The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 71: Slaughter

“Qing...Ling...”

Wu Dahai stared. The goddess he had dreamed about and pined after was no more.

And it was his fault. If he had been decisive enough to strike with Lightning the moment Qing Ling stabbed the man in black with her Tang Dao, he would be able to kill the man at the price of critically injuring Qing Ling. But he didn’t do it. He thought they were winning, and he didn’t want to hurt Qing Ling.

Yet the man killed her without hesitation.

How could he do that to someone so beautiful, without even blinking?

Wu Dahai’s shock lasted only a second, but that one second was enough for the man in black to strike.

Before Wu Dahai could manipulate his lightning again, the man threw the short sword at him.

Wu Dahai’s attack was stopped short, and he dodged out of the way.

Wu Dahai was quick for a ‘spellcaster’, but he was fighting a professional killer. When he regained his balance, the man in black had already gotten close to him.

Qing Ling’s Tang Dao was still in the man’s left shoulder, and the cut was at least ten centimeters deep. His arm would fall off at any second. He’d been splattering blood everywhere as he ran at full speed.

It was no exaggeration to say that he was like a frenzied zombie... No, it would be more accurate to compare him to the berserking Eva-01 from his favorite anime, Evangelion.

Shockingly, the man in black was moving even faster than before despite his serious injury!

The moment the man got into Wu Dahai’s space, he pulled out the Tang Dao in his left shoulder without pause.

Wu Dahai felt a great pain in his right thigh before he could move his hands. He didn’t have to look down to know that the man had thrown the Tang Dao at him and hit the artery there.

Bracing against the pain, Wu Dahai conjured his power. “Lightning—”

But he was half a second too slow.

The man in black broke Wu Dahai’s jaw with an upper hook thrown with his right arm, sending Wu Dahai flying in a parabolic trajectory before he slammed into the two-meter tall display cabinets for figurines.

Wu Dahai lost consciousness amid the broken figurines and shattered glass.

It was unbelievable that it had been less than ten seconds from the moment the man in black went after Gao Yang, got hit by a lucky errant lightning from Wu Dahai, killed Qing Ling, and finally to the moment he took out Wu Dahai.

The man knew exactly how long it had been; he had been counting throughout his killing spree. To be in control of time was to be in control of the pace of the battle and the information one could miss.

Ten seconds.

The man tensed up. If his memory served him right, Level 2 Replicate lasted 10 seconds. The cunning boy had replicated White Rabbit’s Jump... He still had one second!

The moment the thought flashed through the man’s mind, he felt a great force slamming into the side of his back.

In less than ten seconds, Gao Yang had witnessed the fall of Qing Ling and then Wu Dahai. He didn’t have time to be angry or sad. Seizing the last one second—the brief pause to the man’s movement after he dealt with Wu Dahai—Gao Yang jumped and lunged at the man with all the power he could muster.

The man in black didn’t even attempt to resist the force that slammed into him, or his spine would’ve broken under the impact. Instead, he relaxed completely and allowed Gao Yang’s momentum to send both of them flying five to six meters in the air.

They fell and rolled, grappling on the floor in a twist of limbs. The man in black had lost his weapon, and his left arm was as good as useless. Not to mention the great impact that had just hit him.

Gao Yang clearly had the upper hand. He opened his arms and grabbed onto the man tightly.

“Fire!”

Fire as hot as 580 degrees Celsius surged and burned the man’s back, quickly spreading to the rest of his body.

Gao Yang knew that he would be under the mercy of his own fire, but with his fire resistance, he could endure it until the man got burned to death.

It was common knowledge that being burned was excruciating. The average men would lose their rationality because of the unbearable pain and in turns lose their focus, unable to retaliate effectively. Normally, they would be at the mercy of increasing pain until they died.

Yet the man in black seemed to feel nothing. Even with the fire blazing on his back, he never stopped moving.

He reached for his burning back with his still mobile right hand, and ignoring the blazing pain shooting from his fingers to his heart, he grabbed Gao Yang’s left thumb.

Crack!

Gao Yang screamed as his left thumb got broken, and the fire shooting out of his left palm vanished. That was half of the fire that could’ve devoured the man whole.

The man in black then made a side flip, twisting his waist with impressive agility and breaking free of Gao Yang’s other hand with a quick judo move.

When Gao Yang recovered from the pain, his right arm was already caught in the vise-like grip of the man’s thighs.

—Shit!

His premonition was right. Half a second later, Gao Yang heard the crack of his arm popping out of his shoulder.

And as he cried out in pain, the fire shooting out of his right palm vanished as well.

The man in black kicked Gao Yang away and quickly rolled on the floor a few times to put out the fire. Then he got to his feet and marched up to Gao Yang with a bleeding, dangling left arm.

Gao Yang curled into himself on the floor. His dislocated right shoulder, his broken left thumb, and the heavy kick to his chest overwhelmed him with so much pain that he could no longer fight.

But he must not give up!

He closed his eyes.

[Access granted...]

However, the man in black didn’t give him the time to do anything. He strode up to him and kicked him in his lower abdomen.

Feeling his organs being rearranged into a mess, Gao Yang rolled five meters away before the back of his head slammed into Wu Dahai’s desk. He saw stars as his vision went dark, and his brain stopped working.

The man in black didn’t leave anything to chance. He stepped on Gao Yang’s neck and pushed down, taking away his breath by applying more and more pressure. Gao Yang wasn’t sure if he would die of suffocation or a broken neck first.

Despair.

That was all he could feel.

Why? Why didn’t the man show any sign of pain or exhaustion even though he was badly injured as well?

Was he a mutant? Was he invincible?

Was he a monster or an awakener? Was he an archenemy of the Twelve Zodiac Signs?

Gao Yang had thought that the organization could be his support, yet he was facing his death the very day he joined. What an irony! He was suddenly reminded of the masks displayed in the glass cabinets in the hidden chamber like antiques. All those different masks...

What were their owners thinking before their deaths? Did they ever regret joining the organization?

“Let Brother Gao Yang go!” Before his consciousness slipped from him, Gao Yang heard a young voice speak up in a defiant, hurt tone. It was...Lovely Lamb.