Martial Online.

Chapter 469 Heartbeat

?"Run, quick!"

"Argh, my leg is busted!"

Ambrose raised his head and stood up to look out of the window.

He saw two players frantically running out of the jungle while glancing behind them like frightened rabbits.

'Is it the creature who is chasing them?' Ambrose wondered and narrowed his eyes into a glare.

At that moment, two other players rushed out of the jungle and chased after them.

'Oh…' Ambrose hid more and waited for the creature to make its move.

If it was still around, he doubted it would stay still and not attack these players. If it doesn't make a move, it probably has already disappeared.

The chase soon came to an end, and they started a fight with their sharp-bladed weapons. The blood immediately shed as the team that chased them overpowered them with ease.

It was clear which team was the more powerful one.

Teresa and Gerald also joined in the window to observe the fight. They thought it was both thrilling and terrifying to witness such a brutal clash, as it was clearly a battle to death.

At that moment, as they blinked and opened their eyes again, they saw the four players lying dead on the ground in shocking fashion.

"What?!" Gerald and Teresa cried out.

Ambrose's eyes shook. "This is…"

In the middle of the dead players, a black-skinned creature with humanoid stature stood with bloodstained arms. It looked like a demon that had crawled from hell.

'It's the creature, I can tell, but it's vastly different.'

Ambrose's heart started racing.

'It first looked like a fox, and then it changed into a grotesgue version of a muscular figure. It was as if it had copied my Muscle Defense state, and now…'

At that moment, Kitsune raised its gaze and locked its gaze straight at Ambrose's purple, terrified eyes.

"Found you…"

'Its voice is much clearer, and why does it sound like me?!'

"Uhm, why does it sound like you?" Teresa asked with a terrified voice.

She had never seen such a disgusting scene of death before. She hadn't become used to it.

"Let's do the plan right away." Ambrose said it in a hurry. "It is coming. Go downstairs, right now!"

"H-how can we kill it?" Gerald asked in a hurry.

"Not sure, but we cannot run away either!" Ambrose pulled out his twisted blade and shouted. "Go!"

Gerald and Teresa hurriedly nodded and headed downstairs.

"Come on then, fucker…" Ambrose looked straight into Kitsune's red eyes.

Back in the street, Kitsune's ears perked up, and it smiled creepily. "All right, fucker."

…

Teresa and Gerald hunched behind a bookshelf with their weapons drawn. They didn't speak a word, as they knew the creature could hear them and pinpoint their location easily.

They forgot about the fact that it could still hear their heartbeats as easily, and hiding was pretty much worthless.

At that moment, the door shattered, even though it had been barricaded previously by Gerald, but it didn't matter as Kitsune waltzed straight in without breaking a sweat.

"…" Kitsune looked around the floor with a scary look and landed its gaze on the bookshelf.

Its eyes started glowing as if it were about to release another heat vision, but at that moment, Teresa and Gerald jumped out of the hiding spot, screamed with all their lungs, and attacked the creature.

Kitsune slapped Teresa across the face and caused her to fly across the room like a stuffed ragdoll. She crashed into a wall, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

"Teresa!" Gerald screamed and smashed his war hammer down at Kitsune, but it blocked the strike with its bare hand and retaliated with a swift kick to Gerald's chest, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Cough!" Gerald coughed out all the air from his lung and collapsed on the ground.

"A-Ambrose, now, hurry!"

His scream was loud enough to echo through the building, but still, nothing followed.

"A-Ambrose?" Gerald looked around towards the stairs and saw that they were empty. "W-what?"

At that moment, a small note slipped out of his pocket and fluttered to the ground.

He picked it up and read the words written in shobby handwriting as the dirt was used as the ink. It looked like the writer didn't have pen and ink available.

[Sorry.

If you decide to play the game in the future, you can see me in Amaterasu's Immortal Dojo.

I owe you one.

-Ambrose]

"That fucker…" Gerald whispered and crumbled the note in his hand.

At that moment, a long shadow stretched over him.

Gerald raised his gaze fearfully and asked shakily. "M-mercy?"

"Fuck mercy." Kitsune raised his feet and crushed his head like a watermelon.

"G-Gerald!" Teresa cried out and held her waist in disbelief. "A-

Ambrose left us?"

Kitsune turned to her, shot out a heat vision from its red eyes, and burned her to ashes. It was over in less than a second, and she couldn't even tell what happened.

"…" Kitsune headed up the stairs and smashed the door to bits on the second floor.

It entered the silent room with a campfire in the middle and two sleeping bags messily put on the floor. It looked like the room was previously used, but now it was empty.

"Progenitor, you piece of shit." Kitsune perked up its ears and heard every heartbeat in the vicinity.

It managed to hear only one heartbeat that was rapidly moving further away from the town, with the heart beating fast.

"You cannot escape." Kitsune growled like an animal and jumped out of the window.

"Raaaah!"

Its scream shattered all the nearby windows and traversed through the air.

…

Ambrose looked over his shoulder and heard the rageful scream.

"Whoo, shit!" He moved between two tightly placed hills and could feel the pressure weighing on his shoulders.

'The creature is much stronger now; I could feel it. We had no way of surviving!'

Ambrose thought panickly while moving between the hills and trees with long branches stretched out like skeletal fingers.

'It is quite scummy to let them die like that, but they didn't care about this tournament either way. I can't let Moriarty down.'

Ambrose gritted his teeth as he tried to convince himself that what he did was not as sinister as it seemed. It made him feel like a liar.

'Fuck it, what's done is done.'

Ambrose thought with a scoff and thought, 'Pride and honor are bullshit things if that means dying for nothing.'

Crack!

A loud crack sounded from somewhere far, but it sounded like the sound was nearing him!

Birds flapped their wings and flew in the direction of the crack, startled by the sudden noise.

'It is coming after me, and I can't outrun it. It can still hear my heartbeat; I am not far enough!'

Ambrose ran up a steep hill of loose leaves and reached a tree with roots exposed on the surface.

He took a deep breath and sat down on top of the roots.

'I'll have to lower my heartrate!' Google seaʀᴄh ɴoᴠel ꜰɪre.nᴇt

Ambrose steadied his breathing and breathed every five seconds. His hearing heightened, and he started to hear his faint heartbeat.

However, it wasn't enough to completely hide himself from Kitsune.

At that moment, he gritted his teeth and stabbed his fingers inside his chest. He pushed his hands inside his body, feeling the warmth of his own blood as he searched for what he needed.

After a short while, he touched his heart and felt a surge of numbness shoot throughout all of his veins.

And then he wrapped his hands around his heart, infused his Muscle Defense in his hands, and then forcefully stopped it from beating.

'I-I can't breathe…'

Ambrose saw his vision immediately turn dark, and his health started dropping at an alarming rate.

However, before he passed out, he stopped squeezing the heart, waited for a few heartbeats, and then started squeezing it again, stopping his heart once again.