Changes

“Roar...” Standing atop a pile of inspectors' corpses, Xiang Ping's body was riddled with bullet holes.

There were even six bullet holes in his head, from which black blood flowed uncontrollably.

His eyes held absolutely no emotion; only his body swayed slightly.

Having killed and heavily wounded so many inspectors, even with the geographical advantage, he had reached his absolute limit.

He stared at an inspector's corpse at his feet, crouching down to feed in order to heal his wounds.

Thud, thud, thud!

“You bastard!!!” a weak but furious voice roared.

Peng Fei stumbled forward, his face pale as paper. He clutched his abdomen with his right hand and held a discarded pistol in his left.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With every step he took, muzzle flashes burst in the darkness.

Thud!

The bullet struck Xiang Ping's back. Normally, such an injury would feel like nothing more than a light sting to him.

But now that he had reached his limit, it felt like a heavy hammer blow.

The impact of the bullet knocked his body forward. He tried to stand back up.

Peng Fei had already closed the distance, standing barely half a meter behind him. The fear of this unknown monster had vanished from his face—he didn't have much longer to live anyway. He pressed the pistol directly against Xiang Ping's head.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

He fired the remaining four bullets into Xiang Ping's head in a single breath. Fragments of skull and black blood splattered into the air, and the brain inside was completely turned to mush.

Xiang Ping's body slumped over an inspector's corpse. After a few brief twitches, he went completely still.

Seeing the motionless monster, Peng Fei's legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees and slumped forward, resting on Xiang Ping's back.

“Ah...”

“Don't kill me...”

“Help... Save me...” In the alleyway, as the gunshots died down, a few faint whimpers echoed from the fallen inspectors.

Outside the alley, Zhao Jin stood quietly, choosing not to enter.

A crowd of passersby had already gathered around the area.

“Those gunshots were so loud. I really didn't expect them to catch the killer so quickly,” a middle-aged man in a suit, who had just gotten off work, remarked with surprise.

Beside him, a young man crouched on the ground and said, “I've been watching the drama here since a few hours ago. I saw so many inspectors go in. I can't believe the killer dared to come back. He was practically begging for death.”

The intense gunfire had drawn out many of the nearby residents.

At the mouth of the alley where Zhao Jin stood, there were already one or two hundred people spectating, waiting for the outcome.

Xiang Ping's aura has vanished. Zhao Jin's expression remained neutral.

This was within his expectations. The sudden, massive influx of Destiny Force earlier made it obvious that the two sides had clashed.

The inspectors probably hadn't had an easy time of it either.

A thick, golden glow, visible only to him, drifted out of the alley. The light carried Xiang Ping's distinct aura.

Destiny Force +4!

Destiny Force: 40 threads

But when the total amount of Destiny Force appeared, Zhao Jin's brow furrowed slightly.

The numbers didn't add up. Even excluding the Destiny Force he had originally given to Xiang Ping, Xiang Ping should have had at least eight to ten threads on him.

Just as he was wondering about this, the aura of a Ghoul emerged from the alley once again.

His eyes instantly narrowed. This is...!!!

Inside the alley, Xiang Ping's corpse was undergoing a transformation invisible to ordinary eyes.

The remaining half of the Destiny Force above his head was transferring to Peng Fei, the one who had killed him, merging with the Destiny Force hovering over Peng Fei's head.

The resulting fusion caused the blood flowing from his abdomen to turn black, and his wound began to heal rapidly.

The dying Peng Fei suddenly snapped his eyes open, revealing pupils that were pitch-black.

He lifted his head, his expression somewhat dazed. “What's going on? I'm still alive?”

The sensation of impending death was still etched deeply into his memory, impossible to forget.

The next instant, he immediately noticed something was wrong. When he had collapsed earlier, his night-vision goggles had been knocked askew. Yet, as he looked down the dark alley now, it appeared as bright as day.

This realization made him scramble to his feet. But when he saw his pitch-black fingernails and the dark, bulging veins on the back of his hands, his expression faltered.

Peng Fei's face twisted in confusion as he quickly checked his wound.

He saw that the gash had already healed, replaced by a patch of newly grown pale flesh webbed with black veins, looking incredibly grotesque.

“What on earth happened to me? How did I end up like this?!” Peng Fei stared blankly at the changes happening to his body.

He looked down at the corpse beneath him. The monster bled black blood, and its hands were equipped with black claws.

He knew that this bizarre transformation had to be connected to the monster.

“Brother Fei... Is that your voice? Brother Fei, save me...” Just then, a weak cry for help echoed from not far away.

Hearing the familiar voice, Peng Fei quickly looked over to his left.

A couple of meters away, a young man slumped against the wall, his head hanging low.

The young man's abdomen had been slashed open, but fortunately, his internal organs were intact. He was simply pale from severe blood loss.

“A-Lai, you're alive!” The moment he saw the young man, Peng Fei rushed over.

A-Lai was his close friend and brother-in-arms, who had even taken a bullet for him in the past.

Hearing the noise, A-Lai forced his head up, but in the next second, his entire body froze.

Through his night-vision goggles, the approaching Peng Fei appeared completely dark, his silhouette tinged with a faint red glow.

It was identical to the monster that had ripped his abdomen open.

Peng Fei didn't notice A-Lai's strange behavior. But the moment his eyes fell upon A-Lai's exposed organs...

An overwhelming, primal hunger suddenly surged in his stomach, and saliva began to pool rapidly in his mouth.

Losing all control, his hands lunged forward and plunged straight into A-Lai's exposed abdomen.

“Ahhh!!!” A-Lai shrieked in agony.

Yet, the dark, humanoid figure before him didn't stop for a second, clawing and tearing out his internal organs.

“Brother Fei!!!” A-Lai cried out one last time before going completely silent.

In the darkness, horror and disbelief washed over Peng Fei's face. “A-Lai! No, no, stop! Stop!”

He desperately tried to stop his hands, but his body was entirely consumed by hunger, operating on a feral instinct that he couldn't control.

As his close friend's organs were torn out and brought to his face, tears streamed down Peng Fei's cheeks, and his mouth forced itself open.

Squelch! Squelch!

The sounds of wet chewing echoed continuously through the narrow alley.

Thud, thud, thud!

Before long, a series of hurried footsteps approached.

“Hurry! Move it! It's been quiet in there for too long, something must have happened!” Wang Pingcheng's roar echoed from behind.

Holding a flashlight, he charged at the front with a few inspectors, followed by a squad of tactical inspectors armed with rifles and shotguns.

Just as they burst into the alley where Peng Fei was, Wang Pingcheng tripped over something and stumbled.

Instinctively shining his flashlight downward, his entire body froze. The object he had just kicked was a severed human head.

Worse, it belonged to one of his own men, the night-vision goggles still strapped to the face.

“Chief, look!” an inspector beside him pointed ahead, his voice trembling.

Even without the warning, Wang Pingcheng had already seen it. A stench of blood so thick it was almost nauseating hung heavy in the air.

In this narrow alleyway, barely twenty meters long, dozens of inspectors lay strewn about in a chaotic mess. Some had their necks ripped open, others were decapitated, and the “luckiest” among them had simply been disemboweled.

“Who the hell did this?!” Wang Pingcheng couldn't help but roar at the sky.

These were his men, colleagues he worked with day in and day out.

Amidst the sea of corpses, an inspector was kneeling before a body, his hands tearing at it, a wet chewing sound echoing from him from time to time.

The scene was too overwhelming. Even after serving as an inspector for twenty to thirty years, he had never witnessed such a gruesome slaughter.

As their flashlights illuminated the alley, the kneeling inspector slowly turned his head.

His mouth was smeared with fresh blood, his eyes were pitch-black, and tears streamed down his face. “You're here... Kill me... Please, kill me quickly...”