"Hahaha!"
Facing the ominous gun barrels, Takeshi Hirokawa showed no fear on his face. Having mingled with Parasytes, he was clearly not a normal person.
He was like the most sincere martyr of ancient times, dying for his beliefs. The cynical smile on his face seemed to be saying to everyone, "I have already seen your end, foolish humans!"
Hirokawa truly lived up to his status as a man elected mayor through street speeches, possessing superb oratory skills.
On the spot, he managed to confuse the expressions of quite a few people. Given a little more time, he might genuinely have been able to brainwash a bunch of blindly loyal Parasyte followers.
"A human traitor, speaking so righteously," Roy sneered.
In the silent hall following Hirokawa's speech, this voice was jarringly loud.
Takeshi Hirokawa looked at Roy expressionlessly. "It seems you do not agree with my philosophy."
Roy retorted, "The Earth is destroyed, resources are depleted? Can't we just find other planets to live on? Concluding yourselves and dying with the Earth is laughable. A civilization without humanity has no meaning!"
If Hirokawa had veiled the crowd in confusion, Roy's words struck their hearts like a heavy hammer, bringing instant clarity.
Takeshi Hirokawa glared fixedly at Roy.
The two represented two extremes.
Hirokawa, in order to protect the Earth as a home, was willing to let Parasytes act as a natural enemy to humans, reducing the population of this apex predator.
Roy believed that even if the human population exceeded the Earth's capacity, the solution was to seek more resources and sustain everyone, not to lock humanity onto Earth.
Watching the eyes of the others in the hall growing brighter, Lieutenant Colonel Yamagishi and Hirama couldn't help but inwardly marvel. The young man's words were powerful and well-said.
It completely suppressed Takeshi Hirokawa's arrogance.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Of course, the debate between the two had no impact on the extermination. At a command, the SWAT team members opened fire immediately. The dense sound of gunfire filled the entire hall.
As stated before, this was a war of the species.
The moment this building was surrounded, the authorities had already implicitly declared everyone inside dead. They would rather kill a thousand innocents than let a single Parasyte escape.
Parasytes could only transform the infected parts—the head—into arms and blades. They didn't have many bodily enhancements, essentially making them stationary targets.
Parasytes were killed one after another.
Takeshi Hirokawa was directly hit by a stray bullet and fell into a pool of blood, his eyes fixed on Roy. This war of ideology was terrifying, similar to the Crusades.
Roy, however, had no time to spare for a dead man.
Facing the immense power of the shotguns, the Parasytes had no ability to fight back and were continuously killed. Roy felt a pang of heartache—those were his Status Points!
He could only receive rewards if he or Ryuu, as his party member, personally killed the Parasyte.
Fortunately, the Parasytes had decent vitality. Those who didn't die instantly after being shot were finished off by Ryuu, who rushed up to land the killing blow.
There were also some cunning Parasytes who used the crowd as cover, making the SWAT team members hesitant to fire indiscriminately due to their conscience.
This was when Ryuu came into play, eliminating the opponents with lightning speed.
Watching the constantly popping up notification panel, seeing the Parasyte kill count increase, Roy felt completely relieved.
Finally, most of the Parasytes were eliminated.
Only one person remained—a middle-aged man with a poker face, the strongest and most dangerous Parasyte: Goto.
"This guy! Shotguns are useless!"
Goto had been riddled with holes, his body and head covered in dense, small craters—a horrifying sight. Yet, not a single drop of blood flowed from him.
"Even at the very end, I don't understand what you were thinking, but I will avenge you by killing all humans!" Goto looked at the dead Takeshi Hirokawa, in a sense, inheriting his dying wish.
To become the natural enemy of humanity!
Bang!
Lieutenant Colonel Yamagishi completely disregarded the safety of others around him, aiming a small grenade launcher at Goto, pulling the trigger, and firing a grenade.
With a boom, black smoke billowed. The deafening sound of the close-range explosion stunned everyone.
Goto appeared on the ceiling. "I'm not faster than bullets; I am faster than you, judging the timing of the shot through your eyes and fingers."
"Bastard!" Lieutenant Colonel Yamagishi's face was pale with rage. He was about to aim a shotgun at Goto.
A cold flash streaked past—it was Goto's long arm. Lieutenant Colonel Yamagishi was sent flying. His sturdy body cut through the air and landed a dozen meters away, his condition unknown.
Whoosh!
Goto's entire skin rippled. The shotgun pellets, which had been wriggling beneath his skin, gathered in his hands. He flicked his arms, and countless pellets rained down like a storm.
"—Ariel!"
Just as the steel pellets were about to kill the SWAT team members and the ordinary people, Ryuu, who already had information on Goto, completed her chant at that very moment.
Dozens of emerald-green spheres of light materialized around Ryuu, their dazzling brilliance illuminating the entire hall.
In that instant, the entire world seemed to stand still.
A hint of astonishment appeared on Goto's otherwise placid face, like an ancient human seeing fire for the first time, believing it to be a miracle sent down by a deity.
Biological instinct made him sense a fatal danger!
Without hesitation, Goto hardened his entire body. However, his lower back remained a soft weakness, and the attack range of the emerald-green light spheres covered his entire being!
Boom!
The spheres of light from Ariel soared up, destroying all the steel pellets and blasting Goto away.
Goto was blasted bloody by the emerald-green light spheres. Half of his body was missing. His eyes, filled with terror, stared at the elven girl as he desperately fled outward.
He ran directly into Roy, who was holding a flamethrower.
A sinister smile appeared on Roy's face. He aimed the flamethrower at Goto, pressed the trigger, and raging flames gushed out, instantly engulfing his figure.
Thud!
Goto's face was filled with horror. Under the shock, all the Parasytes in his body lost control, breaking away from his command tower, and his vision went black.
His steel-like body slammed heavily onto the ground.
The rest was simple.
Ryuu rushed up and, in quick succession, dismembered Goto's body, cutting it into countless fragments.
But he still wasn't dead!
The body tissues slowly crawled in one direction. No one doubted that if they gathered, the monster that shrugged off bullets would fully regenerate.
His tenacious vitality made one's scalp crawl!
Ryuu was about to cast her magic again, but Roy stopped her. He patted the flamethrower in his hand.
"This thing is not much worse than magic."
Roy pulled the trigger. Raging flames spewed out once more, burning the body tissues on the ground into ash.
Only when the notification panel appeared did Roy confirm that this Parasyte with extremely strong vitality was dead beyond a doubt!
[Successfully hunted the strongest Parasyte "Goto"! Congratulations, you have received 1200 Status Points!]