Things Not Human

“Isaac is dead. Ingar and Elle are wounded. Everyone else is here.” In a corner of the Border Realm, beneath broken walls, the Knights of Homecoming had regrouped once more. After taking roll call, the bearded man, Slan, showed a flicker of lament. An ill-fated start—they had barely stepped into the Border Realm and already suffered casualties, while everyone else bore injuries of varying degrees. They hadn't suffered anything as preposterous as Ji Jue plummeting straight out of thin air, but some had dropped right into a monster's lair, while others had walked barely two steps before being buried under collapsing buildings, crawling out covered in grime and dust. Fortunately, they hadn't landed far from one another. Relying on resonance between their matrices, they easily eradicated a few crocodile-like beasts lurking in the mud pits and gathered together again. Keeping up their guard, they shielded Lou Feng in the center. The moment the anomaly occurred in the Border Realm, the experienced Slan had immediately tackled his employer to the ground. The two had not been separated during transit, and now looked merely a bit disheveled. Unlike certain unlucky bastards who were hunted the second they hit the ground, Lou Feng had plenty of time to analyze their surroundings. Luckily, the instruments stored in the space carved out by the Eternal Gate had not been damaged during the crossing. “No good. The spiritus frequency is a total mess—no sign of Sovereign Virtue, and the stability index is far below the safety threshold.” Lou Feng looked away from the screen of his handheld instrument. “Still, according to the data, the Border Realm currently remains overlapped with the mundane world. As long as we find a chance to open the gate again, we can get out of here.” “Which means we secure a safe foothold first?” Slan understood. “Shortly, I'll send men to scout the surrounding area and see if there are any traces of the workshop Master Kong mentioned.” After all, they were battle-hardened mercenaries prepared for all kinds of unexpected situations. Even if large pieces of equipment had been lost in the rush, they carried ample food and emergency supplies. At this moment, without waiting for Slan's orders, some of the men were already searching the nearby buildings for a suitable campsite. “Also, if there's a chance... no, make a chance...” Lou Feng's face twitched as he ground out through his teeth, “Find that guy named Ji!” Setting aside the personal grievance between them, just the possibility of him carrying contingencies and guidance from Ye Xian was troublesome enough. Among all the entrants, he posed the greatest threat! If they went through hell and high water to find the workshop only for that dog to snatch the fruits, Lou Feng might as well find a rope and hang himself. “Remember: if possible, try not to kill him, understand?” Lou Feng warned gravely. “That way, we can still give Master Ye an explanation.” “Understood, Boss.” Slan smiled faintly. “Rest easy. We're professionals.” Just a kid without even a matrix—taking care of him wouldn't even require a gun. It was practically shooting fish in a barrel! Right then, someone beside them suddenly asked, “The guy named Ji you mentioned... is he a young man with a scar on his face?” “Yes,” Lou Feng nodded. The Knight of Homecoming asked in confusion, “Riding a little scooter? Um... and has a very punchable smile?” “Yes, exactly.” Lou Feng looked up, about to ask, “How do—” His words stopped dead. He froze on the spot. As if answering his call, from the end of the ruined street, the roar of an engine rumbled—vroom, vroom, vroom! In the billowing plume of dust, that face he would recognize even if burned to ash came into focus. Ji Jue! He was here. Before everyone's stunned gazes, Little Niuma charged forward roaring, tethered to a figure flapping through midair, hurtling straight toward them! “Ni hao! HELLO! Konnichiwa!!!” Ji Jue waved his arm in wild delight, yelling at the top of his lungs as if terrified Lou Feng wouldn't see him: “Brother Lou! Long time no see! How've you been? Hahahahaha—” Along with his shouts, the roar of the engine surged again until, accompanied by the violent trembling of the earth and the collapse of crumbling walls, a colossal racket suddenly erupted! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!! Half a derelict building groaned and sheared right down the middle. A gigantic, hideous monster slithered through the ruins, rearing its massive body in fury, roaring as it pursued in hot pursuit! “—I've missed you guys to death!!!!” Ji Jue accelerated again! Laughing maniacally, he barreled toward them. “Ji, you motherf—” Lou Feng's vision went dark. He didn't even register that he had just cursed for the first time in his life before Slan seized him and slung him over his shoulder. “RUN!!!” The bearded knight bellowed at the top of his lungs, abandoning even the expensive instruments they had just calibrated and the supplies scattered across the ground. Without a second thought, he took the lead and bolted! On the battlefield, the slightest hesitation or wishful thinking yielded only death. Having witnessed countless people who froze while shells shrieked overhead, survivors learned the most valuable lesson of their lives: decisive action! Unfortunately, no matter how decisive, reality remained unchanged. Two legs simply could not outrun two wheels... Especially when Ji Jue effortlessly accelerated, waved, and breezed past them. After a barrage of venomous glares and a send-off of stray gunfire, the expressions of the Knights of Homecoming gradually went slack. Stiffly, they turned their heads back. Staring at the colossal behemoth now right before their eyes, feeling the massive shadow falling across their faces... They swallowed dryly. The last thing they heard was the monster's piercing roar: “ROAR—!!!!!” *** After considerable effort, having finally shaken off the trouble on their tails, Ji Jue and the others at last stopped in a cluster of ruins to catch their breath, covered in dust and grime. And right beneath An Ran's feet, a writhing corpse was still entangled. In fact, even Ji Jue could hardly tell what on earth this thing was. Like an octopus, a hippo, and a cheetah had been minced together and mashed with a human, it had lurked in the darkness and lunged the moment Ji Jue brought the vehicle to a halt. And then, before Ji Jue could even raise his gun, its head had been cleanly popped by An Ran's flying dart. They had seen far too many such things along the way—not just that giant bug resembling an iconic creature from some sci-fi movie, but putrid butterflies larger than humans dripping with rotten flesh, spider monstrosities cobbled together from mismatched limbs... and even more madly mutated walking corpses. He even wondered if he had taken a wrong turn and barged onto the set of some trashy horror flick. On the ground, that headless, grotesque body still struggled incessantly, leaking blood and some kind of transparent fluid while severed granuloma continuously grew and shifted shapes. “How strange. It clearly doesn't have a heartbeat.” An Ran held a sharp dagger in a reverse grip, deftly carving through the heart, groin, neck, and other vitals in a smooth, fluid butchery until the separated chunks of meat finally ceased moving. Revealing the bizarre structure within. Interspersed with iron plates, metal, ceramic, and plastic! After careful analysis, he said solemnly, “Brother Ji Jue, this isn't human.” “No way a human could look like that anyway, right?” Ji Jue's face twitched. He had known that much the moment its head was blown apart by the dart. “I mean it has nothing to do with humans. It's not human. It's different.” An Ran explained again. Seeing Ji Jue's puzzled expression, he grew even more anxious. Hampered by his clumsy tongue, he stammered until he finally found a way to phrase it that Ji Jue could grasp: “They... didn't turn into this from humans. They were never human to begin with.” Not humans turned into monsters. Rather, from the very beginning... they were never humans at all! In sudden astonishment, Ji Jue fell silent. Hearing An Ran say this, he pinched his nose, leaned in, and took the dagger from An Ran's hand. He carefully pried open the corpse's skull, and brain matter reduced to paste oozed from the fissure. But when he fought back his nausea and reached in to probe, he froze stiff. Why did the lymph nodes and nerve plexuses exhibit faint characteristics of spiritus circuits? Vague and indistinct—impossible to detect unless deliberately searching for them. As though the nerves had naturally grown that way. No, reversed—it was almost as if... spiritus circuits had grown into the shape of nerves? What in the absolute hell! Was this an artificial construct simulating a human? Yet it looked virtually identical to a living organism—whether in nerve reflexes or operational mechanisms, even the dissipating spiritus matched that of a dead person! Watching the thing on the ground convulse with diminishing spasms, Ji Jue took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, pressed his hand down, and forcibly attempted to communicate with it using Deus Ex Machina once more. Yet what echoed in his mind was only a shriek so ear-splitting and shrill that it made his hair stand on end—not of one person, but tens of thousands... endless howls. Detonating in an instant! Ji Jue's vision went black. Blood seeped from his nose and mouth in an instant as he coughed violently. If he hadn't been genuinely unable to make a sound, he would have screamed: *There's poison in this shit!* *It's shit! So much shit!* In that instant, he felt like a fool siphoning gas with a hose in his mouth, only to have shoved the other end into a sewage tank... If the consciousness of alchemical creations was sometimes like Cola, sometimes like Sprite, wild as strong liquor, or pure as plain water, then what he had just gulped down by the mouthful was Haizhou herbal tea mixed with canned surströmming. Mad spiritus, viscous enough to be almost tangible, surged back against him and violently erupted in his soul. Leaving behind an agony worse than a hammer blow to the forehead, it also gifted him psychological trauma he would likely never forget for the rest of his life. Deus Ex Machina was no panacea. He recalled Professor Ye's words when she had taught him a lesson with the puzzle ball: relying on it too much would make him suffer sooner or later. Now, not only had the puzzle ball suffered, but he was nearly choking on the bitter pill himself. Leaning against the wall, Ji Jue dry-heaved repeatedly. At least now, he could be certain these things were not human at all. Yet all he wanted to know was... What the fuck did Quicksilver do back then?! How could he have created a bunch of abominations so batshit insane they were unbearable? “Shh—” Just as he was about to curse, An Ran pressed a hand to his shoulder and whispered, “There's a sound.” Weeping. Carried from the dim distance.