It should have hit. Every single round had undoubtedly struck the rampaging individual we had restrained. Some might have been blocked, but the damage dealt was enough that such a thing shouldn't have mattered.
The red armor was mangled, riddled with entry holes, its head and abdomen blown away. If it were a human, it was a fatal wound that would have meant instant death. That is, if the thing inside that armor had been human.
We fled. With our final trump card broken, we had no means left to resist. When I saw what was inside that armor, I'm sure every version of 'me' prepared for defeat.
There was "nothing" there.
Quinn wasn't inside. At first, I thought that the mortally wounded Quinn had simply vanished because she could no longer maintain 'Idolatry,' but I intuitively realized that wasn't it.
It was a set of armor that no one had been wearing from the start. Just an empty shell in the shape of a human. The plating damaged by the bullets was repaired instantly, and it began to move on its own without any occupant.
Among Western monsters, there is something called Living Armor. True to the name "living armor," a soul dwells within the plate itself, wandering and moving without a master.
To the eye, it looked just like that monster. And it was reasonable to assume that what was driving it wasn't a ghost, but the main body that had been absorbed.
However, there was an unidentifiable eeriness that such an explanation couldn't cover. I didn't know what it was, but I could feel it. We could never win. It wasn't a difference in ability or strength; I felt it in my bones—this was an opponent we must never cross on a fundamental level.
One by one, my comrades were being eaten. Every time, the enemy grew stronger. Yet, if I thought its goal was to finish us all off, that didn't seem to be the case either.
It was already clear that the members remaining here were no match for it. If it wanted to, the enemy could probably absorb us all in an instant. There was simply that much of a power gap.
However, the enemy's attacks remained sporadic, and I felt no intention of wiping us out immediately. I didn't think it was acting out of arrogance, or holding back, or the composure of the strong.
In any case, the fact that the enemy wasn't going all out was our only saving grace in this misfortune. Though we suffered many casualties, we managed to avoid total annihilation and retreat. To an observer, we might have looked like a pack of small animals scurrying in fear for their lives. I hoped we looked that way.
No matter how pathetic a sight we showed, not a single one of us was dominated by feelings of resignation. The enemy was powerful, and we didn't know if we would survive. That much was obvious. In the Dark Continent, the number of enemies I have fought and defeated is tiny. Even those victories were narrow ones, grasped only at the threshold of life and death.
If we gave up here, our comrades fighting the squid monster would be put in even greater peril. We didn't have the luxury of facing two threats at once. To survive, we had to defeat both. No matter how difficult the mission, we had to carry it through.
We drew the enemy's attention, buying a few precious moments. For the sake of gaining a single second, the number of sacrifices increased like a sick joke. Within that brief respite earned with so many lives, I had sent several comrades ahead.
It was to convey the plan to the other comrades who weren't here. Communication via radio waves carried the risk of interception. It had to be delivered verbally.
In the next moment, I might be swallowed by the approaching end myself. But even if I couldn't overcome my fear, I wouldn't lose my way. Amidst time that clung to us like mud, with an end even bleaker than death at our backs, we continued to lead that monster.
The evaluation we had given the Kraken that landed on the island was far too low. It wasn't just a giant creature with high regenerative power.
The change first appeared in the Quinns who were attacking the Kraken. Their skin became soft and took on a sticky moisture. They were fighting the Kraken at point-blank range and were covered in the massive amount of mucus it secreted from its entire body, so the realization was delayed, but a change was definitely occurring in Quinn's body.
Along with this, the amount of aura consumed to maintain 'Idolatry' began to increase rapidly. This was because the aura was being used to repair the abnormalities occurring in Quinn's body. Furthermore, there was no sign that the repairs would ever be completed, and the aura consumption only increased as time passed.
With injuries, detoxification, or disease treatment, consumption might spike temporarily, but it would always return to normal levels. The abnormality currently happening to Quinn brought about a continuous change. We didn't feel any specific stimulus like pain, but there was a sensation that Quinn's body was being rebuilt into something else.
The Nen ability 'Idolatry' has a restriction: 'Cannot change appearance.' Therefore, she was barely maintaining a form that didn't look much different from before. In a sense, that was troublesome. She couldn't stop the repairs by her own will, and aura was constantly consumed even if she tried to suppress it.
Also, 'cannot change appearance' can be interpreted another way: 'change is possible as long as it doesn't affect the outward look.' The transformation of Quinn's flesh was appearing prominently on the inside. The body tissues were softening; specifically, the bones were becoming as flexible as rubber. If the symptoms progressed, it would become difficult even to stand.
And those symptoms didn't just appear in Quinn. The main body was also affected. In fact, more so than Quinn, who was suppressing the symptoms with aura repairs, the main body was suffering serious damage.
First, the exoskeleton armor softened. Its strength dropped significantly. Furthermore, the eyes enlarged, and even the shape of the legs changed drastically. The six legs took on the form of squid tentacles, and four new tentacles were beginning to grow.
The body was approaching that of a squid. This was the secret behind the Kraken's insane regenerative power.
A living organism's body is composed of countless cells. Each tiny cell is fragile and cannot live long. They are easily damaged and reach their lifespan. However, following the blueprint called genes contained within, the damage is repaired, and cells divide to maintain their numbers. Microscopically, there are temporary increases and decreases, but from the perspective of the whole body, homeostasis is maintained without issue.
In the Kraken, this regeneration mechanism was abnormally enhanced. To the point where it forced its regenerative power onto the bodies of other living things.
In other words, my body was currently being 'healed' into a 'normal' state. Or perhaps this giant squid wasn't a squid at first, either. No matter what happened, it was 'healed' and rebuilt into the form of a squid.
The small squids we had fought until now didn't have this ability. They might have, but it wasn't as powerful as the Kraken's. That's why we were late to notice. We engaged it with the same feeling as when we fought the usual squids.
As for Quinn, in the worst case, we could reset the changes by reactivating 'Idolatry.' But for the main body, there was nothing to be done. I didn't think I could turn it back later. I would have no choice but to accept this form and live on.
The problem was to what extent the change would progress. Even if I changed completely from an ant into the form of a squid, I could live with that if I survived. However, if I lost my ego and spirit, that would be unacceptable. That would be the same as being dead. There was no guarantee I could maintain my current consciousness.
Regenerative power that could even alter the armor of an Almeiza Machine—looking at its dominance alone, its threat level as a Calamity was superior. The assessment that we had a chance of winning if we forced a long war was a huge mistake. The longer we fought, the more the pollution of regeneration would spread.
But as a practical matter, there was no way to remove this oversized enemy from the island. It was easy to escape the blows of its slow-moving tentacles, but every time a tentacle thrashed, a massive amount of secretion was scattered. Just touching that mucus was 'out.' Regeneration would begin.
The ceaseless flow of secretion rained down like water, soaking the ground. There was no way to avoid it other than keeping our distance. And this island wasn't large enough for us to keep running forever. We could only do our best to stop the Kraken's advance while bracing for the symptoms to worsen.
It could only be described as the worst-case scenario. However, even worse news arrived. A mysterious, rampaging individual had appeared among our comrades.
This was information directly conveyed by the unit that had engaged it. It wasn't a story I could readily believe, but the extraordinary state of the comrades who had fled felt real. And when I saw the actual rampaging individual that appeared, I instantly understood the meaning of the fear those who were attacked wanted to convey.
Having absorbed many main bodies, that doll had grown to over three meters. There was no longer any trace of Quinn.
When encountering an unknown threat, the instinct to measure the gap in strength between oneself and the enemy kicks in. This isn't a special ability, but a skill naturally acquired by those living in the wild. Of course, it doesn't tell you the enemy's detailed combat power, and intuition can be wrong. But somehow, you just know.
'I must never make an enemy of this.' My intuition told me so without evidence. It was a warning so strong it outweighed even the Kraken. I desperately fought back the unconscious urge of my legs to turn and run.
In the face of that monster, the rear units had lured the enemy this far without regard for their lives. I couldn't run away here.
To destroy that monster, a maximum-power attack was necessary. '[Cyst Burst]'. The power of a projectile with an initial velocity exceeding Mach 15 would vanish the impact point through energy based purely on physical laws. No defense could mean anything in the face of such destructive power.
The cannons for that were all gathered in this place. Originally deployed for the Kraken, they were now aimed at the anomaly that had arisen among our own. A single shot would be powerful enough. A simultaneous barrage surrounding it had been planned.
If it hit, they would die. Killing the rampaging individual was a given, but our comrades were also within the range of that destruction. They were the rear units that had brought the enemy this far. If we waited for them to retreat to a safe place, we would miss the chance to attack.
I had to bury the comrades who had fled with desperate resolve with my own hands. My Quinn was trembling. What kind of feelings are required to involve your own allies? I wanted to help the comrades I had lived and helped this far.
However, I also knew that hesitating to attack because of those emotions would be the greatest insult to them. The operation had assumed that sacrifice from the start. The comrades who became decoys stood in that place, prepared for their own sacrifice from the beginning.
If I were in the same position as them, what would I do? I understood.
The enemy would reach the mission point shortly. The decoy units, which had been scurrying about as if in a panic until then, stopped their acting and charged fiercely at the enemy. A resolve that didn't care what happened to themselves. Would the enemy, lured out while engrossed in the hunt, be able to understand that state of mind? Did we look like pathetic rats driven into a corner, jumping in out of desperation?
There was no way it could know. That courage, that nobility. How could a monster that lost its heart understand? I was seized by a fierce rage that made me want to scream. I couldn't stay calm.
'We will inherit their legacy. We will move forward. We must live for the sake of the comrades who were sacrificed.' Such pretty words crawled up from the bottom of my stomach. The will that I must fire and the will that I still couldn't fire clashed and intertwined, driving my consciousness into a gray zone between the two.
"[FIRE!]"
The order was given. That single word shattered the equilibrium of the void.