Chapter 90: A New Hunter

In a remote little town in Panyu District, deathly silence hung over everything. Now and then, a few people infected after being bitten by low-level vampires would appear—sluggish, mindless, like walking corpses. Their only common trait was that they were all being controlled by something unseen.

In an empty alley, an elderly man swayed as he walked, his head bowed, drifting along like a sleepwalker, utterly unaware of the obstacles around him. Bang. A gunshot cracked suddenly through the air. The old man’s head burst open, and he collapsed to the ground, twitching once or twice before going still.

“Yes—now that is cool.” A man waved his hand in delight. While sipping milk and looking through binoculars, he caught sight of a figure moving in his line of vision. Then dozens of people moved forward all at once, as though some invisible force were driving them from behind.

“Again. This time, I want consecutive headshots.” After saying that, the man lowered the binoculars and picked up his rifle again. He and his younger brother were seated on top of a supermarket, wagering with one another over how many heads they could drop.

The sudden appearance of vampires threw everyone into chaos. No one knew how they had appeared, much less what they wanted. They only knew that anyone bitten would become a mindless shell. As a result, nearly all the citizens fled toward other districts, but the thick haze formed an impenetrable barrier, and the continual disorder led to deadly crushes as people surged into one another.

“Brother, don’t you think there are a lot more of those things this afternoon? There are corpses all over the place. I just lost to that drunk across the street because of them.” The speaker was Chen Nan. The one firing the gun was his older brother, Chen Xiong. The two brothers were usually idle drifters who made a living by petty theft and other sneaky tricks.

“What’s there to be afraid of? It’s not like we’re short on bullets. We won’t even use them all tonight.” Chen Xiong said as he picked up a box of ammunition beside him.

At the far end of the street, a figure appeared. He was much taller than an ordinary man, almost two and a half meters in height. Across from him sat an old man wearing a hat, his face covered in stubble. He was drinking and sighting along his gun at the figure. He was the winner from the previous round. After all, he had once been a soldier, and his marksmanship was precise. He fired first.

“Huh?” The bullet struck the man’s body, but the target kept walking. The old man aimed again at his heart and fired twice more. Still nothing happened. The bizarre sight shocked him. This colossal creature, over two meters tall, was completely ignoring his bullets.

“My God!” He fired several more shots, and when he ran out of ammunition, he immediately swapped in another magazine. The huge figure was already closing the distance at a run.

“Damn it, what kind of beast is this?” The old man kept firing in bursts. It ignored the storm of bullets and soon stood before him, lifting a fist.

His chamber was empty. The old man realized his life was at an end. Before he could even react, the fist smashed him apart. Then the entire building collapsed. The two brothers on the next street stared in stunned disbelief. Behind that creature, dozens of sluggish ordinary people suddenly appeared and surged toward them. On a distant high-rise, a girl with straight bangs stood on the rooftop, her long hair streaming in the wind as she looked down at everything unfolding below.

“Damn it, so many monsters are coming. Run!” Chen Xiong shouted, slinging his gun over his back. He and his brother hurried downstairs and threw their things into the car.

No sooner had Chen Nan gotten into the vehicle than heavy footsteps sounded nearby. With each step, another building seemed to crumble. Realizing something was wrong, he started the car at once. They had not gone far before the gigantic monster was already in front of them, roaring as it spread its wings.

“Whoa! That freak even has wings. What the hell is that thing?”

“Hold on tight.”

Chen Nan pushed the speed up to 120 kilometers per hour. The monstrous thing flew straight toward them, while the nearby roads were blocked by those people. Chen Xiong braced his rifle and fired wildly out the window. Chen Nan slammed the brakes, jerked the wheel hard to the right, and the giant monster, unable to react in time, crashed headfirst into another building. In order to survive, they charged forward no matter whether there were living people in front of them. Bodies were thrown violently aside; some were even split in half beneath the wheels. The entire scene was gruesome beyond words.

“Why are there even more of them?”

At the next intersection, more than a dozen people appeared to block the road. Chen Nan panicked and swerved. Then the blood on the tires made the car skid, and it slammed uncontrollably into a building.

“Damn it! The engine’s dead.”

“No way! How can your driving be this awful?”

The two brothers aimed their guns and fired at the oncoming people. Those figures advanced slowly, as though forcing the two little animals to savor death inch by inch.

“Bastards.”

Just as they were nearly upon them, the winged monster swooped down from the sky. Terrified, the two men leaped from the car. The monster landed on the vehicle behind them and detonated it with a thunderous blast. Bathed in firelight, the winged creature rose again. The heat of the flames could not harm it at all.

Chen Xiong said in disbelief, “What kind of monster is this?”

“Brother, the guns and bullets are all in the car. What do we do?”

The two stood back to back. With no guns and no bullets, escape was impossible. They were already surrounded. The creatures roared wildly, and that shrill chorus made the brothers tremble with fear.

At that very instant, a pillar of blue light flashed into existence and severed one man’s arm at once. Blood sprayed directly over the two brothers. A figure appeared before them. Her long hair flowed naturally in the howling wind, and in blue attire she seemed to descend like an angel.

“Whoa! A beauty.” The brothers were instantly dazzled.

She sprang upward, and sword energy tore through countless bodies. Almost everyone struck by it was sliced apart. She kept attacking in the midst of the crowd, while Chen Xiong and Chen Nan stood there, dumbfounded, unable to understand what had just happened.

“Will that beauty be all right?”

Chen Xiong looked over and said, “She should be fine. She’s that good.”

The winged monster lunged at her. She evaded perfectly, then swung her sword down from behind. Unwilling to accept the wound, it turned abruptly and smashed a fist toward the girl. She leaped back to dodge. The fist struck where she had just been standing, blasting a huge crater into the ground with a thunderous boom.碎石 flew everywhere.

The girl knew this monster was extremely strong. Not only was it immensely powerful, its body was harder than steel armor. If it landed a single blow, no ordinary human, no matter how strong, would survive. That included her.

She gathered a surge of blue energy and launched it at the winged monster. “Meteoric Firefall.”

One blue fireball after another shot out in succession. Taking advantage of the opening, she slashed at its hand. With a sharp crack, its left arm was severed in two. Deprived of one arm, it flew into a rage. At that moment, a horn sounded from behind the crowd. A column of water pierced straight through, splitting the masses apart and opening a path. Then a car drove through that watery passage and stopped in front of the girl with a screeching brake.

A boy poked his head out of the car window, grinning. “Yongxin, we really are fated. We’ve only been apart for a few hours, and here we are again.”

“Who said I’m fated with you?”

The girl’s full name was Wu Yongxin, and the boy in the car was named Zhong Chen. “Get in, all of you.”

Chen Xiong and Chen Nan immediately climbed into the car. Though the vehicle offered a little sense of safety, the dread surrounding them had still not dispersed.

“Yongxin, get in too. We’re leaving.”

Zhong Chen knew she wanted to wipe out those infected people on her own. No matter how much she objected, he pulled her into the car anyway and fastened her seat belt.

“Zhong Chen, please stop interfering with me, all right?”

Zhong Chen smiled faintly. “No. I can’t stand by and watch the person I like throw her life away.”

Wu Yongxin said nothing. She understood what he meant, but toward him she felt nothing at all. The car sped outward. As it cut through the watery passage, Chen Xiong and Chen Nan’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. After everything they had seen, they were practically speechless.

Before long, they had successfully broken free of the encirclement. Like an arrow released from a bow, the car raced toward the city center. Behind them, the winged monster’s severed arm regenerated once more. Staring fixedly at the car, it ground its teeth and snarled:

“Hunter.”