Chapter Six: Fear

At the very end of the group trailed two men. One was bare-chested, a wolf tattoo winding down his arm, gripping a watermelon knife. The other was slightly plump, dressed in a tank top, a section of water pipe swinging from his hand. They lagged behind the main group by three or four meters. Though they heard the conversation ahead, they paid it no mind. Weakling Hua was just timid, always muttering about ghosts and spirits, but this wasn’t a graveyard, and even if it were, they had more than a dozen men—what was there to fear?

The bare-chested man occasionally slashed at the corn leaves jutting onto the concrete road with his knife, chuckling quietly with the fat man beside him. But as he turned to hack at another leaf, a pair of amber, beast-like eyes met his.

The bare-chested man froze. The fat man, noticing his companion’s odd reaction, was about to ask when a tremendous force slammed into his left side.

A muffled cry barely escaped the bare-chested man’s lips before the owner of those beast eyes lunged from the cornfield with a speed that eclipsed his reflexes. Two enormous, gleaming claws pinned both their faces.

Before either could react, the creature dragged them off the road and vanished behind the cucumber trellises on the other side. The entire process was swift as lightning. Aside from the stifled scream, only a faint rustling of leaves remained.

Those ahead heard the strangled cry and turned to look, but found nothing—save for the absence of the bare-chested man and the fat one.

Xiang Biao strode from the front to the back of the group. “Ergou? Xiao Bing?”

No one answered.

Everyone scanned the fields on either side of the road. The only sound was the whisper of night wind through the leaves. An icy dread crept into every heart.

Hua, the bespectacled one, trembled uncontrollably with fear. The others fared no better; even Xiang Biao felt the urge to retreat. It was a primal instinct—like a mouse cornered by a cobra, every pore prickled with goosebumps.

A sudden metallic clatter jolted everyone. They spun toward the direction they’d been heading.

A length of water pipe rolled across the concrete, its owner nowhere in sight. Crew-cut Wang Dong had vanished.

Another half-strangled scream. Before the group could recover from their terror, two men standing just behind Xiang Biao disappeared as well.

Xiang Biao swore he’d heard nothing but the wind in the leaves.

“Huddle up!” Xiang Biao shouted, cold sweat beading on his brow. He no longer cared if the noise would alert the residents inside the house.

The remaining men quickly pressed together, clinging to one another.

“One, two, three... seven...” Hua counted, swallowing hard. “Biao... Brother Biao, there’s only seven of us left. We’ve... we’ve lost eight... eight brothers...”

Every hair on their bodies stood on end.

They knew five men had vanished before their eyes, but the loss of the other three had gone completely unnoticed.

Ghosts.

The dreadful word flashed through every mind.

Just as they were about to break and scream for help or call the police, the true terror unfolded.

A massive, dark figure rose slowly from the soybean field nearby and strode onto the concrete road—white fangs bared in a fearsome grin, claws glinting coldly, its lavish mane rippling in the night breeze.

The Lion-faced Juggernaut, Garuru, had made his formal entrance.

Xiang Biao’s group stared, dumbstruck, as if their throats had been clamped shut, eyes wide with horror at the monstrous creature before them.

“A demon... a demon!” Hua was the first to react, bolting in panic. He cared nothing for his leader, the mission, or the money—his life mattered most. He dashed toward the van beyond the fence.

But he managed only a few steps before his vision flickered. A tremendous force struck his chest, and he blacked out.

The rest saw only a blur as the lion-like monster overtook Hua, striking him with its paw and sending him flying, lifeless, into the crops.

No one else dared run. Garuru advanced, step by step.

Only now did Xiang Biao and the others see Garuru's leather jacket and stretch pants. They had but one thought: it truly was a monster.

...

Wu You, after Garuru vanished from sight, soon found an observation mode in the system panel. Selecting it, he saw everything through Garuru’s eyes. The sensation was uncanny, and it drove home the insignificance of ordinary humans.

Had Garuru’s claws missed their mark by even a few centimeters, there would have been gaping wounds and spilled entrails.

As his first alchemical creation, the Lion-faced Juggernaut Garuru far exceeded Wu You’s expectations. It was an art of the hunt—a dance of terror that crushed prey with both psychological and physical pressure until they faced death in despair. Of course, under Wu You’s orders, Garuru had not killed; the men were only knocked out, though they would bear a few marks.

...

Xiang Biao was terrified beyond reason. Forget the crime of breaking into a home armed at night—he silently raised his phone to call the police, praying to every deity he could name, from the Celestial Immortals to Buddha, from Jesus to Zeus.

But he immediately froze. The monster was staring at him—no, directly at his right hand, at the phone.

He felt it in his bones: if he dialed, he would die.

The phone slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground, making his men jump in their already frayed nerves.

“We all rush it at once! If the monster needed to ambush us, it means it’s afraid. We have a chance if we fight together. If not, we’re dead for sure!” Xiang Biao shouted, sweat pouring down his face.

“Or do you want to just wait to die without resisting?”

Driven by terror, the remaining six—save Xiang Biao—raised their weapons, trembling or frenzied, and charged at Garuru, swinging knives and pipes with all their might.

Xiang Biao, however, did not join them. He turned and ran toward Wu You’s house. Behind that lay a river—he could either leap in and escape downstream, or hide in the old house. Anything to avoid facing the monster.

As the five men, faces twisted with panic, closed in on Garuru, the beast did not move. Its fearsome eyes never left Xiang Biao.

A thunderous lion’s roar erupted.

The explosion of sound left the five men frozen, clutching their heads in agony before collapsing, unconscious, their weapons clattering to the ground.

Xiang Biao’s ears rang with a deafening buzz, as if a bomb had detonated nearby. He was less than fifty meters from Wu You’s old house, but his legs were unsteady.

Through his blurred vision, he saw the three-story old brick house’s door swing open. Wu You stood calmly in the doorway, watching him.

Xiang Biao’s foot slipped, and he dropped to one knee. At that moment, a shadow blotted out the moonlight around him.

He turned, despair in his eyes...

A scream echoed across the night.