86: Chapter 86 Good news: No earthquake; bad news: A monster is knocking on the door.

"Run!!!" The scream echoed across Santa Monica Beach.

Jason looked up.

The sun was still hanging in the sky, but the color was wrong.

It wasn't the warm orange of a sunset, but a scarlet like rusted iron plates soaked in blood, spreading from the horizon to overhead.

The boundary of the color could be seen shifting with the naked eye.

The dividing line between blue and red was like an invisible brush, painting the entire sky in about forty seconds.

The sea changed color along with it.

The golden ripples died, and the seawater turned dark red, viscous like stirred paint.

The sea breeze reversed.

The wind was blowing from the land toward the sea.

It wasn't blowing—it was sucking.

Everyone's hair, clothes, and the towels on the beach chairs were all being pulled toward the ocean by an invisible force.

Mark was the first to run.

"Jason! Quick—"

Before he could finish his shout, the sand underfoot sank.

It wasn't the sinking of soft sand being stepped on; it was a half-meter-wide crack opening in the ground, with sand pouring in with a rustle.

Mark's left foot slipped, and his entire lower leg sank in.

His knee hit the edge of the crack, the sound of bone striking sandstone dull and muffled.

He screamed and crawled out.

The crack was still extending, tearing from the beach toward the highway, swallowing three beach umbrellas and two folding lounge chairs along the way.

Brian, the fat man next to Jason, was closest to the crack.

He turned and ran, ignoring the broken shells under his bare feet.

After running three steps, a wave crashed over him.

It wasn't a normal wave.

The water temperature was wrong—it was boiling hot.

Brian's ankles were scalded red, and he stumbled and fell onto the beach.

The next wave dragged him out.

His hand waved twice in the spray.

"Help—"

The third wave covered him.

He was gone.

Anna's scream reached the limit of what human ears could bear.

Her legs went weak, and she crouched on the ground, her fingernails digging into the sand.

Jason finally moved.

He pulled Anna up and ran toward the highway.

Mark crawled out from the edge of the crack, his knee bleeding, and limped to keep up.

The other three friends had already run a dozen meters away.

The highway was completely paralyzed.

It wasn't a traffic jam.

It was despair.

Countless people screamed and pushed open their car doors, joining a tide of people fleeing for their lives.

Pushing, trampling, and the wails of children separated from their parents were instantly drowned out by a louder roar.

There were no sirens.

No broadcasts.

Not a single person in uniform stood at the intersection to direct traffic.

So-called order had evaporated within five minutes.

A tentacle of an Abyssal Tide Beast rose from the sea, like the whip of God, sweeping across the coastal highway!

A dozen cars were swept into the sky, thrown into the blood-colored sea like toys, without even a splash heard.

Those hit were instantly blown into blood mist in mid-air.

Jason ran to the edge of the highway.

He turned back.

On the sea, eight tentacles broke through the blood-colored water.

The tentacles were over three meters in diameter, their dark green scales turning dark purple under the blood-colored light.

The bone-spiked ring mouth at the ends opened, each bone spike as long as an adult's forearm.

A flat, round head emerged from the center of the tentacles.

The vertical slit in the middle slowly opened—a dark red vertical pupil.

Toward the beach, two ground fissures burst open simultaneously.

Two Shadow Erosion Beasts crawled out from the cracks, their four reverse-jointed legs crushing the sandstone, black mist rolling over their bodies in the twilight.

Jason fell to his knees.

He didn't do it voluntarily.

His knees bent on their own.

The asphalt road surface was hot enough to burn his skin, but he couldn't feel it.

Two images flickered back and forth in his mind.

One was five minutes ago, when he held a cocktail and told tens of millions of people in his livestream, "What kind of fool would believe there's an earthquake here?"

The other was what was before him now.

Three monsters.

Not a movie.

Not special effects.

The sound of tentacles smashing the watchtower, the metallic twisting sound of Shadow Erosion Beasts crushing car hoods, and—the sound of people being thrown away.

"No... impossible..."

Jason's mouth moved, but his vocal cords were out of control.

His lips trembled, and the words he spoke shattered into fragments.

"The earthquake we were promised... how... how is it monsters... isn't this... the end of the world..."

Anna lay on the ground screaming.

Mark curled into a ball, hugging his knees.

Of the three friends who had run away, only two remained.

The third had disappeared, no one knew when.

A ground fissure? A wave? No one saw.

"It's all your fault!"

Mark suddenly erupted.

He grabbed the collar of Jason's T-shirt, pulling Jason until he nearly fell over.

The blood from his knee smeared on the sidewalk.

"It's all your fault! You insisted on coming here to livestream! You said it was fine! You said the Chinese people were full of crap!"

A fist came crashing down.

Jason's mouth split, and blood mixed with saliva flew out.

"I warned you! That Chinese friend told me to leave! You laughed at me!"

Mark threw another punch.

Anna didn't intervene.

She stood up and ran away without saying a word.

She kicked off one of her high heels after three steps and scrambled toward the crowd with one bare foot.

Before leaving, she threw back, "Go die yourselves!"

Friends who had been drinking and taking photos together just a minute ago.

Jason had been pinned down and punched four times by Mark.

The fifth punch never landed.

Because the black mist of a Shadow Erosion Beast had reached the edge of the highway.

The black mist touched the door of a white SUV.

The metal surface bubbled, rusted, and peeled away at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if it had aged twenty years.

There were still people in the car.

A family of four.

The child's crying came from the sizzling car window, and then the window melted.

Jason stopped shouting.

Mark stopped hitting.

The two stared at each other for a second.

Mark let go, scrambled up, and ran.

Jason lay on the asphalt road.

The entire Santa Monica Beach had turned into a slaughterhouse.

The tentacles of the Abyssal Tide Beast swept across the beach bar area, shattering wooden buildings into flying debris.

The Shadow Erosion Beasts chased the crowd, leaving strings of corrosive footprints on the black-mist-covered road.

No army.

No police.

No one came.

A few gunshots rang out in the distance.

Someone had pulled out their home rifle.

The bullets passed through the black mist.

They passed through, no different than passing through air.

Blood was still flowing from the corner of Jason's mouth.

He lay on the asphalt, his fingernails digging into the bitumen in the cracks of the road.

Tears fell onto the scorching road surface, sizzling and vanishing instantly.

---

At the same time, in Hangzhou.

At 6:41 PM, the sky suddenly darkened.

A blood-colored film covered the firmament, at the same speed as in Lighthouse Country.

Thirty seconds, blue turned to red.

The earth trembled.

The glass curtain walls in the core urban area of Hangzhou shattered simultaneously, fragments pouring down like a rainstorm, smashing onto the empty streets.

An empty city.

But beneath the elevated bridge, it was not empty.

Three full infantry battalions, two armed police squadrons, one special forces team.

Armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery were lined up in a row.

The general stood on top of the command vehicle.

Sixty-one years old.

Thirty-seven years of military service.

"Comrades."

All backs stiffened simultaneously.

"The monsters are arriving soon. Our weapons have limited effect."

No one moved.

"But we don't need to win."

His gaze swept from left to right.

"We only need to—keep them from escaping Hangzhou."

He paused for a beat.

"Even if we die, we must wait for Kindling to arrive. We must let the people of Kindling see—"

He slammed his fist onto the steel plate of the vehicle roof.

"The backbone of China will not fall for a thousand years!"

"Fight to the death—"

"Do not retreat!"

Thousands of throats exploded in unison.

A spatial rift tore open above Hangzhou.

Five black shadows fell.

Beneath the elevated bridge, bayonets were fixed.