Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Watch Out

The tongue moved like lightning. It slapped onto her wrist and tried to reel her straight into that gaping mouth, giving her no room to breathe.

Feng Ling swung her bone blade in a fast, vicious sweep.

The tongue severed.

She dropped low immediately, slipping behind the monster, bracing for more tongues—third, fourth, however many it had.

The creature froze, confused, its tiny eyes darting, unable to find her at first.

Feng Ling inhaled sharply.

Its back was a nightmare.

Folds of skin stacked on folds of skin, and each fold was packed with blisters—some small as marbles, some swollen as fists. They pulsed and trembled, oozing purple-green slime that sizzled where it hit the floor.

Even Feng Ling, who’d seen enough blood to go numb, felt sick.

What the hell is it?

A toad? A frog?

If it looked like a monster, fine. But it wore a human shell, and that made it wrong on a deeper level.

The blisters shook as it shifted, dripping corrosive slime. It was the perfect moment for a backstab—except Feng Ling suspected those blisters were filled with acid.

Just that brief touch of the tongue had already left burn marks on her wrist.

Her gaze slid down to its legs—short, thick, and stubby.

A plan snapped into place.

Feng Ling angled her bone blade low and swept along the ground.

Slash.

The blade cut through its ankles.

If it couldn’t stand, it couldn’t chase. And if it couldn’t chase, she could burn it until nothing was left.

The monster’s heavy body lost balance. It toppled with a wet, pained howl.

Feng Ling stepped in to finish it—

And the blisters shuddered violently.

Jets of thick acid sprayed out.

Feng Ling threw up her arms and twisted aside, but she was a fraction too slow.

A splash grazed her right arm.

Pain detonated.

She stumbled back, gritting her teeth, and looked down.

Where the acid hit, flesh was gone. Bone gleamed white through a ragged mess of blood.

The acid was insane—like lava.

The monster, unable to walk, dragged itself forward through its own fat. Its mouth opened wide again. A third tongue whipped out. Then a fourth. The tongues snapped through the air, and acid sprayed wildly, like a broken fountain.

Feng Ling’s movement was forced into tight, ugly angles.

Rage rose, hot and sharp.

She circled behind the fire and kicked a pile of burning coals toward the monster.

The red-hot chunks struck its body. It screamed, “Hot! So hot!”

But its skin didn’t blister or char.

Instead, the coals got coated in sticky acid and died out with a hiss.

Why won’t you die?

Feng Ling’s expression hardened.

She ripped down a burning curtain and flung it over the creature’s head, smothering its view. Then she drove her bone blade forward, stabbing through fabric into flesh.

She avoided the blistered back and targeted its head and limbs.

One stab. Two. Ten. Twenty.

The curtain dissolved under the acid, nearly eaten away. The head beneath it collapsed, flattening into something soft.

The monster went still.

Acid and blood seeped out from under the burning cloth, forming a foul, stinking stream.

Feng Ling’s bone blade was streaked with scorched scars now, mottled and ugly.

Smoke thickened around her. Firelight carved her face into hard lines.

She stared at the aberrant as it was swallowed by flames and didn’t relax for even a heartbeat.

Unless she saw an Ability Card, she couldn’t be sure it was truly dead.

And there was still one more aberrant inside this villa.

Feng Ling’s gaze slid to the little girl.

The girl crouched by the glass door. She’d tried to flee during the chaos, but the moment she met Feng Ling’s eyes, she flinched and froze.

Feng Ling’s scythe arm rose slowly.

Even if it looked like a child—ten, twelve, whatever—an aberrant was an aberrant.

The moment it logged in to a human body, it became a killer.

It didn’t deserve mercy.

And Fatty had screamed “Hidden Boss” more than once. He’d even said a Hidden Boss was worth a lot of points. Feng Ling wasn’t stupid—she knew what that meant.

She couldn’t let this little aberrant run off and spread information about her.

Feng Ling stepped forward, face blank, interest gone. This wasn’t a fight. It was pest control.

Then the girl’s pupils trembled.

Her mouth moved. “W-watch out…”

Feng Ling’s instincts screamed.

She snapped her bone blade up behind her—

Slash.

A nearly transparent tentacle fell, severed cleanly.

But that was only one.

Five more had already pierced Feng Ling’s abdomen and left leg.

Pain tore through her. Blood surged hot and immediate.

She followed the thin, almost invisible tentacles back—

And saw the thin man crouched on the wall, staring at her like she was a monster out of a nightmare.

He came back?

Did he see the fire and turn around?

Feng Ling spat blood. Something inside her had been hit—maybe her spleen—but the familiar rush returned, sharp and electric.

She stared up at the man, lips curling.

Then she grabbed the tentacles impaling her and yanked—hand over hand—pulling them back toward herself.

Shock flashed across the man’s face. He turned and vaulted away, retracting the tentacles as he fled.

The tentacles were barbed. They tore Feng Ling’s hands open as they slid free.

She chased, bleeding, out of the burning villa. The man jumped into another house across the way. Feng Ling followed without hesitation.

That villa wasn’t even finished. The yard was weeds and gravel, and under the eaves sat stacked bags of cement and sand.

Feng Ling moved along the wall, slow and wary, expecting another strike.

She reached the back and found a swimming pool.

Days of rain had left it half full. The water was murky, black under the night. Ripples spread in slow circles.

He’s in the water.

She couldn’t see him, but she knew. She could feel the intent in the air, the coiled hunger of an assassin waiting to strike.

Pathetic.

“Think hiding underwater makes you safe?” Feng Ling murmured.

Her eyes shifted to the cement and sand.

A cold smile touched her mouth.

“If you love the water that much, then stay in it.”

She surged forward, grabbed a bag of cement in one hand and a bag of sand in the other, and threw them into the pool.

Her bone blade swept through the air and sliced the bags open mid-flight.

Splash.

The water churned. The slurry clouded the pool even further.

Feng Ling didn’t stop. She grabbed two more bags and repeated the move, dumping more into the water.

The aberrant snapped.

Transparent tentacles shot out like arrows.

Feng Ling was ready. She leapt aside, slipped behind a tree, and watched the pool.

Steam began to rise. Bubbles broke the surface.

Feng Ling blinked.

Cement and sand did that?

Then she realized: one of the bags might’ve been lime.

A moment later, something burst from the pool.

A half-transparent humanoid creature hauled itself onto the edge, writhing in pain.

Feng Ling grinned.

Her bone blade flashed in a clean diagonal strike.

The aberrant’s head came off.

The headless body began to melt, turning liquid, dissolving into the ground.

A silver Ability Card seeped out, shining with strange light in the night.