"What are you waiting for? Get in!"
Wang Hai urged them again from the driver's seat.
"Coming! Coming!" Han Ling hurriedly replied, quickening her steps toward the front passenger seat.
Once the three of them were seated, the engine roared to life, and the car shot off like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Ten minutes later.
With a sharp screech of brakes, the black car stopped by the roadside, and the four of them quickly got out.
The moment Shen Heng stepped out, his gaze locked onto a spot.
There, the police who had arrived first had already cordoned off the street with police tape. Four or five officers were gathered in the middle, seemingly discussing something.
Wang Hai led the way over, and Shen Heng followed behind him, listening carefully for any sounds as he walked.
A new officer saw them approaching and was just about to stop them when another, older officer spoke from behind him.
"He's in charge of handling incidents like this. Let him in!"
Hearing this, the new officer hurriedly lifted the police tape to let them through.
"Captain Wang, sorry to trouble you again!" The older officer walked toward Wang Hai as he spoke. They had worked together many times. Although their interactions had never gone beyond work, they were at least familiar with each other.
Wang Hai nodded and skipped the pleasantries, asking directly, "Have you confirmed it's a Calamity Beast?"
"We're not sure. The perpetrator was already gone when we arrived!" As he spoke, the older officer pointed a short distance away. "But the caller said the perpetrator grabbed someone and ran into the sewer. If it headed into the sewer, there's a good chance it's a Calamity Beast, right?"
Wang Hai followed the blood trail with his eyes and glanced at the sewer entrance nearby, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with that assessment.
"Where's the caller?"
Rather than answering, the older officer raised a hand and beckoned toward the other side.
Soon, an officer came over with two workers wearing hard hats and reflective vests.
One of the workers had a dark face etched with deep wrinkles. The other was relatively younger, though he still looked to be in his late thirties, nearly forty.
"Were you the ones who called the police?" Wang Hai looked at them.
"Yes, officer! We were fixing the traffic lights over there when we suddenly heard two screams. When we turned around, we saw some thing-who knows what the hell it was-grab two people and run into the sewer. Then we called the police right away!" The slightly older worker pointed into the distance as he spoke.
Shen Heng looked in the direction they were pointing. About a hundred meters away, a traffic light lay silently on the ground, with a specialized maintenance vehicle parked beside it.
"Just answer what you're asked. Don't go saying whatever you like when you haven't been asked!" the officer who had brought them over snapped.
"Ah! All right, all right!" Both men hurriedly nodded.
"Did you get a clear look at what that dark figure looked like?" Wang Hai continued.
"No. We were fixing the traffic lights, and we were a bit far away. All we saw was some thing grab two people and run!" the older worker replied.
"Did you see how big it was?"
"No, but it was huge. At least over a meter!"
Wang Hai nodded, his gaze resting on the open manhole nearby as he thought.
"Officer, what exactly was that thing that grabbed those people? Could it have been a lion or tiger that escaped from some zoo?" the older worker asked.
"We're not sure yet. We'll have to investigate to find out! But don't worry. We'll definitely catch him and bring him back!" Wang Hai replied.
"That's good! That's good!" The worker nodded, then said with some regret, "Ah, I just wonder how those two people it took are doing!"
"We'll do our best to save them!" Wang Hai said, looking at the two men. "Do you have anything else to do tonight?"
"Does fixing the traffic lights count? We haven't finished fixing that one yet!" The older worker pointed at the traffic light in the distance.
"All right, go fix it, then. Come back here once you're done!" Wang Hai said.
"Sure, all right!" the older worker replied. Then he glanced at the surrounding officers and asked cautiously, "Then we'll head over now?"
"Yes, go ahead!" Wang Hai nodded.
After the two workers left, Wang Hai led Shen Heng and the others along the blood trail on the ground to the sewer entrance.
The sewer entrance stood open. The manhole cover that normally covered it was nowhere to be found, and there were slight cracks in the ground around the rim.
Wang Hai peered down into the open sewer entrance and asked for confirmation again, "The Calamity Beast went down here, right?"
"Yes. Since we thought it might be a Calamity Beast, we didn't dare go down either. Sorry to trouble you!" The older officer following beside them nodded.
Han Ling searched the surrounding area with her eyes, then raised a hand and pointed at an object nearby.
"Captain, look!"
Everyone looked in the direction Han Ling was pointing and saw a fragment of a manhole cover lying there.
"That's just a manhole cover, right? What about it?" Wu Cheng asked.
"That's a fragment of a manhole cover!" Han Ling emphasized.
"So it's a fragment of a manhole cover? What's the problem?" Wu Cheng said.
"..." Wu Cheng's words made Han Ling raise a hand to her forehead despite herself.
"What? Is something wrong? Isn't that just a broken manhole cover?" Seeing Han Ling's reaction, Wu Cheng couldn't help raising his voice a little, as though trying to prove he wasn't wrong.
Shen Heng looked at the fragment of manhole cover, considered it for a moment, then asked, "How much force would it take to shatter a manhole cover?"
Han Ling glanced at Wu Cheng, seemingly conveying that even a newcomer had thought of it, yet he hadn't.
The corner of Wu Cheng's mouth twitched slightly. He turned away, pretending nothing had happened.
"The manhole covers here in Linhai City are all cast iron. It would take at least several tons of force to shatter a cast-iron manhole cover!" Wang Hai folded his arms across his chest and looked back down into the sewer, whose bottom was lost from sight.
Several tons of force?... Shen Heng, who wasn't very clear on how much strength each tier could currently achieve, nodded silently. Wu Cheng clearly knew much more about this than he did.
"So that means there's a tier 2 Calamity Beast down there?" Wu Cheng asked.
"At least!" Han Ling added from beside him.
Hearing that, Wu Cheng immediately shut his mouth and said nothing more.
If it was tier 2, their squad had nothing to fear. In fact, if the terrain was open, Han Ling could easily kill the Calamity Beast in an instant.
If it was tier 3, they could still manage as long as they were careful!
If it was tier 4, though, they might be in trouble!
Wang Hai glanced between the manhole cover fragment and the entrance leading into the sewer, then looked at Shen Heng and asked, "Have you heard anything?"
"No. That Calamity Beast probably isn't within this five-hundred-meter radius!"
Shen Heng shook his head. From the moment he got out of the car until now, he had been listening closely to the sounds around him. Unfortunately, he hadn't heard anything strange.