The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 48: Final Boss

He isn’t human, and he isn’t your friend Wang Zikai.

Wang Zikai never exists. It’s just a persona played by a delusion monster, by a mutated wanderer.

So he’s dead. No need to be heartbroken about it.

Gao Yang kept telling himself all that, but it didn’t work. His chest was still so tight that he could barely breathe.

All kinds of memories rushed into his head. On the first day of school, he almost got hit by Wang Zikai’s sports car at the gate. The third day of military training[1], he fainted due to the heat, and Wang Zikai carried him to the infirmary on his back. The first time he got dragged by Wang Zikai to the internet cafe, they ended up losing every single game the entire night. The first time they got drunk, Wang Zikai cried and admitted that he didn’t want his parents to divorce...

Gao Yang slumped down before Wang Zikai’s body, unable to pick himself back up.

It was then that Qing Ling returned to the house with her Tang Dao, covering her bleeding arm.

After hesitating for two seconds, Fat Jun stood up from Wang Zikai’s side and walked up to Qing Ling, putting his hands around the injury on her arm. “Heal!”

Qing Ling glanced at Wang Zikai, her brows furrowed. “He’s dead?”

Officer Huang nodded. “His heart stopped.” Then he looked around at the messy piles of dead monsters on the floor. “Who would’ve thought we would end up killing all the villagers for real. We would have died if not for Wang Zikai.”

“...Are we missing anyone?” Fat Jun asked worriedly.

Qing Ling answered, “I counted. There are 31 outside, 22 inside. That’s 53 in total.”

“We didn’t miss any! Then we can get out of this hell hole, can’t we?” Fat Jun was eager to leave. “They’re all dead. We have no enemies here!”

The moment Fat Jun said that, Gao Yang felt his chest tighten.

He covered it with a hand. “Something’s wrong...”

“What is it?” Officer Huang tensed up.

“This doesn’t feel right...” Gao Yang couldn’t explain it. Perhaps it was his high Willpower telling him that there was an enemy hiding near them.

“It’s not over yet,” Gao Yang said with a hint of despair. “There’s something around here. It’s strong, excited, dangerous...”

“Brother Yang, you, you... Don’t joke like that! It’s not funny at all!” Fat Jun couldn’t take another life-threatening danger. He looked around nervously. “What’s around? Where? I see nothing!”

Gao Yang closed his eyes and accessed the system.

[Warning, you are in extremely great danger.]

[Luck acquisition rate increases to 1000 times.]

—1000 times?

Gao Yang couldn’t quite wrap his head around that, but he knew one thing for certain: they would die if they stayed like this!

So he opened his eyes wide and yelled, “Run! Run now!”

Without hesitation, they rushed out of the house. They didn’t even have time to take Wang Zikai’s body with them.

The moment they reached the yard, Qing Ling, the one who had been running at the very front, came to a sudden halt. Without turning around, she raised her hand and ordered the other three, “Stay back! Don’t come near me!”

Even though they didn’t get why she said that, they stopped and held their breath.

Gao Yang was the first to realize the situation. Eyes wide, he noticed something was wrong with Qing Ling...or her long black hair, to be more specific. A few strands were slowly flying into the air, defying gravity.

It’s not Qing Ling’s! Gao Yang immediately realized.

Hiss, hiss, hiss—

The strands of black hair swung around Qing Ling’s delicate neck to strangle her. She curled her fingers, calling over the razors she had hidden in her breast pocket.

Swish, swish, swish! The razors cut the hair, and Qing Ling quickly crouched down, returning to her companions’ side with a jump and a roll.

The hair that had been cut down hadn’t chased after her. Instead, the hair strands hovered in the air before spreading apart like long, thin planktons. Then they slowly swam up.

The four of them looked up and froze, chilled to the bones.

What seemed like a human skull descended from the sky, its long black hair dark and dense.

“Look down!” Fat Jun shouted.

Gao Yang lowered his head and saw the hair of the dead monsters fall off before clumping together into strands. Then they slithered like black snakes before defying gravity to swim up to the abomination in the sky, like countless tadpoles returning to their mother’s embrace after getting lost.

It didn’t take long for the abomination to recover its true form.

Gao Yang didn’t know how to put it into words. The strange human skull was connected to hundreds of millions of black hair strands, and under the moonlight, it looked like a gargantuan seaweed monster that should be hovering in the deep sea rather than on land.

It descended slowly with its hair spreading in all directions, obscuring the moon and all light sources in the sky. Boundless darkness crushed toward them. It felt like the world was meeting its doom.

“Isn’t that...” Fat Jun finally came to the realization. “The hair monster that attacked us that night?”

“Yeah.”

Gao Yang’s heart sank. Even if all five of them were alive and in perfect state, it was unlikely they would be able to deal with this abomination, let alone when they had lost one man and suffered many injuries, as well as running out of ammunition and power.

He turned to Officer Huang. “Does the Twelve Zodiac Signs know?”

Officer Huang’s expression was grave. “They probably sent us here because they knew.”

“This isn’t a test,” Gao Yang said with a trace of resentment.

“We’ve been used,” Qing Ling said coldly. “We’re nothing but cannon fodder.”

“I’m sorry. I got you all into this. Wu Dahai doesn’t seem like a bad man. I thought I had a good eye for people...” Officer Huang was remorseful.

Gao Yang shook his head. “It’s not your fault. We chose to join the organization.”

“Stop talking about useless things and find a way!” Fat Jun yelled anxiously. “I don’t wanna die...”

“Can you still make a swing, Qing Ling?” Gao Yang asked.

Qing Ling didn’t say anything. Her bones had been broken in at least three parts, and the muscles of her right arm had been torn badly, preventing her from using any force with it. Although she was still holding onto her Tang Dao, it was but a front she put up to not appear weak.

Of course, she still had Metal. While level 2 Metal was effective for ambushing a human with hidden weapons, however, it wouldn’t do her any good when facing a monster of this caliber.

Gao Yang came to the conclusion as well. Qing Ling’s silence spoke volumes.

—Flee, and they fall.

—Fight, and they die.

Every part of Gao Yang’s mind was telling him that this was the end.

There was nothing more difficult than waiting for death, but the wait didn’t last long. Like a black cannibalistic flower hung upside down, the black hair circled around the four of them and covered the entire sky.

“Be careful!” Gao Yang shouted, but it was meaningless.

Fat Jun was the first to be caught by the hair. He gave up on resisting and closed his eyes, sobbing in pain. He only wished for death to claim him sooner so that he wouldn’t suffer for long.

Officer Huang was the second to fall to the same fate. He tried to resist, but it only bought him two seconds before he was wrapped up into a human dumpling.

Gao Yang fared similarly to Officer Huang. The dozen Luck points he had put into his Agility last second didn’t help him escape the black hair.

Qing Ling held on for the longest. With her Metal, she manipulated her dagger, razors, and Tang Dao to rotate around her at high speed, cutting the countless strands of hair. Nevertheless, some managed to slip past her defense, and in about six to seven seconds, she was tied up as well.

The hair lifted Gao Yang off his feet, along with his three companions.

Qing Ling was the last to get caught, but she seemed to be the prey the monster craved the most, and she was yanked to the skull the quickest. In the blink of an eye, she was dangled in front of the skull upside down.

The hair crawled along her body slowly and chillingly like snakes, making their way to Qing Ling’s silky black hair like they wanted to become one with it.

Then the skull suddenly spoke in the twisted voice of a woman, sounding hollow and bleak, “Hair, hair, such beautiful hair...”

Qing Ling stared at the skull without fear.

Then she opened her mouth. The razor she had hidden on her tongue flew out and hit the skull in the center of its forehead.

“Metal!” Qing Ling yelled, putting all her focus on controlling the razor.

But it was too thin and too brittle. The force of her control ended up squashing the razor, leaving only a thin scratch on the skull.

The hair monster was furious.

Hundreds of hair strands intertwined to form a giant black needle in an instant. Like the tail of a scorpion, it curled and pierced Qing Ling in the chest with an upward motion.

“Qing Ling!” Gao Yang cried out.

1. In China, highschool freshmen are to receive basic military training, usually in August and last for a week or two. ?