49: Chapter 49 The Aviator

"Awooo!"

The Ogre let out a painful howl.

"Now's our chance!" Father Andoni roared, pulling a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from his waist. "Jack! The holy water!"

The young assistant scrambled to pull a glass bottle from his bag and threw it hard at the pinned Ogre.

"Smash."

The bottle shattered.

The liquid inside drenched the Ogre.

It was highly concentrated holy water, blessed by a bishop.

To this kind of dark creature, it was equivalent to being doused with a basin of concentrated sulfuric acid.

"Arghhhhhhhh!!!"

The Ogre struggled frantically; its skin began to emit billows of white smoke, and its flesh charred and fell away at a rate visible to the naked eye.

It was clearly enraged.

It suddenly extended its right hand—which was also a claw—and grabbed the steel spike piercing its shoulder.

With a forceful yank.

"Squelch!"

Black blood splattered everywhere.

It ripped the steel spike out, leaving a bloody hole through its shoulder.

But in the next second, the granulation tissue around the bloody hole began to squirm wildly, and the wound started healing at a sickening speed.

"This regeneration speed..." Wednesday scribbled quickly in her notebook. "The metabolic rate is at least five hundred times that of a human. It requires a massive influx of energy. No wonder it has to keep eating people."

The Ogre, having broken free, did not flee.

Its gray-white eyes stared fixedly at Father Andoni.

Then, it grinned, revealing a smile that was extremely human-like and full of mockery.

It suddenly turned around; instead of pouncing on the priest, it lunged toward the school bus.

To be precise.

It was charging at the unconscious students inside the school bus.

It was hungry.

It needed to feed to repair its recent injuries.

"Damn it!" Father Andoni's expression changed drastically. "Stop it!"

The Ogre's speed was like a bolt of black lightning; it leaped onto the hood of the school bus in an instant.

It raised its sharp claw, preparing to rip open the windshield like opening a can.

It saw the person sitting in the last row.

The boy was also looking at it.

Their eyes met.

The Ogre's originally greedy gaze froze instantly.

Because it saw that behind the boy's head, a golden, sacred halo radiating a terrifyingly high temperature had suddenly lit up.

The boy smiled slightly at it.

His lips moved.

Although separated by glass, the Ogre understood the lip-reading.

"Little cutie."

This was the only thought in the Ogre's mind at that moment.

Through the bulletproof glass, it looked at the boy sitting in the last row. The other party not only showed no fear but was instead examining it with great interest, even using his mouth to mime a provocative word.

It didn't know what that glowing circle was, but in its menu, the more special the prey, the richer the flavor.

It grinned, just about to swing its sharp claws to shatter the glass.

"Thwack!"

Another dull thud.

A thick steel spike with a barbed cable, carrying the sound of breaking wind, precisely pierced the root of its right wing.

The intense pain made the Ogre let out an angry roar. It spun around violently and saw that damned old priest kneeling on the ground, the modified nail gun in his hand connected to a winch, clearly intending to drag it off the roof by force.

"Get down! You piece of flying excrement!"

Father Andoni gritted his teeth, his arm muscles bulging as he held onto the winch trigger for dear life.

But he had underestimated this monster's strength and its intelligence.

The Ogre did not try to break free like a beast; instead, it flapped its wings and flew high, following the pull.

Its massive wings kicked up a gale, and tons of lift erupted instantly.

"Damn it!"

Father Andoni only felt an irresistible, tremendous force coming. His whole body was lifted directly off the ground, dragged into mid-air like a kite.

Three meters.

Five meters.

Ten meters.

"Father!" the young assistant Jack screamed in despair.

Andoni swung violently in the air, looking at the asphalt road below getting smaller and smaller, his eyes hardening with resolve.

If he didn't let go, he would be dragged to a great height and smashed into a pulp, or torn to pieces by the monster in mid-air.

But if he let go...

There was no time to hesitate.

Andoni let go and fell. Although he had rich combat experience and tried hard to adjust his posture in the air, attempting to roll to disperse the force.

But this was hard asphalt, not soft grass.

"Snap!"

A crisp sound of bone breaking.

"Argh!"

Father Andoni slammed heavily onto the ground, his right leg at an eerie, twisted angle, white bone fragments piercing through his pant leg as blood instantly gushed out.

The intense pain nearly made him faint, and cold sweat instantly soaked his black priest's robe.

Inside the bus.

Qin Ming watched this scene outside the window and shook his head helplessly.

"The movement was too stiff."

He commented, his tone devoid of any sympathy, only the disappointment of watching a clumsy acrobatic performance.

"If he could have used the cable to swing in the air, using the school bus roof as a buffer point, he could have landed completely unharmed. Unfortunately, he couldn't even look cool for three seconds."

Wednesday sat beside him, cocking an exquisite handheld crossbow.

"Bone density loss is normal for the elderly," she added coldly. "Judging by the sound, it's a comminuted fracture of the tibia. If not treated in time, the low temperature in this wilderness will cause him to die of hemorrhagic shock within thirty minutes."

Outside the bus.

The Ogre circled in the air once, shaking off the entanglement of the cable.

It was in no rush to attack the school bus.

Its intelligence told it that dealing with the old man holding the strange weapon first was the correct solution.

"Whoosh—"

The massive black shadow dove down again.

This time, it was faster, carrying a resolve to kill.

"Father!"

The young assistant named Jack rushed up, crying out, wanting to drag Andoni away.

But how could his thin frame possibly drag a 1.85-meter-tall burly man?

"Get away! Jack!"

Andoni watched the black shadow rapidly enlarging in the sky, a flash of resolve in his eyes.

"Run! Take the kids and run!"

Andoni roared, trying to raise the double-barreled shotgun.

But the intense pain made his vision go black, making aiming exceptionally difficult.

A fishy wind hit his face.

The Ogre had arrived.

Its massive, sharp claws pressed directly onto Andoni's hand holding the gun, and the other claw stepped on his chest.

That nauseating stench of a rotting corpse could not be masked even by the strong smell of gunpowder.

"It seems... I'll have to surrender my life to God."

Andoni looked at that bloody maw full of fangs, opening directly toward his throat, and closed his eyes in despair.

He waited for that final, intense pain.

Even if I die, I will...

"BOOM—!!!"

A loud bang.

It wasn't the sound of tearing flesh.

It was the sound of a gunshot, explosive like thunder.

That sound was extremely unique: heavy, violent, with the crisp echo of metal mechanical operation.

Andoni only felt the weight pressing on him instantly lighten.

Immediately after, a large amount of warm, foul-smelling liquid sprayed onto his face.

He wasn't dead?

Andoni opened his eyes abruptly.

He saw the Ogre, which had just been so arrogant, now rolling on the ground like a broken sack, half its shoulder blasted away.

"Jack? Did you fire that shot?"

Andoni turned his head instinctively.

But he saw Jack sitting paralyzed in the grass in the distance, trembling while holding that broken cross, his crotch already soaked.

It wasn't Jack.

Then who was it?

"Clack, clack, clack."

The sound of steady footsteps on the ground approached.

Andoni looked up along those straight dress pants.

It was a boy.

In his hands, he held a shiny black, thick-barreled benelli m3 Super 90 tactical riot shotgun.

The muzzle of that gun was still emitting faint wisps of blue smoke.

And behind the boy's head.

That golden halo was slowly rotating in the darkness, radiating a holiness and majesty that made it impossible to look directly at.

Qin Ming lowered his head and glanced at the blood-covered, disheveled priest.

"Is this what you call a professional exorcist?"

Qin Ming's voice was flat, carrying a hint of obvious disdain.

"Aside from having a loud voice and breaking your leg, you don't seem to have demonstrated any substantive value."

"Oh, right."

Qin Ming racked the slide with a clack, and a red empty shell casing bounced onto the priest's face; the searing heat made Andoni shudder.

"Move aside a little, old man."

Qin Ming raised the gun, the muzzle passing over the priest's head and pointing directly at the monster that was currently struggling to stand up.

"You're blocking me from farming points."