“Ugh!” The moment Jenny saw what filled the basement and caught the overwhelming stench of blood and decay, she finally lost control, turning aside and vomiting violently.
Rosen and Elena followed almost immediately, their stomachs unable to endure the sight before them.
Jay handled it slightly better thanks to his military training, but even he pulled his T-shirt over his nose and mouth while anger gradually replaced the horror on his face.
“Those two fucking animals…” The basement was even larger than the cabin above and looked less like a storage room than a slaughterhouse.
Two heavy wooden tables stood near the center, each holding the mutilated remains of a human body, while blood had soaked deeply into the surrounding floorboards.
Every corner carried evidence that the deformed cannibals had been doing this for a long time.
A weak movement suddenly came from farther inside the basement.
A badly injured young woman lay nearby, her body covered in blood and several of her limbs horribly mutilated, but when she saw normal people coming down the stairs, her fading eyes immediately brightened.
“Help me… please!
Save me!” “Quick, help her!” Elena wiped her mouth and rushed toward the woman, calling Jay over at the same time.
Jay immediately pulled the small first-aid kit from his backpack and desperately tried to stop the bleeding, tightly bandaging the woman’s ruined limbs while using the emergency supplies he had brought with him.
Jenny hovered nearby in shock while Elena kept talking to the victim, trying to keep her conscious.
Orion remained where he was and watched silently.
His military experience made the truth painfully obvious: the woman had already lost far too much blood, and without immediate surgery and massive medical intervention, there was nothing anyone here could do.
What they were seeing was only the last burst of strength from a dying body.
“Stay awake!
Come on, stay with me!” Elena pleaded as tears ran down her face.
Her efforts accomplished nothing.
Less than two minutes later, the injured woman’s breathing stopped completely, and her eyes went still.
“Rosen?” Jenny suddenly turned and saw their skinny friend clutching his chest as he collapsed against the floor, his face pale and covered in cold sweat.
“Rosen, what’s wrong?” “Bro, is it your heart again?” Jay abandoned the dead woman and rushed over, quickly searching Rosen’s pockets.
“Where’s your medication?” “It’s… gone.” Rosen struggled to breathe, each word coming through clenched teeth.
“I can’t… breathe…” Rosen suffered from a congenital heart condition, and the long hike had already left him exhausted.
The horror inside the basement had pushed his body even further, triggering a severe attack at the worst possible moment.
Jay and Jenny immediately helped carry him upstairs into the fresher air, while Elena followed close behind.
“What the hell do we do?” Jay looked at Orion after lowering Rosen onto the cabin floor.
“Without his medicine, he could die.” Orion shook his head.
“Desperate situation.
I only know battlefield first aid.” People instinctively looked toward the strongest person when something went wrong, but Orion couldn’t magically repair a failing heart.
Before anyone could decide what to do next, Jenny happened to look through one of the rear windows and froze.
“Wait!
There’s a car back there!” Everyone rushed outside and found an old sedan parked behind the cabin beneath a layer of dirt and leaves.
Surprisingly, the key was still inside, and although the vehicle looked as if it hadn’t been maintained in years, the engine actually started after several attempts.
The interior was cramped, however, and fitting Orion inside with everyone else would only make things worse.
“You four take Rosen to the nearest hospital,” Orion said as he closed the door after them.
“Once you get cell service, call the police and tell them exactly where this cabin is.
I’ll stay here until they arrive.” “Okay.” Jay nodded from behind the wheel.
“Be careful, Orion.” The old sedan bounced onto the mountain trail and disappeared through the trees, its taillights eventually vanishing from sight.
Orion remained outside until the engine could no longer be heard, but just as silence returned, a metallic scraping noise came from inside the cabin.
Clang… Orion turned his head toward the window.
The thin cannibal he had shot earlier was moving.
“Huh?” Orion stepped closer and watched the deformed man slowly push himself upright.
One bullet had gone through his chest and another had struck his forehead, wounds that should have left him dead or unconscious, yet the cannibal was somehow still alive.
That finally explained why the Black Book had never awarded Orion any Normal Energy.
The thin cannibal staggered toward his enormous companion and began fumbling with the chains wrapped around him.
“Aba… aba…” he muttered while tugging desperately at the restraints.
His movements were clumsy, but there was no question that he was recovering far faster than any ordinary human should.
Creak… Heavy footsteps sounded across the porch.
Orion entered the cabin as the last orange light of sunset stretched his enormous shadow across the floorboards, covering both deformed men.
Seen from the outside, the scene almost looked backward—Orion resembled some towering killer approaching two helpless victims rather than a man dealing with murderous cannibals.
“Interesting,” Orion murmured.
The thin cannibal’s wounds were still clearly visible, but the bleeding had almost completely stopped.
At the same time, the larger cannibal finally regained consciousness beneath the chains, his shattered jaw twitching uselessly as he tried to make some kind of warning sound toward his companion.
Their abnormal endurance and recovery were far beyond what Orion had expected.
“Aba!
Aba!” The smaller cannibal suddenly released the chains and turned toward Orion with terror written across his malformed face.
He clasped both hands together and began repeatedly bowing and slamming his forehead against the floor, apparently begging Orion to spare him.
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
Blood began leaking again from the bullet wound in his forehead as he struck the boards hard enough to shake the room.
Orion watched him without sympathy and continued forward.
When he came within a few feet, however, the pleading expression in the cannibal’s cloudy eyes suddenly changed.
A cunning, vicious gleam appeared as he gathered his strength and smashed his forehead down one final time—not against the same spot, but directly onto the weakened floorboard in front of Orion.
Crack!
The long wooden plank split instantly.
Orion’s right foot dropped through the broken section, throwing his body slightly off balance.
The cannibal’s terrified act disappeared at once, replaced by a sharp, triumphant laugh.
“Hehehehe!” He snatched a boning knife from the floor and drove it toward Orion’s groin with shocking speed.
The entire movement had clearly been planned from the beginning, from the fake surrender to breaking the exact board beneath Orion’s foot.
Even while falling, however, Orion’s mind remained perfectly clear.
Countless possible responses flashed through his thoughts in an instant.
Instead of struggling to pull his trapped leg free, Orion planted his left foot and released his full strength downward.
Crash!
The already weakened wooden floor exploded beneath him.
Several square yards of floorboards shattered at once, destroying the cannibal’s trap completely.
Orion, the knife-wielding mutant, and the massive chained cannibal all dropped through the collapsing floor together and plunged into the basement below.
(End of Chapter) [Reader Event Active]