into utter chaos.
Fortunately, fire trucks are built to withstand fires and explosions, with exceptionally sturdy construction. Had it been an ordinary vehicle, it probably wouldn’t have survived the monsters’ relentless assault.
Everly didn’t even consider using the door. Setting aside whether the monster-blocked door could still be opened, even if she managed to push it open, she’d be swarmed the moment she stepped outside. That would be nothing short of s**cide.
Instead, she escaped through the roof hatch above the driver’s seat.
The truck’s high chassis turned out to be an advantage. The monsters, caught up in their frantic assault, hadn’t yet managed to climb onto the roof. Seizing the opportunity, Everly climbed out through the hatch, sprinted across the steel framework of the aerial ladder mounted on top of the truck, and in just a few strides reached the ladder’s turntable platform at the rear.
The moment the monsters noticed her moving, they swarmed after her like fish chasing irresistible bait.
The turntable was a small open-air platform that served as the aerial ladder’s main control station. The ladder’s power switch, hydraulic control levers, acceleration and deceleration buttons, and every other control were all located there.
The platform stood less than a meter above the ground, putting Everly well within reach of the mutated humans and sea anemone tentacles below. But she had no choice. To activate the aerial ladder and the high-pressure water cannon, she had to operate the controls from the turntable.
Fortunately, Everly had studied how to operate the aerial ladder beforehand.
After sprinting to the turntable, Everly took advantage of the brief window before the monsters caught up. Her hands flew across the control panel with a rapid series of clicks. She pressed the aerial ladder’s power switch, pulled the hydraulic lever, adjusted its height and direction, and aimed the ladder straight at the magic circle ahead.
Creeeak…
As she pressed the final button, the aerial ladder mounted above the cab began to rise slowly under the force of the hydraulic pump.
By then, however, the monsters chasing Everly had already reached her.
She leaped upward, grabbing the ladder’s steel frame firmly with both hands. Planting one foot against the platform, she pulled her center of gravity upward while whipping both legs through a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree sweep, kicking every monster that had crowded around her and sending them flying.
As she tucked her legs back in, she used the upward rebound to push off the ladder frame again. Her body rose nimbly, and within moments she had climbed to a height of nearly two meters.
“Raaagh!”
Seeing this, the monsters below became even more frenzied.
Packed shoulder to shoulder, they shoved and climbed over one another. Within moments, they had unintentionally formed a sloping ramp made entirely of their companions’ bodies beneath the truck.
Using that grisly ramp as a foothold, the monsters in the rear charged forward with furious roars. Mimicking Everly, they grabbed onto the ladder with hands, feet, and tentacles alike, scrambling upward in a desperate race to catch her.
Perhaps because they had extra tentacles to aid their grip, the mutated humans climbed the ladder with astonishing speed, gradually threatening to overtake Everly.
She had only climbed halfway when the first monster reached her feet.
To shake it off, Everly shifted her posture, straddling the steel framework of the ladder with her legs spread apart while gripping the rails with both hands. Then she drove her left foot hard into the creature’s grotesquely twisted octopus-like head.
The kick burst its skull open in a spray of pulp, and its limp body slipped from the ladder, tumbling to the ground below.
She had barely climbed a little farther after kicking that monster away when another one was already at her feet.
If it had only been the mutated humans, it wouldn’t have been so bad. The real problem was the sea anemone tentacles hitching rides among them. The slightest lapse in attention, and one would suddenly spring forward, just like a facehugger from a sci-fi horror film, lunging straight for her vital areas. Even with her fireproof suit on, those little monsters were more than enough to make her life miserable.
Fighting off monsters while struggling upward, Everly finally climbed into the personnel basket at the very tip of the aerial ladder, drenched in sweat.
Fortunately, once she had a stable platform beneath her feet, dealing with the monsters that climbed up after her became much easier.
Everly carried several melee weapons with her. Drawing the machete strapped to her waist, she dispatched the pursuing monsters as effortlessly as chopping vegetables. Then she hoisted the high-pressure water cannon onto her shoulder, aimed it at the magic circle on the ground diagonally ahead, and opened the nozzle.
Whoosh!
The pale-yellow gasoline shot from the nozzle like a high-speed arrow, streaking toward the magic circle below and blasting the ritual items arranged upon it in every direction.
“Roooar!”
The flesh-mound monsters guarding the magic circle immediately sensed something was wrong. Their massive bodies slowly turned, and the dark, hollow eye sockets of the skulls embedded atop them all fixed upon Everly on the aerial ladder. Deep, muffled roars echoed from within their bodies.
Everly was not the kind of person to quietly endure being threatened.
Seeing them roar at her, she immediately swung the water cannon toward the flesh-mound monsters and sprayed them without the slightest hesitation.
The high-pressure stream slammed into their bodies like an invisible water blade, gouging deep dents into their flesh. Before long, the monsters’ tough outer skin was sliced open by the razor-sharp jet, exposing an interior as porous and spongy as a giant sea sponge.
Inside those sponge-like cavities writhed countless crimson tentacles.
The pressurized stream severed them within the monsters’ bodies. The tentacles convulsed violently as large quantities of yellow-green pus poured from the freshly cut wounds.
As the yellow-green fluid spilled onto the ground, a chorus of sizzles rang out.
Everly watched as the hardened concrete was eaten away, deep grooves rapidly appearing wherever the liquid flowed.
The yellow-green bodily fluid was actually corrosive!
Everly silently congratulated herself for not charging in recklessly. If she had fought the flesh-mound monsters up close and been splashed with that corrosive fluid, she would have been in serious trouble.
After drenching both the magic circle and the surrounding monsters with gasoline from the high-pressure water cannon, the fuel tank finally ran dry.
Letting out a long breath, Everly tossed aside the water cannon. Gripping the railing of the personnel basket with both hands, she fixed her eyes on the fire truck’s cab below, swung herself forward, and jumped.
Thud!
She landed heavily on the roof of the cab, the impact sending a dull ache through her knees and shins.
But she had no time to worry about the pain.
Seeing her jump down, the monsters on the aerial ladder immediately followed, raining down like dumplings dropped into boiling water. Most of them crashed onto the ground or the truck’s rear compartment, but several landed directly on top of the cab.
To avoid being surrounded, Everly gritted her teeth against the pain and used both hands and feet to kick every nearby monster off the roof. Then she dropped back into the driver’s seat through the roof hatch, started the engine, and slammed the accelerator, driving straight toward the magic circle.
Since the aerial ladder was still extended, monsters continued to tumble from its framework as the truck sped forward. They crashed onto the roof with a constant barrage of loud bangs and thuds.
Everly ignored every single one of them.
Her entire focus was on driving. She smashed through anything that blocked her path, and when the truck was finally close enough to the magic circle, she seized the moment.
Cracking the driver’s window open just a little, she pulled out a windproof lighter.
Click.
The flame sprang to life.
Without hesitation, Everly tossed the lit lighter through the gap in the window, sending it straight onto the nearest flesh-mound monster.
She didn’t even bother closing the window afterward.
The instant she threw the lighter, she yanked the steering wheel, floored the accelerator, and sped away as fast as the fire truck could carry her.
“Whoooosh—BOOM!!”
The fire truck hadn’t made it very far before a pillar of flames shot into the sky, followed immediately by a deafening explosion.
The blast wave slammed into the vehicle. The side windows could no longer withstand the pressure, cracking with a sharp crack as spiderweb fractures spread across the glass. The instrument panel’s cover shattered into countless fragments, spraying Everly’s face with shards.
Ignoring the pain, she stubbornly kept driving.
The entire truck felt as though it had been thrown into a giant washing machine, lurching violently—one moment soaring into the air, the next crashing back down. Since Everly wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, she was tossed around helplessly inside the cab, her head ricocheting between the steering wheel and the rear seat like a pinball. She nearly threw up.
It wasn’t until she finally escaped the blast radius that she looked up—
—and was met with a breathtaking sight.
Have you ever seen a watercolor painting on a wall during the rainy season, after moisture has seeped into it?
Drops of water gather under gravity into thin streams that trickle down the wall. As they pass over the watercolor, the pigments dissolve into the water, blending with neighboring colors. The result is curtain-like streaks of color trailing downward, as though the painting had grown the flowing train of a formal gown.
Now, right before her eyes…
A painting was doing exactly that.
The title of the painting was “The World.”
The distant sky looked as though it had been painted onto a canvas. Heavy with moisture, it bled downward, shedding white tears.
Beneath the sky, the deep-blue sea caught those tears. White and blue mingled together, and where ocean met land, even more blue-and-white droplets formed.
By the time the effect reached the harbor, the colors became increasingly chaotic. The crimson steel frameworks, the charcoal-gray buildings, the yellow crane booms, the green shipping containers…
Everything within sight that possessed color began to resemble melting wax.
Twisted and distorted, every hue was pulled downward into long, flowing streaks of color, as though the entire world itself were dissolving into wet paint.
A damp, chilly sensation slid across her palm.
Everly looked down and discovered that, at some point, the steering wheel in her hands had also begun to melt, collapsing into a rapidly sagging mass of shapeless black.
It wasn’t just the steering wheel.
Her fireproof suit, the driver’s seat beneath her, and even the fire truck itself all seemed to have been made of papier-mâché. They softened, became waterlogged, and slowly caved inward.
Caught completely off guard, Everly lost her footing and fell helplessly into an ocean of color.
Countless colors swirled together, blending into a filthy, murky brown-black.
Enveloped by the sea of pigments, Everly smelled that familiar odor once again—
the stench of rotting flesh, mixed with the pungent scent of turpentine.
The thick, acrid, murky fumes rushed straight into her nose, making her head swim and her stomach churn with nausea.
She thrashed desperately, struggling through the viscous sea.
Riiip!
Amid the chaos, the faint sound of paper tearing came from somewhere.
In the next instant, weightlessness overtook her.
Once again, Everly began an uncontrollable fall.
…
