12: Chapter 12 A mortal body, standing in the way of fate

Wang Hao's face changed.

The moment he withdrew his gaze from the family photo on the rearview mirror, that middle-aged man who had been happily chatting about his son attending kindergarten vanished.

"Over there—my wife is over there!"

He slammed the accelerator to the floor and cranked the steering wheel.

The silver-gray BYD emitted a sharp screech of tires, bypassed the roadblock, and lunged toward the factory.

People in reflective vests ahead were shouting and waving.

Wang Hao didn't look at them.

Su Chen sat in the backseat, his hand already touching the edge of his mask.

The system panel popped up red characters in the corner of his vision—

"Eerie entity has made contact with humans. Casualty probability is climbing."

"Stop the car."

Su Chen said.

Wang Hao didn't hear him.

Or perhaps he heard, but those three words couldn't penetrate his eardrums.

He was hunched over the steering wheel, the veins on his neck bulging one by one, his eyes bloodshot, staring fixedly at the factory area 300 meters away where black mist was rising.

The car stopped—not because Wang Hao braked, but because the road was cut off.

The entrance to the factory corridor had collapsed entirely, with twisted steel beams embedded in piles of broken bricks, blocking the passage like a wall.

Wang Hao pushed open the car door and sprang out.

"Xiaohui! Chen Xiaohui!"

The sound from his throat was no longer a shout; it was a distorted roar.

He rushed to the collapsed steel beams and grabbed them with both hands to pull.

He didn't make a sound when his fingernails flipped back. He didn't make a sound when the second one flipped back either.

Blood flowed from his fingertips, smearing onto the concrete surface; the muscles in his arms bulged to the limit, and his face turned purple.

It didn't budge.

The steel beam was embedded in the rubble, weighing over three tons. As a ride-hailing driver, he couldn't move it.

Su Chen got out of the car.

Wang Hao turned back abruptly to look at him, all expressions gone from that face, leaving only a pair of blood-red eyes.

"Little brother, run! This place is wrong! Don't worry about it, just run!"

After shouting those words, he turned and rushed back to the driver's seat.

Seatbelt buckled.

Accelerator to the floor.

The engine roared.

The silver-gray BYD drove straight into the wall of rubble and steel beams.

A loud crash.

The front of the car crumpled significantly, the windshield exploded into shards, and the airbag deployed, covering Wang Hao's face.

The family photo on the rearview mirror was shaken loose, falling beside the handbrake, the smiling family of three facing upward.

But the wall had a hole. It wasn't big, just enough for one person to squeeze through sideways.

Wang Hao kicked open the deformed car door, stood up shakily, didn't look back at Su Chen, and bent down to crawl inside.

Su Chen stood where he was.

The flame in his palm was flickering.

He looked down at the shattered rearview mirror on the ground.

The mirror surface was cracked, reflecting half of his masked face.

Inside the factory building.

The moment the strange beast crawled out completely from the crack, all light sources in the factory died simultaneously.

Welding arcs, workshop ceiling lights, emergency signs. All extinguished.

The only light sources were the two dark red glowing spots on its body, and the black mist churning in the crack beneath its feet.

That low-frequency vibration didn't stop.

Xiao Sun was the first to give out.

He knelt on the ground, covering his ears tightly with both hands, blood oozing between his fingers.

His mouth was wide open, but he couldn't scream—his vocal cords were spasming in the low frequency.

Zhang Tiezhu bit down on a molar until it shattered.

The taste of blood filled his throat, which instead pulled him out of the trance of having his bone marrow ground.

With the grip strength honed from thirty years on construction sites, he grabbed a steel rod and charged toward the strange beast.

He swung the steel rod in a full arc, smashing it against the strange beast's front leg.

Hum.

The sound of metal colliding with charred bark was short and dull, like knocking on a solid wall.

The shockwave traveled back from the steel rod; the web between Zhang Tiezhu's thumb and index finger burst, and the cracks in his palm revealed pink flesh.

The steel rod flew away.

The strange beast's front claw moved. There was no buildup, not even a lifting motion, just the very tip of the claw shifting by an inch.

An invisible force slapped Zhang Tiezhu's chest.

His body flew backward. His back hit a workshop pillar, and the sound of ribs breaking echoed twice in the empty factory,

Crack, clean and crisp, like snapping a bundle of dry firewood.

He slid to the ground, vomiting a mouthful of dark red blood.

But he didn't lower his head, his eyes still fixed on the strange beast.

Xiao Sun didn't know where he found the strength.

He grabbed the welding torch, the arc ignited, and blue-white sparks shot from the nozzle.

Welding sparks splashed onto the strange beast's front leg.

Black mist surged up.

The metal nozzle of the welding torch looked like it had been dipped in concentrated sulfuric acid; pits, depressions, and rot appeared on the surface at a rate visible to the naked eye.

The corrosion crawled up the metal casing, bypassed the protective handle, and touched Xiao Sun's right hand.

A scream pierced the workshop.

Between Xiao Sun's right wrist and elbow, the skin curled back, as if someone had peeled it off alive.

He fell to the ground clutching his arm, the welding torch dropped beside his feet, its metal casing still silently rotting away.

Old Liu was knocked over by the aftermath of the shockwave.

His fifty-eight-year-old body was thrown out, his left leg knocked against the sharp corner of a steel beam, and his knee bent at an impossible angle.

White bone fragments pierced through his pant leg.

Biting his tongue, he used his elbows to support himself on the ground, crawling inch by inch toward the logistics canteen.

A trail of dark red blood was dragged behind him, spreading across the ground shrouded in black mist, congealing into a viscous gel in the cold temperature.

Less than ten seconds.

All resistance ended.

The strange beast's dark red glowing spots slowly swept across the factory.

From Zhang Tiezhu, who had fallen to the ground, to Xiao Sun, who was twitching while holding his arm, to Old Liu, who was crawling on the ground, and then to—

The logistics corner.

Behind the stove.

Several logistics workers surrounded Chen Xiaohui, shielding her with their bodies.

There was still half a pot of unserved food on the stove; the steam had long dissipated, and the iron pot was covered in a layer of black frost.

Chen Xiaohui squatted at the base of the wall, both hands clutching her protruding abdomen tightly.

Her apron was stained with dust and blood—not hers.

Tears streamed down her face, but she bit her lips until they turned white, not making a sound.

The strange beast moved.

Its four reverse-jointed legs took steps, and with every step it landed, the concrete floor shattered into a spiderweb pattern.

Black mist spread along its tracks, corroding whatever it touched; steel beams bubbled on the surface, concrete flaked off, and even the air was filled with a foul, sweet, sickening smell.

It walked toward the logistics corner.

At this moment, a loud crash came from the collapsed entrance—the sound of the BYD's front end smashing through the pile of broken bricks.

Wang Hao crawled in through the gap.

He saw everything in the factory clearly.

He saw the blood on the ground, the fallen people, that thing with four reverse-jointed legs flowing with black mist, and—Chen Xiaohui, squatting at the base of the wall.

His wife was there.

His child was there.

Wang Hao's legs were shaking.

From his knees up to his chin, he was trembling.

He looked down at his hands; all ten fingers were covered in blood, only three fingernails remained, and the edges of broken bricks were embedded in his palms.

He bent down and picked up a bent steel bar from the ground.

He rushed over.

He stood in front of Chen Xiaohui.

When Chen Xiaohui saw his back, she broke down.

"Run... don't worry about me, run quickly!"

"Run my ass!"

Wang Hao roared back.

Tears and sweat mingled as they streamed down; his lips trembled, and the pitch from his vocal cords was no longer that of a normal human.

"I am your husband! Even if I die, I will protect you! Protect our baby!"

He held the steel bar across his chest.

His arms shook like a sieve. But his feet were nailed to the ground, not retreating a single step.

The strange beast's dark red glowing spots paused for a moment.

As if it were sizing up this ant blocking its path.

Then, a claw shadow swept down.

Zhang Tiezhu crawled out from under the steel pillar again.

His broken ribs poked his lungs, and every breath brought out pink foam.

He propped up half his body, only to be blown away again.

This time he hit the wall.

Old Liu lay in the pool of blood, his eyes half-closed, his lips moving silently.

Xiao Sun gripped the corner of his coworker's clothes tightly with his left hand.

His right arm was already numb, and on his face, burned by welding slag, one couldn't tell if it was sweat or tears.

Others were still murmuring names, the names of the people waiting for them to return home.

Black mist surged over the factory, and the dark red glowing spots swept across every face.

Mortal flesh is insignificant in the face of the extraordinary.

The claw shadow was still falling.

Wang Hao closed his eyes.

He raised the steel bar as high as he could.

He knew he couldn't block it.

But he had nothing else.

Just when everyone thought this was the end—

The roof exploded.

It wasn't a collapse.

It was something, from outside the factory roof, that smashed directly through the tin ceiling.

Broken bricks, dust, and fragments of tin fell like a rainstorm.

Everyone—including the strange beast—looked up at the same time.

In the dust and smoke, moonlight poured down from the hole.

A beam of light split the darkness of the factory.

A figure fell down.