A few minutes ago, on the second-floor platform of the Hongda Chemical Plant.
The corrosive, acrid stench mingled with the smell of old rust.
Chen Lang was crouched behind a decommissioned reactor, his colleague’s hushed voice coming through his earpiece, tinged with absurd astonishment.
“You’re telling me you got held up by some girl?
And she just bought a jianbing guozi for two hundred yuan?”
Chen Lang adjusted the focus of his tactical goggles, his brow furrowed tightly.
He turned his head, his gaze piercing through the intricate gaps between the pipes to lock onto the twisted silhouette below, nearly one with the shadows.
“Understood.
Stay sharp.
I’ll keep an eye on the inside.”
Cutting off the communication, Chen Lang’s fingers tapped unconsciously twice on the cold gun barrel.
“Could it be one of those Advent Cult lunatics?”
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze scanning the darkness for any sign of unusual movement.
“No…
those sewer rats are masters of disguise.
Why would they use such a crude, nouveau riche method of throwing money around to attract attention?
It’s too stupid.”
The chain of logic in his mind rapidly collapsed and reformed, but Chen Lang pressed his lips together, unable to find a reasonable explanation.
“Forget it.
No matter what kind of deity she is, if she dares to cross the line, she won’t be leaving.”
Chen Lang took a deep breath, forcibly clearing his mind of distractions.
He tightened his grip on the custom-made stun gun, the muzzle steadying with the rise and fall of his breath as he locked onto the monster below.
It was a terrifying entity known as a “Revenant.”
In the darkness, the previously inert mass of flesh suddenly twitched.
“Hmm?”
Chen Lang’s pupils contracted slightly.
“Wait…
something’s wrong with this thing’s state.”
Through his low-light night vision goggles, he could clearly see the monster, which had been curled in the corner as if dead for ages, now vibrating violently like a machine being powered back on.
Its muscle fibers began to tremble intensely.
Chen Lang was no stranger to this kind of tremor.
This creature possessed a despair-inducing regenerative ability.
Conventional kinetic weapons were useless against it; wounds healed faster than he could reload his magazine.
Only high-voltage electricity could instantly paralyze its monstrous nervous system.
The moment the blue arc of electricity flashed, this ferocious beast would transform into a terrified, stray dog, howling as it retreated back into the depths of the shadows.
It was by exploiting this weakness that they had set up this electric grid, wearing it down for half a month like taming a falcon.
Over the past half-month, it had gone from frantically ramming the electric grid to being shocked until its flesh was torn and it was on the brink of death.
It should have accepted its fate long ago.
But now…
That grating sound of bones grinding against each other echoed once more.
The monster slowly pushed itself up, a low, guttural roar rumbling from its throat.
It was craving something.
A craving so intense it even overpowered its fear of the electricity.
“And it just had to happen when that strange girl showed up…”
Chen Lang felt a chill crawl up his spine.
The perfect temporal overlap of these two events made him smell danger.
He quickly pressed his earpiece, speaking rapidly:
“Grizzly to Command Center, target is showing abnormal agitation!
Repeat, target is showing abnormal agitation!”
A steady, powerful middle-aged man’s voice immediately crackled through the earpiece, laced with static:
“Report the situation.”
Upon hearing this, Chen Lang immediately explained everything that had just happened, adding at the end:
“The girl outside just approached, and the Revenant in here started acting abnormally.
There might be a connection between the two!”
While reporting, Chen Lang kept his eyes fixed on the area below.
At this moment, the monster had fully stood up.
Its murky eyeballs glowed with a crimson, eerie light in the darkness, staring intently at the factory gate.
“Understood.
Chen Lang, continue surveillance.
Do not act rashly.
I’ll immediately dispatch ‘Thunder’…”
“ROAR—!!!”
A piercing roar instantly erupted, cutting off the communication.
Chen Lang’s eyes widened abruptly.
In his vision, the monster, which had been cautiously testing its surroundings moments ago, now shot forward like a cannonball.
Its powerful hind legs kicked off the ground, instantly shattering the concrete floor.
Its massive body blurred into a black afterimage, hurtling straight toward the exit!
And Chen Lang’s position was directly in its path.
“Officer!
It’s charging this way!!”
Chen Lang roared, his body reacting faster than his brain.
He leaped to his feet, raised his gun with both hands, and instantly locked the crosshairs on the rapidly approaching black shadow.
Without any hesitation, his index finger pulled the trigger.
“BANG—!”
The muzzle erupted with a dazzling burst of lightning.
The specially made bullet tore through the air and precisely drilled into the monster’s body.
ZZZZT—!!
Blue arcs of high-voltage electricity instantly erupted, like countless tiny lightning snakes, frantically burrowing into the monster’s flesh and ravaging its nervous system. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
Based on past experience, it should have immediately collapsed to the ground, twitching in agony.
However, reality dealt Chen Lang a heavy blow.
The monster merely staggered, its muscles spasming violently from the intense pain, but the madness in its crimson eyes remained undiminished.
It didn’t retreat!
It withstood a current strong enough to kill a full-grown elephant and accelerated again!
“The electricity failed?!”
Chen Lang’s heart clenched as he watched the massive maw filled with sharp teeth rapidly expand in his vision, the foul wind pressure almost slamming into his face.
With no time to think, his survival instinct drove him to dive sideways.
“Damn it!”
His body slammed heavily onto the dust-covered ground, then he immediately rolled with the momentum.
SWOOSH—!
A foul wind howled past.
The monster’s sharp claws grazed his scalp, the resulting airflow stinging his cheeks.
Chen Lang scrambled into a half-kneeling position, quickly turning his gun to prepare for the life-or-death struggle ahead.
However, the expected attack never came.
The monster didn’t even glance back at him, as if he were just an inconvenient stone in its path.
It smashed through wooden crates and discarded equipment, frantically charging toward the factory gate.
“?”
Chen Lang froze, his gun-wielding hand suspended in mid-air.
It’s not chasing me?
This made no sense!
Revenants were bloodthirsty by nature; how could one ignore prey right in front of it?
Unless…
Chen Lang whipped his head around, staring in the direction the monster had disappeared.
His face instantly turned deathly pale.
Something out there held an irresistible attraction for it.
An attraction so powerful that it would endure the excruciating pain of its nerves being torn apart by electricity, just to charge out and ignore all obstacles
That means something outside the gate is attracting it, an attraction so strong it even overpowered its fear of the electricity!
At this thought, cold sweat instantly soaked his back.
Then, Chen Lang’s gaze hardened, and he slammed the red alarm button on his belt.
“Chen Lang!
What’s happening!
Respond if you copy!
What’s the situation with the Revenant!”
Lei Zheng’s anxious roar blasted through his earpiece.
Chen Lang gasped for breath, staring at the warped gate, his voice dry and urgent:
“Officer…
the Revenant is out of control!
It broke through the perimeter and is charging outside!”
“Outside, something seems to have a fatal attraction for it!”