Vol 13: Chapter 13-2.

Imhotep was like a natural counter to monsters created from the mask. Their strength was useless against him. The blood vessels piercings had no effect since Imhotep had neither flesh nor blood. Anything that entered his body would be dehydrated. He ignored the attacks and caught two of brown hairs in the sandstorm then quickly drained all the water from their bodies. A minute later, two mummies fell to the ground.

Zheng took out a submachine gun from the ring. He fired at the brown hairs flying at him. Despite not fast enough to catch up to the Sky Stick, their movements were very flexible in dodging the bullets. Even when the magical bullets hit them, they were as ineffective as normal bullets.

"F*ck! Imhotep, can’t you catch a few more at once?" Zheng shouted. Imhotep hadn’t caught anyone after the first round.

Imhotep shouted back. "Do you think I don’t want to? Their strength is too powerful. They crushed my body the moment I come into a form. This strength doesn’t belong to humans."

"They are obviously not humans. What kind of people have this strength and rate of recovery? They are monsters! No wonder the mission is the same rank as the dragon. This is even harder than the dragon."

Zheng compared the monster and dragon. In some sense, the monster was much scarier than the dragon. Give him some time to live through the early stages, once he evolved to an extend and spread his cells out, this monster became unkillable.

Just imagine of a city with tens of thousands of people infected by him. At that point, even if parts of him got burned by sunlight, he would still be alive. It wasn’t possible for sunlight to hit every single cell at once. He would just keep getting stronger and spreading his cells.

If this was the case, why was this monster only a rank B mission? Was the lack of a time limit due to it being too powerful? Were they destined to fail the mission?

"Xuan, can you hear me?" Zheng suddenly had an idea, but if this idea failed, they would all die here. He needed someone he trust to give him advice.

A few seconds later, he heard the calm voice. "I heard you. Just speak."

Zheng took a deep breath. "Back in the Scorpion King quest, we burned down a forest to enter the pyramid. You told me there are multiple ways to complete a mission. I want to know if I continued killing the pygmies, would I be destined to get killed by their evolved weapons?"

𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Xuan paused for a few seconds. "I don’t know why you are asking this. Did you find his weakness but you are hesitating? The answer is no even if we killed a way through the forest instead of burning it. This is God’s way to force you to evolve. As the pygmies get stronger, you have to keep evolving to stay alive until you can win them. This was the intention of God. There can’t be one single solution to a mission. We just haven’t found the shortcut yet. Similarly, the amount of rewards is equivalent to the degree of danger. Any other questions?"

Zheng breathed out and said. "Some small questions but I have decided. Everyone come take this bet with me, a bet with our lives!"

Xuan replied. "What is the chance of success? I won’t agree on bets with less than 50% success rate."

"Fifty fifty. Either live or die."

Xuan paused for a while. "Then you can put our lives on the table. 50% chance is enough for us to take the risk."

Zheng continued. "I already sent you the info on the monster before. Why was it considered a flawed product in the Mayan civilization when it has the perfect ability to evolve, perfect survival mechanisms, a perfect body, and perfect reproductive ability? Why didn’t they conquer this world after the saints died? These are my questions. What is the flaw of such a perfect being?"

Xuan paused even longer this time. "It is inconceivable that such a monster dies to mere sunlight. Where is his flaw? The only one I can think of is their perfection is beyond any living things. Just like myself. Being too perfect is a flaw."

Zheng dodged two attacks. There were eight of the monsters chasing after him now and this number would only increase over time. He accelerated the Sky Stick and took advantage of his speed to run. "Yes. They are perfect and invincible. So I hypothesize that their perfect evolution ability is the flaw."

"Xuan, we don’t have time to wait for dawn. This is only 1AM. I can predict there will be over a hundred of these monsters in the next few hours. That isn’t something I can kill off even with the help of Imhotep. As long as one single cell escapes, he would live. This was probably the reason for the lack of a time limit. But there must be a method to kill him aside from sunlight. It’s impossible to burn every single cell under sunlight especially the cell inside Alex’s body. So..."

Zheng turned around to face the eight monsters and the sandstorm. He muttered to Xuan. "Someone once said that the strongest part of a person is usually his most fragile. Xuan, I plan to challenge this perfect evolution. Let’s put all your lives on me."

Zheng shouted. "Imhotep, come over to me. I found a way to deal with the monster!" He flew toward the sandstorm.

Ten seconds later, the sandstorm flew to Zheng’s side. Imhotep said from within. "How? Hurry up and say it. Anck-Su-Namun and the others are in danger!"

Zheng smiled at him and handed the boy over. "Take him back to the others. Remember not to kill any vampires. Just dehydrate their bodies. And protect everyone. Leave the rest to me!"

Imhotep hesitated for a bit before taking the boy in his sandstorm and left. As the sandstorm went far away, Zheng heard the word ’careful’, which gave him a smile.

Zheng landed the Sky Stick to the ground and smiled at the group of brown hairs approaching. He said in a low voice. "Come. I will let you evolve."