Chapter 96 – The First Time

“All right. I’ve said enough. It’s time to deal with you. Otherwise, those humans’ companions will catch up soon. In any case, if Qin Moyun had absorbed you back then, she would have become my nourishment too. Now the two of you have merely switched places. It makes no difference to me.” What Wang Zhao said was enough to make one’s skin crawl, yet the expression on his face made it seem as if he were talking about something perfectly natural.

Su Lifeng frowned. He knew that even if Qin Moyun learned about this, she would show no sign of resistance, perhaps not even the slightest emotional fluctuation. But when he thought of the nature of creatures like the Xenospecies, and how readily they abandoned their own kind once there was a problem with their evolution, Su Lifeng felt deeply unsettled.

Perhaps it was because they most often chose humans as their skins. Faced with something like this, Su Lifeng, as an onlooker, could not remain completely unmoved. Even he was not entirely clear on that point.

After secretly drawing closer, he had happened to hear the conversation between the old policeman and Wang Zhao… and then he had thought of Qin Zelong.

Now, he thought of Gouzi again.

“You really deserve to die.” The Bone Wings on Su Lifeng’s back spread, and he lunged forward once more.

What was fast about Wang Zhao was the attack speed of that mouth. His body’s movements were not particularly quick.

But standing there with his back to the wall, he had almost completely protected his only blind spot. All that remained was that huge mouth, waiting immovably like a mountain for Su Lifeng to throw himself into the trap.

Su Lifeng had only one thought. Faster. If he could be fast enough to seize the instant his opponent showed an opening, he would have his chance.

Wang Zhao’s arm was still dripping blood. After being injured in succession by the barbs of the Bone Wings and the military spike, the wound left behind was already half the size of a fist. The shattered arm bone would not heal immediately either.

That might be his only chance…

“Against an E-class Xenospecies, the moment you hesitate is the moment you die.” Su Lifeng’s mind was perfectly clear.

But seizing that chance was far from easy. A large number of Black Thread strands drilled out from around Wang Zhao, trying to catch Su Lifeng’s moving figure in advance.

Once the Black Thread touched him, what awaited him the next instant would be that disgusting mouth.

Just then, a gunshot suddenly rang out.

At Wang Zhao’s one wound where no Black Thread had emerged, a spray of blood suddenly burst open again.

The penetrating force of the bullet made Wang Zhao’s body sway with it, causing a split-second pause.

Now!

Su Lifeng was shocked, but his movements did not stop in the slightest.

That second vanished in a flash. At that moment, Su Lifeng unleashed his absolute maximum speed.

Whoosh!

For an instant, Su Lifeng felt a stinging pain across his skin.

Too fast. His calf muscles and his Bone Wings were both trembling!

Swish!

Two pairs of Bone Wings drew four streaks of red light through the air, piercing through the Black Thread and stabbing into Wang Zhao’s body from different angles.

Su Lifeng immediately retreated. That huge mouth swept past right in front of him.

“Sss…”

The corrosive fluid still touched one side of Su Lifeng’s Bone Wings, and a burst of agony struck him at once.

But a cold smile remained on Su Lifeng’s face, because compared with that counterattack, the injuries Wang Zhao had suffered were far more severe.

At the same time, he glanced behind him from the corner of his eye. Deputy Director Wang slowly lowered the handgun with a trembling arm and let out a very weak laugh. There was no telling how much was contained in that laugh. Was he laughing because his marksmanship was still decent, or because he had finally found a chance to wound this Xenospecies?

His eyes were still open, but his breathing gradually weakened.

The pistol fell back into the pool of blood, landing beside the special ops member’s corpse once more.

If Su Lifeng hadn’t killed those special ops members, Deputy Director Wang never would have had the chance to pick up that gun.

Even Su Lifeng hadn’t expected the old man to use up the very last breath in his body like that.

After Wang Zhao was wounded, his reactions were noticeably slower. Su Lifeng circled him for a few seconds, then lunged again.

This time, he sacrificed another one of his Bone Wings and dragged Wang Zhao away from the wall.

Wang Zhao tried to struggle, but Su Lifeng merely yanked him forward. In the next instant, he snapped that Bone Wings himself.

When Su Lifeng appeared again, he was already behind Wang Zhao. As the Bone Wings on both sides pierced into Wang Zhao’s neck, the military dagger in Su Lifeng’s hand stabbed viciously into his cervical spine.

The moment the blade sank in and the vertebrae shifted out of place, Wang Zhao’s fleshy shell lost all ability to move.

Swish! Swish!

Su Lifeng’s expression did not change. With a flick of both hands, two more scalpels appeared.

“Dissecting an E-class Xenospecies… This is a first.”

As his words fell, blood sprayed into the air…

“Move! With me!”

Lv Zifeng heard the gunshot from downstairs and immediately picked up speed, leading his men in a rush upward.

But when he entered that blood-soaked “battlefield” with his gun raised and his guard up, what he saw left him stunned.

Corpses and Black Thread were everywhere. One body lay on its back on the floor, its chest and abdomen cut open, its mouth gaping wide like some kind of monster.

The corpse’s eyes were still open, and even its body was still twitching faintly. Clearly, he had been cut open while still alive.

The corpse’s internal organs had already turned into bloody pulp, and quite a few seemed to have been removed. On top of that, there were countless wounds across the surface of the body. Each incision was remarkably clean, with broken strands of Black Thread still left inside.

The team members who followed Lv Zifeng up felt their scalps go numb at the sight.

This was a monster…

Not far away, Deputy Director Wang’s eyes were open, and a faint smile still lingered at the corner of his mouth.

Lv Zifeng lowered the muzzle of his gun, walked over, and gently closed his eyes for him.

“Report, Captain Lv. We haven’t found anyone else. We did find some other Xenospecies corpses elsewhere on this floor. Judging by the wounds, they should be the same as the bodies here-all killed by the same person…”

As he listened to the team member’s report, a name suddenly surfaced in Lv Zifeng’s mind.

It was a name he had overlooked tonight, but now it forced its way back up, impossible to suppress: “Su Lifeng.”

But…

“He isn’t a Xenospecies, and he hasn’t absorbed any Xenospecies. It shouldn’t be him… But then, who else could it be?” Lv Zifeng couldn’t make sense of it no matter how hard he thought. He looked toward Deputy Director Wang’s body and sighed. “Old friend, I suppose you’re the only one who saw it clearly now…”

“Wooo-!”

By the time more and more police cars arrived at the scene, Su Lifeng had already returned to the spot where he had taken off his trench coat.

After putting the clean trench coat back on, Su Lifeng glanced at the bag in his hand, listened to the piercing wail of the sirens, and then walked calmly out of the alley.

When he blended into the crowd on the street, even Su Lifeng himself felt a strange sense of unreality.

In that vast sea of people, no one would give him a second glance. No one would even pay much attention to the traces of blood still lingering on parts of him. But who could possibly know that what he was carrying in his hand at that very moment was the true corpse of an E-class Xenospecies?