Inside the canyon, monstrous shapes loomed in the darkness, illuminated only by the harsh, artificial glare of the flashlight. Each creature was bloated and rotting, their hides stretched tight over putrid muscle, their bodies crawling with writhing nests of bugs that fed on the decay.
They looked like mutated hippos and rhinos, massive and unstoppable, rampaging through the swampy pit with a mindless, heavy ferocity. Ling Ling's sniper bullets slammed into their eyes and skulls, the impacts bursting open bloody sprays of grey matter and bone, but it didn't do a damn thing to stop them. It was like throwing pebbles into a stagnant pond—all splash and no effect.
One of the rhinos' eyes exploded under a well-aimed shot, spraying thick green fluid and chunks of white eyeball across its snout. The beast next to it didn't flinch from the noise; it immediately turned its head and bit down, its teeth grinding as it swallowed the gooey mess whole.
These things even ate their own eyes. Ling Ling fired one shot after another, the rhythmic crack of her rifle echoing off the canyon walls as she blasted out every single eyeball in sight, but it didn't slow them down at all. These creatures hunted purely by smell, their nostrils flaring as they tasted the air, and worse, they didn't even feel pain.
Jing Shu and the others finally got a clear view of what was happening inside the canyon. There weren't any mechanical traps at all. Instead, the ground dropped straight into a huge swamp pit filled with knee-deep, stinking muck. Seven massive, rotting beasts were rolling through the sludge, chasing Monkey and Ah Huang.
Even in the mud, Monkey's speed as an assassin was terrifyingly fast, his feet barely touching the surface. Unfortunately, he lost his footing. His boot sank deep, and he fell into the swamp with a heavy splash. With nothing to brace against in the thick silt, he couldn't move. One of the monsters charged right at him, its jaws snapping shut around his shoulder. Monkey's scream tore through the night, raw and jagged.
"Shit, what the hell are these things?! Guns don't work! Help me, someone get me out of here!"
It was brutal. His whole arm was inside the creature's mouth, the sound of flesh and bone crunching audible even over the chaos. Jing Shu thought back to that one-armed man she had seen in the black market. He must have been bitten the same way.
"Hang in there! I will break through the gate! Ling Ling, cover him! Snake Spirit, quick, use your poison and see if it works!"
The whole team jumped into action, their movements tense and frantic. Monkey, trained as a professional scout, wasn't the type to die easily. With his free hand, he grabbed a three-bladed weapon that looked like a fan and jammed it deep into the monster's gaping jaws. Before Jing Shu could even process what he was doing, the weapon roared to life with a high-pitched whine.
The blades spun wildly, shredding everything inside the beast's throat. Blood and chunks of black flesh sprayed everywhere as the weapon tore through its insides, grinding from mouth to stomach like a blender gone berserk. In seconds, the giant was reduced to mush from within, and Monkey had turned its death into a live-action gore show.
He scrambled free, his body shaking and covered in thick, dark blood, staring in horror as the shredded monster—its entire torso hollowed out—still twitched and tried to crawl after him like some undead nightmare.
Terrified, he fired a grappling dart. The cable hissed through the air, and he hauled himself toward the iron gate, clutching his mangled shoulder with one hand. Ah Huang was still bouncing up and down in the swamp, his paws churning the mud as he barked furiously to distract the remaining beasts.
Jing Shu finally realized why those monsters looked familiar. Of course. These were the mutated descendants of the zombie deer virus that had first spread from Australia during the early apocalypse. Its second evolution had fused with the red nematode plague that wiped out half the world. Now, it had completed a third mutation—turning beasts into fearless, death-defying survivors. It's the ultimate "species invasion."
By the fifth year after Earth's Dark Days began, the world was crawling with these blackened, rotting creatures, all mutated from animals. In just a few short years, evolution had leapt forward by centuries, even millennia, all in the name of survival.
But despite their horrifying appearance, the ones before them weren't the worst of the lot. They hadn't yet reached the third generation. Sure, bullets and blades couldn't pierce their hides easily, and they didn't have weak spots like zombies—shooting their heads did nothing—but if you chopped them into pieces or threw a grenade at them, they still died.
Jing Shu sighed, the sound lost in the din. "Guess we really did sink in the gutter this time." She rolled her shoulders, her joints clicking. "Alright, time to get serious."
"My venom doesn't work!" Snake Spirit shouted, his voice cracking with a panic that edged into his tone.
Tank roared and kicked the iron gate open, the metal groaning as it buckled. He swung his massive iron ball straight at a hippo's head. The blow hit like a freight train, caving in the skull with a sickening crunch, but the creature barely flinched.
At the same moment, Ah Huang was cornered against the canyon wall, whining and barking helplessly while Monkey screamed, "Ah Huang, run! Run!" The monster lunged, its jaws wide and dripping with slime—but Jing Shu was faster. She flicked a grenade into her hand, took aim like a quarterback, and hurled it right into the creature's gaping mouth.
Boom!
The explosion tore the hippo apart from the inside, showering the swamp in a rain of hot gore. Ah Huang tumbled free, his fur soaked and matted, but he was alive.
Jing Shu drew her steel blade, the metal catching the flashlight's glare. She slipped it through the mud and said calmly, "You guys ever heard of joints? Forget hitting the head; aim for the joints instead. If you can't kill it, then cut it apart. Like this."
She swung the blade in one smooth motion, slicing clean through the hippo's knee joint. The massive leg, easily a hundred kilograms, dropped into the mud instantly. In a few swift strikes, she hacked off all four of its limbs, drove her blade into its backside, and carved outward in a clean, practiced arc. In no time, the raging monster was reduced to neatly arranged chunks of meat. Every piece was perfectly even, lined up in the muck like a macabre work of art.
Perfection.
The pieces still twitched, the muscles jumping under the skin, but after a while, the movements slowed, then stopped altogether. In this life, Jing Shu had often wondered what she would do if she ever faced one of those terrifying beasts again. Turns out, slaughtering pigs had taught her plenty. Under the harsh light, she looked like a demon god—methodical, efficient, and unstoppable—as she dissected the massive creature alive.
"This woman… she is scary," someone whispered, the voice trembling.
"Yeah… did we misjudge her?"
Tank scratched his head, his face dumbfounded. By pure destructive power, he was supposed to be the strongest one here, but his iron ball had done nothing. Those monsters didn't break like the ones on TV.
Jing Shu, meanwhile, had already finished dissecting three more. The meat piled up into a small mountain beside her. She glanced at the heap and sighed. "Shame, really. If it weren't infected, rhino meat tastes way better than hippo."
Before anyone could respond, the sound of heavy boots and shouting came from outside the canyon. Within seconds, more than twenty people stormed in, their shadows long against the stone walls. They were armed to the teeth with advanced weapons and heavy firepower. And among them, looking miserable and bound with thick rope, was Xiao Hei.
Trouble never came alone. To make things worse, Jing Shu felt feverish again. A wave of heat washed over her, making her feel like her body was floating right out of itself.