Chapter 119: Unprovoked Attack

Amidst the shrill and piercing screams, the monster seemed to have its ferocity thoroughly ignited, swiftly shifting its position to pounce at Zhao Li once again from a different angle.

Without a moment's hesitation, Zhao Li gripped the sharp claw in his hand as if it were a military dagger and met the charge head-on. Since the creature was after his life, Zhao Li had no intention of showing any mercy.

The claw in his hand was slightly lighter than a military dagger, yet similar in dimension, making it just right to parry the monster's strike. Having prepared himself mentally this time, the moment the weapon collided with the monster's claw, a sharp vibration shot up his arm, but the claw remained firmly in his grasp.

This split-second successful block bought Zhao Li space to execute his maneuvers. The creature seemed reluctant or unable to engage in close-quarters combat; seeing its strike blocked, it immediately attempted to retreat.

Quick-eyed and fast-handed, Zhao Li lashed out with his empty left hand, grabbing the retreating monster by the body. His nameless cultivation technique seemed to be pushed to its absolute limit; the moment his hand made contact with solid matter, a massive surge of internal energy erupted.

A sudden muscle spasm caused the monster's form to lose coordination, slowing its movement considerably. At that very moment, Zhao Li heard two familiar popping sounds, resembling the uncorking of champagne bottles, followed by the sight of the monster appearing to take two hits. Sanders had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time and had finally opened fire.

However, both bullets merely glanced off the monster's body, dropping straight down from its chest without inflicting the slightest injury. The gunshots seemed only to enrage the creature further, drawing a frantic, roaring howl from its throat.

Abandoning Zhao Li amidst the roar, the monster lunged toward Sanders. Unfazed, Sanders faced the approaching creature, raised his weapon, and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Several bullets struck the monster's head in succession, each impact forcing its head violently backward. Yet, they still failed to cause any apparent harm. Nevertheless, the continuous backward jolts drastically slowed the creature's advance.

Zhao Li seized the opportunity. Lunging behind the monster, he leaped high into the air, utilizing the momentum of his jump to drive the claw in his hand fiercely into the creature's back. With a dull tear, it sank in more than halfway. The clothing and tough skin on the exterior of the monster seemed to offer no defense whatsoever against its own claw.

Ahowl! Under the grievous wound, the monster stood frozen in place, its head tilted back toward the sky in a long shriek. But it managed only a single cry before Sanders's weapon, as if guided by sightless eyes, poured a relentless stream of bullets directly into its open mouth.

No matter how tough the exterior, the interior remained flesh and blood. This continuous barrage carved a series of small, bloody craters inside the monster's mouth, and blood gushed forth as if a fluid-filled pouch had been ruptured, instantly transforming its mouth into a gaping abyss of gore.

Simultaneously, Zhao Li used the distraction to grab the creature's arm. His nameless cultivation technique began to circulate wildly, the condensed core of genuine qi fueling him with frantic strength as he locked onto his opponent in a death grip.

Instinct honed from years of practice drove Zhao Li to immediately execute the bone-dislocation technique the moment he made contact, and this time was no exception. With a sharp twist of his hands, he encountered a powerful counter-vibrational force from the monster's muscles.

Yet the creature could not withstand Zhao Li's maneuver either. Releasing a roar of a kind Zhao Li had never heard before, the strength he felt from the opponent seemed to surge by a fraction instantly.

Even so, no matter how formidable the beast was, it could not prevent the violent spasms of its own muscles; the power it had just gathered was instantly thrown out of control for this very reason.

Following that, Zhao Li acted as though possessed. His hands flashed and danced, relentlessly torturing every joint and muscle within his reach. A continuous series of cracking sounds echoed through the air as countless joints were torn from their sockets by Zhao Li's hands. With its entire body's musculature seemingly in spasm, the monster could no longer maintain an upright stance and crashed heavily to the ground.

Even with its joints dislocated, the monster continued to twitch violently, curling its body into a bizarre shape. Gurgling noises bubbled from its throat as bright red blood flowed ceaselessly, quickly pooling into a small puddle beside its mouth.

***

Only then did Zhao Li and Sanders brush the cold sweat from their respective brows. They finally had the leisure to carefully observe what kind of monster Zhao Li had just laid low.

In overall shape, the creature resembled a human, but it diverged drastically in many aspects. Ten dagger-like, razor-sharp nails extended from its fingers, completely unlike human nails and stained heavily with blood. It was impossible to tell whether the crust coated on them was dried flesh or other debris, all tinged with a pitch-black hue. All exposed parts of its body were covered in fur, and one of the claws on its middle finger had been snapped off by Zhao Li, still embedded in the monster's back.

With its face entirely shrouded in fur, its features and facial expressions were completely indistinguishable. Even stranger, the creature was dressed in a well-fitting uniform, which appeared to be military attire, though gray in color rather than jungle camouflage.

Zhao Li examined it closely; the military uniform bore several bullet marks, yet no bloodstains surrounded them. It seemed the attire worn by the monster possessed ballistic-resistant qualities, and quite evidently, it was the product of a highly advanced civilization.

"What is this thing?" Sanders stepped over, lowering his gaze to scrutinize the monster. The creature on the ground defied simple categorization as either human or beast; retaining a human silhouette yet covered from head to toe in fur, its visage remained thoroughly obscured, leaving its exact nature a mystery.

Shaking his head, Zhao Li had no answer to offer. Within this brief span, the monster had fallen completely silent, losing even its breath. Zhao Li reached out to test; there was no heartbeat left. It appeared the creature had been thoroughly dispatched by Sanders's point-blank barrage.

Lifting his head, Zhao Li caught Sanders's equally astonished gaze. Where on earth had this monster originated to be so intensely tenacious, and why would it attack humans? The two groups of people they had encountered earlier had undoubtedly been eliminated by this creature. Of course, another question lingered: what were the identities of those people, and why had they appeared here furtively? Were they hunting down this beast?

Not far away lay the corpses of the six men who had passed by just moments before. Blood continued to flow from their wounds; Sanders walked over to check them, then shook his head and returned directly, conveniently retrieving the military dagger that had been knocked from Zhao Li's grasp earlier.

Along with it, he brought back functional communicators stripped from the bodies of two unknown unfortunates. Plugging in the earpiece, they immediately caught a series of anxious calls echoing through the receiver: "Group Seven, Group Seven, respond! Group Three, Group Three, respond!"

The calls continued without pause, suggesting that the six individuals who had just perished were likely the "Group Three" referenced by that voice. By that logic, at least five other teams should still be scattered throughout the dense forest.

Neither Zhao Li nor Sanders spoke, listening in silence to see what instructions might follow. Regrettably, the control terminal seemed to have already deduced that the members of Group Three and Group Seven had perished; after receiving no response to its repeated hails, it decisively severed the communication for both groups. Consequently, the two communicators retrieved by Zhao Li and Sanders were rendered utterly useless.

The corpse of the monster on the ground was profoundly bizarre; when Zhao Li tested it, his military dagger could not easily pierce the skin. Witnessing its bare-handed elimination of ten fully armed soldiers made its combat prowess self-evident.

Yet, what kind of entity was this? Why was it wearing a military uniform? And if it wore a military uniform, why would it assault those soldiers? An accumulation of mounting questions left Zhao Li and Sanders entirely in the dark about what was transpiring. Still, for the moment at least, immediate danger seemed to have passed.

Just as they intended to investigate further, a crimson flash erupted from the monster's neck, and that familiar, chilling sensation of lethal danger struck once more. Zhao Li shouted at the top of his lungs, "Get down!" Putting force into his legs, he kicked Sanders away and propelled his own body backward like a bullet using the recoil.

Caught mid-air by Zhao Li's kick, Sanders heard the warning and offered no resistance, leveraging the force to hurl himself in the opposite direction. Both found their targets mid-air, landing right beside thick trees where they hit the ground and rolled behind the trunks for cover.

"Boom." The sound was muted, but a sheet of violent flames instantly surged upward, enveloping the entire monster along with an area several meters in radius. Fortunately, their swift recognition of the danger spared them the trouble of being engulfed by the licking tongues of fire.

Faced with such a development, Zhao Li and Sanders discarded all hesitation. Springing to their feet without exchanging a word, Sanders pointed in a chosen direction, and the two began a frantic escape toward that bearing.

If the monster had exploded and incinerated immediately upon death, perhaps it was equipped with a heartbeat-sensitive ignition mechanism designed to detonate the moment cardiac arrest was detected, ensuring no one would discover the scene. However, the detonation had clearly occurred after a delay, leaving the subsequent events entirely unpredictable.

***

True to their suspicions, no sooner had the two fled the area than the sound of a starship engine echoed from the skies above, followed immediately by a dense barrage of autocannon fire that poured down overwhelmingly. An area tens of meters around the monster was practically saturated by the storm of shells.

Zhao Li and Sanders had only just cleared the zone when the terrain behind them was reduced to utter devastation. A quick backward glance revealed that within the barrage's footprint, even tree trunks thick enough to be embraced by two men were pierced clean through by a single hit. The munitions unleashed by those autocannons were entirely armor-piercing explosive shells of heavy caliber.

Fortunately, these rounds did not cause massive secondary combustion, averting a full-scale forest fire. It seemed these perpetrators had long ago planned and meticulously coordinated the operation; a wildfire would inevitably draw the attention of local authorities, exposing everything hidden here. Yet, what of the monster's earlier fiery self-destruction—did they not fear starting a blaze then?

While they remained gripped by suspicion, activity flared in the airspace above the charred clearing. A compact starship abruptly materialized, lowering several heavy cables from which a dozen individuals slid downward.

The hovering small starship was a standard troop transport, typically operating in tandem with a larger mother ship. Bearing no insignia whatsoever, its affiliation remained an absolute mystery. The sight of this craft instantly reminded Zhao Li of the strange, engine-like hum he had heard two days prior—could it be the mothership of this very vessel?

Every operative descending from above donned a bizarre set of military attire, their heads and faces entirely concealed. Though carrying no visible weaponry, each held a compact fire extinguisher.

Despite the surreal nature of the scene, Zhao Li and Sanders lacked the luxury of time to observe. Escaping while they still had the chance took precedence over lingering to watch these interlopers.

Unbeknownst to Zhao Li and his companion, those operatives did not immediately suppress the flames upon reaching the ground; instead, they cautiously contained the peripheral fire to prevent its spread while intentionally maintaining an intense blaze at the core.

After half an hour, the fire finally died out. The operatives then stowed their extinguishers, meticulously swept the perimeter for any lingering traces, and even located the bodies of the two fallen squads. After capturing some footage, they did nothing further before sprinting back to their drop points and hauling themselves up the cables. The starship immediately pivoted and vanished into the sky. From beginning to end, the vessel never touched the ground.

Had Zhao Li and Sanders witnessed those actions, they would have instantly understood that the group's sole objective was the complete incineration and obliteration of the monster's remains.

There was no longer any time to thoroughly investigate the ownership of that small starship, nor any leisure to appreciate the unfolding spectacle. The defunct communicators retrieved from the dead soldiers suddenly crackled to life, broadcasting a chilling directive: "All units take note, intruders detected. Two targets, jungle camouflage, armed. All squads, engage with lethal force!" Immediately following came the broadcasted coordinates of their previous location.

Daring not to tarry further, Zhao Li followed Sanders in a desperate sprint. With the enemy deploying starships and tracking their coordinates, staying put meant courting disaster. Mid-flight, the roar of starship engines echoed from the sky once more, heading directly toward their position.

Scarcely had the silhouette of the starship manifested when a trail of white smoke erupted from its hull. Instantly, a missile-like projectile streaked through the air, trailing white smoke as it locked onto the positions of Zhao Li and Sanders.

A micro-missile? The thought flashed simultaneously through their minds, and both dove sideways in a synchronized, textbook tactical maneuver, hitting the dirt and tucking themselves behind adequately thick tree trunks.

The missile detonated while still airborne, unleashing a dense, rain-like swarm of metal shards that saturated the entire area where the two had sought cover. Eschewing fiery explosions, the warhead was packed with spiral-shaped steel spikes; upon bursting, it blanketed hundreds of square meters, showering nearly a dozen metal spikes per square meter.

With a dull *thump*, the blast was followed by the sound of heavy rain pelting banana leaves. Even deep within the dense forest, four or five impacts struck Zhao Li's body with agonizing force, as if he had been struck by solid blows that penetrated straight to his marrow. For a fraction of a second, Zhao Li felt as though consciousness was about to slip away entirely.