Who's Really Afraid?

Large swaths of Gu City had plunged into darkness.

Lights flickered out in massive blocks, followed immediately by screams echoing through the gloom.

Something had emerged from the shadows.

Yang Gan hunched over like a giant shrimp, pedaling his bicycle furiously through the dark streets with a long fishing rod strapped to his back.

The Mental Radiation Detector mounted on his bike suddenly began to beep.

Not far ahead, a man wielding a sharp knife was chasing down a young man.

"Brother, brother, we were meant to be one! It's only right that brothers share everything—our hearts should be joined as one!"

Yang Gan pedaled hard, charging toward the source of the abnormal radiation, and whipped the fishing rod off his back.

A tiny hook at the end of the line flew through the air, tracing an arc before snagging the man's left ear and ripping away a blood-red lump.

Beneath the lump lay twisted blood vessels and nerves, looking for all the world like a writhing little snake.

Once detached, however, it went completely still.

The man, knife poised to strike, shuddered violently and collapsed to the ground, his weapon clattering away.

"I... what just happened to me?"

The young man who had been fleeing immediately turned back, kicked the knife aside, and grabbed the attacker, shouting:

"Brother! Brother! Are you okay? You went crazy! You were trying to kill me! Did you have a stroke!?"

He began pinching the man's philtrum so hard he drew blood, nearly knocking him unconscious.

Yang Gan shouted:

"Call the police and turn yourself in. Go stay at the station; it's not safe out here."

He then turned his handlebars, retracted his line with a flourish, flicked the twisted mass of nerves into a box at his waist, and accelerated toward his next target.

Only minutes after he left, a police car pulled up to the two young men and took them into custody.

Soon, Yang Gan arrived in front of a cinema. A poster for Legend of the Dian King stood out prominently at the entrance, where a man with a crazed expression was desperately tearing at a young woman's clothes, screaming:

"We should be together! We are one! We must become one!"

Nearby, several police officers lay injured, having been hurt while trying to intervene.

The madman possessed such immense strength that he was impossible to restrain, seemingly immune even to tasers.

Yang Gan swung his rod. The sharp tip sliced through the darkness, snagging the man's nose and tearing away a lump of flesh.

Inside, yet another twisted, snake-like thing was revealed.

"Ah!"

Blood gushed from the man's nose as he clutched it, the madness in his eyes fading rapidly. Yet, even as he looked at the scene around him and the frail, helpless girl, he didn't stop, instead lunging at her again.

By now, the surrounding officers had scrambled to their feet. Seeing this, they pinned the man down; this time, it was far easier, and he was in handcuffs within seconds.

Just as they prepared to thank the man on the bicycle, they found he had already ridden away.

As Yang Gan pedaled at top speed, he glanced up at a nearby tower.

A man who looked like a spider had just climbed up with a rifle and begun firing into the darkness.

The gun had been modified, its rounds replaced by thin, needle-like projectiles.

Not far ahead of Yang Gan, two people with blood-red eyes were strangling each other, intent on ending the other's life.

As the gunshots rang out like popping beans, two needles pierced the men's necks, instantly pinning two twisted, fleshy growths to the ground.

The two men lost all strength, collapsing in a heap.

Yang Gan zipped past, collecting the two fleshy masses into the small box at his waist.

He waved his rod at the man on the tower: "The bait is set! Liuba Reservoir, we're going after work!"

With that, he sped off toward his next target.

Similar scenes were playing out across many districts of Gu City.

The emergency lines were jammed.

Ever since the power went out tonight, many residents of Gu City had suddenly gone insane.

They were attacking one another, chasing people down to "become one," or self-mutilating.

It started with only a few dozen, but the numbers grew rapidly, as if this madness were contagious.

In the end, at least hundreds, if not thousands, had fallen ill, plunging the city into chaos.

Even many of the police officers and medical staff who had responded to the calls had been infected!

At first, Yang Gan had been riding at a normal pace, but by now, his pedals were sparking from the friction!

What kind of hellish mission had Captain Hong assigned him?

Where was everyone else from the bureau!?

"Bang!" Li Fan and the Spider-Legged Monster collided violently, then separated with lightning speed.

Several broken snake heads fell to the ground, along with shreds of Li Fan's clothing.

"Click..." With a soft sound of bones, Li Fan and the Spider-Legged Monster simultaneously turned their heads one hundred and eighty degrees, looking at each other from a grotesque angle.

At this moment, he finally realized that the Spider-Legged Monster before him was actually still a human.

His chest was a vertical gash, with ribs and sternum splayed open like a blooming flower, tipped with sharp bone points like jagged teeth.

His spider legs were his original human legs, split from the middle into seven or eight strands, each connected by muscle to sharp bone shards that braced against the ground.

Those dense, tentacle-like snakes on his upper body were actually anomalous spiritual entities burrowing out from his torso.

His body had become a Snake Nest!

These snakes were all Human-Faced Snakes.

Perhaps it shouldn't be called a Spider-Legged Monster; it should be called a Snake Nest.

Li Fan couldn't help but shudder; his trypophobia was acting up again.

If all these Human-Faced Snakes got out, how many people would be infected?

Could they come up with something less hellish for once?

While thinking this, he involuntarily twisted his body into a pretzel, his legs arching backward, and with a fierce launch, he bolted into the distance.

After fully allowing the Tiger Pillar God to possess him and taking control of this power, the first thing he discovered was that his body had become extraordinarily flexible, capable of twisting into all sorts of shapes.

The bones inside his body crackled like someone doing yoga, stretching his entire frame out.

The Spider-Legged Monster was indeed drawn to Li Fan, following closely behind him with a sinister grin.

In the blink of an eye, the chase led them through two dark blocks and into a park.

A group of elderly people had been waiting for the power to return so they could continue their square dancing, but upon seeing Li Fan and the Spider-Legged Monster crawling across the ground, they immediately let out shrill screams and fled the park faster than they ever did to grab seats on buses or free eggs at the supermarket.

Li Fan used both hands and feet to scramble onto the roof of a pavilion. Seeing the Spider-Legged Monster about to climb up as well, he hurriedly let out a tiger's roar:

"Don't you come over here, roar!"

The Spider-Legged Monster was completely unaffected. The dense mass of Human-Faced Snakes flicked their tongues, rapidly alternating their grip on the pavilion pillars, and climbed up in the blink of an eye.

To an ordinary person unable to see spiritual entities, it would look like a man with split legs was eerily hovering in mid-air, reaching the top of the pavilion.

The Spider-Legged Monster moved with lightning speed, appearing before Li Fan in an instant as the dense cluster of Human-Faced Snakes opened their mouths to bite.

Many suddenly stretched out several meters, then curved back around to surround Li Fan.

At the same time, the giant maw in his chest opened wide, snapping at Li Fan, intending to stuff him directly into his body!

Li Fan felt his skin crawl as he was stared at by those dense snake heads; he felt the blood in his entire body turn cold. Simultaneously, his focus reached an unprecedented level as the two giant python spiritual entities extended from his hands.

He shouted:

"Come on, come on! You've got a swarm of snakes, I've got two pythons!"

Only then did he feel that the strength in his arms was astonishingly great, and his muscles were flexible to an absurd degree; his arms swung like two rubber hoses, leaving nothing but afterimages in their wake.

"Bang!" With a dull thud, the Spider-Legged Monster was sent flying backward, and quite a few shattered fragments of Human-Faced Snake spiritual entities rained down in the void.

Feeling his burning hands and looking at the two ferocious giant python spiritual entities, Li Fan couldn't help but be slightly stunned.

The Tiger Pillar God seems...

No, I seem... actually quite strong?

Is this a draw?

Why do I still feel so afraid?

Wait, this isn't me being afraid...

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