“Go in this direction. Don’t look back. Hide if you manage to find a perfect spot.” Zhang Heng said to Fabericotte.
“What about you?” asked Fabericotte.
“I will draw them away, and I will come back for you later.”
Zhang Heng hadn’t been suddenly possessed by Bethune, where his soul would get upgraded, and he wasn’t about to sacrifice himself to keep Fabericotte alive either. He had only done that because he underestimated the monsters’ tracking abilities in the swamp. If the two continued running together, sooner or later, the enemies would be able to capture them.
Also, if Zhang Heng ditched Fabericotte aside, there was a good chance he would be able to get out of this predicament alone. Getting out of trouble wasn’t his purpose tonight, though. He wanted to investigate what was happening to him, which also meant that he first needed to understand what was really going on with this town. If it were not his last resort, he would have tried his best to protect Fabericotte.
Zhang Heng then handed Fabericotte a revolver. “Use this gun to defend yourself. If the circumstance is not dire, try your best not to fire. Otherwise, I may not be able to save you in time.
Fabricotte was no a fool, and he immediately understood what Zhang Heng meant.
Although the revolver could protect him to a certain extent, the loud gunshot would almost certainly reveal his position. If a large number of monsters did surround him, Zhang Heng definitely wouldn’t be risking his life to get him out of that.
That being said, the revolver still gave Fabericotte a sense of security.
When fear went beyond human understanding, at least the technological advancements of civilization could bring him some comfort, especially under the knowledge that he would surely die without a gun if those monsters surrounded him. With that piece of crude technology, he could at least fight for his life.
The footsteps behind him were getting closer and closer. Zhang Heng and Fabericotte quickly went through the action plan and went on their separate ways. Fabericotte kept moving forward, while Zhang Heng chose another direction to advance. And he deliberately made more noise by touching the weeds around him as he moved.
Almost immediately, the monsters who were searching for them noticed the rustling. Like a torch burning brightly in the dark, he was attracting the nearby moths to pounce at him.
Of course, there was good news. After ditching “cumbersome,” Zhang Heng had become a lot more agile.
He quickened his pace and ran toward the paddy field in front of him, where two residential houses were located.
It would be idiotic to block those monsters with a thin door and wall made of soil. Since he was on high ground, it was perfect for him to carry out a blockade.
Although Zhang Heng’s ultimate goal was to run away, he did not want to just run. It was never his style to stay silent after getting forced into a corner. If he did not teach them a lesson, they would never stop coming after him.
As Zhang Heng ran, he reached into his backpack, taking out a box of bullets and reloading his rile. He was less than 200 yards from the two small houses at that time, where its broken windows that had been stuffed with clothes could be clearly seen. The front doors were open, and there was a pile of garbage in the courtyard. The mess of broken oyster shells scattered all over the floor indicated that this place must have been uninhabited for a long time.
He was about to approach one of the houses after crossing a small bog. Suddenly, something unexpected happened. A shadowy figure emerged from the grass on his left-hand side. It seemed the person had been waiting for some time to ambush Zhang Heng. Considering how close the two were to each other, the monster’s huge protruding eyeballs almost touched Zhang Heng’s cheeks. Zhang Heng, on the other hand, had no time to mount an ambush.
The putrid fishy smell on his enemy had made it possible for Zhang Heng to identify him.
Although Zhang Heng had been pushed to the ground, he still managed to aim at his opponent’s neck with his rifle. As he started examining the creature, he realized that its physiology completely differed from that of an ordinary person. It breathed via the gills on both sides of its neck. The rifle hadn’t affected it too much, simply making it feel a little uncomfortable. With its feet, the creature kicked the rifle away.
Zhang Heng also noticed that a piece of gold jewelry engraved with a strange pattern had fallen from the enemy’s neck to the ground amid the struggle. Before Zhang Heng could take a closer look at the necklace, he saw other figures rushing out of the abandoned house. They looked like the nearby farmers but weren’t yet fully transformed into the monsters he met earlier. At most, they looked like the man and woman that worked in the restaurant.
If they managed to get to him, Zhang Heng would need more time to get rid of them. So he decisively pulled the trigger while wrestling the enemy in front of him. He managed to aim at the farmer’s leg when he grabbed his rifle, the bullet firing out of its chamber embedded itself into the target’s thigh. Although not fatal, it was more than enough to stop him from getting into his way.
After firing the shot, Zhang Heng dropped the rifle, drew the chef’s knife from his backpack, and inserted it into the eye socket of the monster when it turned its head. The latter grinned and exerted the last of its strength to squeeze out few vague syllables from his throat.
“Save it. I don’t understand what you are talking about…”
Zhang Heng picked up the rifle. After hesitating for a while, he picked up the necklace as well and put it in his pocket.
Initially, he thought that the necklace was made out of gold, but after closer inspection, he found that it had a strange luster with a lighter color. It seemed someone had cast it with an alloy of unknown metals.
This was not the time to analyze this necklace. Zhang Heng looked at it briefly, stepped over the wailing farmers, and came up to the two abandoned houses. It was crucial that he confirmed nobody was hiding inside them, so he gave them a quick once over. Sure that he was alone, he climbed onto the roof of one of the houses.
What greeted him was a spectacular and mysterious scene.
He witnessed countless half-man half-fish, and frog-like monsters leaping around in the swamp, like dolphins jumping out of the water. However, these look far more horrific than the graceful creatures.
Seeing dolphins in a boat at sea would always make people happy, but these hideous creatures moving in the swap would freak most ordinary people to the point they peed their pants.
Instead of wasting time gawking at the multitude of monsters below him, Zhang Heng hurriedly looked for the ones wearing golden crowns and robes. He had noticed these people with weird appearances when he was running away, and it seemed that they were the same ones near the church when he first arrived in the town. They played a commanding role among the monsters, hence making them of higher status.
Naturally, Zhang Heng needed to kill these ones first.
But little time was left. The first wave of monsters would soon reach his location.
Zhang Heng raised his rifle, and with help from the moonlight, he took aim at one of them.
A deafening bang pierced the air. A figure wearing a golden crown trembled, fell to the ground, and could not stand up again.
This time, Zhang Heng was unbothered to admire his kill, swiftly changing his muzzle’s direction and fired at his second target.
The shot missed, however. It was all due to the distance and that this target had become vigilant enough to dodge the gunshot after witnessing his two companions getting killed.
The Filter Lens, or rather, the lack thereof, was responsible for these misses. If only he had the device with him, he would’ve taken out the enemy with a single shot even if it came prepared. As of now, Zhang Heng knew that he had run out of time to reload his rifle. The gold-crowned figure glared at him for a while. Zhang Heng then killed the two monsters that charged at him and jumped down from the roof.
