NOVEL NEXT Chapter 33 | The Crimson Howler
3:04 PM | HQ OPS ROOM. AREA 001.
Eathan dragged his scuffed boots over the Transfer Gate threshold and faceplanted into the hallway carpet with all the grace of a soggy tissue, a half-melted matcha cone still clutched stubbornly in one hand.
Finn touched down beside him a half-beat later, hands on his hips, utterly betrayed. "We just closed a rift on top of Tokyo Tower, and you're telling me we don't even get time to visit Akihabara? We were only one train away!"
"You were one train away," Eathan muttered from the floor, muffled by the carpet. "I was three seconds away from getting dragged into an electromagnetic storm. You want a souvenir or a funeral?"
"Both," Finn replied, "but in that order."
The hallway lighting in HQ Ops flickered with exhaustion. Red lines pulsed along the central map projection, tracing recent closures. Eathan barely made it to the ops bench before collapsing into the nearest chair like a dying Victorian widow. On the wall, a status screen blinked softly:
[Rift Rally Progress — 5/15 Remaining]
AREA 001 LIVE STATUS:
▸ Equilibrium: 60.7%
▸ Cloud-Jade Audit Timer: Auto-Sleep (48 hours)
▸ Rift Status: Green
They were winning.
Sort of.
Spirits were steadily returning in that dangerous, punch-drunk kind of way.
Staffs and operatives milled around in varying states of dignified collapse. A few returned operatives had half-zipped jackets. Someone was drinking broth out of a stabilizer cartridge. Runan was re-stacking talismans into a teetering pagoda that looked destined to topple at the slightest sneeze. Even Willow, hunched over a diagnostics table, was humming something that might've been legally considered a tune.
Eathan yawned. Before he could close his mouth, a perfectly aimed receipt roll smacked him in the chest with merciless accuracy.
"We rest fast here," Meng Yao said, not looking up from her holopad. "Next shift's in four hours."
Eathan rubbed the bruise where the roll hit him, vaguely wondering if field medics could treat psychological trauma caused by overwork.
Then, his [SYSTEM] twitched.
[CALAMITY RADAR β]
Status: Auto-online.
Warning! Intense hostility detected! Aura Threshold Breached!
Eathan's HUD exploded blood-red, like his interface had just been backhanded by fate itself. His body jolted upright, a breath caught halfway down his throat.
He lifted his eyes just as the room's ambient lights dimmed—just slightly, yet distinct enough that everyone paused mid-task.
"Did we miss something?" Finn whispered, holding an empty teacup as if ready to hurl it.
Across the room, Meng Yao's head snapped toward the central screen as red warning text crawled onto the holomap.
[UNKNOWN ANOMALY DETECTED]
Location: Obfuscated — Anchor Drift in Progress…
Suggested Classification: Class-A
"Impossible." Her eyes narrowed as she took in the new message. "All major breaches were accounted for."
Operators glanced up warily, screens flickering off-rhythm. A ripple of unease ran beneath the surface of relief, tension threading through the stillness.
At that moment, Xenis slowly lifted his head, brows knitting. "A prank? Is someone messing with the board again? Last week it said 'Area 003 cafeteria food was edible,' and we know that's false."
"Not funny," Willow said, quietly flipping open her talisman case. "Class-A isn't a joke. Especially when it's our third one in the past mere days."
A cold hush fell. Eathan gripped the edge of his chair, matcha dripping unnoticed from his hand onto the polished floor.
Floors high above, Taeril White stood before the massive, floor-to-ceiling windows in the commander's office. He stepped forward, lifting one hand toward the window. For a heartbeat, the glass vibrated to his touch. Sparks of qi flickered behind his form, illuminating a hard, unreadable face carved from silver and shadow.
His eyes narrowed fractionally.
Back in the Ops Room, holomaps surged, focusing on Shanghai's downtown grid. Red warning rings expanded concentrically. Screens burst into motion, alert lines racing rapidly across every terminal.
"Spiritual density jump—"
"Anchor fluctuations accelerating—!"
"Calibrations are spiking the charts—"
"Identify immediately. Someone give me anchor coordinates—now," Meng Yao's voice snapped across the comms. "All teams, stand by. Prepare for emergency deployment in five minutes."
The Ops room moved again, more focused now, unease settling into disciplined motion.
The spiritual grid beneath Shanghai buckled—imperceptibly to mortals, but not to them. Another ripple of unease swept across the room. Operators weaved around to get ready, sneaking glimpses at the chaotic center display like it had just announced the apocalypse on clearance sale.
A small thump, and Chewie dropped onto the bench beside Eathan, chewing another tanghulu. She didn't look up, but her voice was cool as black ice.
"Something's coming."
***
3:11 PM | JING'AN TEMPLE GROUNDS. AREA 001.
If Shanghai had lungs, this was the moment it forgot how to breathe.
Streetlamps shattered. Train lines stalled. Automatic billboards glitched into static. And across the city, one of Area 001's ancient anchor points—Jing'an Temple—glowed red like an open wound.
A rift didn't just open there.
It blossomed.
A spiralling, iris-shaped tear gouged the sky above the temple's rooftop, bleeding smoke and glyphs. Fissures cracked through air like splintering ice. Mortals within a 5km radius dropped unconscious mid-step, mid-laugh, mid-life. One unfortunate jogger collapsed mid-stretch, his wristpad softly chanting meditation mantras.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
And then, the Transfer Gates activated.
Or tried to.
Instead of properly deploying Strike Team Z, the gates glitched once again. Operatives across the loading bays were spat into the night like faulty arcade prizes.
Eathan's boots left the platform.
"Oh no," he managed.
Gravity abandoned him mid-thought. He crashed downward through the air, half-conscious, half-regretting life choices. Beneath him loomed the sharp angles of traditional rooftop tiles, very real and very close.
Passive Skill [Auspicious Aura (Lv. 2)] has been triggered!
Lucky Impact Dampening Triggered!
Critical fall softened by 83%. Bruising downgraded from catastrophic to comedic.
He bounced off a glass awning. It cracked, didn't shatter, though. He wheezed into the rooftop tiles like a poorly prepared acrobat.
[HP] has decreased by 7%! (100% → 93%)
Chewie skidded to a stop across the shoulder of a monk statue, flicked a skewer mid-air, and bit down. "Style points: 8.5."
"Can I cash those in for health insurance?" Eathan groaned.
Then, the rift fully formed above them.
And it was ugly.
A crimson beast pulled itself through the breach—a thing of soot and molten sinew. Its limbs were too long and bent in the wrong way. Its under-flesh glowed like slag steel, leaking heat and poison. Each breath erupted like burning plastic, eyes like searchlights smeared in blood.
The beast hissed, and the stone beneath it curled.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION
[Emergency Main Quest (new!)]
Seal the Anomaly Surge!
▸ Major rift detected! Threat Level re-evaluated!
▸ Rift Entity: Crimson Howler
▸ Threat Rating: A-Class
Reward: +350 Karma, +50 Qi Tokens, 3% Integrity
Team Z hit the streets running.
"Form perimeter!" Meng Yao snapped. "Stabilizers now!"
Chewie, already in motion, spun a double-seal glaive overhead. The tips flared gold-blue. Yeeko lobbed smoke grenades—then doubled over coughing like he was allergic to combat.
Finn cracked his neck. "Easy job—"
The Crimson Howler tail-whipped him through three lamp posts.
Tanke was crouched low, his wristpad zooming in and out in 60-degree rotations. "I got the whole shot in slo-mo!"
"Stop filming the collapse of civilization," Eathan barked, hurling two pre-made [Binding Receipts] into a leyline fissure underfoot. He spun, activating his [Receipt Printer] on Burst Mode, printing eight identical talismans that formed a circle around him, scattering outward like explosive petals.
[Receipt Printer (Lv. 2): Burst Mode] has been Activated!
8x Quick-Bind Seals deployed
1 Qi Token has been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (37 → 36)
The talismans ignited midair, forming chains of glowing script that lashed onto the Howler's limbs. The beast staggered momentarily.
"Anchor points stabilizing! Hit it again!" shouted Xenis.
Eathan pivoted, scanner blazing, dashing toward a vending machine toppled sideways. He rapidly scanned its barcode, the printer spinning and ejecting another volley of sealing talismans—eight bright glyphs fanning out in synchronized precision, clamping down like a net.
[Receipt Printer (Lv. 2): Burst Mode] has been Activated!
8x Offensive Seals deployed
1 Qi Token has been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (36 → 35)
The printer spat fire. Consecutive talismans, Eathan's and others', slapped down the sidewalk like confetti at a funeral, golden threads spanning between them to form an enhanced qi net.
The creature roared, thrashing wildly under the strain of glowing chains. Chewie seized the moment, lunging forward and weaving suppression glyphs mid-leap, each movement fluid as dance yet ruthless as warfare.
Behind her, Xenis screamed something about "calibration integrity," and Willow screamed something that auto-censored itself. The latter then vaulted from a rooftop edge, talismans unfurling from her sleeves like origami arrows.
"Finn, Node Eight—now!"
Finn staggered upright, wincing, flipping three talismans that exploded into electric-blue arcs, pinning the rift creature's hind legs to the ground. Yeeko tossed another grenade, igniting like alchemical fireworks against its molten hide.
Meng Yao's voice sliced clean through chaos: "Reinforce! Wenrui—leyline boost!"
"Already rebooting the local leyline!" Wenrui shouted, frantically stabbing glyphs like they owed him lunch money.
Victory hovered within reach.
The Crimson Howler snarled under the weight of close to a hundred glyph chains, its molten hide blistering with each impact, limbs pinned across five anchoring talismans and two emergency staves.
1 Qi Token has been subtracted from your [PROFILE] (35 → 34)
Eathan activated Burst Mode on the barcode scanner once more, this time slamming the talismans right into preexisting anchoring glyphs to amplify support.
"Runan, go lateral! Chewie, swing arc-left—Eathan, reinforce Node Five!" Meng Yao barked commands through the inter-team comms. "Almost there—just thirty more—"
Then, the Crimson Howler shuddered. And something in the air broke.
Under their dumbfounded gaze, the beast's massive frame convulsed, molten flesh tearing apart, reforming beneath a shadowy membrane.
Every talisman, every seal, every divine thread around it snapped simultaneously. As if swallowed by silence itself, the glowing scripts fizzled out in a synchronized gasp.
Wind detonated outward, a burst of pressure so sharp it sliced through the asphalt like a cleaver. Brick dust exploded from the rooftop edge, and streetlamps shattered in chorus. Everyone—everyone—was flung back. Chewie hit a metal bell and spun off like a tossed coin; Finn collided with a stone pillar and went limp for half a second before gritting out a cursed "definitely bad job."
Eathan's vision blurred, pain searing his spine.
SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
[HP] has decreased by 14%! (93% → 79%)
He hit the ground spine-first and saw three error notifications fly across his team tablet like someone throwing post-its at a collapsing server.
[Team Synchronization Lost]
[Stabilization Link Disconnected]
[Warning: Rift Energy Spike Imminent]
The Crimson Howler stood freely at the center of the impact crater.
And shifting.
The monster convulsed—horns fracturing outward like branching trees and bone cracking under its own evolving weight. Its molten flesh hardened into iridescent stone spiked with patterned fur. A second pair of eyes opened beneath its first, then a third. Then a fourth. Two long, jagged horns extended from the corners of its mouth like a boar's teeth.
It was shedding its skin, becoming something worse.
The afternoon sky above Jing'an Temple began to darken—not with weather, but with the sense that something had slipped past a barrier that should not have broken.
A low pulse thundered through the ground. Buildings quivered in place. And then it spoke, its voice rumbling like an ancient courthouse collapsing beneath the waves:
"Do you remember the scream your mother made?"
The air went still.
It was a psychological attack. Xenis flinched violently, shielding fracturing around him. Tanke dropped his scanner mid-sob. Runan stood rooted, blood dripping down her palm from a clenched fist. Even Chewie, face pale beneath her bangs, had frozen in place.
In the midst of it, Eathan staggered to his feet.
He was shaking uncontrollably. Not from pain, but because every bone in his body had just felt something that didn't belong in the Mortal Realm manifest into existence.
[CALAMITY RADAR β]
Status: Auto-online
Warning! Extreme hostility detected! Escape the area immediately!
Mortal shock detected!
[Humanity] has decreased by 3%! (84% → 81%)
And then came the worst of it.
[SYSTEM] NOTIFICATION
[Emergency Main Quest (updated!)]
Survive the Anomaly Surge!
▸ Major rift detected! Threat Level re-evaluated!
▸ Rift Entity: Crimson Howler → Taowu
▸ Threat Rating: S-Class+
Reward: +700 Karma, +100 Qi Tokens, 7% Integrity
A golden pulse seared up his arms, a backlash from his own [SYSTEM] trying to firewall his mind. Eathan reflexively crouched over, clutching his chest.
Oh, that's new, he thought, half-hysterically.
[HP] has decreased by 32%! (79% → 47%)
The Taowu grinned, half-molten, half-statue. Stretching limbs that now resembled spiky obsidian, it took one step forward, and the stone beneath its claws fractured.
It took a second step, and every building within view physically trembled.
On the third step, it charged.
Eathan didn't even have time to call for backup. He didn't even think about rebooting [Receipt Printer]. He just ran—
—and the battle for Shanghai truly began.