There were actually living humans outside the city?
Xie Litang thought for a moment and muttered, "According to the National History Theory textbook from the first semester of senior year, even forty years after the lands outside the city fell, survivors were still rescued."
Moreover, some demon beasts possessed intelligence.
Some demon beasts kept humans in captivity as food.
Others enslaved humans to build their own functioning societies.
Regardless, they all shared a common name: People Outside the City, or the Lost People.
Reason told Xie Litang that curiosity killed the cat, but her legs took over the high ground of her intellect.
"I'll just take a quick look from afar."
She stood on a mountain path on the outskirts.
From a distance, a small city came into view.
Neon lights, massive billboards, and even vehicles moving along the roads.
Xie Litang opened the map, checked it, and pieced the information together. "In the Old Era, this place was called Liyang City, with a population of around two hundred thousand. It was a resource-exhausted city."
"Theoretically, if there were still this many people here, the authorities would have dispatched a rescue team long ago."
Because with the city so brightly lit, satellite scanning couldn't possibly miss it.
So there was only one conclusion: the people here might not be people at all.
Xie Litang shook her head.
There were too many unknown factors.
There was no need to take such a risk.
Just as she turned to leave, over a dozen vehicles drove onto the mountain path below, heading up toward her.
Xie Litang ducked into the forest. As the vehicles drove past, her heart skipped a beat.
Bears sat inside the vehicles, but they had human faces.
There were also individuals who looked human on the outside, but their limbs and facial expressions were eerily unnatural.
"Those are... human-faced bears."
"And... non-human humans."
Xie Litang opened the Demon Beast Encyclopedia built into her watch and searched for: bear with a human face.
Information quickly popped up.
【Human-Faced Bear: One-Star Demon Beast. Can be eliminated physically. Intelligent but inherently cruel, enjoying torture and slaughter. Usually devours humans after having its fill of fun.】
【Note 1: If unfortunately captured by a Human-Faced Bear, find a way to end your own life. Otherwise, you might watch your own internal organs being ripped out and eaten piece by piece while still alive.】
【Note 2: Human-Faced Bear gallbladders possess immense medicinal value, with an official recommended price of 20,000 per unit.】
Xie Litang's eyes instantly lit up.
That convoy just now carried at least a dozen Human-Faced Bears, and this was merely the outskirts.
As for those weird-looking people, no results came up.
Since many demon beasts could transform into humans, it was impossible to confirm which type of demon beast they were.
"Should I jump them?"
Xie Litang gritted her teeth. "As the saying goes, fortune favors the bold! Let's do it! As long as I kill those beasts, Linling's maglev wheelchair will be secured."
Xie Litang tracked the vehicles' path. Less than twenty kilometers from the outskirts, a quiet resettlement residential complex came into view.
Xie Litang softened her steps as she drew closer, overhearing the conversation between the Human-Faced Bears and those "people."
"Are you sure there's no problem?"
"Rest assured, those are all natural humans we've raised beside us since they were children."
"You Skin Corpses are decently capable. Ninety-nine percent of the city consists of Skin Corpses, yet those natural humans haven't noticed a thing."
"The signals in the complex have been completely blocked now. We wish you a delightful hunting game."
"You Skin Corpses won't interfere, right? After all, you raised some of them from childhood, and they even call you Skin Corpses their parents."
"Please rest assured. Within ten kilometers of the complex, not a single Skin Corpse will show up."
"..."
Skin Corpses, huh?
Skin Corpses were ranked by age: every hundred years yielded a One-Star Demon Beast, and by extension, a thousand-year Skin Corpse was a Ten-Star Demon Beast.
Before long, a bloodcurdling scream echoed from inside the complex. In the originally dark complex, lights turned on across multiple windows, illuminating the way for the cruel, bloodthirsty Human-Faced Bears.
Those natural humans were in an unfamiliar environment, and though they had cellphones,
they couldn't send messages to the outside world, restricted to posting only on a proprietary app.
Xie Litang stroked her chin and speculated, "It must be the Old Era's regional low-frequency strong-penetration signal technology. Looks like they took over some of humanity's technology, but not much."
Demon beasts possessed intelligence, so learning to use existing Old Era technology was no difficult feat for them.
Xie Litang snuck up behind a Human-Faced Bear.
Clang.
"Roar?"
Xie Litang plunged her sword into the Human-Faced Bear's chest.
The Human-Faced Bear's three-hundred-plus Vitality instantly drained to zero.
After carving out the bear gallbladder, Xie Litang picked up the Human-Faced Bear's phone to check it, discovering two group chats on it.
One was composed of natural humans, with Human-Faced Bears also inside sending misleading information.
The other was exclusively for Human-Faced Bears.
The natural human group was, needless to say, in total panic.
Meanwhile, inside the Human-Faced Bear group:
【What happened?】
【Who was screaming randomly just now?】
【Startled your Bear Brother.】
Xie Litang typed out a message and sent it: 【Scaring those natural humans makes it feel more realistic.】
Human-Faced Bear Group Admin: 【Alright, two bears per building, no crossing boundaries. Natural humans are precious right now—cost us a lot of demon cores. Everybody enjoy yourselves to the fullest.】
Before long, screams rang out one after another.
It wasn't that Xie Litang didn't want to save them, but saving people required having the capability to do so.
Ghost only knew if these Human-Faced Bears had a way to contact the outside world.
If a Human-Faced Bear made a distress call and summoned several truckloads of Skin Corpses, she'd be finished too.
Slinking into the darkness, Xie Litang whispered, "What I need to do right now is wipe them out one by one."
At the corner of Building 3.
A Human-Faced Bear was sending a voice message.
【I'm the tenant from Room 602. I just saw a bear typing text messages. Don't believe a single written word you see right now. Only voice messages can't lie, because bears can't speak human language.】
After speaking, it sent a private voice message,
telling the tenant of Room 432 to open the door.
"Room 432?"
Xie Litang murmured softly and scaled the outer wall of the building.
Soon, she climbed to the balcony outside Room 402.
Pushing open the sliding glass window to step inside, a wary voice sounded out, "Who are you?"
Xie Litang casually knocked away the person's fruit knife, confiscated their phone, and said, "That tiny knife won't kill a bear."
"What? Are you going to kill the bear?"
"Is there a problem?"
"How could a human possibly kill a bear?"
Right at that moment—
Knock, knock, knock...
"Room 432, hurry and open up! I'm the tenant from 602 coming for you! I just saw the bear on the second floor—it's about to come up!"
Perhaps seeing that Xie Litang bore no hostility,
the tenant of Room 432 subconsciously moved to open the door.
"Are you sure you want to open the door?"
"The tenant from 602 is outside. He's out there alone, it's very dangerous."
"How do you know it's the tenant from 602 outside? What if it's a bear?"
"Impossible. How could a bear speak?"
"How do you know a bear can't speak?"
"I... I can't get through to you! Besides, climbing in through the balcony makes you the most suspicious person here!"
The person peered through the peephole. Seeing a human face, they breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I told you it was the 602 tenant! A cold-blooded person like you almost cost a human life just now!"
Xie Litang lowered the hand she was reaching out to save him.
Because she chose to respect his decision.
Squeak~
The door opened a crack.
Immediately after, a playful face appeared and said, "Oh, babe."
The Human-Faced Bear's razor-sharp claws ripped open the person's chest, tearing out a still-beating heart.
When the door swung wide open, Xie Litang tilted her head slightly, mimicking the Human-Faced Bear's previous tone: "Mm-hmm, babe?"
In the next instant, sharp refined steel plunged deep into the Human-Faced Bear's throat.
Learning from experience, this Human-Faced Bear didn't make a single sound, dying very peacefully.
Of course,
excluding the scream the tenant of Room 432 had just uttered.
If anything, it only made the Human-Faced Bear group chat even more thrilled.
Rate on N.U.
