Right on Target (TARGET)
Yu Cheng seized the chance to flee, skirting along the edge of the narrow aisle while still careful not to brush against Su Heting in the slightest. The teapot in his hand clattered noisily as he trembled, already darting toward the partition. Dong Fang pulled it open, yanked Yu Cheng inside, and then slammed it shut with a loud "bang!"—all in one smooth motion.
Su Heting: "..."
Am I some kind of dangerous criminal???
By now, the car doors and windows were all shut tight, muffling even the sound of the rain. The partition’s soundproofing was decent, so Su Heting could only hear the four on the other side murmuring indistinctly, unable to make out their words.
"Your teammates are pretty shy," Su Heting remarked. "They blush after just a few words."
Inspector, seemingly drowsy, replied at a leisurely pace, "First time meeting you. They’re not comfortable yet."
Su Heting gave a perfunctory "Oh," as if he believed it. In his mind, a second hand ticked relentlessly. After listening to the rain for a while, he did the math—it had been roughly four hours since he entered the Punishment Zone.
"Got a question," he said. "What time does it get light here?"
Because of the handcuffs, their hands were pressed close together, their warmth mere inches apart. The slightest movement would make them touch.
"Uncertain," Inspector murmured, his eyelids nearly shut. "If the Eunuch judges that the Slaughter Hour isn’t over, the sky will stay dark."
The mechanical voice of the Eunuch echoed dully in Su Heting’s mind. He pressed on, "What’s the criteria for the judgment?"
Inspector answered, "Death count."
After sunset, something must die. If not people, then gods or demons. Supernatural beings could offset human lives—Nightwalkers were worth five, and Bifang birds were worth thirty. The nightly death quota was random. If the quota wasn’t met, the Eunuch wouldn’t light the red signal, and the supernatural would keep emerging.
This was what the Eunuch called "Gods and Demons Passage."
Su Heting blurted out, "What kind of bullshit rule is that?"
Tonight, they had killed four Bifang birds, yet the sky showed no sign of brightening, and the rain hadn’t let up in the slightest.
As they spoke, the car’s lights flickered with a sharp crackle.
Inspector’s eyes snapped open, sharp and alert. Sensing something amiss, Su Heting fell silent too. The two sat side by side, and about half a minute later, the lights suddenly went out.
Without a sound, the lights simply died, as if someone had gently blown them out.
Su Heting held his breath, not wanting to miss a single noise. Then, he heard the sound of metal scraping against the ground. It resembled the Nightwalkers, but his cat ears twitched—something felt off.
Nightwalkers walked. This sound was more like running, as if whatever it was had nimble, agile legs that were moving at an alarming speed. The car suddenly jolted—the thing had leaped onto the roof while Su Heting was still processing.
Su Heting shifted his leg slightly, readying himself to spring into action. But the moment he moved, his knee bumped against Inspector’s. In the pitch-black darkness, he turned his head and nearly collided with the other man’s face.
—Shh.
Inspector clamped a hand over the back of Su Heting’s head, preventing him from moving.
The four behind the partition were dead silent—silence seemed to be a necessary survival skill here. Everyone was waiting, as if they hadn’t yet figured out what exactly was lurking above them.
On this side of the partition, the two faced each other. Su Heting could feel Inspector’s breath. He wanted to ask if they could adjust their positions—this was way too awkward, like they were about to kiss any second.
Inspector seemed to know what the cat was thinking and slightly averted his face.
"Sir." A voice suddenly rang out, magnetic and polished like a broadcaster's.
"Yes—" Yu Cheng, on the other side of the partition, had his mouth muffled.
Cold rain lashed against the windows, while that thing pounded on the roof. It heard Yu Cheng’s response and suddenly pressed down, pressing its face against the roof before calling out again, "Sir."
This time, the voice was right above their heads.
"I’m so cold, sir. Can you open the door for me?"
"I’m 016."
"You sent us to investigate Zhurong. I’ve returned."
Dead silence filled the car.
Su Heting rolled his eyes, glancing at Inspector’s unchanging ice-cold expression. He wordlessly asked with his gaze:
—Your acquaintance?
Inspector didn’t answer.
"Zhurong is a god."
"Its fire came from the horizon and swallowed our entire team."
"Everyone was burned to ashes—except me. I remembered your orders, sir."
"I stayed in the rain, crushed beneath Zhurong’s chariot. The wheel just happened to land on my chest, and I couldn’t break free. But the fire kept burning, sir. I couldn’t breathe."
"Screech—"
A scraping sound came from the roof—sharp claws were raking across it. Metal shavings flew as deep gouges were carved into the surface. But that wasn’t the worst part. The real problem was its increasing weight.
"To return and report, I cut off my own head."
The roof was soon crushed out of shape, the interior space rapidly shrinking until it nearly pressed down on Su Heting’s head. As the weight continued to grow, the car doors groaned under the strain.
"It's Yanguang," Inspector commanded, "Get out!"
The partition snapped, and the roof collapsed with a thunderous crash!
The handcuffs instantly disassembled, transforming into a familiar shield that wedged into the gap, holding up the roof.
"Sir."
The creature kept calling.
Su Heting kicked the nearest window, and it burst open with a bang. Wind and rain instantly poured in, whipping his tousled hair.
A black giant ape, over three meters tall, sat atop the car. The vehicle swayed precariously, on the verge of snapping in half under its weight.
Inspector yanked Su Heting, and the two of them tumbled out through the window. Heavy rain pelted their faces as Inspector’s black diamond fragments whooshed away in retreat.
The car was promptly flattened.
A Yanguang sat atop the wreckage and kept pounding the crushed roof with its fists while still shouting, "Sir! Sir!"
The outline of its back bulged unnaturally, as if fitted with some kind of device. Its shoulders and arms were wrapped in thick chains, each link studded with ammunition for launching. But the most striking feature was its face—or rather, its lack of one. In its place was a cannon barrel, its muzzle expanding as the creature’s body grew larger.
Su Heting raised a hand to shield himself from the torrential rain and shouted something. His voice was quickly swallowed by the wind, forcing him to yell again, "Why is it still growing?"
"Yanguang’s trait is continuous growth," Inspector said as his diamond fragments clinked together, forming a pitch-black spear. "Bullets are useless against it."
In the time it took to say those two sentences, Yanguang had already grown to over ten meters tall. It lifted its rear, trying to pull out the flattened car beneath it. The chains rattled with its movements, and when it raised the car with one hand, Su Heting finally saw—it wasn’t the creature making the noise at all.
Yanguang's chest was adorned with numerous heads, none of which had decayed, as if freshly severed, colliding against each other as they swayed. Their faces were pale with a deathly hue and lips blackened from the cold, chanting woodenly, "Commander! Commander!"
Boom—!
Yanguang hurled the car toward Inspector's position. It had no eyes, nor did it rely on them to navigate. Gigantification was its defining trait—like an engine heating up, once it grew to fifty or sixty meters, it became a frenzied beast, blasting everything in its path with cannon barrels as devastating as missiles.
"We need to block its cannon when it fires," Inspector said as he lifted his foot to kick the side of his spear. "It's terrified of pain—Dong Fang!"
"Copy that!" Dong Fang, who had just rolled out, abruptly tore off the sleeve of his left arm, revealing a mechanical limb. He crouched sharply before driving the arm into the ground.
The mechanical elbow split open instantly, reassembling rapidly amid gears and armor into a Y-shaped steel contraption as tall as a person.
Dong Fang shouted, "Gardenia!"
Without hesitation, Hua Zhi stepped onto Dong Fang's left shoulder while pulling a forearm-length steel arrow from the side-mounted quiver of her light armor. The Y-shaped contraption instantly extended, forming an electric bowstring between its two prongs.
"Aim for its chest," Dong Fang adjusted his arm slightly, raising Hua Zhi's angle. "The commander's going up!"
Hua Zhi knocked the arrow with two steel fingers, pulling the string taut. Her gaze locked onto Yanguang, which was wildly smashing abandoned cars with its arms.
Su Heting's cybernetic eye is continuously updated with information.
[X-lock engaged. Target charging attack.]
[Charge at 78%.]
[Charge at 89%.]
"Whoosh—!"
Hua Zhi's arrow was already loose.
The steel arrow spun through the rain, crackling with electric arcs like a thunderous whip wielded by the gods, its tip emitting a piercing whistle. Before Yanguang could raise the car it was smashing, the arrow struck its chest. The arrowhead drilled in like a buzzsaw, sinking halfway with a resonant hum.
"Ahhh!"
The heads on Yanguang's chest screamed in unison, their faces contorted in terror and struggling to flee but held fast by chains. Yanguang staggered silently before crashing into a nearby building amid the heads' wails.
[Charge at 100%!]
The moment the red exclamation mark flashed in Su Heting's cybernetic eye, he caught an ominous scent. Grabbing Inspector's collar, he lunged forward.
A blinding white light erupted as Yanguang's cannon shot streaked past in a straight line, obliterating the ground behind them.
A wave of fire scorched Su Heting's back. Pinning Inspector down, he turned to look.
Damn.
The path of Yanguang's cannonfire was reduced to ruins.
"Hit its head, or else—" Su Heting turned back, only to realize he was practically straddling Inspector.
Inspector, pinned beneath him, froze for a second. That brief moment of surprise shattered his usual air of austerity, making him seem almost human.
Su Heting had to finish his sentence to prove he wasn't some pervert! He sped up, "Or else it'll keep bombing—holy shit!"
The red exclamation mark reappeared in his cybernetic eye.
Inspector gripped the back of Su Heting's head, pressing him into the crook of his shoulder. The spear disassembled in an instant, reforming into a shield as he raised his arm.
A deafening explosion!
Su Heting's ears rang from the blast, the residual vibrations evoking memories of the Great Explosion, sickeningly familiar.
"Something's off tonight, Commander!" Yu Cheng's voice crackled over the comms. "We're detecting multiple hostiles closing in—"
"Deities and demons pass, mortals make way!"
"Deities and demons pass, mortals make way!"
"Deities and demons—pass! Mortals—make way!"
Three electronic voices boomed through the heavy rain.
The Mechanical Eunuch stood with his arms tucked into his sleeves, aloof and proud atop the high-rise building, the gourd patterns on his hood glowing a virulent green like some engineered virus.
"Sir..."
"Sir!"
Countless heads hanging from Yanguang's chest wailed, their voices piercing and overwhelming, enveloping everyone present.
More than a dozen Yanguang emerged from the darkness, encircling them.
Author's Note:
① Yanguang: Currently unlocked information can be found in this chapter's details.—"Punctual Sniper Chronicles"
①-1 Inspiration for the Setting: "The Yanguang people, light pours from their mouths and their forms entirely resembling apes, black in color."—"Records of the Investigation of Things"
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