Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Can’t Wait for the Next Life

“Could this be the Ability Card’s influence on its bearer too?” Feng Ling muttered.

What kind of card had she even pulled?

Thankfully, her Corruption was only 7% right now. If it were any higher—if that hunger hit again—she honestly didn’t know what kind of crazed shit she might do.

Then another possibility slid in, colder and more practical: maybe it wasn’t the Ability Card at all. Maybe she was starving because her injuries were too severe. Maybe all the energy she’d stored from eating earlier had been burned to repair her body, and now she was hungry again.

Either way, it didn’t add up.

Ahead, the darkness split. Light poured in so hard it flattened everything, like stepping onto a stage and getting caught in a spotlight. Feng Ling squinted until her eyes watered.

Voices spilled down from above—messy, overlapping, scared.

“Someone’s coming out!”

“Is it Brother Zhou?”

“…Not the deputy captain.”

“Then why hasn’t Brother Zhou come out?”

Farther out, a loudspeaker blared in a clipped, official cadence: “…Please follow the Aberrant Safety Inspection Bureau’s guidance for evacuation. Do not panic. Board vehicles in an orderly manner. The Aberrant Inspection Team will do everything possible to ensure citizens’ safety… Now repeating…”

“Feng Ling!”

That voice hooked through the noise. Su Yu Qing.

Feng Ling forced her eyes to adjust and tipped her head back. Su Yu Qing stood at the lip of the opening, backlit into a hard-edged silhouette.

Zhou Zhou’s instructions snapped into place. Feng Ling pulled out the chip and threw it up as high as she could.

“It connects to another parking lot a few hundred meters from here,” she called, keeping it short and clean. “The underground nest links both lots. The chip has the terrain map. Zhou Zhou wants you to block the entrances—keep the bugs from crawling out.”

Su Yu Qing caught it. “I’ll handle it.” His gaze sharpened. “How’s Zhou Zhou?”

“Not good.” Feng Ling rubbed at her eyes, blinking hard. “Might already be done for.”

Su Yu Qing’s jaw tightened.

Feng Ling made herself keep going. “Can you get me that floodlight? And your loudspeaker.”

Down in the pit, the air felt too big. Every sound came back at you.

Zhou Zhou’s breathing was the worst—ragged, wet, loud in the emptiness.

He hauled his blood-slick beast claws out of a corpse with a grinding tug. His vision smeared at the edges, darkening, like someone was slowly turning a dial.

Broken insect shells littered the ground around him. The stench of spent ammunition hung in the air, stubborn and metallic.

The last remaining flashlight painted a circle on the ground—ten meters, maybe. Beyond that, darkness swallowed everything. And somewhere inside it, he knew, more Polluted Entities were waiting.

How many had he killed?

He couldn’t remember anymore. The fighting had gone on too long.

He’d killed Polluted Entities before. Back then, Qing Jiang’s best inspector—Ye Zheng—had still been here. Zhou Zhou had gone on missions with her, and every Polluted Entity they’d faced had been alone. Always a single unit. Never a pack.

The Inspectorate General Bureau’s training materials hammered it into them: Polluted Entities lacked rationality. They couldn’t coordinate. They couldn’t cooperate.

So why was this time different?

Why was it—

His foot slipped.

A deep, grinding fatigue hit him all at once, heavy enough to make his bones feel hollow.

It was an attrition trap. An endless drain. No matter how many he killed, it didn’t stop. How many were still out there in the dark?

His arms felt like lead. His hands wanted to drop. He knew they were circling. He knew he had to stay sharp.

But he was so tired.

Looks like that Aberrant little jelly wasn’t all that special after all. It had kept him wired for a short while, and then the edge had dulled again.

A bitter smile tugged at his mouth.

Then the air moved.

A stench-heavy gust slammed into his face—wet, rotten, animal.

Zhou Zhou jerked back on instinct and slashed at the rushing shadow.

It was a human neck stretched out meters long. Hard palate fangs ringed its throat like teeth in the wrong place. The rest of its body was almost fully insectified—armor plates and writhing limbs where flesh should’ve been.

His claws should’ve ripped it apart.

But his beast claws were caked with dried blood and sticky fluids, gore crusting along the edges and blunting them. His shoulder and arm muscles trembled with exhaustion; the strike didn’t have the power it needed.

The claws raked down, leaving only a shallow gouge.

Zhou Zhou sucked in a breath and thought, blankly, [Is this it? Am I at my limit?]

No.

He couldn’t be.

He was Qing Jiang City’s only inspector still capable of fighting. If he fell, what then? Su Yu Qing would be left holding a nightmare with both hands.

Another shadow lunged.

Zhou Zhou tried to twist away—but he was too slow.

A pair of palate fangs punched straight through his waist.

His body jerked up off the ground, hoisted like meat on a hook. He barely had time to process that before something else clamped down—another Polluted Entity’s fangs bit into his right arm, and the world snapped white with the sensation of flesh tearing.

And yet—

He barely felt pain.

Was his brain numbing it out to keep him from breaking?

Dimly, he thought, [Are they going to tear me apart?]

He’d always imagined dying as something clean. Something at least vaguely cool. Not… this. Not dangling and splitting and bleeding out like a bad joke.

A red haze crawled over his vision. His throat filled with metallic sweetness.

He spat blood and felt his body start to come apart in pieces.

[If I’d known,] he thought, weak and sour, [I wouldn’t have tried so hard. At least I could’ve died fast.]

…At least he’d made the team withdraw before this. At least the detector’s map data should already be in Su Yu Qing’s hands.

Not everything was lost.

As for the rest—his anger, his regret, the stubborn unwillingness—

Next life.

He’d make it up in the next life.

Footsteps hammered in the dark.

A sudden impact slammed into the monster, and Zhou Zhou crashed to the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth.

He blinked through the blood fog and saw silhouettes—familiar ones.

Rage lit in his chest so fast it hurt. “Who told you to come back?” he roared. “Get out!”

He meant it to sound like a threat. What came out was a wet choke, the words dragged down by blood.

Xiao Li drove a short knife into a Polluted Entity’s neck and twisted viciously, forcing it to loosen its palate fangs. “Old Cao!” she shouted. “Get Deputy Captain Zhou out of here!”

Cao Hong Yi surged in, broad shoulders and stubborn strength, and hauled Zhou Zhou up into a carry like it was pure muscle memory.

From farther away, Qin Liang fired what little he had left, shots flashing and echoing as he tried to keep the dark from swallowing them whole.

Zhou Zhou thrashed weakly. “A bunch of idiots! You’re not their match! Did you come back just to die?”

Xiao Li’s grip whitened around her knife. “If it comes to that, better we die than you! Don’t you always say you’re Qing Jiang City’s god? Three people for one god—worth it!”

The long neck beneath her blade twisted like something dragged from a river—tightening, coiling, then whipping hard.

Xiao Li went airborne, flung straight out of the circle of light.

“Xiao Li!” Qin Liang shouted. He watched her vanish beyond the beam, where sight died and bullets didn’t matter.

Something in Zhou Zhou snapped. “Idiots! Idiots—idiots, idiots, idiots!”

He fought to crawl, fought to get his limbs to answer. He slipped off Cao Hong Yi’s shoulder and hit the ground, dragging himself forward.

Nothing worked.

His arms wouldn’t lift. His legs wouldn’t push. His body was a wreck, and it had decided it was done.

Cao Hong Yi picked him up again without a word and ran for the exit.

Zhou Zhou’s head rang with fury. “Cao Hong Yi!” he rasped. “Fuck your mother!”

Cao Hong Yi didn’t flinch. His voice stayed flat, stretched tight as wire, repeating Xiao Li’s words like a vow: “Deputy Captain—three of us for one god. Worth it.”

Zhou Zhou tried to curse again. Blood surged up and choked him. He couldn’t force out a single syllable.

Only hate remained—hot, endless, useless.

He hated those Polluted Entities that never ran out.

He hated himself for not being strong enough.

If he could’ve held on just a little longer—just a little longer—maybe the team wouldn’t have had to throw themselves back into hell for him.

He couldn’t wait for the next life.

He wanted to be stronger now.

He wanted to protect this place and these people now.

A harsh, rising sound cut through the dark.

The pit flashed—suddenly bright as day.

White light stabbed into Zhou Zhou’s eyes, and his thoughts went blank for a fraction of a second.

Then, through the glare, he heard Feng Ling’s voice.