Untitled Draft

The corners of Midnight's mouth lifted slightly, and an inexplicable sense of ease filled him.

The dragon-headed man's eyes grew even rounder when he saw how many people had arrived.

"Ha! Stunned, little dragon man? There's a whole bunch of us against just you!" Liang Chen planted his hands on his hips triumphantly.

Watching the dragon-headed man's trembling shoulders, Yin Chao didn't think it was afraid.

On the contrary, it was excited.

Sure enough, the dragon-headed man stretched its rotten, scabbed mouth into a grin, threw back its head, and shrieked.

The sound was piercing, making their insides tremble and their stomachs churn.

"Holy crap, is this guy part rooster? It even crows!" Liang Chen said, covering his ears with a grimace.

Only Anna and Midnight were unaffected. Black Sword in hand, Midnight immediately launched himself at the dragon-headed man and cut off its crowing. Only then did the others recover.

Yin Chao steadied himself against the wall and focused his mental power on the dragon-headed man, trying to bring up its panel.

[Beep. Hell Hunter, S-Rank Ghost, level 35

HP: 40000, stamina: 30000, mental power: 100, intelligence: 25

Specialty skill: Mental Contamination. Can emit cries or a type of ultrasonic wave that sends living beings exposed to it for extended periods into a berserk state, except origin monsters.]

After the Tiger-Headed Man with his Space Rend, this was the second Hell Hunter Yin Chao had seen with a skill.

Or perhaps the third. He hadn't had time to check the rabbit-headed man's panel earlier.

There was no doubt that the monster before them was powerful-stronger than the Tiger-Headed Man, and even stronger than Midnight. With its absurd contamination skill on top of that, they had to finish this quickly.

Yin Chao thought its intelligence of 25 was probably their only opening.

"Midnight! Finish it quickly!" he shouted.

Moqi Xinzhi and his group also joined the fight. Only Luo Lingyue remained beside Yin Chao, as though deliberately conserving her strength, or perhaps trying to keep him safe.

Perhaps the noise of the fight was too loud, because even the Bearded Man, whom they hadn't encountered at all until now, was drawn over.

He appeared around the corner of the stairs, accompanied by the other member of the Ares Guild.

Seeing the situation, they joined the fight without a word.

Against monsters, all humans were allies. Perhaps that was a rule everyone accepted.

The two sides were locked in combat when a piercing burst of static suddenly came from the campus loudspeakers.

As though it had heard some kind of summons, the dragon-headed man shook everyone off and vanished down the hallway.

"Bzz... bzzz... I swear to the devil... bzz... I'll... kill you all... bzzz..."

The broadcast kept repeating that indistinct sentence. It was so garbled that they couldn't tell whether the speaker was male or female, or even make out any emotion in the voice.

It was like an old videotape, lifeless and mechanical, yet deeply unsettling.

Liang Chen rubbed his arms and muttered with a frown, "That gives me the chills."

The Bearded Man from the Ares Guild added, "Creepy as hell. Could this be some monster's doing? A warning to us?"

No one present knew where those words had come from, except Yin Chao, who knew the whole story.

Just then, fierce flames flared up in the classroom beside the stairs. Thick smoke seeped through the gaps around its windows into the corridor, accompanied by agonized screams and the sound of scratching against glass and the iron door.

"Wh... what is this...?"

The Ares Guild member accompanying the Bearded Man seemed to be seeing a scene like this for the first time. His face went pale as he asked.

The Bearded Man patted his shoulder and took a few steps toward the strange classroom.

Whatever was inside seemed to sense someone approaching. Its inhuman screams of agony turned into hoarse, desperate cries for help.