Mystery: Gray Walker

Chapter 86 The Final Calculation

Please help me... say sorry to Green...

Victor's final "I'm sorry" echoed in Green's mind.

The sound was so clear, as if it were right next to my ear.

Green's pupils suddenly contracted.

At the same time, he saw a fleeting glimpse of coldness in Mariana's eyes.

That wasn't love, it wasn't tenderness, it wasn't any human emotion.

That's the patience of a predator.

It is the indifference of a spider watching a flying insect fall into its web and waiting for it to exhaust its last struggle.

"I don't need your peace," Green said hoarsely.

Then, he did something that neither Marianne nor Clarice expected—

He neither shot at the drop of liquid nor attacked Mariana.

Instead, he suddenly raised his left hand and, with all his might, slapped himself hard across the face.

"Snapped!"

The crisp sound echoed in the room.

My left cheek burned with pain, and the taste of blood filled my mouth again.

But the pain brought him completely to his senses.

"I don't need to forget."

Green stared at Marianne and said, word by word, "Pain, regret, anger... these are the proof that I'm alive. If I can even forget these, what difference is there between me and those puppets you drained dry?"

For the first time, the smile on Mariana's face disappeared.

Instead, there was a hint of annoyance at being offended.

"Foolish," she said coldly. "Refusing 'Mother's' gifts is the biggest mistake of your life."

The drop of golden liquid no longer hovered gently, but instead shot violently toward Green's face!

But Green was prepared.

As the liquid shot towards him, he rolled to the side and pulled the trigger at the same time.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The three gunshots rang out almost in quick succession.

The three silver anti-magic bullets were not fired at Marianna, nor at the drop of liquid.

Instead, it shot towards the three corners of the room, towards the thick, nourishing vines that extended from the walls and ceiling!

The silver bullet pierced the vines, bursting forth with a dazzling purifying light.

The vines convulsed violently, and dark red sap gushed out like a fountain, causing a brief disruption in the pulsation that transported nutrients.

Mariana let out a painful scream.

The spiritual energy around her surged violently, and for the first time, genuine anger appeared in her dark green vortex pupils.

"How dare you—!"

But her anger lasted only a moment.

Because at the very moment Green fired his gun to distract her, Clarice moved.

This was the gap she had been waiting for.

Marianna's attention was drawn to Green, distracted by the pain of the damaged vines, and disturbed by her own anger.

Even half a second is enough for her, the "Guardian of Knowledge".

She had begun to consider feasible solutions the moment she stepped into the room, but no matter which one she chose, she couldn't do it alone, so she could only wait.

Waiting for her teammates to come and support her might give her a chance to fight back, but she didn't expect to be met by Green, whose fighting ability was almost zero.

Unbeknownst to her, Alvin and Rick were outside stopping the nearly out-of-control "assassin" Emily.

But in any case, Clarice finally got this fleeting opportunity, and her 'analysis' ability was put to the limit.

In her eyes, Mariana's filthy and boundless spiritual aura was no longer a chaotic mess; within it, a violent vortex of turbulent emotions had been generated.

At the center of these vortices, several relatively stable, heart-like 'highlighted nodes' faintly emerge.

There's another one, located between her eyebrows, slightly to the left of her chest, and another one, deeply embedded inside the tree trunk, near the 'uterus' area below her waist.

The third one! That's the core of the ritual and the pollution, and also the most vulnerable point right now, because it's in a state of 'transformation' and 'output,' and its defenses are relatively scattered.

Clarice moved.

Instead of rushing towards Marianna, she moved quickly along the edge of the room, firing her Demon-Slaying Revolver continuously.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The bullets weren't aimed at Mariana herself, but rather precisely at the vines connecting the guests who hadn't yet been devoured, and at several seemingly insignificant, strangely glowing patterns on the wall.

Her attacks were precise and targeted.

By further disrupting the ritual setting, continuing to provoke and distract Mariana, and positioning herself as a troublesome "needs to be eliminated but is a later priority"...

"Annoying bugs!"

Marianne's anger was indeed partly drawn to Clarice's 'insidious' harassment. A thick vine, like a giant python, lashed out at Clarice.

As if she had anticipated this, Clarice fell to the side half a second in advance, vines grazing her back as she crashed to the ground, sending pebbles flying.

She tumbled and rolled around in a disheveled state, her skirt torn and her arms scraped as she got up, but her eyes remained calm, and the gun in her hand was once again pointed at another rune.

"Is this all you're good for—these pointless struggles?"

Marianna's voice was mocking, and more vines surrounded Clarice from all directions, blocking her movement.

"Poor Sequence 7, you can't even comprehend the immense power you face! All your calculations are a joke in the face of absolute strength!"

Clarice was cornered, where vines intertwined and slowly tightened.

With her back against the cold stone wall, she seemed to have nowhere to escape. She stopped shooting, raised her pale face, and looked up at Marianna, who stood high above her.

Just when Mariana thought Clarice would be afraid and plead, Clarice suddenly laughed.

The smile was faint, even tinged with weariness, but there was no fear in it, only a kind of... insightful pity.

"A great being?" Clarisse's voice was crisp. "To cling to a pathetic corpse, consumed by desire, and to achieve that laughable 'ascension' by absorbing the meager life force of mortals... Is this what you call 'greatness'?"

She shook her head. "No, Marianna, or rather... a puppet. You are nothing but a pathetic worm consumed by eternal hunger. Your 'power' is built upon devouring and polluting; your 'eternity' is constructed from the wails of countless souls. You have little of your own will left; how can you claim to be great?"

Clarice's words directly negated the significance of Marianne's existence.

This was not only to provoke her, but also to test whether Mariana still had any humanity left.

Will she be affected by this, and will she have a specific reaction to the pollutants of the "Mother Tree of Desire" who "deny its existence"?

Mariana's angry expression froze instantly, then began to contort.

"You...you actually doubt my existence?!" Mariana's face twisted in a ferocious grin, and the pulse of the entire tree trunk accelerated wildly. The men who were being devoured let out their final screams and were instantly sucked dry into corpses.

Her spiritual fluctuations experienced an unprecedentedly violent upheaval, and the 'core node' located deep within the tree trunk became exceptionally clear, even slightly exposed, due to intense emotions and accelerated energy extraction!

It's now!

This is exactly what Clarice has been waiting for! It's the only 'attack window' she's calculated could possibly succeed!

She stopped looking at Marianne and, with all her might, shouted at Green not far away, "Green! The trunk! Three feet below her waist, inside to the left! That wildly beating 'heart'! Fire! With all your bullets!!"

She accurately provided the attack coordinates.

At the same time, she slammed the empty revolver in her hand into the oncoming vines, and with her other hand, she quickly pulled out a handful of powder mixed with silver powder, mint shavings and some kind of dried resin from the small bag at her waist, ignited it with her spiritual power, and threw it into the air!

A burst of silvery light, mixed with a cool, pungent scent, briefly disrupted the vines' senses and the sweet aroma in the room.

This was her last resort to disrupt Green, to buy him those fractions of a second.