The Creatures that We Are

The battle was coming to an end, and there was nothing for Gao Yang to be concerned about.

With a sigh, he dragged his feet to Can from behind her. “Can.”

Head still lowered, she choked out, “I’m sorry, Captain, I’m really sorry… I should’ve pulled the trigger, but, but I can’t. Huan Huan, she was still wearing the necklace I gave her…”

“Today, today she asked me before going out which necklace suited her better. I told her to put on my gift for her, that I’d wish her good luck for her date to go well…”

“But why, why must she come here for the date? Li City is so big. Why didn’t she go elsewhere…?”

The rest of her words were lost as she broke down, covering her face with both hands.

Gao Yang slowly crouched down to close Huan Huan’s eyes.

At this moment, he didn’t want to blame Can even though her moment of weakness and hesitation had almost gotten herself killed. They were humans, humans of flesh and blood, not cold, heartless killing machines or bloodthirsty monsters.

Were he in her shoes, would he be able to pull the trigger decisively?

Any words of comfort he could offer would be nothing but platitudes. What Can needed right now was a shoulder to lean on and an ear to hear her out. However, they weren’t out of danger yet. The situation didn’t allow for that.

“I’ll give you thirty seconds,” said Gao Yang.

After a pause, Can nodded.

She turned to bury her face into Gao Yang’s shoulder and broke out into wails, crying so hard that she struggled to breathe, and it felt like she would fall apart if she cried any longer.

Half a minute passed quickly.

By the end of it, all the monsters in the auditorium had been taken out with no hope of picking themselves up again.

Can’s sobbing subsided, and she sniffed as she roughly rubbed her reddened, swollen eyes. “Thank you, Captain. I, I’m fine now.”

“Welcome back.”

Xiran walked up to her and gently offered her a hand.

Can took it and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.

“Are you all alright?” Gray Bear’s t-shirt had become a tattered rag from his transformation and the violent fight, so he forwent it altogether and left himself topless.

Wiping off the blood on his body with the t-shirt, he complained, “Shit, I’m totally beat.”

“Oh boy!” Can put on a lighthearted face and cried out, “Your chest hair is getting thicker, Uncle Bear!”

“Ha! That’s the charm of a mature, adult man,” Gray Bear said proudly.

Lithe Snake dropped down from the ceiling. With a flurry of his blade, he cut off a grasp of hair from Gray Bear’s chest.

“What the hell, dude?!” Gray Bear was both shocked and enraged.

Lithe Snake put away his shortsword. “Giving you a trim.”

“Hahahaha!” Can burst out laughing, back to being the carefree girl she usually was.

The mood lightened somewhat.

So this is how the fifth team works, Gao Yang thought. Their love and care for each other were expressed under the guise of banters and quips and jokes and pranks.

Just as well.

Gao Yang led all members of the fifth team to the center of the auditorium, where Nine Frost was counting the bodies.

He turned to Gao Yang and said with a frown, “The summoner is missing.”

“Oh?”

Gao Yang looked over the dead bodies in the auditorium quickly. Niu Xuan wasn’t among them.

While a summoner played the role of a lower-ranking leader, it wasn’t that strong in a fight. That was why Gao Yang hadn’t kept a particularly close eye on Niu Xuan—well, he wouldn’t have been able to given the chaos. He thought Niu Xuan had been killed during the battle.

But he wasn’t.

Did he run away? Or did he call for reinforcement?

Gao Yang gasped. “Did he…”

He rushed to a broken window and looked out toward the running track. Under the clear moonlight, he spotted a lone figure standing on the flag pole platform.

“There, by the flag.”

Gao Yang’s heart sank. He was hit with a foreboding feeling.

The twelve of them immediately rushed out of the auditorium to the running track, approaching the flag pole platform in an arc. They were cautious about it and maintained distance from the monster.

“The fourth set, side kicks.”

“One, two, three, four. Two, two, three, four. Three, two, three, four. Four, two, three, four…”

On the platform, Niu Xuan didn’t care at all that he had been surrounded. He kept counting in a loud voice as he repeated the motions in earnest, his gaze possessed.

They exchanged a glance, not sure what they should do.

“What do you think, Seven Shadow?” Nine Frost asked Gao Yang.

“I’d been wondering why Niu Xuan turned into a summoner.” Gao Yang paused. “Now I get it.”

“Just out with it, Captain.” Gray Bear was impatient.

“Perhaps Niu Xuan isn’t a summoner, but still a wanderer.”

Gao Yang explained his theory. “The monsters had been hiding outside the auditorium before launching an ambush. And then they stopped briefly to surround us. A summoner wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“True.” Nine Frost nodded. “Summoners can make wanderers go berserk, but not control their actions with such precision.”

Gao Yang looked up at the boy on the platform. “Niu Xuan was able to awaken the monsters in the area and command them as he pleased, not because he had the power, but…”

“Rune Circuit.” Nine Frost could make the educated guess. His eyes glinted with excitement.

“Likely so.”

Gao Yang was conflicted. How fucking ‘lucky’ of me! It’s only been two months since my awakening, yet I’ve already run into three Rune Circuits.

“Do you mean the Rune Circuit is with Niu Xuan, Captain?” Gray Bear frowned. “That can’t be.”

“Of course not. The Rune Circuit should be inside the Rune Cave.”

Gao Yang took a moment to think before continuing, “There must be some other reason that the Rune Circuit ended up resonating with Niu Xuan, granting him the power to control monsters momentarily.”

“Like how awakeners’ Talents resonate with Rune Circuits?” asked Yellow Butterfly.

“It’s only my speculation,” said Gao Yang.

No one said anything after that. They seemed to agree with the hypothesis.

“The ninth set, jumping jacks. One, two, three, four. Two, two, three, four. Three, two, three, four…”

Niu Xuan continued to jump, his movement growing more and more intense.

“Get ready, fourth team.” Nine Frost had enough waiting around. Clues to the Rune Circuit were right before them. He would not return to base empty-handed today.

“Wait!” Gao Yang stopped Nine Frost, his eyes twitching.

“What?”

“Take a close look at his feet.”

The others did as he said and took a collective gasp.

Niu Xuan was starting to stretch as the last set of movements. He extended his arms slowly, yet his feet had lifted off the ground at some point, and he was still rising inch by inch.

“Three, two, three, four. Four, two, three, four.”

Finally, Niu Xuan had completed the whole set of exercises. His eyes turned a grayish white, and his body became stiff.

At this point, he was already three meters off the ground.

“Mother, is that you?” Niu Xuan’s head jerked up. He stared straight at the sky with his gray, muddled eyes.

“Mother, I’m back… Take me. Don’t abandon me… Mother, mother…”

“Mother, mother mother, mothermothermother…”

He rattled off the same word at increasing speed, all the while his body started spasming violently.

Crack, crack, crack…

Suddenly, his body twisted like braids, and his bones cracked like popcorns. Thick blood gushed out from his seven orifices.

“Mother, mother, modermahter…” He repeated the word until blood flooded his throat and his tongue got twisted, preventing him from uttering another word.

Under the moonlight, his body hovered midair, twisted into a braid. It looked eerie, evil.

The space seemed to go still for half a second.

Bam!

Niu Xuan blew up into an extravagant, macabre rain of blood, falling upon the moonlit running track.

Everyone was too stunned to say or do anything.

Then Gao Yang heard a notification in his head.

[Warning: You have entered an unknown area. Analysis unavailable.]

[Luck points acquisition increased to two times.]

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