Nearly two meters tall, its whole body was covered in red liquid fluid.
Irregular patterns flowed across its surface, and the spines on its shoulders gleamed with a dark light in the dim illumination.
A giant mouth split to the ears, filled with uneven fangs.
Two pupil-less white eye sockets.
Carnage.
His right hand dragged the unconscious Captain Hu, carrying him loosely at his side like a fish.
Lao Wei, Xiao Zhao, and Xiao Chen held their pistols.
Their muzzles were pointed at the thing, and everyone’s hands were shaking.
“Put him down!”
Lao Wei shouted.
Carnage tilted his head.
That fang-filled mouth opened, emitting a low sound similar to metal grinding.
“You should not have come.”
Lao Wei fired five shots in succession.
The bullets hit Carnage, splashing a few specks of dark, viscous liquid.
Then, the fragments were reabsorbed by the liquid fluid within half a second, just like a pebble thrown into water; the ripples dissipated and nothing was left.
Zero damage.
Carnage threw Captain Hu onto the ground and walked toward the three of them.
Every step he took, the cement floor of the workshop trembled slightly.
Xiao Zhao was the first to break down and turned to run.
He hadn’t even run five steps when a tentacle extended from Carnage’s back.
It wrapped around his waist, pulled him back, and whipped him through the air.
Subsequently, he slammed into a discarded mixer.
Xiao Chen gritted his teeth and continued to fire, this time aiming for Carnage’s eye socket.
The bullet hit the edge of the white eye socket, causing a crack to open, but that crack healed within a second.
Carnage turned to Xiao Chen.
He took one step, and the distance instantly shortened to within a meter.
Five claws grabbed the front of Xiao Chen’s bulletproof vest.
With a gentle lift, Xiao Chen’s feet left the ground.
“Ugh!”
Xiao Chen’s face flushed red, and the gun in his hand flew out of his grasp.
Then he threw Xiao Chen to the ground.
It wasn’t fatal, but it was enough to temporarily incapacitate an adult.
Xiao Chen lay on the ground, his head buzzing from the impact, his consciousness struggling on the edge of fading.
His body cam on his chest was still running, the indicator light flashing green.
The lens was pointed exactly at Carnage, who was looking down at him from above.
The face in the footage filled the entire frame; the fangs, the dark red tongue, and the hollow white eye sockets were all recorded in high definition.
Lao Wei didn’t run.
He leveled his gun and fired all his remaining bullets at Carnage’s head.
Each one hit the liquid fluid, and each one was absorbed.
The gun was empty.
Lao Wei watched Carnage walk toward him, the empty gun in his hand dropping into the standing water.
He retreated two steps, his back hitting the workshop wall.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
Carnage walked up to him.
It lowered its head to look at Lao Wei; there was no discernible emotion in those two hollow white eye sockets.
Lao Wei’s lips were moving, but no sound could come out.
It extended its right hand.
Claws gripped Lao Wei’s shoulder.
Then, it pushed Lao Wei aside.
It was like pushing away an obstacle blocking its path.
Lao Wei was pushed, staggered a few steps, and fell to the ground, scraping his forehead, but there was no further injury.
Carnage ignored him.
It turned around, dragging the still-unconscious Captain Hu, and walked toward the corridor.
After a few steps, it stopped again.
It looked back at the three people lying on the ground.
“Don’t come back.”
The voice was still that alien, metal-grinding sound.
It was a warning.
Carnage dragged Captain Hu and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.
Lao Wei climbed up, stumbled over to Xiao Chen, and turned him over.
Xiao Chen was still conscious, but clearly badly hurt from the fall.
“The recorder.”
Xiao Chen coughed twice, his voice hoarse,
“I got it.”
Lao Wei looked down at the body cam on his chest; the green light was still flashing.
He looked up at the darkness of the corridor entrance.
Nothing could be seen in there anymore.
Half an hour later, the reinforcement squad arrived at the Abandoned Cement Factory.
The three wounded were carried onto the ambulance.
Captain Hu was found in the corridor, lying on the ground, with a few bruises on his body, but no fatal injuries.
The position he was left in seemed as if he had been deliberately placed in a spot where he wouldn’t get hurt from falling.
Vansin was waiting in the reinforcement vehicle; seeing the three wounded being carried out, his expression was very grim.
“What’s the situation?”
“All four are alive. Captain Hu and Xiao Zhao have fractures, Xiao Chen was thrown, and Lao Wei has abrasions,” the police officer in charge of receiving them reported.
“What about the recorder?”
“It’s on Xiao Chen; it’s still recording.”
Vansin took the body cam, which was stained with dust and blood, and turned to the last fifteen minutes of footage.
He sat in the car, adjusted the screen to minimum brightness, and watched the entire video alone.
After watching it, he turned off the recorder.
He placed his hands on his knees, sat motionless, and stayed that way for thirty seconds.
In the underground rock layers deep within the city,
Knull simultaneously felt the killing impulse Carnage released during the battle and the fear of those police officers.
The two emotions intertwined, intense and complex, like a glass of stirred spirits.
He noticed an interesting detail.
Carnage did not kill the four police officers.
Haruka suppressed Carnage’s killing instinct at the critical moment, choosing to only injure them.
That anchor rope named Coal was still having an effect.
But ropes wear out.