I would have thought the word you should say is “thank you.”
Yet only halfway through their advance, Ston who was walking in front suddenly halted his steps, raising his hand in a clenched fist to signal a “pause.”
Failing to brake in time due to trailing somewhat too closely, Zhuang Xingyu collided directly against Ston’s back. Retreating a cautious step backward, he simultaneously leaned in close to Ston’s ear with casual familiarity and murmured in a low voice, “What is it?”
The proximity made Ston feel somewhat uncomfortable; the warm breath puffing against him as Zhuang Xingyu spoke left his earlobe tickling. Yet with the situation precluding any distraction over trivial matters, he forced himself to act as though nothing was amiss, pointing a finger downward while replying in an equally hushed tone: “There’s movement.”
With their bodies pressed closely together, the moment Ston finished uttering those words, both shifted their gazes downward to the lower level, listening with rapt attention.
Very quickly, both of them caught the sound of something sharp scratching against the floorboards. The noise grew progressively louder and closer, clearly heading in the direction of the upper floor.
Clutching the hem of Ston’s uniform jacket, Zhuang Xingyu squatted down alongside him near the second-floor railing, peering downward through the gaps in the banister.
Then, both men simultaneously held their breath.
They watched as a bizarrely shaped pollutant crawled step by step upward from the lower level toward the second floor.
It was difficult to classify what species it belonged to. Based on Ston’s existing biological knowledge, this pollutant possessed the head of a bird, the claws of a chicken, the body of a snake, and the wings of an eagle. To label it a reptile was inaccurate given its claws and wings, yet to categorize it as avian was equally flawed, as its entire body rippled and coiled along the ground in a serpentine motion during locomotion.
At this moment, the pollutant was twisting its torso to traverse the ground floor living room, advancing toward the stairwell. Judging by its behavior, it was unmistakably a late-returning parent rushing upstairs to check on its precious darlings.
A wave of nausea churned within Ston an instinctive, physiological disgust and revulsion.
“Looks like this ugly freak is coming upstairs to check on its eggs,” Zhuang Xingyu observed for a moment before leaning over to whisper in Ston’s ear. “We need this house, so it’s two against one let’s kill it.”
Zhuang Xingyu’s voice was hoarse, resolute, and laced with an infectious, seductive quality that wormed its way straight into Ston’s eardrums.
He knew this battle was unavoidable: the steadily dropping outdoor temperature, hours upon hours of relentless, uninterrupted marching that had driven both men to the absolute brink of their physical endurance, and the unknown hazards waiting in any subsequent dwelling all clearly and unequivocally indicated that slaying this pollutant right here and now offered the quickest, most efficient resolution.
Thus, Ston nodded in agreement.
“Let’s formulate a plan,” Zhuang Xingyu immediately swung into tactical deployment, focusing and speaking with the rapid intensity he had practiced countless times with his teammates and brothers on the battlefield. “In a moment, I’ll sneak over to ambush it from the opposite room while you stay behind to engage this ugly freak head-on. Once the two of you lock in combat and it’s thoroughly distracted from its rear, I’ll step out to launch a surprise attack.”
Zhuang Xingyu leaned in excessively close; fearing the steadily approaching pollutant might detect their audio signals, he spoke practically flush against Ston’s ear.
The black strands of hair at Ston’s temple were brushed by Zhuang Xingyu’s lips right into his ear canal, sending a wave of tickling irritation rippling through him. Finally pushed past his threshold of tolerance, Ston gave Zhuang Xingyu a shove to force him back to a proper distance.
Zhuang Xingyu instantly broke into a grin, wearing an expression that clearly said ‘I knew it’, and bantered, “Look at how spooked you are did you really think I’d let you bear the brunt of the charge? Just joking. Alright, slip inside the room and wait for my signal to rush out and execute the flanking strike.”
Realizing belatedly that they had been operating on entirely different wavelengths, and that voicing a rebuttal was already too late, Ston: ……
Time waited for no man; the colossal pollutant had already scaled a substantial portion of the staircase, on the verge of breaching the second floor. Ultimately forced to swallow a stomach full of caustic retorts, Ston reluctantly submitted to Zhuang Xingyu’s directions, quietly slipping into an opposite bedroom to conceal himself.
Time seemed to freeze, broken only by the slimy, frictional slither of the pollutant’s chubby torso scraping across the floorboards, coupled with the strenuous exertion of its sharp talons scratching against the ground.
Ston leaned against the doorframe, peering outward through a narrow sliver of clearance.
He watched as the pollutant slithered its slick, writhing body into view at the second-floor stairhead. Before it could accurately discern the figure lurking in the shadows, Zhuang Xingyu had already flapped his wings and lunged toward it at lightning velocity!
Zhuang Xingyu moved with blistering speed, flashing across Ston’s vision like a residual blur. In the blink of an eye, he hurled himself behind the pollutant, seized both of its wings, and yanked backward with savage force, instantly tearing both appendages straight from its torso.
The pollutant emitted a piercing, agonizing shriek, its bloated, elongated body thrashing and frantically writhing in a frantic bid to fling Zhuang Xingyu off its back.
Straddling the pollutant’s serpentine body with his legs, Zhuang Xingyu drew the sharpened wooden stake from his waistband and plunged it fiercely, repeatedly into the pollutant’s flesh, twisting the stake in a complete circle after each strike to churn the tissue. Blackish-red blood immediately gushed in steady streams from the rapidly widening lacerations.
The entire sequence transpired within the span of a few seconds so fast that Ston hadn’t even managed to complete a single blink before the pollutant was screeching, twisting, and leaking dark blood all over itself.
Ston longed to charge out and assist, yet calculating that his intervention might be superfluous, he gripped his own “weapon” and continued monitoring the exterior.
Entangled in close combat, Zhuang Xingyu and the pollutant battered against the narrow corridor walls with thunderous crashes, resembling a pair of primitive beasts locked in a mortal struggle.
Fighting with desperate, dying tenacity, the pollutant unleashed a terrifying surge of brute strength during its final death throes. Following a relentless flurry of violent thrashing and counter-attacks, it successfully unseated Zhuang Xingyu, throwing him hard onto the floor, before instantly wrapping its flexible serpentine body around him in tight, constricting coils.
Tension spiked sharply through Ston’s frame as his heart hammered violently against his ribs. He watched as Zhuang Xingyu’s brows pinched together in a wince of acute pain, one of his arms pinned helplessly within the coils, leaving him with a solitary free limb and zero defensive weaponry.
Reaching such a perilous juncture, Zhuang Xingyu still stubbornly refused to voice a call for Ston’s assistance. Ston could no longer remain sidelined; standing by while another fought for survival while he cowered in relative safety directly violated his operational code.
Disregarding whatever instructions Zhuang Xingyu had issued moments prior, Ston gripped his sharpened wooden stake, shoved the bedroom door wide open, and sprinted into the open corridor.
“Pin down its head!” Ston roared at the top of his lungs. “Leave the rest to me!”
Startled by Ston’s disobedience, Zhuang Xingyu froze for a fraction of a second before barking back in exasperation: “I didn’t tell you to come out yet! You—”
Before the remainder of his warning could escape, the pollutant realizing it now faced enemies from front and rear tightened its coils with redoubled fury in an attempt to crush the life out of Zhuang Xingyu, while simultaneously lashing out with razor-sharp claws directly toward Ston.
Nimbly evading the strike, Ston darted along the corridor while keeping his eyes locked onto the pollutant’s neck, searching for an opening to drive his wooden stake home.
Struggling for oxygen under the crushing pressure of the constriction, Zhuang Xingyu cursed under his breath, reaching out with desperate effort to clamp his hands around the pollutant’s throat; yet every attempt failed as his grip slipped uselessly against the creature’s slick, mucus-coated scales.
Taking in every detail of the struggle, Ston spotted the wooden stake Zhuang Xingyu had dropped earlier lying discarded upon the floor. With a swift, agile motion, he flicked the wood upward with the toe of his boot, caught it neatly in mid-air, and hurled it across toward Zhuang Xingyu.
“Catch!”
Raising his arm high, Zhuang Xingyu locked his fingers securely around the thrown stake, leveraging the leverage provided by the wood to finally pin the pollutant’s thrashing head downward, exposing its vulnerable, unprotected neck.
“Hurry!” Zhuang Xingyu strained out a hoarse cry. “I’m about to… lose consciousness…”
Without wasting breath on a reply, Ston closed the distance to the front of the pollutant, raised his wooden stake with its sharpened tip leading, and launched into a running leap, driving the stake down viciously straight into the creature’s windpipe!
The pollutant unleashed a skin-crawling, heart-stopping shriek. Pressing his lips together, Ston put his entire body weight behind his grip, using the downward momentum of his frame to plow the stake deeper.
In the next fraction of a second, responding to Ston’s kinetic drive, a long, deep, fatal laceration ripped open across the pollutant’s neck from top to bottom. Thick, viscous black blood erupted in a geyser from the wound, showering Ston across his head and face.
As Ston hit the floor, the pollutant finally expended its final spark of vitality, its massive frame slumping listlessly sideways before crashing heavily through the second-floor banister, plunging with a thunderous crash straight down to the ground floor.
Entangled within its coils, Zhuang Xingyu tumbled downward along with the carcass, sliding to a halt against the corridor wall where he sucked in deep, ragged lunges of air.
Following a brief stretch of mutual recovery spent sitting in silence, Zhuang Xingyu turned his gaze toward Ston and confessed quietly: “I always assumed the Federation’s Grand Justices were nothing more than a bunch of fat-bellied power-mongers playing political games. I never imagined you… would be quite so different.”
Zhuang Xingyu’s original intent was to express that he hadn’t anticipated Ston possessing such formidable combat prowess and raw nerve; yet for reasons unknown, the phrasing warped entirely by the time it crossed his lips.
In truth, during his years at the academy, Ston had ranked first in both academic performance and hand-to-hand combat for four consecutive years a textbook example of an all-around elite proficient in both scholarly and martial arts, according to his instructors and peers.
However, having just executed the pollutant while taking the full brunt of its arterial spray, leaving him drenched from head to toe in foul black blood, Ston was already in a foul mood. Hearing Zhuang Xingyu’s cryptic, sarcastic appraisal only dragged his temper down further, prompting him to dispense with pleasantries and snap back sharply:
“I would have thought the word you should say is ‘thank you.'”
Faced with such unvarnished, merciless mockery of his earlier bravado, Zhuang Xingyu choked for a beat before retort flaring defensively: “Even if you hadn’t come out, I could have handled it solo. Me not calling for you proves I had it completely under control.”
In reality, Zhuang Xingyu had withheld calling upon Ston partly because he still possessed surplus energy to manage the creature painful though his fractured right wing was, it wasn’t debilitating and partly because he simply didn’t want Ston getting injured on his account.
In his eyes, Ston remained a sheltered, ivory-tower dove among the elite; someone accustomed only to wielding influence within the secure confines of the subterranean city, entirely devoid of survival instincts against genuine terrestrial peril.
Yet everything that had just transpired served as undeniable proof that Zhuang Xingyu had been entirely, fundamentally wrong.
With an expression of intense irritation, Ston rolled his eyes, pushed himself up from the floor, and headed toward the bedroom he had previously occupied, intending to locate a clean rag to wipe the blood off his skin.
As he walked off, he tossed a command backward without looking back: “Go check downstairs and see if there’s any drinkable water.”
Zhuang Xingyu, slumped against the wall cradling his injured right wing: ……