Bizarre. The scene before them was utterly bizarre.
His head was gone, leaving a headless corpse. By all rights, he should have been dead beyond any doubt.
And yet? His head was at a second-floor window, calling to them for help?
"Xiao Wang..." Seeing Xiao Wang calling for help, Niu Dagang cried out urgently and immediately made to run up to the second floor to save him.
"Brother Niu, wait..." But Luo Fan grabbed Niu Dagang and held him back.
Something stirred at the window. Then they saw a slug-like creature slowly crawl up onto the sill from beneath it.
When the creature fully revealed its true appearance, all the survivors were even more dumbstruck with terror.
It should not have been called a slug, but a snail.
It was a snail about as thick as an ordinary person's arm, except its shell was Xiao Wang's head.
The snail's body extended from Xiao Wang's mouth, crawling along the windowsill and carrying his head forward.
Yet Xiao Wang's head still had its own consciousness. His mouth gaped as he let the snail carry him toward the other end of the sill. He could not speak, but his eyes remained fixed on Luo Fan and the others, pleading.
Silence. Although more than thirty people were present, an eerie, deathly silence hung over them.
Everyone watched in disbelief as the snail carried Xiao Wang's head behind the wall and out of sight.
"Wh-what the hell was that thing?"
"Is... is Xiao Wang alive or dead?"
"Wh-what kind of Fierce Beast is hiding here?"
"Run. Hurry and run."
Only long after the human-headed snail had crawled away did the terrified survivors slowly regain movement in their stiff bodies and begin talking all at once.
Clearly, that scene had been so horrifying that everyone wanted to retreat.
"Brother Niu, let's go," Luo Fan said to Niu Dagang as well.
Faced with something this bizarre, Luo Fan's first reaction was also to flee for his life.
As depicted in so many horror movies and shows, whenever the protagonists encountered something beyond their understanding, they could never resist their curiosity and went closer to investigate, only to end up nearly wiped out.
Luo Fan would never do something like that. He considered it utterly brainless.
They knew perfectly well that there was danger, yet still approached out of so-called curiosity? That could only be called the writers forcibly dumbing down the protagonists. Wasn't running the normal response?
"But Xiao Wang was just asking us for help." Hearing Luo Fan say they should run, Niu Dagang was clearly unwilling.
"Brother Niu, snap out of it. There's no saving Xiao Wang."
"Do you really want to take such a huge risk for someone we can't save, and possibly get even more people killed?"
"Right now, getting out of here is what matters," Luo Fan said loudly, staring at Niu Dagang.
Those words silenced Niu Dagang.
Indeed, Xiao Wang was not a Sequence User, just an ordinary person. With his head gone, he was certainly doomed.
Were they going to sacrifice more lives trying to save him?
"Everyone, retreat! Leave the gasoline inside!" Luo Fan shouted to all the survivors.
As he spoke, everyone turned and ran toward the exit of the factory building.
As for the fuel tanker? They did not even know whether it would start, and Luo Fan had no intention of trying.
Hearing Luo Fan's words, the survivors held on to the gasoline they had already collected and followed the retreat.
Those who had not finished collecting gasoline did not dare collect any more.
So many people had vanished without a sound. No one dared stay a moment longer. This Black Refinery was simply too terrifying.
But just as Luo Fan and the others turned and ran toward the exit, they suddenly discovered countless bizarre slugs at the main doorway. No one knew where they had come from. They blocked everyone's way out, packed so densely that the sight alone could give someone trypophobia.
Every slug had a body as thick as an arm.
"Fight our way out!" Watching the slugs' movements, Luo Fan understood that the terrifying monster in the factory building did not want to let them leave.
In other words, it regarded them all as its prey.
Then there was nothing more to say. The harder their opponent tried to stop them from doing something, the more they needed to do it.
Since it was blocking their escape, they had all the more reason to fight their way out.
"Die!" Niu Dagang had long been burning with rage. Now that it was time to fight, he roared and brought his enormous fire axe crashing down.
With a boom, it not only severed several slugs but even smashed a large crater into the ground.
Luo Fan also drew his Beast-Fang Short Blade. His movements were much lighter than Niu Dagang's, and with swift swings of his blade, he immediately sliced through several slugs.
Judging by the feel of it, Luo Fan felt rather as though he were cutting jelly.
However, whether struck down by Niu Dagang or sliced apart by Luo Fan, all the slugs writhed a few times on the ground before turning into new slugs and continuing to attack Luo Fan and the others.
When one slug was cut apart, it became two. Though smaller, they grew more numerous.
"Aah!!!"
The densely packed slugs surged toward them like a tide. Luo Fan and Niu Dagang could still protect themselves, but two unlucky survivors were entangled by several slugs and fell screaming to the ground.
Then more and more slugs crawled onto them, quickly devouring their bodies until only their heads remained, inhabited by slugs. They took on the appearance of snails, their heads dragged along as they crawled toward the factory building's second floor.
"Help... help me..."
The people reduced to heads were not dead yet. Their mouths were stretched open by the slugs as they slurred pleas for help to the others.
It was exactly like the sight of Xiao Wang's head crawling along the second-floor windowsill earlier.
After forcing everyone back, the slugs showed no intention of pursuing them further. They simply lay across the factory doorway like an impassable chasm, preventing anyone from leaving.
Everyone had been forced to retreat, their expressions terrified; then they all turned their gazes toward Luo Fan.
Although Luo Fan's decisive killing during his earlier argument with that woman had left these survivors deeply afraid of him.
Yet now, when everyone was on the verge of despair, they all looked toward Luo Fan. Clearly, they had pinned all their hopes of escape on him.
Luo Fan remained silent, but his thoughts raced.
First, judging by the slugs' actions, they treated everyone as turtles trapped in a jar.
Was this like people raising a herd of pigs-not killing them all at once, but not letting them all escape either, instead penning them up to eat slowly?
Second, this showed that the monster lurking in the shadows possessed a certain degree of intelligence.
Finally, the heads must have been special, which was why the slugs carried human heads up to the second floor, and could even keep those heads alive?
"Brother Niu, how long have we been in Jiangxin Town?" After a moment of silence, Luo Fan asked Niu Dagang.
Niu Dagang wore a mechanical watch, something Luo Fan had always known. Whenever they searched for supplies, Zhao Chunfeng gave them a corresponding time limit, and having a watch allowed them to keep track of the time more accurately.
Niu Dagang checked his wristwatch and said, "We've been in town for half an hour."
Those words made Luo Fan's heart sink.
Zhao Chunfeng said the time limit was one hour. Had half an hour already passed?
If night fell, terrifying anomalies might come rushing out, leaving them even less chance of survival.
"Then we have no choice. We'll go up to the second floor and slaughter that monster," Luo Fan said gravely through gritted teeth.
If he could escape, Luo Fan would naturally do everything he could to flee for his life. But if escape was impossible, he absolutely could not chicken out when it was time to fight for his life.
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