Chapter 511: Shermie's Death
Among the contemporary Orochi Hakkesshu, only Goenitz and Chris possess the leader template.
Goenitz inherited his from Goenitz, while Chris acquired his as Orochi's perfect vessel.
Meanwhile, Shermie and Yashiro both have the champion template.
And for the fully enhanced Domination skill, the champion template is also within its scope of effect.
Of course, Domination isn't 100% effective. Furthermore, Shermie actually has Orochi as a higher-ranking leader, making her theoretically harder to control than other units. However, that only applies when the opponent is at full strength.
When a series of debuffs like blindness, pneumothorax, and massive hemorrhage stacked upon her, leading to a weakened state with all physical indicators plummeting, Shermie was unable to resist Domination's control from Cheng Tian.
What if she was a Heavenly King? As long as it's a humanoid unit, it must undergo Domination's judgment!
Cheng Tian chose to unleash Domination at the moment he was using Moonless Thundercloud to disrupt the other Hakkesshu.
At that time, Shermie had no ability to resist whatsoever. Domination took effect instantly, but its impact was difficult for others to detect until Cheng Tian actively controlled Shermie to launch an attack.
Additionally, as a higher-tier skill to the Ten Commandments, Domination almost entirely inherits the Ten Commandments' attributes. Therefore, if Domination is used to enslave a humanoid biological unit, Cheng Tian also gains an original option to "zombify" the enslaved unit.
If zombification is chosen, the target enters a state similar to the spread of the Ten Commandments virus in the past, or like characters in the "Metal Slug" series after being bitten by zombies.
In this state, the zombified unit's body stiffens, agility plummets, and it loses most of its former abilities. In return, it gains unique zombified body attributes such as immunity to small-caliber firearms, zero pain perception, and coagulated blood. Furthermore, all zombified units with an "Elite" or higher template gain a race-exclusive skill called 『High-Pressure Blood Column』.
The power of its effect needs no further elaboration; the destruction of the Ten Commandments spaceship and the fall of the Sun God are directly linked to High-Pressure Blood Column.
Zombification caused the pain in Shermie's body to vanish abruptly, but what followed was a sudden blurring of her loyal faith in Orochi. The craving for "eating" had already taken over, especially the desire for meat.
Chris's approach was the final straw that broke Shermie's mental rationality. Simultaneously, the hallucinatory whispers, like a devil's suggestion, "Spit it out, you'll feel better," echoed in Shermie's mind.
And so, she opened her mouth and spewed out everything that could be called blood within her, without reservation.
High-Pressure Blood Column converts blood into direct mixed damage by spewing it. The damage coefficient is 5, meaning 1 HP corresponds to 5 points of mixed damage.
Under the guidance of Cheng Tian's devilish whispers, Shermie spewed out all of her remaining HP in one go!
Her HP bar was reduced to a mere 1 HP, redder than red!
Just as the unsuspecting Chris took almost the full brunt of this High-Pressure Blood Column, the zombified Shermie coughed again due to her pneumothorax, spitting out a bit of residual blood, then her head lolled to the ground, no longer breathing.
[You have slain Shermie of the Raging Lightning (1/1). You and your team units gain 10% damage reduction against units possessing "Heavenly King / Orochi's Blood." This takes effect immediately.]
At the same time, Cheng, who was firmly blocked outside the tornado, also received this spatial notification when he saw a splash of blood suddenly appear in the tornado.
According to the Holy Grail mission's description, theoretically, only the three members of the New Faces Team needed to be defeated, but killing them clearly exceeded the mission's requirements.
And after the notification of Shermie's death, a new explanation appeared.
[Orochi's sacrifices have decreased. The future resurrected Orochi will suffer a decrease in power.]
As the notification stated, the Hakkesshu themselves are not only Orochi's lackeys but also Orochi's sacrifices.
The choice of vessel affects the power displayed by the resurrected Orochi, and whether the Hakkesshu can offer themselves to Orochi in time also affects Orochi's ultimate power level.
The ideal situation would naturally be to kill Chris, the perfect vessel, but if he couldn't be instantly annihilated, then they might have to face Orochi's forced descent prematurely.
At least for now, Cheng Tian was not fully prepared.
Shermie's sudden betrayal and immediate death stunned the Hakkesshu inside the tornado barrier. The unimaginable situation caused their brains to partially shut down.
Goenitz, whose relationship with the New Faces Team was at most that of colleagues, was somewhat better, but Yashiro's eyes instantly turned red.
There's a saying that if you want to destroy an all-male band, recommend a female member into it, and before long, there will likely be some internal male-female relationship chaos within the band, eventually leading to its collapse.
Perhaps Shermie didn't exist to destroy the band, but her relationship with Yashiro and Chris far exceeded the scope of mere companionship. Only her worship of Orochi would transcend this emotion.
But at this very moment, Shermie had died inexplicably at the hands of another.
Yashiro, realizing once again that his fingertips could no longer feel Shermie's breath, felt as if something in his mind had shattered.
[Yashiro, goes berserk!]
This was the dungeon broadcast notification received by all players, whether awake or asleep.
As Yashiro, who symbolizes the power of the earth in the King of Fighters worldview, what happens when he goes berserk with rage?
The earth began to tremble.
As citizens of an island nation experiencing dozens, even hundreds, of tremors a year, everyone was already accustomed to the situation where small tremors didn't require running, and large tremors made running impossible. However, an earthquake appearing alongside a tornado clearly exceeded the citizens' knowledge and experience.
Cheng, who had flown into the air, holding the world by its ankle, watched the trembling below and then looked at the tornado not far away, attempting to connect heaven and earth.
Cheng Tian felt like a Kyogre was missing; otherwise, this scene could have recreated the meeting of the three Hoenn legendary beasts.
However, what surprised Cheng Tian was that the earthquake came and went quickly, as if it had been forcibly cut short by some power, ending prematurely before it could escalate into a disaster.
At the same time, the tornado dissipated, and all the Hakkesshu inside, including Shermie's corpse and Chris, who had been blasted away by the blood column, had vanished without a trace.
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