The Creatures that We Are

Gao Yang and Lithe Snake crossed the lawn to the cluster of new buildings in the northern part of the neighborhood. These buildings had yet to be handed over to the buyers. With no residents, the area was silent. The two of them walked up to the wall and spotted blood on a metal fence gate.

“The wanderer went in.” Lithe Snake shot Gao Yang a glance.

Gao Yang looked through the fence gate. On the other side was a small traditional market. This late at night, the market was of course empty. The stand and shop owners would only come in when the morning came.

The two of them carefully vaulted over the gate.

The market was an enclosed space structured like a courtyard house. All the shops on the sides were closed with metal rolling doors. At the center were blocks of cement platforms, meant for the stands to be set up on.

The platforms were filled with vegetables covered by tarpaulins. There were also cages for fowls chained and locked together.

When Gao Yang and Lithe Snake walked past the cages, the chickens and ducks clucked and quacked at them.

The market wasn’t that big. The two of them soon ran its perimeter once.

Lithe Snake pointed at the other exit, where a locked rolling door was. In other words, Sister Luo must not have left the market. She was still somewhere inside.

Gao Yang believed he and Lithe Snake should be able to easily flush out Sister Luo and subdue her. Still, it was better safe than sorry. He decided to call the rest of the team over.

Since the operation was one they initiated on their own, they didn’t get equipment from the Guild, and thus they weren’t equipped with radios.

Gao Yang had to use his phone to send Gray Bear a message, “At the market north of the neighborhood. Tell everyone and come ASAP.”

Gray Bear was closest to the market. He made it here in less than a minute.

Due to his size, he made quite the noises when he vaulted over the metal fence gate.

“You got her?” Gray Bear asked.

“No, but she must be inside.” Gao Yang believed the three of them should be enough and decided no to wait. “Take the only exit here, Gray Bear. Lithe Snake and I will flush her out.”

Then he added after a pause, “Remember, don’t kill her. We want her alive.”

Without the need to discuss it, Gao Yang and Lithe Snake each took a side and slowly stalked toward the cement platforms at the center.

They shared a glance and each grabbed a corner of one tarpaulin cover.

It was too dark. To be on the safe side, Gao Yang conjured a small fireball with his other hand and illuminated the whole market, making it much easier to see.

Of course, Gao Yang knew that Lithe Snake could do without the light.

They nodded at each other slightly and silently counted down from three. With a flutter, they lifted the tarpaulin cover at the same time.

Under it were all kinds of vegetables and wares, as well as two chairs.

Cluck, cluck, cluck—

Quack, quack, quack—

The birds made noises from the cages beside them. Gao Yang shared another glance with Lithe Snake before slowly making their way to the second cement platform covered by tarpaulin, maintaining a distance of a few meters to surround it.

Three, two, one.

Flutter! Another miss.

That left only one platform still covered.

“Christ, I’m dying of blue balls here.” Gray Bear, who had been watching everything play out, lost patience and quickly stalked up to them. “It’s just a wanderer. Aren’t you being overly cautious?”

Before Gao Yang could stop him, Gray Bear grabbed the last tarpaulin cover and yanked it off.

Their target wasn’t there.

It can’t be, Gao Yang thought, taken aback.

Lithe Snake’s sharp eyes glinted with confusion. He didn’t believe his judgment was wrong.

Gray Bear looked around and said as a friendly jab, “Hey, did you two lose the wanderer?”

Gao Yang didn’t say anything, feeling embarrassed. Still, he wasn’t the expert tracker here. The one whose reputation was on the line was Lithe Snake.

Yeah, as long as I don’t feel embarrassed, the only one embarrassed will be my teammate.

“It must be here.” Lithe Snake was displeased by the doubt thrown his way.

“Then find it!” Gray Bear raised his voice.

Suddenly, a fishy smell permeated the air. Or it would be more accurate to say that the place had always smelled fishy, but it became even more pronounced now.

Behind Gao Yang was a water tank housing a sizable school of fish. They suddenly started swishing about, releasing a more pungent smell into the air.

“Watch out!”

Gao Yang sprang to action, pushing Gray Bear to the side while using the counterforce to throw himself the other way.

Splash!

A figure leapt out of the water tank with a bone chopper for slaughtering pigs, the blade thick and sharp with a honed tip.

Gray Bear was too big to be agile, and given he had been pushed away by Gao Yang rather than reacting on his own, he was a little slow to get out of the way.

He managed to take the bone chopper with his thick shoulder rather than the back of the head as the monster intended, at least.

“Ugh!”

Gray Bear howled and rolled sideways to a stop, holding his bleeding shoulder.

“Hah!”

He activated Beastly immediately to enhance his physical abilities, which lessened the pain and stopped the bleeding quickly.

The assailant was none other than Sister Luo. She was entirely drenched with greenish gray complexion and elongated limbs. Her features were beginning to distort as well. Swinging the bone chopper around, she rushed at Gao Yang.

Gao Yang was stopped short for a moment, not by fear, but shock.

Sister Luo used a weapon. Berserking monsters didn’t usually use any weapons outside of their own body parts due to the loss of their mental faculty.

This meant that Sister Luo did retain some degree of rationality, and she weaponized it to kill her own kind, creating the serial murder case.

But why would she go against the Heavenly Way to do that?

This was no time for Gao Yang to dwell on the question. He quickly dodged Sister Luo’s attacks.

Gao Yang could’ve easily dealt with her with Fire. However, he wasn’t confident in his control, and he would end up critically injuring the wanderer and accelerating her loss of control and death, if not burning her to crisp outright.

Gao Yang quickly conjured an unstable fireball and hurled it at Sister Luo.

It scattered into embers and waves of heat as soon as it hit her, but Sister Luo had been staying in the fish tank. With her body entirely drenched, the intimidation tactic didn’t work.

She kept chasing after Gao Yang while swinging the bone chopper, and Gao Yang kept retreating and dodging, grabbing the cages to block the attacks every now and then. The startled chickens and ducks skittered around while their feathers flew in the air.

Swish, swish!

Two throwing knives sunk into Sister Luo’s arm, seizing an opening. And thud! The heavy bone chopper fell to the ground.

Sister Luo quickly looked over at Lithe Snake, who wasn’t far from her. Her bulging eyes were filled with rage and despair.

She dashed toward him.

Lithe Snake slowly drew the shortsword at his waist and waited for Sister Luo to get close.

“Don’t kill it,” Gao Yang reminded him.

“I know.”

Lithe Snake smirked.

Bang!

The gunshot startled everyone.

The pitch black market was lit up for a fleeting moment before plunging into darkness again. Sister Luo froze mid-charge. She hadn’t yet collapsed from the shot in the chest. Staggering, she continued forward. Her mind seemed to clear for a moment.

Her damp face was filled with confusion and fear, her lips slightly parted. When she reached out toward Lithe Snake, it looked more like she was imploring him to help her rather than attacking him.

Bang!

The next shot hit her forehead.

Sister Luo toppled backward, her transformed limbs spasmed before they stopped moving.

“Who is it?!”

Gao Yang didn’t have the time to check on her. He turned to the direction the gunshots came from and concentrated energy in his palms.

Lithe Snake quickly hid behind a cement platform with three throwing knives in his hands.

The shooter didn’t say anything. He stood before the metal fence, raising his gun with both hands. Under the faint backlight, Gao Yang made out a figure that belonged to a young man.

“Stop!” Gray Bear shouted, recognizing the man. “It’s a friend! Not an enemy!”

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