Chapter 225 - 133: Strange Beast

Chapter 225: Chapter 133: Strange Beast

It was a person!

A man, about forty years old, was sitting against the wall in tattered work clothes. His left leg was wrapped in a bandage torn from a piece of clothing, which was completely soaked through with blood. He cradled an old shotgun in his arms, his eyes half-closed and lips chapped. He was clearly in bad shape.

Xu Mo gave an all-clear signal. Zhang Yun entered from the other side, and the two approached from the left and right.

Hearing the noise, the man’s eyes snapped open. He tried to raise the shotgun, but his movements were so weak and feeble that he posed no threat to them.

"Don’t move! We’re the patrol!" Zhang Yun barked, pointing his gun at the ground to show they weren’t hostile.

The man froze for a moment, then slowly lowered his shotgun. An expression of immense relief washed over his face. "You’re... you’re finally here..."

"Who are you? What are you doing here? What happened to your leg?" Zhang Yun fired off a series of questions, simultaneously signaling Xu Mo to keep watch.

"My name is Wang Jing..." the man said, gasping for breath. "I’m from Xia Mountain Town. On the way here... I was attacked by some kind of monster—"

A violent coughing fit cut him off. He struggled to breathe, each gasp causing more blood to seep from his wound.

Xu Mo quickly stepped forward, took a water bottle from his pack, and handed it over. "Take it easy. Speak slowly."

Wang Jing took the water bottle and drank a few small, trembling sips. A little color returned to his face. He leaned back against the wall, his eyes vacant as he stared at the ceiling, seemingly lost in the memory of his terrifying ordeal.

"Xia Mountain Town is about one hundred twenty kilometers south of Jiang City," Wang Jing said, his voice hoarse. "There were over thirty of us there. We were surviving in an abandoned granary. Life was hard, but at least we were alive..."

Zhang Yun crouched down to examine the wound. When he unwrapped the bandage, it revealed a gruesome tear. The edges were jagged, as if he had been mauled by some kind of beast. The wound had already started to fester, emitting a foul odor.

"This wound needs to be treated immediately," Zhang Yun said with a frown. "How many days has it been?"

"Three days? Four? I can’t remember," Wang Jing said with a bitter smile.

"That night, we were in the granary dividing up food when we suddenly heard a noise outside..."

His voice began to tremble. "Old Li, the night watchman, shouted, ’What’s out there?!’ and then he screamed. We grabbed our weapons and rushed out, and that’s when we saw it—a monster unlike anything we’d ever seen before."

"What kind of monster?" Xu Mo asked.

"It looked like a wolf, but it was much bigger—probably as tall as a man when it stood up." Wang Jing gestured with his hands. "It had grayish-black fur and red eyes that glowed in the dark. Its claws were incredibly long, like scythes."

Zhang Yun and Xu Mo exchanged a look. They had never heard of anything matching that description.

"We opened fire—shotguns, homemade guns, everything. But we couldn’t pierce its hide. The bullets just went THWACK THWACK against its skin, like hitting a drum." Wang Jing closed his eyes. "It charged into the crowd and disemboweled two people with a single swipe of its claw. We fell into chaos. Some tried to run, others tried to fight... In the end, they all died. I took a hit to the leg and desperately crawled into a nearby drainage ditch to hide. That’s the only reason I’m still alive."

"Just one?" Xu Mo pressed.

"Just one," Wang Jing confirmed. "But that single monster wiped us all out. It didn’t eat the people it killed; it just killed them. It was like it enjoyed the slaughter."

Zhang Yun’s expression grew grim. A single monster had single-handedly destroyed a settlement of over thirty people, and guns were useless against it. This was far beyond what any ordinary mutated creature could do.

"What happened then? Where did the monster go?" Xu Mo asked.

"I don’t know," Wang Jing said, shaking his head. "I hid in that drainage ditch all night and didn’t dare come out until dawn. The ground was covered in bodies... Not a single person was left alive. I couldn’t stay there, so I just picked a direction and ran. I wrapped my wound with a strip of cloth along the way and kept going until I got here. I just can’t walk anymore."

Xu Mo stood up and walked to the window to observe the situation outside. It was empty, with only the sound of wind whistling through the ruins. But for some reason, he had the feeling that something was watching them from the shadows. Yet, there was no accompanying sense of danger, which felt strangely... off.

"We have to get him back," Zhang Yun said in a low voice. "This wound will be fatal if it’s not treated, and the intel he has is critical."

Xu Mo nodded and picked up his radio. "G-2, this is an emergency call. We’ve found an injured survivor in the residential area of Zone C. He claims to be from the Xia Mountain Town settlement, which was reportedly attacked by an unknown monster. All other survivors were wiped out. Requesting medical support and extraction assistance."

The radio was silent for a few seconds before a reply came through: "Copy that, position confirmed. Medical team has been dispatched, ETA twenty minutes. Secure the survivor’s location and remain vigilant."

"Copy."

Xu Mo lowered the radio and returned to Wang Jing’s side. "Hang in there. Help is on the way."

Wang Jing gave a weak nod, but a flicker of fear crossed his eyes. "You have to be careful. That thing... it might have followed me."

"What do you mean?" Zhang Yun asked, instantly on alert.

"On the way here, I kept feeling like something was watching me," Wang Jing’s voice grew quieter. "Several times, I looked back and saw a shadow flit through the trees. I thought it was just a hallucination, that I was just on edge, but now that I think about it..."

Before he could finish, a bloodcurdling howl suddenly pierced the air from outside the window.

The sound was unlike any known animal’s cry—it was sharp, piercing, and carried an indescribable malice. Xu Mo and Zhang Yun immediately raised their guns, aiming in the direction of the sound.

"It’s here..." Wang Jing’s face was deathly pale. "That’s the sound..."

Xu Mo quickly moved to another window, peering out cautiously. The area outside was still empty.

After scanning the area a few times, Xu Mo spotted a dark figure at the edge of a mound of earth.