Chapter 113: Type C Flesh Beast

Chapter 113: Chapter 113: Type C Flesh Beast

Inside the hardware store.

Xiang Yi sat in his usual spot, eyes glued to the terminal screen.

The terminal was displaying a feed from the perspective of a corrugated metal rooftop.

From there, he could just make out Shi Tie restrained in the distance, and the writhing mass of flesh and severed limbs churning nearby.

Shi Tie being restrained was one thing — as long as his heart wasn’t destroyed, he wouldn’t die. The real problem was that mass of flesh.

"What the hell is that thing?"

The robot sidled up next to Xiang Yi, glanced at what was happening outside, and said, "A Type-C Flesh Beast. An Abnormality cobbled together from corpses."

Xiang Yi hadn’t really registered the thing at first, but the moment the robot said it, it clicked.

He’d seen something like this before on the official website’s list of common Abnormalities.

There were three types of Flesh Beasts — A, B, and C.

Type-C was exactly this: a monster formed by a massive accumulation of flesh and dismembered limbs.

Xiang Yi glanced over at the surveillance feeds set up outside the hardware store.

Most of the bodies Shi Tie had swept out of the air earlier had already vanished.

All of them had been absorbed into that twisted flesh creature, and now the Type-C Flesh Beast had its sights set on the fresh meat closest to it.

The robot said, "Honestly, you might not even need to lift a finger. That thing should be more than capable of wiping out whoever’s left. A Flesh Beast is a Level 2 Abnormality, after all."

It hadn’t even crossed Xiang Yi’s mind that after going so long without running into an Abnormality, the first one he’d encounter would be Level 2.

"Level 2... so Abnormalities can show up right in the middle of the city now."

"Who told you they couldn’t? Rarely seeing them doesn’t mean they’re not there. It’s just that most Abnormalities get dealt with pretty quickly."

"Someone comes to deal with them?"

"I’d expect Spiritual Ability Users from the Abnormality Strategy Department to show up within five minutes. Actually, no — our area’s probably slower. Ten minutes, maybe."

Xiang Yi was genuinely curious to see local Spiritual Ability Users in action, but he couldn’t let the Abnormality steal the kill on Lu Qi.

He still needed the intel Lu Qi was sitting on.

And if the Abnormality decided Shi Tie looked like a snack, Shi Tie might end up missing even more limbs than he already had.

Xiang Yi tapped a few keys on the terminal, and the camera feed suddenly lurched into motion.

Just as Xiang Yi was quietly getting ready to make his move.

Lu Qi suddenly shouted, "Everyone stay calm! Do not turn and run — we’re all in protective suits, and this Abnormality might be attracted to the corpses, not us."

"Keep your movements natural. Back away slowly. Once we’re out of its line of sight, we circle around to the hardware store."

The team followed Lu Qi’s orders to the letter, carefully holding their posture as they eased back toward the far side of the buildings.

And just as he’d said, the Type-C Flesh Beast made no move to follow. Every bit of its attention seemed locked onto the bodies.

Everyone had just started to breathe again.

"You guys hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Something’s closing in."

One team member with sharp ears caught it first. Within moments, the others heard it too — something fast approaching, accompanied by the grinding scrape of mechanical components in motion.

"What is that?"

Lu Qi snapped his head up.

A Spider-shaped Robot was cresting the corrugated rooftop, half its body visible, right in his line of sight.

A flash of horror crossed his face. He threw himself backward on instinct.

Because mounted on the flat top of the Spider-shaped Robot was a rifle with an energy discharge barrel.

"There you are."

Xiang Yi, fingers on the controls, murmured the words quietly to himself.

Lu Qi had to give orders — and giving orders meant showing himself.

And the moment he showed himself, Xiang Yi could use the Biological Signal Sensor mounted on the robot to lock onto his specific biosignature.

Lu Qi had nowhere left to run.

Not that he was the target right now.

The Laser Rifle swung across the rest of the group in a sweeping arc. The Blood-colored Laser punched through their protective suits with ease, biting into flesh — and blood-red crystals erupted and spread through the wounds like wildfire.

Shredded nerves reduced the people hit to nothing but raw, all-consuming agony.

"Run!"

With both the Abnormality and Xiang Yi’s robot bearing down on them, Lu Qi had completely run out of ways to win this.

He barked the single word and bolted. The handful of survivors didn’t need to be told twice — the moment Lu Qi opened his mouth, they scattered and fled.

That was all it took. The Type-C Flesh Beast, which had been sluggishly drifting around moments before, reacted like something had set it off.

Every strip of skin and flesh across its body began to convulse violently.

The skull known as "Agge" shuddered a few times, then tore itself free from the Flesh Beast’s body and tumbled to the ground.

Tendrils woven from muscle tissue took the place of its spine, becoming the limbs that dragged it upright off the ground.

Beyond just the skull, several fused arms, the upper half of some unknown person’s torso, and other chunks of flesh and tissue all sprouted similar tendrils of their own.

They detached from the Type-C Flesh Beast’s body and launched off in pursuit of Lu Qi’s fleeing group with unnerving speed and agility.

"Type-A Flesh Beasts," the robot said quietly in Xiang Yi’s ear.

Meanwhile, the Type-C Flesh Beast itself lumbered over to the bodies Shi Tie had torn apart and killed earlier, slowly oozing over them and absorbing them.

One of the eyeballs embedded in its mass seemed to glance over at Shi Tie, but once it registered that only shredded meat remained, it lost all interest.

It turned and continued moving in the direction Lu Qi and the others had scattered.

Lu Qi sprinted through the maze of corrugated metal buildings.

His familiarity with the area let him pull ahead of the Flesh Beast quickly, and he even managed to shake the crawling head of Agge that had been chasing him down.

Adrenaline screamed through every inch of him, pushing him forward. He knew that if he could just reach that place, he’d make it out alive.

But that mechanical scraping sound behind him refused to fall away.

In terrain this cluttered and complex, the agile robot had the edge over any human.

The only reason Lu Qi had made it this far was because this was Xiang Yi’s first time piloting a Spider-shaped Robot — and on top of that, the Spider-shaped Robot was running on a spare humanoid robot chip pulled from the warehouse.

But Xiang Yi was getting better with every passing second, and the robot was closing the gap.

"At this rate you won’t catch him. They drove here — there’s a wider road about a hundred meters out, and that’s where they would’ve parked."

The robot gave Xiang Yi the heads-up.

"I know. I clocked it on my way in. But didn’t I just build two Spider-shaped Robots?"

Lu Qi ran flat out the whole way and finally burst clear of the cluster of metal buildings, hitting the road at the boundary between the Southwest Suburbs and the Southeast Suburbs.

Seven or eight vehicles were parked along the roadside in a loose, haphazard line.

Lu Qi grabbed the first car he reached and wrenched the door open, about to throw himself inside.

Right above him, practically in his face, mechanical movement suddenly erupted from the roof of the car.

Lu Qi froze. He looked up.

Another Spider-shaped Robot was right there, perched on top of the car as if it had been waiting for him all along.

He barely had time to react before the Spider-shaped Robot launched itself onto his face.

Its legs cracked through his helmet and forced their way into his mouth, cutting off any possibility of him biting down on a poison capsule hidden inside to kill himself.

At the same moment, the Spider-shaped Robot that had been chasing him came skidding in from behind.

The blades Xiang Yi had fitted onto two of its legs drove straight through Lu Qi’s Achilles tendons to keep him from running again, and then it clamped down on his thrashing arms and locked them in place.

Lu Qi struggled for a few seconds, realized there was absolutely no getting free, and finally went limp.