Monster No. 9

The two walked through the night. Before long, Invisible Man noticed what Ye Jiang was upset about, turned his body into a thin blanket, wrapped himself around her, and flew

swiftly through

space toward the hospital.

At the suburban villa, a tall, slender woman appeared without a sound. She walked through the villa, treading over gravel and corrugated roofing as though strolling through a courtyard. Inside, the Zhou Family's servants lay unconscious in clusters, their bodies covered in tumors and pustules left by contamination. The ability-user guards could resist the contamination somewhat and had not lost consciousness, but they were caught in an illusion, blasting each other with their abilities. The woman passed them like a shadow, went outside, and stopped at the foot of one of the villa's walls.

She stared at the blood and rotting flesh at the foot of the wall, then crouched to examine it carefully.

"Ah, this one's Old Zhou."

Her long, slender finger pointed at a piece of rotting flesh as she spoke, then at a strand of hair with skin and flesh still attached. "This one's Little Zhou."

She giggled. "The whole family, all together."

"Why did you all die before I got here?" She sighed. "Oh dear, I was a step too late."

Outside the villa, Qin Daichuan took off his tattered suit jacket and tossed it onto the ground. He loosened his shirt collar, wiping streaks of blood from his face as he looked down at the A-Rank Polluted's corpse. Charred black, it resembled a dried-out lump of charcoal, with none of its earlier arrogance.

He nudged the corpse a couple of times with his leather shoe, making sure it could no longer

spring back up, then left it behind and headed into the villa.

The night was deep. Between his lightning strikes and the birdman Polluted's destruction, the Zhou Family estate was a mess. Qin Daichuan felt no sympathy for the devastation. His thoughts were on the water-controlling Polluted. Its killing intent had vanished completely.

Had it run away?

Suddenly, he stopped. His gaze fell on the courtyard fountain. A woman in a nurse's uniform stood beneath its mother-and-child sculpture, looking up at the sculpture's blasted-off heads with a gentle expression. Light fell across her face, mingling with shadows. The gentleness on her face seemed both divine and sinister.

Noticing his gaze, the woman slowly lowered her head and looked at him. Their eyes met. There was no contamination, no killing intent, but an invisible pressure surged toward him, unlike anything human. The Ability Control Bureau's resident thug instantly tensed.

The woman rolled a few candies in shiny wrappers between her fingers and curved her lips.

"Good evening. Want some candy?"

She turned slightly, and the light illuminated the name tag on her nurse's uniform-

Ding Xuan (City A First Hospital).

Chapter 8: Monster No. 9.

"Whoa, this lump of charcoal is an A-Rank Polluted? Brother Chuan, you're a badass!"

"Careful, don't step on it. You're messing up my photo... Can you give me some light? It's so dark I look like a Polluted too!"

Noisy chatter came from outside the courtyard. The Ability Control Bureau's members were finally arriving, one after another.

"Stop taking pictures. Get inside and check for survivors!"

"What are you thinking? How could there be survivors? That A-Rank Polluted was rampaging for ages. Forget people—even any ants in there should be dead by now."

"Let's check anyway... What if there are?"

"Sigh!"

Footsteps sounded.

In the courtyard, the woman in the nurse's uniform tilted her head toward the gate. The moment she moved, the operations team leader watching her tensed, his ability poised but unreleased. Noticing his reaction, the woman let out a quiet laugh. She seemed unconcerned-or rather, she did not take him seriously.

She glanced at him and stretched. The next second, as the footsteps drew closer, she vanished from where she stood.

No, she had not vanished. She had darted away. She was so fast, faster than even the birdman Polluted renowned for its speed, that even an A-Rank ability user's eyes could barely track her. That was why she seemed to disappear into thin air!

The courtyard fell silent. Light struck the mother-and-child sculpture, reflecting a cold white halo that felt inexplicably chilling.

Qin Daichuan stared at the small patch of empty ground in front of the sculpture. Only after a long while did his taut body relax.

"Captain!"

"Brother Chuan, there you are!"

Several Ability Control Bureau members ran over and surrounded Qin Daichuan, talking over one another.

"Captain, things in the city are pretty well under control. The others are still fighting, so we came ahead to see if we could help... You're amazing, Captain! You took down the A-Rank Polluted so quickly!"

Qin Daichuan's expression remained cold and stern. Their colorful flattery did not budge the icy mask on his face.

"The one outside was only a newly evolved A-Rank Polluted. Its abilities were average," he said.

"Hiss." The bureau members sucked in sharp breaths. "You mean there were two A-Rank Polluted?! And you took them both down, Brother Chuan?!"

Qin Daichuan: "..."

"I only dealt with the one outside."

"What about the other one?"

"The other one..." Qin Daichuan looked toward the villa. Earlier, he had thought the other A-Rank Polluted had fled. Now he thought otherwise. He had not sensed its killing intent moving away. It had vanished abruptly, more as though it had died.

"Something else killed it," he said, then added, "Possibly."

"What killed it?!"

Qin Daichuan looked toward the mother-and-child sculpture. His mouth twitched as he coldly uttered one word-

"A monster."

The bureau members did not understand. What the hell was a monster? Qin Daichuan offered no further explanation and strode into the villa. He needed to see exactly what had happened! The bureau members exchanged looks, then followed.

There were no Polluted corpses inside the villa, but there were plenty of living people.

"Holy shit! They're all alive! All the Zhou Family's servants are alive! So are the guards!" a member shouted.

Upstairs, Qin Daichuan was searching for the Polluted's corpse. Surprise flashed in his eyes when he heard that. They were all alive?

How was that possible?

Qin Daichuan remembered Zhao Yi's assessment. He had said the A-Rank Polluted that appeared in City A were strange.

They certainly were.

There was no sign of the water-controlling Polluted's corpse anywhere in the villa. It was unclear whether it had been reduced to dust or something else had happened.

Qin Daichuan leaned against a damaged railing, looking thoughtfully down at the bureau members rescuing the villa's victims. He took out his phone and called Zhao Yi at the distant hospital. "Still alive?"

Zhao Yi's excessively energetic voice came through. "Brother Chuan, can't you wish me well for once?"

"Seems you're still alive," Qin Daichuan said flatly, tapping his fingers against the railing. "At the hospital?"

"Yep."

"Look into a nurse named Ding Xuan at your hospital."

"?? Why are you investigating some nurse? Are you interested in-"

Qin Daichuan hung up, cutting off the nonsense.

He straightened and quickly left the villa.

He crossed the courtyard and soon disappeared into the night.

The old district in southern City A.

In a rundown alley, aging residential buildings hemmed the passage in so tightly that the sky was barely visible overhead. A low, single-story building stood at the end. Outside its door was a badly worm-eaten wooden sign bearing the words: Ability Control Bureau City A Branch.

The bureau was empty tonight. Even the elderly gatekeeper had been pressed into service, leaving the shabby building deserted.

A horn sounded. A modified SUV screeched to an aggressive halt outside. Qin Daichuan got out in a rush and headed straight inside.

He entered the bureau.

Despite having only one floor, the bureau actually had an elevator. He approached it and opened it with the fingerprint lock. There were three floor buttons, B1 through B3. He pressed B3.

The elevator began descending. He stood inside like a cold, hard lump of pig iron.

He arrived at B3. Unlike the shabby frontage upstairs, this floor was thoroughly high-tech. Under the cold lighting, it looked like a research laboratory.

Qin Daichuan approached a computer.

He paused before sitting down and turning it on.

He opened a program on the computer.

[Please enter your password.]

[Please enter your password again.]

[Please enter your identification ID.]

[Please complete pupil verification.]

[Please...]

[Please wait. Your request is awaiting a response.]

A single program had more than a dozen layers of security.

Several minutes passed before it finally opened.

A confidential file appeared before Qin Daichuan. Its name was "Monster Archives."

Contrary to what ordinary citizens and most Ability Control Bureau members believed-that the day of disaster three hundred years ago had produced only contaminated and ability users-only a handful of bureau executives and operations team leaders knew that another kind of anomaly existed in this world: "monsters."

Far more powerful than Polluted or ability users, every anomaly assigned a monster number could effortlessly kill even the strongest Polluted and ability users in an instant. Their strength was so terrifying that their existence could not be made public, to avoid panic.

"Monster Archives":

Number 1: Gambler.

No. 2: Wanderer.

No. 8: Writer.

The archives had first been established 217 years ago. More than two centuries later, they still listed fewer than ten numbers. Monsters were exceedingly rare. According to the archives, they were very likely creatures from another world. It was difficult for them to break through the world gate into the human world. Only under extremely rare circumstances could they descend using human bodies. The exact conditions for their descent were unknown.

Whether monsters were good or evil was unknown. Their motives and movements were unknown. Humanity knew very little about these anomalies.

Qin Daichuan opened the entry for No. 8, Writer.

Three years ago, an S-Rank Polluted, "Stormbringer," had appeared in City S. The entire city fell overnight. Stormbringer unleashed natural disasters in a frenzy, leaving humanity helpless. Two days later, "Stormbringer" suddenly vanished without a trace.

The world only knew that "Stormbringer" had gone missing, not that it had actually been killed by Monster No. 8. City S had yet to begin reconstruction precisely because "Writer" occupied it and had claimed it for itself.

It had killed every Ability Control Bureau member who attempted to investigate.

Monsters were anomalies humanity dared not confront. It could only hide from them and keep its distance.