The Creatures that We Are

Gao Yang’s heart skipped. How powerful must the man be for him to be so arrogant?

Then a system alarm rang in his head.

[Warning! Luck acquisition rate increases to 2000 times.]

Gao Yang sighed in relief. That’s it?

That wasn’t too bad. The threat was essentially as big as Mad Red. Even in the past, he managed to defeat the man with some difficulty. Now that he had grown and had the help of two experienced teammates, he believed his odds of winning were good.

Still, he had to be cautious. A misstep could be lethal.

Officer Liu didn’t act like the typical monsters, and Gao Yang had to deal with him differently.

Staring at the officer not far from him, Gao Yang contemplated his strategy.

Then suddenly, a dizziness hit him from the back of his head. He saw duplicates in his vision before everything turned back to normal. What immediately followed was a rush of overwhelming rage rising in his chest, apropos of nothing. Yet he couldn’t ignore it, nor could he tamp down the anger with his rationality.

It was Gray Bear, having transformed into a beast.

His towering figure loomed over Gao Yang, ready to lunge at him and tear him apart.

What’s going on? Is Gray Bear a traitor?!

Gao Yang didn’t have the time to dwell on it. He dodged out of the way, and as soon as he steadied his footing, he heard something sharp cutting through air.

Instinctively, he ducked down. Two throwing knives whipped past the top of his head.

It was Lithe Snake!

Gao Yang’s eyes widened.

What is this?! Am I surrounded by traitors?!

“Ah!”

Then Gray Bear continued to attack, but his target had shifted from Gao Yang to Lithe Snake. And Lithe Snake responded in kind, drawing his shortsword to make a quick swing at Gray Bear.

Blocking the slash with a thick, strong arm, Gray Bear seized the opening to grab Lithe Snake’s by the arm and hurled him away, but once thrown, Lithe Snake made an agile flip midair and attached himself to the wall like a gecko.

He tilted his head to glare daggers at Gray Bear, his eyes filled with pure rage and killing intent, rationality forgotten.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Gao Yang yelled.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, however, his heartbeat quickened, and the anger accumulating in his chest grew in intensity.

A thought came to him, unbidden and unexplainable, yet impossible to resist—he was to kill Gray Bear and Lithe Snake. No, he must kill everyone around him! 𐍂åΝòΒÈș

The last remaining part of his rational mind compelled him to turn to Officer Liu. The man’s eyes were glowing a chilling, eerie blue.

It was a Talent!

“Seed of Resentment.”

Seed of Resentment, serial number 55, Psyche-type.

It allowed one to control the emotions of their targets through eye contact, drawing the targets into an inescapable pit of rage and making them kill each other. The longer the eye contact, the longer the effect lasted.

Gao Yang speculated that Officer Liu’s Seed of Resentment was at least level 4.

The more enemies there were, the more advantageous it was for him.

They had gotten careless!

Rather than a monster, Officer Liu turned out to be an awakener!

He had attacked with his gun in the beginning as a distraction, a trap meant for them. He knew full well that the shots wouldn’t kill the three of them. He also turned on the light and emptied his gun in order to relax their guard. Then he activated his Talent at the opportune time.

Thankfully, Gao Yang’s Willpower was high enough for him to barely withstand the effect of Seed of Resentment.

As the thoughts flashed through Gao Yang’s mind, he saw Lithe Snake crawl across the wall and lunge at him with his shortsword.

Gao Yang grabbed a basket of cabbages and hurled it at him, forcing him to cut it to pieces instead.

Without pause, Gao Yang rushed toward Gray Bear.

Gray Bear had already lost his control to his bloodlust. Opening his vise-like arms, he brought them together toward Gao Yang.

Gao Yang ducked down to dodge it and twisted his waist to step to the side, stealing Gray Bear’s gun from him.

Bang, bang, bang!

He fired thrice at Officer Liu, who took cover behind a cement pillar.

Lithe Snake and Gray Bear stopped attacking at once, their expression shocked and confused like they had just woken up from a vivid dream.

It was as Gao Yang expected.

Seed of Resentment required concentration. Once the concentration was broken, the effect would be terminated as well.

“His Talent is Seed of Resentment!” Gao Yang shouted. “Don’t meet his gaze!”

Gray Bear and Lithe Snake immediately caught on, and after an exchange of glances, they each took a side and rushed toward the cement pillar Officer Liu was hiding behind, flanking him with a pincer movement.

Gao Yang stayed where he was, conjuring fire in his hands.

With all three of them launching an attack from three different directions, Officer Liu couldn’t possibly activate his Talent to control all of them with only one pair of eyes.

As expected, Officer Liu turned to the biggest immediate threat, Gray Bear. But Gray Bear was ready for it. He quickly paused to cover his eyes, shielding himself from the Talent.

Officer Liu then turned to Lithe Snake, but Lithe Snake’s throwing knives arrived before the man did and flew toward Officer Liu’s eyes.

Caught off guard, Officer Liu hurriedly bent back to dodge out of the way, but one of the knives managed to cut his eyelid. Crimson blood gushed out and blurred his vision.

He regained his balance, but before he could even scream in pain, Lithe Snake was already in his space, stabbing at his throat with a shortsword.

Thud. Officer Liu caught the blade, letting it penetrate through his palm with splattering blood.

That took Lithe Snake by surprise. He didn’t expect their enemy to give up on dodging altogether.

The moment of hesitation allowed Officer Liu to tighten the hand being penetrated and yank the shortsword out of Lithe Snake’s grip, pulling Lithe Snake toward him by a man’s width at the same time.

Manipulating the short sword pierced through his palm, Officer Liu made a backhanded swing.

Swish!

Although Lithe Snake had made an impossible move, the blade still caught and cut off two of his right hand fingers.

Expression dark, Lithe Snake pushed aside the sharp pain coming from his hand and jumped backward, all the while throwing two throwing knives from his left hand.

It was too late for Officer Liu to get out of the way.

Thud, thud.

Two knives buried into his right arm. Then swoosh! A fireball flew toward him from the side. Officer Liu had to twist his body to not get hit. Then Gray Bear’s towering figure loomed over him from behind.

Officer Liu had lost at least four seconds to his exchanges of blows with Lithe Snake and Gao Yang, which was enough for Gray Bear to regroup and launch an effective attack.

Bam!

Gray Bear’s thick arm slammed into Officer Liu’s back, knocking him to the ground. He threw up a mouthful of blood, the cement floor beneath him cracking.

Gray Bear then seized Officer Liu’s head with one hand, ready to crush it by tightening his grip.

But then Lithe Snake suddenly threw two knives at him.

The split second during which Gray Bear grabbed his head, Officer Liu had used Seed of Resentment on Lithe Snake from a short distance, catching him off guard.

Surprised, Gray Bear had no choice but to block the throwing knives with one hand and throw Officer Liu away with his other hand.

Bam! Splash!

Officer Liu knocked a few metal cages over and fell into the fish tank, making a splash of muddled water and sending quite a few fish flying.

The air in the market seemed to settle. There was only the sounds of fish flapping their tails on the ground and the cries of chickens and ducks in the metal cages.

The fight had come to a calm…for now.

“Hmph…gah.”

Jaw tightened, Lithe Snake held onto his right hand, now missing two fingers. The bleeding stopped soon, and the fingers regrew slowly.

Gray Bear breathed heavily. His face, back, and arms were all covered in wounds and blood, but obscured by his thick pelt.

Gao Yang accessed his system quickly. The Luck points bonus still applied.

“Be careful,” he warned in a low voice. “It’s not over yet.”

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!