This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!

Chapter 43: Chapter 043 Out of Control

Chen Ke had no choice but to lift his hand and shoot at the dog, the Flame Bullets trailing a red trajectory through the air toward the beast.

Ordinarily, bullets wouldn’t leave a colored trail through the air unless they were tracer rounds, but almost all official Spiritual Bullets with an attribute and civilian-made flame bombs would leave behind a colored trail after being fired.

The dog moved swiftly and nimbly through the hallway, darting left and right, causing Chen Ke to waste several shots. Hitting a fast-moving target was extremely difficult, even for Chen Ke.

Within a mere two seconds, the dog had charged up to Chen Ke, pouncing fiercely with its trifurcated mouth open like a three-pronged hook, aiming for Chen Ke’s neck and head.

Chen Ke’s left hand burst forth with white light, and in an instant, a circular shield with spikes appeared in his hand.

The Blood-soaked Shield!

...

He swung the shield upwards in a shield bash to the dog’s head. A dull thud was heard as the side of the dog’s face was pierced with three bloody holes. However, due to its large size and Chen Ke’s limited arm strength, he was unable to send it flying very far.

The dog rolled on the ground, immediately got up, and took a step back to put a slight distance between itself and Chen Ke, roughly three steps away. It showed wariness toward the shield in Chen Ke’s hand and the Flame Bullets, with blood still oozing from the three holes in its face, and one side of its jaw appeared to be dislocated.

The strange dog slightly lowered its head, its body slightly curved as it paced back and forth, growling low in its throat. Its two blood-red eyes were fixated on Chen Ke.

Only then did Chen Ke notice that its eyes had no pupils.

“You sure are ugly,” Chen Ke said with a deep voice.

He braced the shield with his left hand and aimed his PPQ.45 at the dog with his right, but he didn’t shoot rashly. Given the dog’s speed, Chen Ke figured he wouldn’t have time for a magazine change; he reckoned there should still be seven or eight bullets left in the chamber.

As he faced off with the dog, he suddenly felt his left wrist lose sensation. Glancing down instinctively, he was utterly shocked.

His left sleeve’s fabric was rotting away as if it were decaying, turning moldy black and wrinkling into tatters. His entire left hand had turned purple-black, the veins bulging underneath the skin and starting to slowly shrivel and wither!

The shield bash from earlier had caused the dog’s purple venom to splash onto his own shield and left wrist, and he hadn’t expected to be poisoned like this. It wasn’t just his left hand—the withering sensation was slowly spreading to his entire left arm.

It was a forceful neurotoxic withering poison!

“Consume 30% lifespan to eliminate the Corrosion Element’s effect.”

The message flickered at the corner of his eye, and his left hand visibly reversed the withering condition, returning to its normal state, but the damaged clothing was beyond repair.

This time, the consumption of his lifespan wasn’t 30 minutes but 30% of his overall lifespan! It seemed the venom he had just encountered was lethal… The dog wasn’t attacking him again; it was trying to exhaust him to death.

Moreover, as the upper limit of his lifespan increased, the lifespan consumed to heal fatal injuries also increased, changing from a fixed time to a percentage…

Chen Ke instinctively thought of something. Could he keep reviving as long as his life countdown didn’t reach 0?

“Minimum Fatal Injury Consumption: 30% of Lifespan Limit”

As soon as he thought this, another message appeared in the corner of his eye.

Chen Ke sighed. It seemed that as his lifespan limit increased, the consumption needed to heal fatal injuries would indeed increase proportionally.

Now he had a 10-hour lifespan limit; healing once would cost 3 hours. If left with only 2 hours when struck by a soul-penetrating shot, then death would be inevitable…

“Consume 20 minutes to summon Holy Relics.”

A tattered coat replaced the clothes on Chen Ke’s body.

[Old Doctor’s Coat]

[Durability: Standard]

[Corrosion Protection: Acid Damage Mitigation, Immunity to Splashed Acid Damage, Halved Damage in Drenched Acid]

This coat only protected against acid attribute damage. Although uncertain whether it would offer some resistance to the dog’s venom, it should at least not be corroded away, a small victory.

In battles with these monsters, balancing attributes was more important than killing power. If one could restrain the monsters’ attributes, physical kinetic damage would matter; otherwise, it would be like with the toad creature that treated bullets like candy.

Chen Ke also noticed something else—no matter the type of Holy Relics, none were labeled with physical damage terms; all had special effects phrases.

Perhaps it was because he had seen too few Holy Relics; maybe armor-class Holy Relics might offer exceptionally high physical defense.

The dog had been patiently waiting, but after seeing Chen Ke still standing perfectly fine in front of it several dozen seconds later, it began to feel puzzled as this contradicted its experience.

The dog tensed its body in preparation, its muscles coiled and its sharp teeth bared from its mouth. Chen Ke realized it was gearing up to pounce.

He didn’t wait for it to make its next move. Lifting his hand, he fired. The silenced pistol made a muffled mechanical sound as bullets with red tails flew towards the dog.

The dog tried to dodge with a leap, but its speed couldn’t match that of the bullets; at least three rounds penetrated the thick muscles on its back, each leaving a small bloody hole.

“Arrooo…” The dog yelped in pain, red flames emanating from the bullet holes as the bullets scorched its internal tissues.

Chen Ke pulled the trigger again, only to find that the PPQ.45 had run empty.

He cursed under his breath, his thumb pressing the release on the left side of the gun handle, flicking his wrist to eject the empty magazine. The shield in his left hand disappeared as he reached inside his coat for a spare magazine.

At that moment, the monstrous dog lunged at him, clamping its jaws around Chen Ke’s left wrist.

“Crack crack…”

“Fuck, fuck!”

Chen Ke sharply inhaled from the pain as the dog’s sharp teeth pierced his flesh and even snapped the bone. His left wrist first felt a stabbing pain, then lost all sensation completely.

Dropping the pistol, a flash of white light materialized a shield on his right wrist, and he struck the dog’s head with gritted teeth.

“Smack…”

The dog stubbornly clung to Chen Ke’s left wrist, its poisonous saliva splashing onto his left arm, the purple toxin running down his coat, hissing as it burned through.

A dialogue box appeared in front of Chen Ke:

[The Doctor’s Old Coat]

[Durability: Poor]

The dog’s venom was fierce, capable of corroding even Holy Relic garments, and Chen Ke’s left arm turned an even deeper shade of purple. His five fingers contorted like chicken claws, the withering effect spreading from the fingertips up towards the forearm and upper arm.

Chen Ke continuously bashed the dog’s head with the shield, but the tough creature refused to let go. He felt the left side of his body begin to wither, the purple symptoms of atrophy even creeping up to his neck…

“Son of a bitch.”

The shield disappeared, and Chen Ke pulled out an M1911A1, aiming it at the top of the dog’s head and pulled the trigger.

“Bang!”

With a resounding shot, the Punishment attribute bullet drilled through the dog’s head at point-blank range. A stream of white light entered the left side of the brain and exited the right, pulling out a long streak of black, white, and red splatter against the wall. Except for the jaw, nothing else of the dog’s head remained—it resembled a smashed egg.

Unspeakable fluids splattered all over Chen Ke’s face, the dog’s carcass abruptly collapsed onto the ground, its teeth still embedded in Chen Ke’s left wrist.

“Your life expectancy is now 4 hours, 10 minutes, 59 seconds…”

Once his body returned to normal, Chen Ke shook off the dog’s teeth from his sleeve, bent down to pick up the PPQ.45, and inserted a new magazine; he then turned around to collect the empty magazine he had dropped earlier.

The Administration Bureau’s bullets were indeed powerful; civilian counterfeits were simply inferior.

In the heat of the moment, Chen Ke had no choice but to resort to Parker’s Spiritual Ability Pistol, which surely had given away his coordinates to the Administration Bureau. But he no longer had the luxury to worry about that.

He squatted next to the dog’s body, cautiously observing. Even without a head, the dog’s body still made kicking motions and puffed up as if it were breathing, though at a diminishing rate.

No Holy Relics dropped.

“Shit!”

Disappointed, Chen Ke stood up, feeling like he had suffered great losses, when a white streak in his peripheral vision caught his attention.

The Punishment bullet had burned a hole in the glass door nearby after passing through the dog’s brain, leaving behind an unexpected white streak in the air.

This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.

This meant that the door was some sort of monster-generated illusion, and Punishment attribute bullets could penetrate such illusions!

But now he had only five bullets left, and whether he would have a chance to restock them in the future was uncertain.

He pushed open the glass door and saw a black-haired, white-clad humanoid creature standing, no, floating in mid-air in the hallway.

Its hair dropped to the floor, obscuring its face. The long white robe trailed on the ground, feet unseen. Though there was no breeze, the hem of the robe fluttered gently.

[Administration Bureau Monster Rating: ??]

[Spiritual Body: Incorporeal]

[Mysterious Attribute Immunity]

[Physical Attack Immunity]

[Broad-area Illusion Technique]

==================

[Light Energy Weakening]

[Justice Weakening]

Chen Ke’s forehead was drenched in cold sweat. What happened to the promised D-level Black Box Space? That dog from earlier was certainly beyond the scope of D-level, and now a Spiritual Body!?