Chapter 417 - You Weren't Human At All

He cackled and said, "

Heh heh heh...

you truly are much stronger than those hunters I killed before." The lizardman's eyes, each as large as a ping-pong ball, bulged out in a terrifying way. "But the more formidable the food, the tastier it becomes... I have already caught a whiff of that mouthwatering aroma from your body!

Heh heh heh

..." It continued its bizarre laughter as if it had no fear of the brute force Cassius had just displayed by ripping off its left arm so effortlessly.

Amid its grating laughter, lumps of tumorous flesh rapidly swelled around the lizardman's entire left shoulder, scurrying here and there beneath its green skin like tiny mice.

All the bulging flesh converged at the spot where blood still dripped from its severed arm, prompting the lizardman to grin even more grotesquely, baring its fangs and letting them grind together slightly.

Whoosh...

At the stump of its left arm, the muscles and veins swelled and surged. A lump of flesh about five centimeters long had just sprouted before disintegrating abruptly into a mass of bloody pulp.

In that area, it seemed as though an invisible whirling blade spun at high speed, grinding every newly formed bit of flesh into powder. A great burst of greenish blood sprayed outward, splattering across the floor and onto the wall to the lizardman's left.

"What!?" Now it truly panicked. The lizardman's dark green pupils contracted to a pinprick. One reason for its unbridled savagery was its formidable power, but what made it truly fearless was its terrifying regenerative ability, stronger than that of most dark creatures in reality.

That ability was its greatest trump card and what allowed it to act so brazenly. However, at that moment, the central pillar of its power had been crippled by the human before it.

It felt a surge of danger it had not experienced in a long while. It suddenly accelerated forward, and its two sturdy legs bulged another size larger. The entire room shook violently as a streak of green shot through the air in a furious collision. Its figure barreled wildly toward Cassius, as though in a life-and-death struggle, then abruptly veered midway and shot like an arrow toward the hole in the wall.

The lizardman was trying to flee!

As long as it could put some distance between itself and Cassius by leaving the inn and getting into the crowded streets, it could vanish in an instant with its invisibility.

"Once I recover, I will definitely come back for revenge!!!" That thought crossed the lizardman's mind, but it was abruptly met with a stinging pain down its entire right side, then its left leg, and finally its right leg.

It lost its balance, crashing to the ground and rolling across the floor, spewing green blood until it slammed into the corner of the room with a thud. The lizardman managed to lift its gaze, only to see that cold-faced young man under the sunlight calmly observing it, gripping a thick, severed leg from which blood kept trickling.

"Looks like we'll need a different approach to questioning you, ghoul..."

"Ghoul?" The lizardman snapped out of its crazed mindset, screaming helplessly with no arms or legs, "Wait, wait! You've got the wrong guy—I'm not a ghoul! For the past half month, I've only been active in this area twice. Today was just the second time, so I'm not the one you're after..."

"Oh?" Cassius narrowed his eyes slightly. "Such a cunning dark creature. Even with your limbs disabled, you'd still dare lie to me? Hmph, no matter whether you're it or not, I'll interrogate you first..."

The task information regarding Florence's ghoul stated certain things quite plainly: The ghoul was a Class A dangerous target, extremely cunning, possessed great combat strength, and had an assassin's stealth.

Every one of those traits matched the lizardman before him. Not to mention, this lizardman also relished devouring humans. It had even gnawed on a corpse in front of him while spouting threats. Its greed for human flesh was obvious, making it highly likely to be the culprit!

Cassius felt he had luck on his side. He had stepped out the door and run straight into his mission target through sheer coincidence.

Next, he would torture it for information about the spiral pattern at the slaughterhouse, then hand it over to the Dark Hunter Organization, completing the first stage of his task.

With that thought in mind, he advanced step by step. Behind him, a black Qi rose and swirled in the sunlight, swiftly forming the shape of a massive humanoid figure, one that looked fiendish, wicked, and steeped in sinister energy.

"No, you... you! You weren't human at all!" The lizardman's two eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, staring intently at Cassius and the giant shadow behind him, its face twisted in despair and terror.

...

Lita was a White Dazzling Hunter of the Hunters' Association, having just been promoted half a year ago. She had been temporarily assigned to the Florence Special Action Division, tackling supernatural incidents in the city's commercial district. There were two other White Dazzling Hunters in the same position. Each White Dazzling Hunter formed a team of five Black Copper Hunters, who followed orders. It was truly a challenging role.

As the empire's largest, most prosperous city, Florence had extremely dense crowds and, unavoidably, numerous dark creatures of high caliber. Although the Dark Hunter Organization maintained order here, hunters working on the front lines still faced unavoidable perils.

For instance, the recently infamous invisible assassin, known for hiding at crime scenes to ambush any hunters who arrived. Two White Dazzling Hunters had died this way, giving the fiend quite a reputation. Lita also had to face this threat if the invisible assassin started prowling the commercial district. However, things had changed recently. The Hunters' Association pulled the assignment related to the invisible assassin two days ago, presumably giving it to a higher-level hunter who specialized in such matters. The rumor was that the matter would be resolved in a few days.

That day, Lita was in the Special Action Division handling morning paperwork.

𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Suddenly, a report arrived. In Florence's District Four, inside Reed Inn at 214 Chuck Street, there had been a homicide. Two people were dead, their corpses half-consumed, confirming the work of a dark creature.

As soon as she received the notice, Lita took her subordinates to Chuck Street and reached the front of the inn in roughly five minutes. Dressed in a slightly form-fitting blue hunter outfit, she questioned the guard captain about the circumstances. Upon hearing that a hunter had gone to the second-floor crime scene about a minute earlier, Lita instinctively glanced at the inn.

Just then, an explosive jolt came from a room at the end of the second floor, as though a bomb had gone off inside. Bricks and debris flew, leaving a man-sized hole in the wall near the window, from which faint traces of blood appeared to spatter.

"Not good! A dark creature! That could very well be the invisible assassin..." Lita's expression changed drastically as she dashed into the inn. Those signs indicated combat, meaning a dark creature was hidden at the crime scene. The invisible assassin was famous for precisely such tactics!

The hunter who had gone up earlier was likely in dire straits! The invisible assassin had already killed two White Dazzling Hunters, so it probably required a Dark Gold Hunter to take it down. The Black Copper Hunters who had gone in before were basically cannon fodder, having met double-digit casualties at its claws.

In Lita's heart, she had already prepared for that hunter's certain doom.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

Led by the White Dazzling Hunter, five Black Copper Hunters hurried after her, racing through the lobby and up the stairs. They dashed past the startled guards, straight toward the room at the end of the corridor, nearly reaching it when a series of ear-splitting screams suddenly came from inside.

Those sounds were not merely physical shrieks but wails of existential agony, as though some living being witnessed itself slowly devoured by countless teeth, powerless to resist, dying in utter despair.

"Damn it! The invisible assassin!" Lita quickened her pace, gritting her teeth as she led the team inside.

They smashed the door open, and the scene before them came into view.

There was no graphic scene of feeding amid gore, no crazed demonic creature with its mouth smeared in blood. Instead, a tall, muscular youth crouched on the floor, a few drops of green blood dotting his impassive face, a cold light in his eyes. He reached out one powerful arm to grip a lizard-like head, rotating his five fingers downward in a slow spiral, gradually forcing that malformed, hideous head into the dark creature's torso. The surrounding sinews bulged and compressed like a squeezed sponge, constantly leaking green blood that seeped into the floor!

"..."

Lita and the others froze in place as the room fell silent as the grave. Only a piercing scream broke the stillness.

"

Aaaaah

! I really don't know what that spiral pattern is! I swear I'm not that ghoul! I was lying before! Please believe me,

aaaaah

!" The garbled pleas were cut off by another shriek, for the lizardman's head had been wrenched a full three hundred sixty degrees by fingers like steel pincers.

"You monster! Kill me, just kill me now!

Heh heh heh

..." The lizardman seemed to have gone insane, driven to mental collapse by torture.

Cassius furrowed his brow slightly, sensing that something was off. It was not his first time torturing a dark creature for information, but those that possessed sentience were usually cold-blooded. By contrast, this lizardman felt more human, with intense emotions and a mind that quickly fell apart.

Compared to other dark creatures Cassius had encountered, this lizardman seemed more like a psychiatric patient, displaying starkly human-like fear and despair.

At the doorway, Lita and her team did not dare make a sound, terrified that if they drew any attention, their own heads might be twisted a full circle and slammed bloodily into their torsos. Lita stared at the severed limbs of the lizardman and its barrel-like upper body, recognizing traits of the invisible assassin. That dark creature that had killed multiple White Dazzling Hunters had now been torn limb from limb, pinned to the ground, begging for mercy like a dog.

The overpowering smell of blood in the air was strong enough to make one choke. Though she hated to admit it, Lita was genuinely afraid at that moment.

Her gaze slid downward and briefly paused. In the next instant, she felt herself relax. She spotted the hunter's badge Cassius wore—it was one of their own, certainly the higher authority dispatched to deal with the invisible assassin!

From inside the room, a deep gaze fell upon them. The man slowly stood, holding half the lizardman's body as he spoke with a calm gentleness.

"Miss, might you have a wooden travel case? One of the larger sort...?"

***

It was 12:30 at midday, the sunshine bright and clear. At the entrance to Reed Inn, Lita's team of six watched as the tall figure strode off into the distance, carrying a large travel case in his hand. From the bottom of that case, a thick fluid slowly dripped.

"Phew, another supernatural incident resolved. Honestly, that was truly dangerous. If that man hadn't gone in first and our team did instead, I'm afraid it would have ended badly for all of us..." Cold sweat trickled down Lita's back as it slowly receded.

Although that man was aloof and had spoken only once, Lita was grateful to him. Indirectly, he had saved her life.

At one in the afternoon, at a sanatorium in District Seven of Florence, Barrow lay in a soft, white hospital bed, his limbs bound in three different places by bandages so that he could hardly move. He could only use his right hand a bit, stretching it out to nibble fruit from the bedside table. He was so shaky that he resembled an elderly man.

Although Barrow now appeared crippled, just ten days earlier he had been a Dark Gold Hunter at his prime, nicknamed the Sword Axe. However, during that failed operation to hunt the ghoul, three White Dazzling Hunters were killed on the spot, leaving only him to narrowly escape. It was the worst defeat of his life, as the ghoul's overpowering resembled a cat toying with a mouse.

Had it not been for the creature's apparent desire to toy with them, he would never have had the chance to escape alive. In Barrow's estimation, at least two Dark Gold Hunters were required to stand a chance against that ghoul, three to be on the safe side. Alternatively, a top-tier Dark Gold Hunter who was one step away from becoming a Shadow Hunter might qualify to hunt that ghoul alone.

While Barrow's mind was drifting, he heard voices conversing outside the door. Shortly afterward, a handsome young man entered carrying a suitcase.

"Hello, Hunter Barrow. I am White Aster, one of the four competitors for this round's Shadow Hunter seat. My first trial assignment relates to the ghoul that has been unusually active over the past half month, and the Hunters' Association said I could find more detailed information from you, if you don't mind..." the young man said in a subdued tone.

"White Aster? The Shadow Hunter seat?" Barrow slowly recalled some rumors he had heard at the Hunters' Association ten days ago. The White Aster before him was Blood Axe Herb's disciple.

But wasn't White Aster merely a Black Copper Hunter? Had he really joined in the race for the Shadow Hunter seat? Barrow's gaze flicked over Cassius's chest, spotting the Black Copper badge, and he felt rather displeased.

Association missions were not child's play, so how could they assign a hunter with such vastly lower power to handle a dangerous task? Barrow had personally experienced how fearsome the ghoul was—surely it required at least a top-tier Dark Gold Hunter to tackle. If White Aster was just a Black Copper Hunter, was he here to throw his life away?

"Sorry, my injuries haven't stabilized, and I need some time alone to rest. Come ask me again when I'm feeling better..." Barrow declined in a polite way, in respect to Herb.

"Hunter Barrow, I won't take much of your time, just five seconds. I merely need you to tell me whether this reptile... really is that ghoul or not." Cassius abruptly opened the large suitcase. Inside, a mass of shapeless, compressed flesh squirmed.

In its center lay a lizard's head, eyes bulging wide with despair and agony.