83: Chapter 83 The Shadow on the Cross
The bus's chassis let out an overburdened creak.
Its wheels rolled over the gravel road on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains.
The multi-day wilderness survival training had finally come to an end.
The cabin was filled with a mixture of sweat, damp earth, and cheap sports cologne.
Most of the students were slumped in their seats.
Coach Davis was dozing in the front row.
Qin Ming sat in a window seat in the very last row of the bus.
He was wearing a clean grey hoodie.
Lyricless heavy metal percussion played through his headphones.
On his phone screen, a yellow pixelated smiley face was bouncing along the edges.
The bus turned onto a desolate interstate highway.
The paint on the road signs was peeling and mottled.
The scenery on both sides gradually shifted from dense pine forests to decaying cornfields.
The sky darkened rapidly.
Lead-grey clouds hung very low.
A rotten, musty smell permeated the air.
A dilapidated small town appeared ahead.
It was the kind of abandoned place that didn't even have a name on the map.
The shops on both sides of the street were tightly shuttered.
Blackened wooden planks were nailed over the glass windows.
A few leaning utility poles let out a low wail in the wind.
The bus suddenly jolted violently.
A harsh sound of metal grinding came from the engine bay, followed by a puff of black smoke.
The vehicle's speed plummeted, and it finally came to a stop in front of an abandoned gas station.
Coach Davis cursed and pushed open the driver's door, jumping out.
"The radiator is leaking! We need to take a break!"
He shouted into the cabin through the window.
"Everyone can get off to get some fresh air, but don't wander off!"
"There might be vagrants or stray dogs in town, so stay safe!"
The students erupted into a chorus of complaints.
Qin Ming took off his headphones and looked out the window calmly.
His gaze swept over the rusted corrugated metal roofs.
He locked onto a building at the far end of the town.
It was a Gothic spire church.
The exterior walls were blackened by weathering, and a massive cross tilted toward the sky.
Just moments ago,
Qin Ming had keenly caught sight of a blurry shadow.
The thing had flashed past the top of the church's bell tower.
Its movements were extremely distorted.
It wasn't human, nor was it a beast in the conventional sense.
Qin Ming stuffed his phone into his hoodie pocket.
He stood up and walked down the aisle toward the door.
"Hey, Qin."
A chubby boy named Charlie was sitting on an abandoned tire at the gas station, munching on a chocolate bar.
"Where are you going? Coach said we can't go far."
"I'm going over there to take a look."
Qin Ming gestured casually toward the church.
"I think I just saw a very special robin."
"I'll look it up; maybe I can include it in my biology observation report."
The reason he gave perfectly fit his persona as a diligent, studious student.
Charlie curled his lip.
"Top students are so scary."
He went back to tackling the chocolate in his hand.
Qin Ming turned and pulled up his hood.
His leather shoes stepped onto the street covered in dead leaves and broken glass without making a sound.
The church was about four hundred meters from the gas station.
As he drew closer, the rotten, musty smell in the air grew heavier.
It was even tinged with a faint scent of blood.
The church's two heavy oak doors were half ajar.
The hinges were covered in greyish-white spiderwebs.
Qin Ming walked up the moss-covered stone steps.
He extended a finger and gently pushed the door open.
*Creak—*
The dull sound of friction echoed within the empty church.
The light inside was extremely dim.
Most of the stained-glass windows were shattered, with only faint moonlight filtering through.
Dust particles floated in the air.
The wooden pews were scattered and tilted, some even violently smashed.
The altar at the front was a mess.
The statue of the Crucified One had its head hacked off.
Qin Ming kept his hands in his pockets.
He walked leisurely down the church aisle.
His gaze swept over dark corners, confessionals, and the peeling murals on the dome.
It was too quiet.
There wasn't even the sound of rats or insects scurrying.
Biological instinct had caused the small animals in this area to flee long ago.
This was the lair of some high-level predator.
Qin Ming walked up to the altar.
He saw a pool of dried, blackened blood on the floor.
Beside the bloodstain were several white bones covered in teeth marks.
Judging by their thickness and length, they were human leg bones.
"Interesting."
Qin Ming murmured softly.
Yet, there was still no movement around him.
The monster was either hiding very deep, or it had already sensed the danger of its prey.
An old wall clock ticked away.
Five minutes had passed.
The break time allotted by Coach Davis was almost up.
Qin Ming didn't intend to waste any more time in this foul-smelling place.
He turned and walked toward the church doors.
His pace was composed.
He completely exposed his defenseless back to the darkness.
At the very moment he was about to step over the church threshold.
From the darkness above his head came the extremely faint sound of fabric tearing.
A foul wind rushed at him.
The shadow hidden on the ceiling beams moved.
Its speed surpassed the laws of physics.
Like a cannonball carrying a mass of rotten flesh, it lunged directly at the back of Qin Ming's neck.
Qin Ming didn't even turn his head.
The muscles in his legs tightened instantly.
He performed a perfectly standard tactical forward roll.
His body turned into an afterimage, gliding two meters forward along the ground.
*Boom!*
The massive shadow slammed hard onto the stone slab where Qin Ming had just been standing.
The marble floor cracked instantly, with spiderweb-like fissures spreading in all directions.
Shards of stone flew everywhere.
Qin Ming's knee touched the ground as he half-knelt on the stone steps outside the door.
His right hand suddenly reached back.
The void trembled.
A dark red light converged in his palm.
Skill activated: Death Grip.
A massive phantom arm, composed of dense death energy, condensed out of thin air.
This illusory giant hand followed Qin Ming's movement, clenching into a fist in mid-air.
It carried a piercing whistle that tore through the air.
It punched toward the shadow that had just landed inside the church doors.
*Bang!!!*
A deafening thud echoed.
It was like a battering ram hitting a massive pile of rotten meat.
The heavy impact sent the monster flying backward.
It let out a sharp, piercing howl in mid-air.
Its massive body slammed hard into the altar at the back of the church, smashing the entire stone structure to pieces.
Wood chips, stone fragments, and dust rose everywhere.
Qin Ming stood up.
He brushed the dust off his pant legs.
Above the back of his head, the golden physical halo that had been in a hidden state suddenly lit up.
Divine light spread out in a radial pattern.
The originally dim and cold church was instantly filled with this warm yet domineering golden light.
All shadows had nowhere to hide.
The floating dust turned into golden specks under the illumination of the light.
The light's innate evil-dispelling property caused the monster in the altar's ruins to let out an even more painful scream.
It struggled to its feet.
Qin Ming finally saw its full appearance.
It was a full nine feet tall, with a massive physique nearly three meters high.
Its limbs were extremely long and thin, with elbow and knee joints bent unnaturally backward.
There wasn't a single hair on its body.
Its skin was a bizarre bright red, covered in a network of crisscrossing blood vessels and fascia.
It looked like a raw meat specimen that had been skinned alive.
Viscous fluids dripped continuously from the muscle fibers onto the floor, making a sizzling corrosive sound.
The most spine-chilling part was its head.
It wasn't a human skull.
It looked more like the head of a crow magnified countless times.