The sirens ripped through the night sky, and red and blue flashes cast eerie spots of light on the rain-soaked road.
Police received a tip that they heard screams resembling those of cult members in a certain location. Preliminary investigations suggest it may be a gathering place for the emerging cult "New Dawn Church".
This church has been making headlines lately, and many disappearances are linked to them. The South Korea police have been investigating them for a long time, and now they have finally found an opportunity!
At this moment, Li Shanji- hee was slumped on the steps in front of the church, her hands covered in blood, whether her own or someone else's, she didn't know. Beside her was Park Jin-woo, the male college student who always helped in the church kitchen, who was also in a sorry state, pressing his torn shirt against his arm, which he had accidentally cut while running away.
They were lucky; they saw through some kind of pattern in the monster that emerged from the idol, whether it was a demon or a monster.
You must not get too close to the monster, you must not make any noise, and you must not move too fast. If you meet these three requirements, you will have a chance to survive.
Unfortunately, the situation was too chaotic at the time, and too many people were so frightened that they instinctively screamed and ran away, resulting in their deaths.
"Don't move! Hands up!"
A dozen fully armed police officers formed a fan shape around the building's exit, their dark gun barrels pointed at the few people who had escaped.
Li Shanji mechanically raised her hands, forcing out a hoarse cry, "Don't do anything rash... there's a monster inside..."
She was trying to be helpful; although the monster hadn't chased after them yet, she couldn't guarantee that the police wouldn't disturb it.
"Shut up!" a young police officer shouted sternly, not believing a cult member's words at all. "Kneel down! Hands behind your head!"
Park Jin-woo, having witnessed something, suddenly began to tremble violently. "It's here... it followed us out..."
His pupils dilated to almost fill his entire eye sockets as he stared intently at the church entrance.
Even without turning around, Li Shanji could sense the stench of rotting flesh mixed with rust permeating the air.
She lunged at the nearest policeman like a madwoman. "Shoot! Shoot inside the door!"
"Bang!"
Gunshots rang out, but not at the church gate. The police captain fired a warning shot into the air, his voice stern. "Final warning! Get down on the ground!"
Li Shanji didn't say anything more; it would be hard for someone who hadn't personally experienced it all to believe what she said.
Just then, the church doors suddenly burst open, not shattered, but as if melted from the inside by some force, radiating outwards.
Before the nearest police officer could react, a charred corpse suddenly appeared in his field of vision.
"What the hell...?" Before the officer could finish speaking, blood exploded in his chest, and he collapsed to the ground, dead.
Even more horrifying, his body began to decompose as he fell to the ground, emitting a foul stench.
"Fire! Fire!" the police captain shouted in terror.
Bullets rained down on the Charred Corpses, but to no avail. Instead, the Charred Corpse triggered a massacre, with screams echoing throughout the scene, turning it into a slaughterhouse in an instant.
"Run! Escape now!" Li Shanji grabbed the terrified Park Jin-woo, and the two moved slowly away, afraid of attracting the monster's attention.
Beside the police car, the previously assertive captain was frantically calling for backup on his walkie-talkie. Seeing Li Shanji, he grabbed her by the collar. "What the hell is going on?!"
"I already warned you, there are monsters inside. Whose fault is it if you don't listen!" Li Shanji lowered her voice, gritting her teeth. "That thing follows a certain pattern when it kills; you need to avoid that pattern..."
A sharp crack of shattering glass interrupted her words; a gruesome corpse had crashed into the rear window.
"It seems to have evolved..." Park Jin-woo murmured, "It wasn't this fast at killing people before, but now..."
The captain suddenly raised his pistol and pointed it at Li Shanji's forehead. "What exactly did you bring out?!"
His expression was somewhat frantic, and his fingers were trembling; he was clearly out of control and had done something very irrational.
Li Shanji's lips turned pale, and she cursed inwardly, "Damn it! South Korea men are hopeless! How did such an emotionally unstable jerk become a police officer?"
Don't blame her for looking down on people; after all, she managed to find a way out of a desperate situation. As a police officer, it's truly disappointing that she can't even compare to an ordinary person like her!
However, Li Shanji didn't dare to say much, since the other party had a gun, and she was afraid of provoking them to shoot her without thinking.
A person who has lost their mind is capable of anything.
Li Shanji told the police captain in as gentle and concise a tone as possible, "The New Dawn Church attracted a monster during their religious ceremony."
She explained the situation clearly in one sentence, but unfortunately, the police captain was still in a rage, his gun still pointed at Li Shanji, his expression growing increasingly furious. "You damned cultists! Tell me, how can we destroy that monster!"
"How would I know!" Li Shanji cursed inwardly. She immediately realized that the policeman was probably terrified and was using this outward display of aggression to mask his inner fear.
"I don't know how to defeat the monster. I only know that it moves very slowly, and if you run fast enough, you can escape," Li Shanji lied, her eyes lowered.
Park Jin-woo, who was standing nearby, was stunned when he heard this, but he did not expose Li Shanji's lie. The police captain, in his panic, also failed to notice Park Jin-woo's unusual behavior.
"It's good that we can escape!" the police captain thought. After a moment, he finally calmed down and put his gun away.
He then took out his phone, dialed and shouted for backup while running towards the police car, preparing to abandon his teammates and make a tactical retreat.
Pfft--
The police captain is dead.
Speaking loudly or running quickly will attract the monster's attention.
Just now, Li Shanji deliberately gave false information. She will not forgive anyone who dares to point a gun at her, no matter who they are. Although she cannot openly express her dissatisfaction, she can sabotage them in secret.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Li Shanji and Park Jin-woo slowly moved in different directions, away from danger.
Looking at the police captain's brutally murdered body, her heart pounded, and she tightly covered her mouth, forcing herself not to make a sound.
The commotion caused by the other police officers drew the monster away again, and Li Shanji maintained her original speed, finally reaching the exterior wall of a convenience store.
The police were quickly killed, Li Shanji dared not make a move. She could hear a sticky "plop, plop" sound behind her, which seemed to be the sound of blood dripping from a corpse.
Not far away, the convenience store window reflected that terrifying figure: a charred body with empty eye sockets that exuded a sinister aura that terrified the living.
Out of the corner of her eye, Li Shanji saw across the street that the male college student named Park Jin-woo and three other people were huddled behind a trash can.
The five of them were the only survivors of the New Dawn Church. Clearly, they had all figured out the monster's killing patterns, so even in their extreme terror, none of them dared to shout.
Just then, the sound of police sirens suddenly rang out, and police backup arrived.
With a screeching sound of brakes, three police cars came to a screeching halt in the middle of the street. More than a dozen fully armed police officers jumped out, the lead officer kicking open the car door and cursing. "Damn it! What happened that required reinforcements? Are you all useless?"
The monster's head snapped towards the source of the sound.
Li Shanji closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight.
The next second, the world seemed to be muted, followed by a series of "plop" sounds, like the muffled thud of a sharp object piercing a watermelon.
When Li Shanji opened her eyes again, the two policemen who were tidying up the bulletproof vests had turned into chunks of flesh hanging on the monster's arm, with blood meandering down the charred lines of the arm.
"Ahhh!" A young policeman collapsed to the ground, his crotch quickly becoming soaked.
The monster immediately turned to him.
The young policeman's scream abruptly stopped; his chest felt as if it had been ripped open by an invisible hand, and his heart exploded into a cloud of blood mist in mid-air.
This completely threw the police into chaos.
"Fire! Fire!" the lead officer shouted hysterically, while he himself kept backing up and crashing into the police car.
Bullets whistled through the air, striking the monster's body. Unaimed bullets left honeycomb-like holes in the opposite building. A policeman, gripping the trigger in fear, mechanically repeated the firing motion even after the magazine was empty.
"Holy crap! What is that?!" A bespectacled police officer shoved the policewoman next to him forward, staggering backward himself. "What kind of tricks are you cult members playing?!"
The monster's killing interval ended, and this time it pierced through the chests of three policemen simultaneously, hanging them from its arms like skewers and swaying them around; the stench of blood was so strong it was almost tangible.
A metallic taste rose on Li Shanji's tongue, but she showed no mercy in revealing the ghost's killing patterns to others. Instead, she slowly and deliberately moved away from this dangerous place on her own.
The police were in complete panic; some knelt down to pray, some fired indiscriminately, and many more ran wildly through the streets like headless flies.
An obese police officer tripped and fell, then grabbed his colleague's leg. "Help me! My uncle is the chief!"
His colleague kicked him in the face. "Get out of here! You piece of trash!"
The monster's slaughter turned into an absurd spectacle, precisely reaping the lives of every sound and movement. The police's reactions only worsened the situation—some fired at their comrades to "attract the monster's attention"; others hid in police cars but couldn't start them due to shaky hands; most ridiculous was the man who called himself the captain, who, while wetting himself, screamed into his walkie-talkie, "Headquarters! We need support! We need tanks! We need... Ah!"
His head rotated 360 degrees.
Li Shanji continued moving away from the scene at a steady pace when she suddenly noticed Park Jin-woo gesturing to her from across the street. He pointed to the subway entrance not far away, indicating that Li Shanji should run towards the subway.
Park Jin-woo remained relatively calm, but the other three behind him were not so composed. One middle-aged woman seemed to be in a daze, so much so that she neither screamed nor ran around, but just stood there dumbfounded, which is why she narrowly escaped death.
An office worker was trembling all over. Although he was mentally stable, his physical condition couldn't keep up. His legs were so weak that he had trouble walking and needed Park Jin-woo to support him.
The last one was a young girl wearing sportswear, and her condition was similar to Park Jin-woo's.
At this moment, the monster slowly turned to a policeman who was pretending to be dead. Although the man was lying still, the walkie-talkie on his bulletproof vest was emitting a piercing electrical noise.
In a life-or-death situation, the policeman actually raised his gun and pointed it at the police car's fuel tank.
Li Shanji instantly understood the other party's intention and hurriedly rushed to nearby cover.
"Bang!"
The explosion created a blast of hot air, but the burning gasoline did not hinder the monster's movements, and the police were still killed.
Li Shanji, Park Jin-woo, and the other four survivors seized those precious few seconds and dragged themselves toward the subway station. Behind them came screams and the sounds of flesh being torn apart, but no one turned around.
As they stumbled down the stairs, Park Jin-woo suddenly laughed, a laugh tinged with hysteria, "Ha... these cops... usually so impressive when they're catching speeding and checking for drunk driving... and this is it..."
"Keep your voice down!" Li Shanji warned sternly, "Our running just now might have attracted that monster to follow us."
Park Jin-woo pursed his lips. "Sorry, I just couldn't help but complain. The South Korea police are hopeless."
Li Shanji was speechless. She thought of the policewoman who was pushed out as a shield, the captain who wet his pants, and every ugly moment... The more she thought about it, the more she agreed with Park Jin-woo's words; he was indeed beyond saving.
"The monster's killing pattern might be changing," she finally said, her voice dry as sandpaper. "I feel like the intervals between its kills are shortening, which means..."
"It means it's getting stronger," Park Jin-woo interjected, his face pale. "Or rather, it's recovering all its power."
As they spoke, the five of them rushed into the subway station. The sound of dripping water and the vibrations of passing trains echoed in the dark tunnel.
They dared not turn on the lights and could only move forward by the dim light of the emergency signs.
Suddenly, Choi Min-a, a young woman dressed in sportswear, abruptly raised her hand to signal for everyone to stop.
"Did you hear that?" she whispered.
From deep within the tunnel came a grating, metallic sound, like some enormous claw tearing at the rails. Then, a familiar, viscous dripping sound grew louder as it approached.
The monster is catching up!
"How could it be so fast!" Park Jin-woo's voice trembled. "It should still be up there killing police officers!"
Li Shanji's heart pounded. "It seems our guess was right, the monster is getting stronger, it's killing people faster now."
The five people held their breath and huddled in the maintenance recess on the side of the tunnel. The figure of the Fierce Ghost slowly emerged, but this time, its form was more distorted. New wounds cracked on its charred skin, like charred tree bark peeling off to reveal the writhing, putrid flesh underneath.
Even more frightening is that its mode of movement has changed.
Previously, it walked in a way that was incomprehensible to ordinary people, moving erratically, but now... it has begun to teleport.
"It... it really has learned to kill faster." Choi Min-a's voice was almost squeezed out through clenched teeth.