Monster Paradise

Apart from the one regular face that could be used long-term, the four-faced individual’s remaining three faces had a time limit when they were activated.

The handful of individuals who knew about his four modes had more or less guessed that this was the case. However, they thought the reason for this restriction was that activating different modes would put a heavy burden on the four-faced individual’s physical body and spirit.

Meanwhile, the four-faced individual was the only one who knew that this was not the case.

In reality, each of his faces was an entirely different personality.

The dominant personality was his regular face, which maintained the balance between the other three personalities.

At present, his four personalities could maintain a state of equilibrium mainly because of this regular dominant character.

However, every time he changed a face, he needed to let that particular personality out.

Although the dominant personality’s consciousness was still in control for a short period after the face had changed, as time went by, the second personality would become increasingly awake. It would then begin to fight for the dominant personality’s main position.

After a specific duration had been exceeded, this second personality that had been let out would be completely awakened. There was a high chance of it suppressing the dominant personality and taking over control of the body,

Some might think that this was a mere change of personality and did not matter since it could be changed again in the future.

The problem was, as soon as the four-faced individual’s dominant character lost control of his body, the current equilibrium between the several personalities would be completely destroyed. The second personality which had usurped the dominant personality’s place would soon devour the other personalities and take sole control of the body.

This was because only by completely taking control of the four-faced individual’s entire body could the four-faced individual’s physical body and spirit begin their transformation into the new personality. They would turn into an individual independent consciousness, perfectly integrating with the physical body to create an entirely new being.

Simply put, the four-faced individual would cease to exist. He would be replaced by a completely different monster.

The four-faced individual had never told anyone about this risk.

He had never disclosed a word of this even to the person he was most intimate with, who shared his bed.

After all, such a secret was connected to his own life and death. It could be easily used against him if he told anyone about it.

Giant Sarcoma’s Stall Tactic on the battlefield caused the four-faced individual some anxiety.

He was using Dragon Flame, which was an extremely draining technique. He initially thought to get this battle over with as soon as he could, but he was stopped by Giant Sarcoma’s layers of mud. The battle became a stalemate.

Within half an hour, he changed to the second face. The dominant personality was currently exhausted, significantly shortening the duration by which it could suppress the second personality.

He had no choice but to end this battle swiftly, or the consequences would not bear thinking about.

After spurting Dragon Flame for over ten minutes, he was still unable to gain any headway. This caused him to think even more anxiously about his subsequent strategy.

‘If this doesn’t work, I have no choice but to use that move!’

After only a short moment of being irresolute, the four-faced individual swiftly made his final decision.

He spurted Dragon Flame continuously while both hands began to perform lightning-fast, complicated hand seals.

A moment later, several strange figures emerged from his back and struggled free. This continued until the ninth figure emerged, then stopped.

Once the nine figures took their place resolutely behind the four-faced individual, they looked startlingly like the current four-faced individual’s single eye mode—exactly the same, in fact. It was as if they were clones from the same mold.

At that point, the four-faced individual had also finally stopped spouting Dragon Flame.

From far away, Giant Sarcoma had been distractedly observing the four-faced individual’s movements. When he saw him releasing the “clones”, he knew that the four-faced individual was truly pulling out the big guns now.

Although Giant Sarcoma felt some degree of panic, at the same time, he became even more certain of his previous speculation.

‘This fellow is pulling out the big guns in such a hurry—seems like my guess was right. He definitely can’t maintain this mode for too long!

‘As long as I can hold on and stall further, I can definitely defeat him sooner or later!’

Clearly, Giant Sarcoma had planned to use his Stall Tactic to the very end.

Although he had a counter-strategy, he did not dare underestimate the four-faced individual’s tactics in the least.

In the air, the four-faced individual’s ten figures stood proudly and condescendingly gazed in Giant Sarcoma’s direction.

A second later, several figures spread their ten fingers, and whip-like golden rays shot from their fingertips.

Countless golden whips intersected, turning into a giant net that hurtled toward Giant Sarcoma.

Giant Sarcoma immediately gave a secret, dismayed exclamation and extended countless tentacles right away to defend himself.

Each of the golden whips was imbued with the strange characteristics of Dragon Flame. Giant Sarcoma’s tentacles merely had to touch them to be charred to cinders.

After a few rounds of enduring the pain, Giant Sarcoma soon gave up using his tentacles to resist directly. Instead, he summoned forth giant, muddy hands from the void which struck at the giant web of golden whips.

As soon as the battle hit a stalemate, a few figures next to the four-faced individual joined the battlefield.

Four figures blocked all the escape routes outside the giant golden net of whips. They spat tsunami-like Dragon Flame at Giant Sarcoma from four different directions…

Almost every breath of flame was as powerful as the Dragon Flame the four-faced individual had spat out earlier himself.

Giant Sarcoma was immediately shocked.

This wave of attacks came from every direction. There was practically no way he could escape.

If he were to mount a head-on defense, the drain on his Divine Power would be countless times more than previously.

When he saw that the Dragon Flame tsunami from all four directions was about to swallow him up, Giant Sarcoma bit the bullet and charged toward the net of golden whips that was above his head.

When his large fleshy form was about to collide with the net, his body transformed into a pool of liquified fat. He slipped through the holes in the net easily and escaped.

The four-faced individual and the far-off Nine Gloom Vine were stunned when they saw what happened.

Evidently, both of them had never expected that Giant Sarcoma’s extremely solid-looking body could turn into liquid form within the blink of an eye.

Although the four-faced individual had no idea how Giant Sarcoma would escape, he had made preparations in advance for this possible eventuality.

His true form flickered and immediately appeared in the air directly above Giant Sarcoma’s head.

Before Giant Sarcoma could breathe a sigh of relief at escaping the Dragon Flame, he heard the four-faced individual’s voice from above his head.

“I’d already made preparations in case you escaped!”

As soon as the four-faced individual finished speaking, Giant Sarcoma saw him shoot both his palms forward, and a golden shockwave blasted out.

“Get back in there!”

Giant Sarcoma was completely unable to dodge this attack. He was directly hit by the shockwave and his form was sent tumbling downward.

At that moment, several clones cooperated in perfect synchronization to remove the net made of whips, letting Giant Sarcoma fall into the sea of flame.

The minute Giant Sarcoma’s body was swallowed up in the golden sea of fire, the four-faced individual’s true form and remaining clones inhaled deeply at almost the same time. They then spat endless streams of golden Dragon Flame below…

This massive inferno burned for close to half an hour.

Only when the four-faced individual could vaguely feel that he could no longer control his second personality did he finally remove it. He resumed his regular form with relief.

Amid the sea of flame, Giant Sarcoma’s life force had utterly dissipated more than ten minutes ago.

The four-faced individual kept on forcibly spitting Dragon Flame for over ten minutes because he was afraid that Giant Sarcoma might not be completely dead.

However, he could basically be sure that Giant Sarcoma was now deceased.

No living being could stop themselves from groaning and fighting back while they were being incinerated by Dragon Flame.

After dispersing all his clones, the four-faced individual patiently waited for the flames and smoke to dissipate.

A good long while later, the remaining flames burned out completely and the smoke gradually thinned out as well.

Within the deep pit burned into the ground by the fire, the four-faced individual saw a completely charred black sphere.

He cautiously went nearer. He could even smell the reek of scorched flesh, as well as an extremely putrid reek of decay that made one gag.

The four-faced individual stopped in his tracks when he was some ten meters away from the charred sphere. He did not go any closer.

Instead, he spread five fingers and extended several threads of Divine Power to touch the incinerated sphere from a distance.

As the Divine Power brushed against the scorched sphere, the four-faced individual was finally able to see its structure. It was made up of layers wrapped upon layers, like those of an onion.

He peeled off the layers of the “onion” quickly with Divine Power. He wanted to see if Giant Sarcoma had been totally destroyed by the flames.

As he peeled off the charred layers, he could soon see that the innermost structure had been utterly incinerated into powder.

Clearly, Giant Sarcoma was so dead he could not be any further deceased than he was at present.

The four-faced individual retracted his Divine Power only after ascertaining this and exhaled a long sigh of relief.

However, a peculiar thing happened right at that moment.

A blood-colored tentacle suddenly broke through the ground beneath the four-faced individual’s feet. The tip of the tentacle divided like tree roots and extended like forked lightning, worming its way into the four-faced individual’s mouth, eyes, and nose…

The four-faced individual could clearly feel a strange power rapidly occupying his physical body.

“Get out!”

The four-faced individual harnessed all the Divine Power within his body in an attempt to free himself from Giant Sarcoma’s latest defensive maneuver. However, he was only able to stop Giant Sarcoma for one to two seconds. The takeover of his body continued.

He could clearly sense that at the rate his physical body was being occupied, it would take five minutes at most to make him lose control of his body altogether.

Once he realized this, he made a determined effort.

“You forced me to do this!”

The next second, the four-faced individual’s head suddenly turned. The face that was initially at his back slowly rotated 180 degrees so that it now faced forward.

It was a face that was malevolent beyond compare. All three of its eyes were pitch-black, without any trace of whites. There were even two large, blood-red horns on its forehead.

The second he opened his eyes, the muscles all over his body started to began to swell and knot, turning red. Wisps of black mist began to seep out of his pores as well.

He lowered his head to glance at the current state of his body. The long-horned four-faced individual stretched out a massive hand tipped with black, sharp claws and grabbed the tentacle that was connected to his eyes, nose, and the ground. He then pulled hard.

One hand kept pulling upward, while his other hand shoved the tentacle into his mouth. He began chewing hard.

“Four Face, you lunatic!” A dismal howl soon came from under the ground.

The Long-horned Man suddenly grinned. “Four Face? He’s not here anymore. I should thank you for allowing me to gain total control of this physical body.

“If it hadn’t been for that final push of yours, that Four Face fellow wouldn’t have let me out. If you hadn’t fought him and utterly weakened his consciousness, I would never have been able to take control of him so easily.

“To show my gratitude, I shall eat you!”

As he spoke, he continued to devour Giant Sarcoma.

Very soon, Giant Sarcoma’s dismal howls became weaker and weaker. Eventually, the sounds died away completely…