"Boom!"
A violent, muffled explosion rang out in the darkness, its echo reaching the uppermost level.
The lowest level shook like the earth was splitting apart. Beth, Rebecca, and Li Dan clung to one another, feeling that the cave collapsing wouldn't have been out of the question.
Cough, cough, cough. Li Dan scrambled to his feet, covered in dirt and dust. He brushed himself off.
He'd believe it if someone said that blast could take out a tank.
Pete might have been born that way, but the things he gave Li Dan had never let him down.
"Where's Juno?"
That was the first thing Rebecca asked when she came to.
No one answered.
Beth was still dazed. It took her a long moment before she asked,
"Is that monster... dead?"
Li Dan said, "Probably. Do you want to go in and check?"
Rebecca and Beth shook their heads so hard they looked like bobbleheads. After narrowly escaping that terrifying monster, who knew whether it might suddenly come back to life? All they wanted now was to get out of this hellhole.
Rebecca said, "Beth, Li Dan, let's go. We need to get out of here first. It isn't safe."
"I'm going to take a look inside," Li Dan said.
Beth grabbed his hand, clearly trying to stop him from going in. Choking back a sob, she said, "Sam's already dead. Li Dan, listen to your teacher. We need to leave."
There was no way Li Dan would just leave.
All six Wendigos were dead, and the Deformed Person leader had gone down with them.
The only card he could use now was the little Two of Hearts, the Deformed Person underling he'd contained at the very beginning.
If he left now, all his previous efforts would have been for nothing.
Li Dan didn't answer. He simply freed his hand from Beth's and turned toward the half-collapsed cave at the very back.
Beth looked helplessly at Rebecca. "What should we do?"
"Wait a few minutes. If he doesn't come out, we'll leave."
"But Li Dan's my student. He saved us. We can't just abandon him..."
Inside the pitch-black cave.
A Diamond Four appeared in Li Dan's hand.
"Containment detected: Evil Spirit Wendigo." "Status: Near death · Can be contained."
Only after confirming it with the Ghost Card did Li Dan emerge from behind it. He made his way to the center of the blast, where half a body lay sprawled on the ground. Blood, flesh, organs, and fallen stones were scattered all around it.
Chunks of flesh covered the ground, too mangled to tell whose they were.
But Li Dan was certain the largest half of the body belonged to the Evil Spirit Wendigo. It had only one leg and half a head left, and it still hadn't quite died.
Its sole remaining blood-red eye gazed eerily at Li Dan.
Evil spirits really were different from ordinary creatures.
"Contain."
The Ghost Card flew out and pierced the half-body. The scattered flesh and the remaining half of the corpse were instantly sucked into the card.
Whoosh.
Li Dan caught the card as it flew back and turned it over. Its background showed a pitch-black cavern, where a crimson monster crouched. Its blood-red eyes seemed to glow, radiating a crushing sense of menace.
The image looked so lifelike that it seemed ready to leap off the card and burst out of the Ghost Card at any moment.
The stronger the Evil Spirit Wendigo had been, the happier Li Dan was now.
After all, with this card, he could stroll through most ordinary slasher movies—except for his good buddies Jason and Mike.
"Contained entity: Evil Spirit Wendigo" "Description: The legendary bloodthirsty man-eating demon—the incarnation of an evil spirit." "Second stage not unlocked."
This was great. It even came with a description. No wonder a whole rifle magazine had felt like nothing more than a tickle.
It certainly deserved to be called a demon.
The Deformed People and Wendigos Li Dan had encountered earlier had still fallen within the bounds of ordinary life. The Evil Spirit Wendigo, however, had clearly surpassed the realm of ordinary living things.
Otherwise, why call it an evil spirit?
As for the second stage, it was probably the state he'd just seen: possessed by an evil spirit, covered in bone spurs, and giving off an oppressive aura.
Li Dan didn't waste any more time. He planned to try Ability Extraction after he got back.
The chunks of flesh scattered across the ground were probably what remained of the Deformed Person leader and Juno. He decided to leave them buried there. He had no intention of collecting the bodies; it was too much trouble.
But thinking there might still be some stragglers in the cave, Li Dan decided to cancel the Deformed Person's Fusion and then fuse with the Diamond Four, the Evil Spirit Wendigo.
"Fusion."
The instant the Fusion took effect, Li Dan felt his body fill with power. Every bone in his body trembled, as if he could enter the second stage at any moment.
It seemed that if he wanted to, he could punch through the ceiling of the underground cavern.
His strength had swelled to its absolute limit.
To put it in the sort of terms he'd read in novels, it was the classic "I can kill a cow with one punch"—or maybe dozens of cows.
Or, to use another classic comparison, the Deformed Ogre that he'd once had to face cautiously could now be killed with a casual swipe.
After the surge of power had lasted a while and he'd gotten used to it, Li Dan retraced his steps.
Beth and Rebecca were waiting outside. As soon as Li Dan came out, they hurriedly asked, "How did it go?"
"It's fine. It's dead. Let's hurry and find the exit." Li Dan didn't say much about what had happened inside.
Rebecca didn't suggest going to see her good friend Juno, either. What was there to see in a pile of flesh?
As the three of them searched for the exit,
Rebecca, Li Dan, and Beth got their stories straight.
Why? Because Juno was a politician's daughter.
With that kind of background, the police were sure to launch a major investigation.
Beth still felt a little uneasy.
Li Dan, on the other hand, felt right at home. After all, the cave had originally been the Evil Spirit Wendigo's lair.
After several twists and turns,
They didn't encounter any more monsters along the way. Guided by the Evil Spirit Wendigo's memories, Li Dan led the two women out through the exit.
The exit was beneath a tree somewhere in the forest.
The first thing they saw when they emerged was a clear sky.
After spending so long in the darkness, the sunlight seemed almost painfully bright.
Once he was back aboveground, Li Dan ended the Fusion. He looked up at the sky, finally able to relax. He had no idea what time it was or how long they'd been underground.
After seeing daylight again, Beth and Rebecca greedily breathed in the fresh air.
Once the three of them had rested, they headed down the mountain and reached the highway.
Cars passed by now and then.
Where there were cars, there were people—and that meant safety.
The three of them hitched a ride, planning to head to the nearest hospital or town. But on the way, they ran into a group of police officers and rescue workers heading up the mountain.
Since the driver had picked up the three of them, who were all covered in dust, an officer stopped the car for a routine check. Rebecca made no effort to hide who they were, so the three of them were taken away as soon as their identities came to light.
After a round of questions and answers,
the three of them learned that Juno's father really had put pressure on the police station, prompting them to send out a large search-and-rescue team.
Li Dan, Beth, and Rebecca had been Juno's teammates, so they naturally became the prime suspects.
Fortunately, they'd gotten their stories straight beforehand.
The police simply refused to believe that there were man-eating monsters underground. It sounded too absurd.
That was right. Unless they saw a monster with their own eyes, these young officers wouldn't believe it. Some even thought the three of them were crazy.
An old sheriff finally stopped the young officers from questioning them.
"Listen, John. They might not be lying. You may not believe it, but there really are nonhuman monsters in this world."
The old sheriff's weathered face still bore a scar. It looked like he'd experienced something extraordinary in his younger days.
The young officer John wasn't very convincing, but the old sheriff was a veteran who'd seen things most people never had. With his word, Li Dan and the two women were sent to town first.
The police station planned to organize a rescue team to head down into the cave.
Of course, every member of the rescue team was equipped with weapons. The old sheriff would lead them himself. "Boom!"
Almost all the monsters inside the cave were already dead. As long as the rescue team was careful, they should be fine.
On the way, Li Dan thought back to the old sheriff. From what he'd said, the man had definitely seen—or encountered—some kind of monster.
The young officer John, on the other hand, was clearly a greenhorn.
From that, Li Dan could draw a conclusion.
Most people didn't believe in monsters, while a few did because they'd experienced them firsthand.
As for why these incidents were rarely reported on a large scale,
Li Dan figured it was partly because there weren't many people overseas, and partly because no one wanted to cause a panic.
After all, websites seemed to be full of ghost stories and murders, but spread across all the states, they amounted to only a handful of incidents.
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