Luo Yang unclipped Night Owl from his belt and tossed the scabbard at Yan Zhi’s feet.
“A-Zhi, watch him. If something gets close, wake me... tsk, no, wake him.”
He gestured toward Qian Yao with his chin. “If he passes out, hurry up and pinch his philtrum. By the way, do you know how to do that?”
Yan Zhi knelt down, held up two fingers, and measured the spot right under Qian Yao’s nose. She gave a serious nod.
“Good.”
Luo Yang rolled his wrist, the blade tracing an arc in the dark purple firelight.
He walked toward the approaching swarm of mutant beasts, his boots crushing several scattered pieces of raw blood ore. The dark red fragments embedded themselves into the treads of his soles, making a harsh, grinding sound.
There were over a hundred beasts gathered together.
They were mostly Level 1 and Level 2 bone lizards, interspersed with a dozen or so Silver Moon Dogs.
These Silver Moon Dogs were all Level 1. They were a size smaller than the bone lizards, covered in short, grayish-white fur, with a silver markings running from the top of their heads down to their tailbones that glowed faintly in the night.
Individually, they couldn't even beat a Sublimation-rank Punisher, but Silver Moon Dogs never appeared alone.
When Silver Moon Dogs gathered in a pack, those silver markings would resonate with each other, pushing their synchronization rate to the maximum. Every individual’s movements seemed to be commanded by a single brain.
And right now, the bone lizards and Silver Moon Dogs were moving together as a single swarm.
The bone lizards were responsible for the frontal assault, while the Silver Moon Dogs prowled the flanks, their paces perfectly aligned.
This was not how these two types of mutant beasts were supposed to cooperate.
Bone lizards were a solitary species, while Silver Moon Dogs were pack animals. Their hunting logic, pace of action, and even their criteria for judging prey were entirely different.
Under normal circumstances, if these two species ran into each other, they would likely start biting each other first.
But at this moment, their goal was the same, their direction was the same, and even their breathing frequencies were converging.
Luo Yang didn't have the energy to wonder why. The only thing looping in his mind was a single word: kill.
When the first bone lizard lunged, he stepped aside to dodge its foreclaws. Night Owl swept upward, the blade slicing through a gap in the bone lizard’s jaw armor, piercing the palate and emerging through the top of its head.
As he withdrew the blade, he kicked another bone lizard in the chest, using the counterforce to slide back half a step. The blade followed through in a horizontal sweep, severing the forelimb joints of a third bone lizard.
Green blood splashed onto his face—warm and carrying a foul, acidic stench.
He didn't wipe it away. His eyes narrowed behind the gore, his whites shot through with blood vessels.
There were too many enemies. One would fall, and two more would take its place. Kill two, and four would circle around from the side.
The sound of bone armor shattering, the dull thud of the blade cutting into muscle, and the ragged breaths forced from his own throat churned together in his ears.
The Silver Moon Dogs used the bone lizards as cover to slip into his blind spots.
The silver markings on their backs flashed rapidly. Four Silver Moon Dogs lunged simultaneously at his waist and abdomen from both sides.
Luo Yang’s blade spun back. A horizontal slash cut through the two on the right, but the two on the left had already reached him.
He twisted his waist to avoid the first one’s teeth, but he couldn't dodge the second one’s claws.
The grayish-white claws tore through the hem of his shirt, plowing three bloody furrows into the left side of his abdomen.
They weren't deep, but they stung like hell. A searing heat radiated from the wounds, feeling like he’d been lashed with red-hot wire.
However, the pain actually cleared his head a little.
He delivered a backhand strike, pinning that Silver Moon Dog to the ground. The tip of the blade pierced right through the center of the silver markings on its back. The markings flickered twice before going completely dark.
More bone lizards swarmed forward, their bone armor glinting coldly under the dark purple firelight.
A dozen of them pressed in at once, their foreclaws like a moving line of spiked barricades.
Luo Yang drew his blade, parried, dodged, and struck again. Every movement was half a beat slower than the previous round.
He could clearly map out the optimal attack routes in his mind, but his body couldn't keep up.
His shoulders ached as if someone had driven steel rods into them. Every time he swung his blade, he had to grit his teeth to push through the throbbing soreness.
A Level 2 bone lizard, noticeably larger than its kin, took advantage of his inability to withdraw his blade in time and slammed into him from the front. Its torso, nearly 1.8 meters tall at the shoulder, felt like a solid wall.
Luo Yang barely managed to brace the back of his blade against its chest armor, but his footing was unstable. He was knocked back four or five steps.
His soles dragged two tracks through the broken bricks, and he nearly toppled over backward.
He stabilized himself by bracing one hand on the ground, but the bone lizard’s second attack was already coming.
Its foreclaw swung over its head, swiping down toward his skull.
Luo Yang rolled to the side. The claw slammed into the spot where he had just been, sending brick fragments flying.
A piece the size of a fist struck his temple. His skin split open, and blood flowed down his brow bone, blurring his left eye.
He had no time to wipe it. Dropping to one knee, he used a reverse grip to thrust upward. The blade pierced through the chest cavity.
The bone lizard let out a wretched scream, its body still twitching as it collapsed.
Luo Yang pulled the blade from its body and used his sleeve to wipe the blood from his left eye. The moment his vision cleared, two more Silver Moon Dogs had already lunged to within a meter of him.
He didn't have time to swing his blade. His left hand reached out and seized one by the throat. Blood energy exploded in his palm, shattering its cervical vertebrae.
The other one bit into his left forearm, its teeth piercing the skin and wedging into the muscle between the ulna and radius.
Luo Yang let out a muffled groan. His right hand brought the blade across, severing its spine.
He tore the dead dog from his arm. Teeth marks remained on his forearm, and blood seeped from the wounds.
“Sss—”
The remaining mutant beasts did not retreat.
It was as if they didn't know the meaning of fear. They stepped over the corpses of their kin and continued to lung forward.
Luo Yang didn't retreat either. He stepped forward, his blade drawing one arc of ghostly blue light after another in front of him.
Sweat mixed with beast fluids and blood, sliding down his cheeks and dripping onto his cracked lips, tasting salty and bitter.
He could feel his consciousness becoming scattered. Faint black shadows began to appear at the edges of his vision.
Those weren't beasts with special abilities; they were hallucinations caused by his retinas being overstrained.
In addition to the sounds of shattering bone armor and the screams of beasts, a low buzzing hum had started in his ears, like someone had placed a tiny buzzer deep inside his ear canal.
His head grew heavier and heavier. It felt like every time he turned to lock onto a target, it took half a second longer than the last.
But he kept cutting. His movements had deformed; what was once precise wrist-work had become brute-force swings of his entire arm, each strike carrying a tearing sound of whistling wind.
The angle of his blade was no longer precise. Sometimes he would hit the thickest part of the bone armor, the vibration numbing his entire arm.
But he didn't care. If he couldn't cut through in one strike, he’d swing again. Once the bone armor broke, he’d thrust the blade in.
The green and silvery-red blood had already stained his entire white shirt a deep brown.
The fabric clung to his body, slimy and wet. He couldn't tell which was his own blood and which belonged to the beasts.
A Level 2 bone lizard lunged from the side, its foreclaw swiping across his back.
Three lacerations tore from his right shoulder blade down to the left side of his waist. His shirt was shredded into rags.
Luo Yang stumbled forward two steps. His foot caught on the corpse of a Silver Moon Dog, and he nearly fell.
He steadied himself, twisting his body to swing back. One strike severed the bone lizard’s forelimb, followed immediately by a second strike that split its skull.
The blade was wedged in the bone, making a harsh grating sound as he pulled it out.
He gasped for air, his chest heaving violently. Every breath he took was filled with the metallic scent of blood rising from his throat.
The hand holding the blade was trembling slightly—a clear sign of total exhaustion.
He didn't know how long he had been fighting. It was only when the last bone lizard collapsed and the surroundings fell silent that he realized both his legs were shaking, his knees as soft as cotton.
His mouth hung open, the air he sucked in making a hissing sound against his teeth. His throat was as dry as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper.
He looked down at the corpses littering the ground.
Severed limbs of bone lizards, broken bodies of Silver Moon Dogs, shattered plates of bone armor, and congealed bodily fluids—all sorts of filthy remains covered the entire outer area of the plant.
The beast corpses were piled several layers deep. Those at the very bottom had been flattened, their fluids seeping into the cracks in the ground, shimmering with an oily, dull light.
Luo Yang sheathed Night Owl and turned to walk back. Every step landed on a corpse, his soles meeting the slippery, sickening sensation of squelching flesh and crushed bone.
But he didn't want to take the long way around. He walked straight over them.
When he returned to Qian Yao, Yan Zhi was still crouching in the same spot, her two fingers hovering just below Qian Yao’s nose, ready to pinch his philtrum at any moment.
Seeing Luo Yang, she withdrew her hand and stared at the bleeding wounds on his body for a few seconds.
“You’re hurt. Is it serious?”
“Just superficial.” Luo Yang knelt down, first checking on Qian Yao’s condition.
Qian Yao was still conscious, but he was in bad shape. His pupils were dilated, his breathing was shallow and erratic, and red bloody foam was congealing at the corners of his mouth. There wasn't a hint of color in his face.
The tissue around the laceration on his right leg had turned from white to black, and a dark yellow fluid was beginning to seep from the edges.
Excessive blood loss, exhausted blood energy—if they delayed any longer, it wouldn't just be about saving the leg; he wouldn't even survive.
Luo Yang pulled his phone from his pocket. The tempered glass protector had several new cracks, but this time, even the screen was shattered.
When that Silver Moon Dog had bitten his left forearm earlier, its teeth had gone right through his pocket, biting the entire phone into a twisted mess of fragments.
He pressed the power button on the pile of junk twice, but nothing happened.
“Old Qian, where’s your phone?”
Qian Yao’s eyelids fluttered, as if it took him several seconds to process the question.
“...Gone.”
His voice was so faint it sounded like it was coming from far away.
“It probably got thrown somewhere. When that Wind Spirit Lizard flipped the factory building, I was tossed over a dozen meters.”
Luo Yang stuffed the dead phone back into his pocket, his hands resting on his knees for a long time.
Without a phone, it meant they couldn't contact the rear.
If they couldn't contact the Ability Bureau, they couldn't call for an ambulance or notify anyone who could help.
Qian Yao’s leg wouldn't last the night, but Luo Yang’s off-road vehicle could still run, and the keys were in his pocket.
Carrying Old Qian to the car and driving him to the nearest field hospital would take twenty minutes at most.
But to the east of the industrial park, there were still people from the Third Section surrounded at the alloy factory.
Qian Yao had taken his men on a shortcut specifically to support them, only to be intercepted here by the Wind Spirit Lizard, losing all seven of his brothers in the process.
If he drove Qian Yao away now, those people to the east would almost certainly not last until the next wave of reinforcements arrived.
If he saved Old Qian, the people to the east might all die there.
But if he left Old Qian to go east, Old Qian’s leg would be gone.
Luo Yang looked down at his blood-stained fingers. Green bits of flesh and gray bone shards were wedged under his fingernails.
He didn't speak. His hands clenched tightly into fists, his knuckles letting out two sharp cracks.
Yan Zhi tilted her head to look at him, her lips moving as if she wanted to ask something, but the question never came out.
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