Chapter 31

Chapter 31: Keep Killing

Zhou Zhou’s eyes refused to focus under the brutal white glare.

In the center of that radiance, a figure formed—half silhouette, half myth. The light was too sharp, too clean, too wrong for the filth of this place. It made everything feel holy in a way that didn’t belong underground.

For a dazed second, Zhou Zhou thought maybe he’d finally died and his brain was staging something dramatic on the way out. Hearing Feng Ling had to be a hallucination too. She couldn’t—

“Feng Ling!” Cao Hong Yi bellowed, voice cracking on the edge of panic. “Save Xiao Li!”

The shout hit Zhou Zhou like a slap. His ears rang.

And the impossible settled into reality: Feng Ling was really here.

Zhou Zhou coughed blood, limp over Cao Hong Yi’s shoulder, and rasped, “Fuck… this is like the Virgin Mary descending…”

Feng Ling slid down the slope along the pit wall, boots skidding, body tight to the incline to control the drop. She hit the bottom and snapped her head up. “Hold the light steady!”

Above, Huang Fu Miao Miao stood braced with a floodlight raised overhead, a thick cable trailing behind her. She sounded like she was dying just holding it. “I-it-it’s really hot!”

Feng Ling didn’t answer. She yanked a portable speaker on—one of those bulky, stubborn things people used for square dancing in public parks.

The first beat detonated through the pit.

Music slammed into the air, loud enough to rattle bones. The floodlight turned the ground stark and merciless, revealing every Polluted Entity in its reach.

The creatures froze. Their heads tilted. They relied on sound to hunt, and now the sound was everywhere—chaotic, drowning, useless.

They hesitated.

That was all Feng Ling needed.

Her bone blade unfolded with a sharp, wet sound—like something inside her was opening its eyes.

Slash.

A stretched neck split clean in two.

Slash.

A row of black side legs sheared off like brittle sticks.

As the soprano shoved the chorus up into the key of C, Feng Ling brought a battle axe down and shattered palate fangs in a spray of gore.

She moved like she’d been built for this—tight, efficient, merciless. She sprang onto a Polluted Entity’s armored back, boots finding purchase on ridges and seams, then swept her scythe-like bone blade in a clean arc that harvested necks as they extended and recoiled.

The music masked her approach. The light fed her vision. Even with only one bone blade, in an open space like this, she turned it into a killing field.

This wasn’t a fight.

This was slaughter.

A slaughter that belonged to her alone.

From farther off, Qin Liang and the others stared like they’d forgotten how to blink. They watched Feng Ling carve through a dozen Polluted Entities and couldn’t decide who the real monster was down here.

And was it even killing?

She crushed fangs, split necks, chopped off limbs, then left the massive bodies rolling and thrashing—alive enough to suffer, helpless enough to be finished at leisure.

It looked less like execution and more like slow disassembly.

No one had words. They could only stare.

In the far corner, one Polluted Entity lay unnervingly still.

It was bigger than the rest. Its palate fangs were broken and worn, its neck muscle slack, its side limbs stubbier. From its back plate down to its belly clung a heavy mass of thick slime—like a sagging heap of kelp-muck glued to its body.

Inside the slime, a corpse was half-swallowed.

And within that corpse, something moved.

Feng Ling walked toward it with her axe hanging loose in her hand.

From above, Huang Fu Miao Miao shouted, sharp with fear: “Careful!”

Right in front of Feng Ling, the corpse inside the slime bulged. Its chest split open, skin tearing wetly, and a Polluted Entity crawled out—newborn and slick, veined with bloody threads.

Its two palate fangs groped blindly, searching.

They found the corpse’s wet, disheveled head.

It bit down and yanked hard.

The head tore free with a sound like ripping cloth.

For a brief, grotesque moment, the severed head dangled, connected to the newborn’s neck. Its mouth opened and closed as if it wanted to speak—formed a single syllable—

Feng Ling chopped down.

The axe ended it instantly.

She didn’t stop.

She stepped closer until she stood one pace from the huge, slime-burdened creature. Close enough to touch the thing that had dragged them into this.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the last act.

Feng Ling paused, eyes narrowed.

Then she did nothing.

She turned away.

For a heartbeat, no one understood.

Then they watched her drag the newborn corpse off the ground and force it back into the kelp-muck, shoving it deep like she was packing trash into a bag. She even patted the slime down—firm, practical—so the body wouldn’t slip back out.

The onlookers’ faces cracked into silent disbelief.

Feng Ling lifted her head. “Huang Fu Miao Miao. Come down.”

Huang Fu Miao Miao hurriedly set the floodlight down and scrambled down the slope. Halfway, her foot caught, and she stumbled hard, nearly rolling the rest of the way. She skidded to a stop in front of Feng Ling, face smeared with dirt and panic.

Feng Ling pointed at the Polluted Entities sprawled around them—fangs crushed, limbs severed, bodies still twitching. “Kill them.”

“Ah… o-okay.” Huang Fu Miao Miao swallowed, gripped her hammer, and looked around like she expected the darkness to bite her.

Every one of these was A-Rank. Creatures she wouldn’t have dared imagine facing.

Now they were helpless, waiting for her to finish them.

Her hands shook. Her mouth went dry.

Feng Ling’s voice stayed calm, almost conversational. “You can take your time if you want. Wait until Deputy Captain Zhou stops breathing, then kill them for points. The Inspection Bureau is generous. I’m sure they won’t mind.”

Huang Fu Miao Miao went rigid. “No!”

The hammer came down in a frantic blur. She smashed once—twice—again, terrified one hit wouldn’t be enough.

A system notification flashed in her view:

[You killed an A-Rank Polluted Entity (Pseudo). Points rewarded: 200.]

“Two hundred!” Huang Fu Miao Miao whipped around, eyes bright with shock and joy. “I have 200 points!”

Feng Ling’s expression didn’t change. “Redeem recovery injections and take them over.”

“Okay—okay!” Huang Fu Miao Miao nodded so hard her hair shook loose.

She redeemed three syringes immediately and ran to Zhou Zhou. Two injections went into him. One went into Xiao Li.

Xiao Li had been hurt too—hurt saving Zhou Zhou in the first place.

“If the injuries are severe, it’ll take longer to recover,” Huang Fu Miao Miao said quickly, then spun and hurried back down like her life depended on it.

It did.

She went back to smashing.

Notifications kept firing:

[You killed an A-Rank Polluted Entity (Pseudo). Points rewarded: 210.]

[You killed an A-Rank Polluted Entity (Pseudo). Points rewarded: 220.]

[You killed an A-Rank Polluted Entity (Pseudo). Points rewarded: 180.]

Message after message. Huang Fu Miao Miao worked like a machine—breathless, frantic, thrilled.

Feng Ling didn’t rest either. Every time Huang Fu Miao Miao finished one, Feng Ling dragged the corpse back and stuffed it into the kelp-muck.

Before long, the slime was packed tight with bodies.

The Special Assault Team members watched the two women work with expressions that didn’t know where to land—horror, awe, uneasy gratitude.

Qin Liang swallowed hard. [If the higher-ups saw this…]

He reached up out of habit—and felt nothing on his forehead.

Only then did he remember: his headlamp and the attached micro-camera had been chewed apart early in the cave.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, relief loosened in his chest.

He turned to Zhou Zhou. “Deputy Captain—what’s next?”

Zhou Zhou coughed blood and spat, “We’re done. We report back.”

Then, under his breath, raw and ugly: “Fuck. Those two freaks.”

Everyone knew exactly who he meant.

They exchanged looks, the urge to laugh rising for no sane reason, and somehow managed to choke it down together.

They helped Zhou Zhou toward the exit.

Down in the pit, Feng Ling’s guess proved right.

Inside the kelp-muck, the corpses shifted.

Something hatched.

Feng Ling’s bone blade snapped out and chopped off the newborn’s palate fangs—clean, practiced—then she turned her head slightly and said to Huang Fu Miao Miao, “Keep killing.”