Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 382 - 35: Flare

"Sun Hang?" Zhong Ling probed again.

"I’m fine." Sun Hang shook his head, flicking the rainwater off his face, "I just swallowed that anomaly, got a bit choked accidentally."

Sun Hang immediately checked Wang Xiyi’s condition; the Meme Virus inside her had been completely cleared. Now all she had to do was wait for her damaged memes to self-repair—as for physical injuries, for a holder of the Black Dragon meme, unless beheaded directly, those could only be considered minor injuries.

However, Gargantel’s situation was less optimistic—not only had his body suffered serious trauma, but his meme fragments were torn apart completely.

The meme of the anomaly remains is between anomaly and infected, originally belonging to that type of "incomplete evolution" defect. Dubhe Tower transformed these anomaly remains into anomalous equipment for Zhong Ling to use, in a sense, this could also be considered a form of waste recycling.

"How do you plan to handle it?" Sun Hang looked at the twitching "Gargantel" lying in the mud, and then turned to Zhong Ling, "Feels like... there’s no hope."

"Just follow the regulations." Zhong Ling said softly.

Following the regulations for handling such "scrapped" anomalous equipment essentially meant "harmless disposal," which just sounded more euphemistic.

Sun Hang stepped forward, bound Gargantel with mycelium, then pressed his right fingertips together into a blade and thrust it directly into the crown of Gargantel.

The liquid metal coating his fingertips easily penetrated Gargantel’s hard skull, and ghostly blue dragon flames flashed by, completely incinerating Gargantel’s brain matter along with the remnants of broken memes within.

The enormous body knelt with its head down, completely still.

Rain struck its body, with skin gradually dissolving, exposing the decaying flesh and fat underneath.

Sun Hang turned to Zhong Ling—despite the mask of her protective suit, Sun Hang could clearly see a line of bright red blood oozing from her nostrils, sliding along her pale skin to her chin.

Her complexion was very pale, and if the anomaly 001 hadn’t been standing behind her, supporting her shoulders, she might have already collapsed to the ground.

"When anomalous equipment is dealt with, will it affect you too?" Sun Hang asked.

"I’m fine... It’s just some shock when the consciousness link is severed." Zhong Ling explained.

"I should’ve known to let the Dubhe Tower people do this job." Sun Hang said, "Looking at you now, I feel like you could faint at any moment."

"It’s right to deal with it sooner..." Zhong Ling shook her head, "A dying anomaly’s consciousness will lose control, whether it sinks into despair, sorrow, or madness, it can easily affect me as the adapter... Even if you hadn’t taken action, I would’ve severed the consciousness link myself."

"Short pain is better than long pain, right." Sun Hang looked up at the rain showing no sign of stopping, then said, "You’ve lost that big guy, suffered backlash from severing the consciousness link, and lost the capacity to continue acting." 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

As Sun Hang spoke, he loaded a flare into a signal gun and fired it skyward.

"You stay here and wait for the rescue team."

"What about you?" Zhong Ling asked.

"I’ll keep moving forward."

"I want to go with you." Zhong Ling said again.

"Am I supposed to leave Mr. Wang alone in this wilderness?" Sun Hang tossed Mr. Wang over, anomaly 001 scooped him effortlessly—despite Wang Xiyi’s height just over 180 cm and slender frame, after a full Black Dragon meme transformation, she weighed over six tons. Only freakishly strong beings like Sun Hang or anomaly 001 could toss her casually.

"..." Zhong Ling was silent.

"That’s an order; you stay here with Wang Xiyi, wait for rescue." Sun Hang picked up the sample collection equipment originally carried by Gargantel, "By the way, do these things really need four people to operate?"

"In an emergency... two people can manage." Zhong Ling bit her lip unwillingly.

"Then if it’s just me but I have four hands, I can operate them solo?" Sun Hang "wove" two additional long arms from mycelium, "If that’s not enough, I can add a few more."

Zhong Ling nodded.

"Then I’m relieved." Sun Hang hefted the equipment, which was several times larger than his body, onto his shoulder.

"You’ve ended up alone; why continue?" Zhong Ling asked, "Can’t the other teams finish this mission?"

"Our team was already the strongest, yet look at us now." Sun Hang smiled, "Do you think the others are doing better?"

"..."

"Besides, acting alone might even raise the success rate."

"...Do you really consider me a burden?" Zhong Ling suddenly asked.

"I never said that." Sun Hang replied innocently.

"Why are you leaving me behind?"

"To be honest, ever since I woke up in the hospital, this world hasn’t shown me much kindness." Sun Hang said, "I don’t care about others’ lives. If it weren’t for Mr. Pei’s deal, I wouldn’t be risking myself for the Federation..."