No one answered her question. Someone who had done wrong should not even have the right to speak. How could Pei Xin still make demands here.
So no one paid Pei Xin any mind.
After resting a while longer, they packed up, crossed the ridge, and started down the other side.
Pei Xin stared at the departing line of people and stamped in place with anxiety. Just as Pei Xin moved to catch up, before anyone could react, a huge black shadow burst from the trees and clamped Pei Xin in its jaws.
Captain Zhang, who had a mental power ability, reacted first. But his power was too weak. The creature was so dangerous that he only sensed it when it was already upon them.
Following Captain Zhang's start, everyone looked back. The moment they saw the black shadow, nearly all of them shuddered and took several steps back.
The shadow was a massive cat. It looked ten out of ten like the one they had seen at the H City base.
This great cat was coal black, eyes razor sharp, its body enormous. If they were not on a mountain near N City, Lan Jin would have thought the H City cat had come for revenge. +If they had traveled by land, Lan Jin might have believed it had trailed them all the way. But they had come by water, and the depths were swarming with abnormal life. A cat could not swim that far.
So why did two different cities have such a huge and identical cat.
And in the cat's gaze there was not only sharpness. When it looked up at the people midway down the slope, there was also a trace of…
Hatred.
Where did that hatred come from. Humans rarely even came into contact with such things. Before the apocalypse, the internet in China was developed, yet there had never been a whisper of a legend about creatures like this.
Lan Jin found it deeply strange.
…
Perhaps because the people on the slope did not move, the cat took two heavy steps forward with Pei Xin in its jaws.
Its destructive power was terrifying. Anyone would fear being forced by such a beast. The cat advanced two paces. The people reflexively retreated two.
One person did not. Lan Jin.
If someone as strong as Lan Jin could not handle this, there was no point in anyone going farther.
Lan Jin called a whip into her hand and moved several steps ahead. Before a beast's roar came, they heard instead a human voice that did not sound entirely real.
"Don't move. Don't come closer."
The voice sounded a little far away, so Lan Jin was sure it did not come from the people behind her. She looked left and right for a while and saw no speaker. With no person in sight, there was no reason to listen. Lan Jin started forward again.
The voice snapped, angry and crude. "I told you not to move. You $%@# stop right there."
Lan Jin halted. An unreal thought crossed her mind. The sound seemed to be coming from the cat's mouth. How could a cat speak human words?
Seeing Lan Jin stop, Pei Xin thought Lan Jin would not save her. Pei Xin thrashed in the cat's jaws and screamed, "Save me. Save me."
Everyone, Lan Jin included, ignored Pei Xin and stared past her at the cat.
Because as the cat turned, the people on the slope finally saw the creature's whole body.
Left side. And right side.
Why describe one turn as two halves. Because the cat itself was wrong.
Facing them at first, the cat had shown only its left side. That half looked normal. Otherwise they would not have been so composed.
When the cat faced them head on, Pei Xin's body blocked the view, so they noticed nothing.
But when the cat turned and presented its right side, the wrongness appeared. On that side of its head was a human face. Not a half-face, a full face with its own eyes and nose. Even the mouth was complete, growing right above the cat's own.
The human skin was bare, not furred, fused grotesquely with the cat's head. In a word,
Horrifying.
It was a horror of the uncanny, worse even than the human-faced rabbit they had seen before.
Seeing that human face explained who had just spoken.
Noticing the terror on their faces, the twisted human visage cackled. "Scary? Terrified? But is this not what you did? What are you afraid of? Is this not something you humans made… %#$@, #￥@!"
While the human face cursed, Lan Jin dismissed the Violetbane Ring, and a bolt of lightning split the air. It was the smallest charge Lan Jin could manage. Otherwise, with Pei Xin in those jaws, Pei Xin would have been electrocuted.
Even that smallest spark was enough. The cat loosened its bite. Pei Xin seized the moment, tore free, and ran downhill without looking back.
With Pei Xin no longer blocking their view, that warped human face was in full sight.
Nearly everyone on the slope raised their weapons and trained them on the cat above.
The cat finished its stream of curses and said only, "I will be waiting for you."
Then it turned and left.
It moved like black wind. In a blink, it was gone. Pei Xin, on the other hand, had not yet reached the group when she finally dragged herself back. Instead of thanking Lan Jin, Pei Xin glared like an enemy, lifted her hands, and lunged to shove Lan Jin, as if the one who had held her in its jaws was Lan Jin and not the cat. Poison gleamed in Pei Xin's eyes.
Lan Jin did not fear her. Lan Jin was already shifting her weight to kick when Shen Zhiyan moved faster and drove a boot into Pei Xin.
In the special training group, Shen Zhiyan did not rank in the top three, but Shen Zhiyan held fourth without ever slipping. Among women, Shen Zhiyan was first without dispute. That kick sent Pei Xin flying. When Pei Xin raised her head, she spat blood. The faint crack Lan Jin heard did not escape Lan Jin's ears. Pei Xin's pelvis had likely fractured on the spot.