The explosion whipped up a violent gust of wind, blowing Ryosuke's cowboy hat away.
This moment was seen clearly not only by Kars and Joseph, but also by Stroheim and his army rushing over from the rear.
Without a doubt, it was a vampire.
A vampire who stood against Kars, who could stand in the sunlight, and who could use Ripple.
"What exactly is going on?"
Stroheim couldn't understand it, but he was deeply shaken. Today, there had simply been far too many bizarre things.
He cast his gaze toward Joseph.
Joseph shook his head. He couldn't understand it either.
Kars… couldn't understand it either.
It wasn't just the absurdly powerful gun. Ryosuke's body, able to stand in sunlight, confused Kars even more than anything else.
He looked at the misshapen, writhing "hummingbirds" on the ground.
After becoming the Ultimate Lifeform, every drop of Kars's blood and every piece of his flesh could transform into anything in the world.
He had no concept of being injured. Whether his head was cut off or his body was blown into minced meat, it could all turn into birds or butterflies, return to the main body, and repair the damage.
But now…
Some of the hummingbirds had lost contact with him and had turned into those disgusting monsters on the ground.
Kars's nose twitched. He caught the scent of Ryosuke's blood and suddenly looked up at him.
"You're contaminating my genes?"
Ryosuke's body, after being adjusted by ghost-god power and Ripple, had undergone the first round of physical evolution.
In terms of evolutionary level, it was certainly inferior to Kars.
But a fight isn't a card game, there's no need to compare who's superior. Ryosuke only needed to reverse and damage Kars's cellular evolution.
Of course, Kars could do the same to Ryosuke.
But with Ryosuke's current physical state, his life energy was being consumed every moment.
Forget Kars reverse-contaminating him, if Ryosuke were seriously injured and his life energy ran out, Kars's contamination wouldn't even be finished before Ryosuke was burned to death by the sun.
After becoming the Ultimate Lifeform, Kars's intelligence had undergone a qualitative leap. In an instant, he saw through everything in front of him.
He stared at Ryosuke, wariness and confusion in his eyes.
"This feeling… it's like a super organism that has reached the edge of becoming an Ultimate Lifeform and mastered evolutionary technology, but was locked inside the body of a lowly vampire."
"Who exactly are you?"
Ryosuke pulled out the cleaver that had been stuck in the ground earlier, lightly flicked it, and shook off Kars's blood. He didn't answer Kars's question. Instead, he glanced at Joseph.
"Just call me Ryosuke."
Ryosuke didn't like talking nonsense during a fight, especially now, when his life energy was being consumed every second. But considering that his allies were also completely confused, he still gave a brief introduction.
As for Kars's question…
Ryosuke chose to answer it with blade and gun.
It wasn't that Ryosuke underestimated his opponent. On the contrary, it was precisely because he feared Kars's power too much.
Ryosuke had considered hiding in the shadows to cultivate, or waiting another day and carrying out the trial at night.
After all, based on experience from previous trial missions, only Ryosuke could deal with Kars. There was no way things would play out like the original story, where Joseph sent Kars off the planet.
After careful consideration, Ryosuke rejected the idea.
He had to kill Kars before Kars fully mastered the power of the Ultimate Lifeform.
The longer it dragged on, the worse it would be for Ryosuke.
Not to mention the countdown on his life energy.
Once Kars completely mastered the power to modify genes, it wouldn't take long. He could go to any town, and in a single day, create tens of thousands of subordinates superior to vampires and zombie men.
In a week, a country would fall.
In a month, the world would become Kars's playground.
In fact, as long as Kars told the leaders of the world's nations one thing, "I can give you immortality with no side effects", even Stroheim would defect under orders from his superiors.
So it had to be now.
It could only be right here, right now.
Gunshots, explosions, and the clash of blades rang out endlessly at the center of the battlefield.
Ryosuke and Kars were moving far too fast. Stroheim's army wanted to help, but had no idea how.
To them, the two looked like raging gales racing past each other. Every collision and tearing motion set off bursts of thunderous noise.
A look of joy appeared on Stroheim's face.
"This is… are we going to win?"
Among everyone present, only Joseph, as a Ripple user, could barely keep up with the two of them.
And precisely because he could keep up and see clearly, he knew, "We can't win."
Ryosuke and Kars looked evenly matched, but Ryosuke was genuinely getting injured, while Kars could regenerate at super speed, Ryosuke's genetic contamination could at most prevent separated flesh and blood from turning into little killing creatures. It couldn't affect Kars's main body at all.
At this rate, it wouldn't be long before Ryosuke died.
Under normal circumstances, Joseph would've run away long ago.
But Ryosuke had just saved his life. No matter what, Joseph was a hot-blooded man, and his legs simply wouldn't take a step toward escape.
Joseph could see this, and naturally, so could Kars, and he could see even more.
After a brief exchange, Kars keenly sensed the depletion of life energy inside Ryosuke.
"You're going to die, Ryosuke." Kars sneered.
"The only question is whether you'll die by my hand, or run out of life energy first and be killed by the sun."
"I don't understand what you're waiting for."
Ryosuke calmly met his gaze.
"I'm waiting for a variable."
This was the first sentence Ryosuke had spoken to Kars since the fight began, and it drew Kars's full attention.
"What variable?"
"I'm the damn variable!"
Taking advantage of Kars focusing entirely on Ryosuke, the sneaky Joseph suddenly rushed out from behind.
With both hands gathering Ripple, he tried to hug Kars, attempting to create an opening for Ryosuke.
"Foolish!"
Kars turned and kicked toward Joseph.
Bang!
A bullet flew out and landed precisely on Kars's knee, knocking the kick off course.
Joseph rushed in and grabbed Kars's thigh. He raised his right fist high, all his Ripple concentrating into it, and roared, "Taste my loincloth Ripple Overdrive!"
As he shouted, he slammed his fist straight into Kars's loincloth, hitting the eggs between his legs.
How powerful that punch was, neither Ryosuke nor Joseph knew.
But one thing was certain.
Kars's world was left with only red, orange, yellow, green, and cyan.
Blue and purple were gone.
Whether from pain or rage, Kars's face turned a deep purplish red. He glanced at Ryosuke, who had just slashed his back, and decided to ignore him for the moment and first slaughter the annoying Joseph.
Ryosuke's blade fell, carving a small wound into Kars's spine.
Kars didn't care.
It would recover in the next second anyway.
And then...
Kars heard a sharp whistling through the air.
From the corner of his eye, he saw that Ryosuke's left hand, which had discarded the shotgun, now held a rapidly spinning steel ball.
Golden Spin!
The Golden Spin, which Ryosuke had never used out of fear that Kars might learn it, was unleashed at the moment when Kars was most careless, and most critical.
The spinning steel ball sank into the wound in his back, and blood gushed wildly.
Kars suddenly realized that under the influence of this bizarre rotational force, he was temporarily unable to control the flowing blood.
And the enormous life force contained within that blood… Was being absorbed by Ryosuke.
"You... you're devouring me?!"
Kars looked horrified, like a girl waking from a dream to find a cockroach gnawing at her cheek.
Even more horrifying was that the Ripple surrounding Ryosuke was transforming, from tiny arcs of lightning into golden flames, and then gradually condensing from flames into tiny crystalline shards.
This was Ryosuke's plan.
In his current state, even going all out, he could never kill Kars.
The only chance was the Past Projection.
As long as he could draw in massive amounts of energy and briefly unleash the true power of his original body, it would be enough to kill Kars.
And to draw upon and use the power of the Past Projection, he needed extremely abundant, massive life energy.
Who had life energy?
Civilians did.
Kars did too.
From the most rational perspective, slaughtering civilians to obtain life energy and then killing Kars would have been the optimal solution.
But…
Wouldn't that be like kneeling down to beg for food?
Ryosuke chose to seek an opportunity in battle to absorb Kars's vast life force.
That was what he had been "waiting" for.
Now, the opportunity had arrived.
The cleaver spun in Ryosuke's hand as he stared at Kars at point-blank range.
Like a butcher looking at a lamb to be slaughtered.
[T/N: 🎊 HAPPY NEW YEAR chaps! 🎊 May this year be Healthy and Productive for you! Enjoy~]