CHAPTER 81: CHAPTER 81: TWO HEADS AND FOUR ARMS

[Stealth Cloak]

[Quality]: Blue grade

[Equipment Requirement]: Speed must be greater than 8 points.

[Equipment Effect 1]: Increases the user’s Speed by 2 points.

[Equipment Effect 2]: Spend 2 Energy to bend the light around you for a short invisibility effect. Lasts 10 seconds, but it can’t cover up noise, smell, and other traces while you move.

[Note]: For a peeping tom, this is basically a god-tier item.

Since Ethan got this gear, he never found the right time to use it. Now it had become his key move.

No one noticed Ethan vanish from where he stood. Everyone’s attention was on the fight between Shane and the thief leader, Sinclair.

Shane’s full-force hit knocked Sinclair back four or five meters.

Sinclair’s arms shook, the daggers in his hands trembling. He glared at Shane and cursed:

"Shane! I should’ve killed you back then—killed that bitch too!"

Shane stayed silent. Holding the iron hammer, he pushed off hard with both feet, leapt into the air, and swung at Sinclair’s head again.

Ryan and the others moved with Shane, sealing off any path Sinclair could use to escape.

No one noticed that the black wooden box Sinclair had dropped in his panic was gone.

Dust from falling stones slowly settled where Ethan had been standing, and his figure appeared again in the drifting haze.

Even if someone had spared him a glance, they would only think the dust had blocked their view of him a moment ago.

Ethan, expressionless, gripped the [Damaged Blood-Drinking Long Knife] and walked quickly toward the fight between Shane and Sinclair.

With each step, as his foot came down, Ethan quietly erased the footprints he had left while moving under invisibility.

When Ethan got close to Shane and the others, before he could even get a good look at the fight, he heard Sinclair roar—and then Sinclair drove both of his blades into his own ribs.

Shane was truly powerful. He had pressed Sinclair so hard the man could barely breathe.

But he also hadn’t expected Sinclair, still in the middle of the fight, to act like a madman and hurt himself.

While everyone was still confused, Sinclair’s body began to change in a strange way.

Blood slowly flowed from the wounds in his belly made by the two blades, but oddly it didn’t fall to the ground. Instead, it climbed up his body like vines, gathering at his neck and abdomen.

Ethan didn’t know what was happening either. He made a quick decision and shouted to Shane: "Interrupt him!"

Shane raised his big iron hammer without hesitation. In an instant, a purple glow burst from the black hammer.

Then Ethan saw the hammer in Shane’s hands suddenly double in size, almost as big as a grown man.

Just as the enlarged hammer was about to smash into Sinclair’s head, the blood gathered at Sinclair’s belly suddenly turned into two thick arms, which he raised over his head.

"Boom!"

A huge crash rang out, and an invisible shockwave blew the dust all around into the air.

Half of Sinclair’s body sank into the ground, but he had still forced himself to block Shane’s strike!

Shane gripped the hammer, trying to add more force, but the blood gathered at Sinclair’s neck changed at that moment too.

Sinclair grew another head—bizarre, with no eyes or nose.

As soon as it formed, the head opened a gaping mouth like a viper and snapped at Shane.

Shane had to back off for now.

With two heads and four arms, Sinclair sprang up from the ground with ease, crawled up the wall upside down, his neck twisting, and said toward Shane:

"Trying to kill me? Hahaha! Do you know how great the power I’ve gained is?

"You can’t kill me!"

Shane took a deep breath and didn’t charge in. He glanced at Ryan and the others and shouted, "Niu Er!"

The soldier who had been treating others earlier turned to Shane and said:

"Captain, it’s [Calamity]! Only [Calamity] can turn a person into a monster!"

Shane replied at once, "I know it’s [Calamity]. Can you tell what type it is? And its level?"

Niu Er shook his head and said, "No. This kind of change might also be from touching an item that carries [Calamity] power.

"There’s too little info. I can’t analyze it."

Shane took a deep breath, nodded, and said slowly, "Got it. You all fall back. I’ll deal with him."

Hearing this, Sinclair let out a harsh laugh. His two heads looked at each other, then spoke at the same time:

"Deal with me? Keep dreaming!"

"Today, all of you will die here!"

"Dear son, you’ll soon get to see that bitch of a mother of yours."

Then both heads turned to Ethan and said:

"As for you, I’ll make sure you learn what it means to want to die but not be able to."

Ethan didn’t care about Sinclair’s threats. He was thinking that even if he reached level 20, he still might not be able to handle a monster like this.

It was because he had no real info on [Calamity], so he couldn’t make a useful analysis.

He had heard about [Calamity] back in Safe Zone 9527 from the admin Tina and Sheriff Evan.

Now he was curious: was Sinclair’s change connected to that strange plant called "Siphoner" he had seen?

Ethan gave a small shake of his head. This wasn’t the time to worry about that. He needed to see if Shane could take down the now-monstrous Sinclair.

If Shane wasn’t a match for him, Ethan would leave without hesitation.

If Shane could at least hold his own against the monster Sinclair, it would mean something different for Ethan.

After all, Ethan had never killed a monster like Sinclair—two heads, four arms. If he could take him down, there would surely be an Intel drop. And it would be at least Orange-quality.

As for Orange-quality Intel, the only one in Ethan’s [Inventory] was Hellblade Class Intel (Incomplete).

How to actually kill Sinclair, though—Ethan still needed to watch and figure it out.

Shane’s other squad members, like Ethan, didn’t fall back as he told them to. They stood their ground, gripping their weapons tight.

Shane looked at them and let out a small sigh, half helpless, half relieved.

He hefted the enlarged black hammer and walked slowly toward Sinclair. "I’ll crush every bone in your body. I’ve waited too long for this day."

The fight began again.

Sinclair’s extra head twisted at odd angles, helping him watch the blind spot behind him.

At the same time, the dual-wielder pulled out two more blades. With four arms, each holding a knife, he looked insanely dangerous.

Even with Ryan and the others joining in, the fight was still brutally tense.

In under a minute, the monster Sinclair badly wounded Ryan and cut off one of his arms.

Gritting his teeth, Ryan switched his weapon from his right hand to his left.

He glanced back at Ethan and said quickly: "You were right. Along the way, you really surprised me. Even without us, those thieves wouldn’t have been a mortal threat to you

"Alright, I’m saying it now—go, like you said."

Without looking back, Ryan jumped right back in, attacking the monster Sinclair alongside Shane and the others.

Ethan was a bit surprised by what Ryan said. He had thought Ryan wanted to tell him something else.

He didn’t expect that, at such a dangerous moment, Ryan would use his own words to make him leave.

That was much better than people who know they’re wrong but refuse to admit it.

Ethan’s impression of Ryan improved a little, but he still didn’t move. He stayed where he was, watching Shane and the others fight.

Although Shane and his team were struggling against the monster Sinclair, they weren’t being completely crushed. They could still land hits now and then and leave wounds on him.

If this dragged on, it was hard to say who would win.

But as Ethan was assessing the situation, the shaking in the ground suddenly stopped, and a rush of footsteps followed.

Ethan’s first thought was that other thieves had noticed the noise and were coming to back up their leader, Sinclair.

Shane and the others sensed the danger too. They were already having a hard time with just the monster Sinclair. If more thieves joined the fight, it would be even worse.

Shane took a deep breath. While swinging his hammer at Sinclair, he shouted again:

"Go! All of you, go!

"If you don’t leave now, it’ll be too late!"

Ryan, pale-faced, answered, "Captain, if we go, we go together!"