Chapter 67: Stirrings of Life
Chapter 67: Stirrings of Life
She disposed of the defective experimental subjects along the way, relentlessly pursuing the enemy’s trail.
He was a fast runner, but she could still keep up.
Suddenly, her footsteps halted.
Giving up on running away?
She lifted her gaze. On top of the building, directly in front of her, a huge shadow loomed.
She saw its massive dark body, covered head to toe in thick black fur, leisurely blocking her path.
“His” face had transformed into something beastly, the human outline almost entirely vanished. The man named “Ruoji” had shed his restrictions, assuming the pure form of a Corpse Hound.
His eyes, shining with a pale golden light, snapped sharply onto her. Hostility radiated from the monster, an aura sharp as a sword blade pressing against her throat.
Extremely dangerous!
Unlike enemies she had slain before, this one was unbelievably strong.
“What’s wrong, woman?” the monster spat out human words. “Don’t be so cowardly, will you? We can take our time and play a bit.”
In the next instant, it dissolved into a patch of shadow before her eyes and vanished.
It’s coming.
Her nerves stretched taut. She gripped “Jia Zuo” tightly with both hands.
Thump!
A sound came from behind her. The Corpse Hound, moving so fast it left no after-image, had shifted to her rear.
Unbelievable speed and leg power. It was far stronger than any Corpse Hound she had met before.
“Here I come! Let’s get properly… intimate, Miss Fang Hunter!”
The monster opened its maw, expelling a stench. Its thick, powerful right arm shot towards her head with speed sufficient to tear the air.
She leapt back, pivoted, and swung her sword. The motions flowed together seamlessly. The Exorcism Blade cut through the void like a flash of lightning.
The beast twisted away from the blade. It showed an abnormal fear of the sword.
A few black hairs were sliced off and drifted away.
Any Corpse Hound that knew the terror of the Exorcism Blade would react similarly.
Corpse Hounds feared neither ordinary blades nor firearms. Even powerful guns could rarely kill them.
—Some said Corpse Hounds had ninety-nine lives. That, of course, was mistaken. But their regenerative abilities were astonishingly strong. They had no clear physical weakness. Losing their head or having their heart destroyed didn’t matter. Even if hacked into pieces, they could slowly reform from the scraps.
However, the Exorcism Blade was truly their bane. In her hand, “Jia Zuo” emitted a faint, almost impossible to see, red glow in the dim darkness of the night. It was a crimson thread gliding along the cold steel surface.
The blade glowed faintly. Glimmering scales, resembling moth wings, drifted in the air around it.
These drifting silvery particles were the Blade Poison inherent to the Exorcism Blade.
Every Fang Hunter knew one thing: the blade alone could not kill a Corpse Hound. Only the Curse of Blade Poison coating the weapon could truly fell them.
Injuring these man-eating monsters required skill. A mere nick was enough for the Blade Poison to take effect.
Exhaling, she began to swing her blade once more, engaging the monster in a new flurry of combat.
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Thump!
The feeling of her foot striking its target. After she knocked the woman down, her sword flew from her hand. The following kick sent the woman’s entire body sprawling, sliding across the ground until she slammed against the wall.
“Are you really a Fang Hunter, inheriting the name and wielding the ‘Blade of Jia Zuo’?”
Ruoji sneered. He extended his foot, placing it squarely on the woman’s face. His clawed toes pinned her down mercilessly and began to press.
“Are any of the Fang Hunters entrusted with the Twelve Artifacts this pathetic? This wasn’t even a warm-up…”
And she hadn’t even used her “Blade Demon Transformation” at all.
Powerful Fang Hunters certainly had their unique strengths. There were even a few that gave Ruoji pause.
But this woman… was utter trash. How could someone with such poor skills even qualify as a Fang Hunter?
Could it be that the organization had actually declined in modern times?
Ruoji lowered his head slightly. His tongue lolled out. Drool dripped from the corners of his beastly mouth.
A sinister heat flared within the beast’s form. He felt a craving rise up for fresh, young flesh. He wanted meat. Human meat. Living human meat.
This hungry cannibalistic desire was the purest pleasure of embracing the Corpse Hound fate.
And here before him was a pretty woman… well, not a fully grown woman. But that didn’t matter.
He felt a stirring below.
He decided it was necessary to satisfy both his appetite and the urge from down there at the same time.
Huh! What’s this…?
At that precise moment, Ruoji noticed something. More accurately, because he had lowered his head, his gaze fell upon the woman’s abdomen, exposed through the rips in her clothes from their fight.
There was a strange mark there. Black symbols, densely packed, encircled a point like a dark sun.
Thump-thump!
Her abdomen pulsed. As if something—something fetal—was curled within her belly.
An expression flickered over Ruoji’s beastly face. Fear. He couldn’t say why he suddenly felt afraid.
In that fleeting glimpse, he saw a tiny handprint shape bulge from her swollen belly.
It was as if the fetus inside was pushing outwards against her skin with its hand.
Waaa—aaah!
A baby’s cry sounded briefly, piercingly.
A chilling shudder raced up from his tailbone. His scalp prickled. He scrambled backwards several paces before he managed to regain his footing.
The next second, Amasue Suetora, lying on the ground, opened her tightly shut eyes. Black, bloody tears dripped from them.
But Ruoji saw—her eye sockets were empty! Her eyeballs seemed plucked out, vanished from their sockets. An indescribable, chilling, ghostly aura emanated from her form.
Under the force of some unseen power, without moving her legs at all, her body eerily lifted off the ground.
Simultaneously, her expressionless face cracked into a terrifying, unnatural grin.
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When Karasawa entered the factory, he hadn’t sensed any conflicts with the “Corpse Hounds.” He’d assumed Fang Jing had just been unlucky enough to get swept into danger.
Still, Karasawa asked him about the dead Corpse Hound bodies strewn on the ground.
Fang Jing claimed he didn’t know. He said it seemed like the result of the monsters attacking each other. Brown Glasses had indeed mentioned these creatures would even eat their own kind when starving.
Karasawa didn’t press further. He didn’t think Fang Jing, an ordinary guy like that, would have the ability to survive any kind of confrontation with a Corpse Hound.
It was good Fang Jing hadn’t thought deeper about it. Through this episode, Karasawa had gained a much clearer understanding of this world—aside from supernatural phenomena, monsters disguised as humans actively moved within the city… Living here as a human being felt incredibly hard, difficult to remain optimistic.
Ordinary folks lived in ignorance. Fine. But for those like him, who knew the truth, it felt like walking on thin ice. Every step was treacherous.
“That Brown Glasses’s offer holds a certain allure for me,” Fang Jing thought as he walked home, analyzing his situation internally. “But I don’t want to become a monster that eats people. At the very least, forcing myself to be constrained, to be robbed of the freedom to choose… that alone is completely unacceptable.”
Karasawa Meisuke had spoken of a group of professionals who hunted the Corpse Hounds. These guys were well-equipped and were generally the ones dominating their encounters with the monsters.
Corpse Hounds intensely hated exposure. Once professionals spotted their trail, the monsters would usually choose to flee into hiding.
Brown Glasses and the other Corpse Hounds in the city would certainly hide after being discovered, and likely leave the city soon after.
Of course, the creature had made contact with Fang Jing. There was no telling how much information Brown Glasses had gathered about him. He sincerely hoped he’d never cross paths with it again, nor suffer a repeat “invitation.”