Chapter 278: Chapter 266: Quick, Save Annelise
The Sea Serpent from the quest Annelise Locke had posted was actually for her brother, Jack Locke. But when Annelise went to find him on the day they returned, he was nowhere to be found. Her brother had vanished without a trace.
A draft blew through the corridor, yet it couldn’t disperse the stench of blood and the distinct smell of a snake.
"Annelise, it’s me, Flora Bloom. Don’t be afraid. No one is going to hurt you again! Tell me, what happened? Weren’t you going to find your brother, Jack Locke?"
The chilling presence in the air suddenly froze at Flora’s last words. A slithering sound, SSSSSS, came from behind her.
"So you’re Flora Bloom?"
’Not Annelise? A man’s voice?’
Flora turned and saw a Beast-type Awakener with the torso of a half-naked man and the lower body of a giant snake tail. He was feebly crawling out of a doorless room.
There wasn’t a single patch of intact flesh on his body. His exposed torso looked as if it had undergone cruel torture—the flesh on his chest, waist, arms, and back had been flayed, leaving a mangled mess oozing droplets of reddish-green blood.
Superpower users were known for their extraordinary physiques and powerful regenerative abilities; wounds like these would eventually scab over and heal. Beast-type Adepts even possessed the unique gift of animals, allowing them to regrow lost body parts over a long period, restoring them to their original state.
But the wounds covering this serpentine man showed no signs of healing. The sight of his tail, almost completely stripped of its scales, told Flora that something was terribly wrong.
These familiar torture methods pulled Flora’s mind back to her past life—to the laboratory that researched zombie and superpower user genetics.
Flora had visited that laboratory once before. The zombies and various other creatures inside had been displayed in this very state.
Back then, she had been timid and cowardly, unable to bear witness to such cruelty and gore. Even after ten years in the apocalypse, having killed countless zombies and evolved beasts herself, she still couldn’t stomach seeing anyone torture them so brutally.
To be unable to watch yet do nothing to stop it is a common human failing. In her past life, before her own death, she had been filled with regret upon learning of Joel Bloom’s final fate. He, too, had died in that very laboratory, sliced to ribbons as they harvested his flesh and genes, and she had regretted her inaction.
She regretted tolerating the existence of such a laboratory. But in her past life, she was nothing but a useless Water Element user. In the later days of the apocalypse, when Water Element users were a dime a dozen, she had no combat ability and a ten-year-old daughter to protect.
She was weak and alone.
What’s more, Belle Bloom had been working as an assistant in that very lab. Flora had been completely unaware that after Joel Bloom’s death, his body would be sent there to be dissected, his flesh carved away, his body’s value cruelly consumed by the laboratory until nothing was left.
For a moment, Flora’s eyes glazed over, but she quickly snapped out of it.
"You’re Jack Locke?" It was a rhetorical question, really. The serpentine Beast Ability genetics he shared with Annelise Locke weren’t exactly common.
"I am! If you’re Flora Bloom, I’m begging you, please, go save my sister!"
Despite his yellow, slitted pupils, Jack Locke’s eyes held none of a reptile’s coldness; in fact, they were welling with tears.
"Things are complicated right now. I promise I’ll save Annelise, but you have to leave here with me. Now!"
Jack Locke struggled, coiling his massive tail but refusing to move. "The people outside are all here to hunt me, this monster. I can’t leave! It doesn’t matter if a monster like me dies, but please, I’m begging you, go save Annelise. She’s at the Morhaven Wildlife Park! She’s been captured by that group!"
At the mention of "that group," Flora’s heart lurched, but she quickly suppressed her reaction. "You’re her brother. Once you’ve recovered, you can lead me to her yourself."
"But I..."
THWACK! The sound of a bullet striking a wall echoed from outside, immediately followed by several men’s furious arguing.
"What the fuck! Quinn, can your people even shoot straight? That bullet nearly hit me! Are you trying to get me killed?!"
Quinn said nothing, not even sparing the man a glance, and continued forward with Yvonne Lynch right behind him.
WHIZZ! Another bullet shot through the wall, flying right past the man’s ear.
"Quinn, what the hell is your problem?" The men who had been sent in as a vanguard to scout the area suddenly halted.
It wasn’t that they were unwilling to advance, but every time their leader took a step forward, a bullet would whistle right past him.
Even though they were superpower users, they were still vulnerable to bullets at lower levels! This was especially true for him, as he was only a Second-Level plant-type adept.
He was terrified that if he took one more step, a stray bullet would pierce his skull. What a senseless way to die!
"Apologies. My men haven’t had any professional training, so their aim might be a little off," Quinn said. His words immediately drew a wave of uneasy and hostile glares.
"Are you kidding me? We’re all here to hunt the monster, and you’ve got untrained men handling sniper rifles? Are you trying to kill the monster or us?!"
Yvonne Lynch, standing behind Quinn, nearly broke into a laugh. She subtly gestured with her hands, and a second later—WHOOSH! WHOOSH!—two sniper rounds grazed the speaker’s cheeks in quick succession before slamming into a dilapidated wall.
One of the bullets even broke the skin on the plant-type adept’s cheek. His legs gave out, and he collapsed unceremoniously to the ground, his face deathly pale.
"W-we can’t go any further! We’ll be killed by our own side before we even find where the monster is hiding! We’re going back to report to the captain!" The man glanced back, unsure where the shots had come from, then waved his companions back while hugging the wall.
"Quinn, you just wait. If we fail to capture that monster, it’ll be all your fault! Hmph, we’ll see about this!"
The entire group, except for Quinn and Yvonne Lynch, instantly retreated.
Quinn looked up at the glint of a scope on the roof of a small high-rise building nearby. A small smile played on his lips as he mouthed, ’Nice one!’
"Captain, are we leaving too?"
Quinn nodded. "Let’s go. Time to have another chat with our three fellow captains!"
His first instinct was to go in and see if Flora had found who she was looking for, but after a moment’s thought, he decided to withdraw. Since he had chosen this course of action, he felt that mutual trust and discreetly keeping his distance were paramount.
Meanwhile, on the rooftop of the small high-rise, Mark Sterling, Irvin Holden, and Fakyoo were each holding a sniper rifle, their sights trained on the old, low-rise building.
The three of them exchanged a look, and smiles broke out on their faces.
"And they call themselves superpower users? They scare so easily!" Fakyoo originally wasn’t skilled with a sniper rifle. But after some training from Sherman Lynch, this amateur gun-and-ammo fanatic had instantly become a crack shot who never missed.
Mark Sterling had always loved sniping and had shown extraordinary talent for it back at the Red Cross Hospital. The first shot was Fakyoo’s, intended to scare the men and stop them from entering the ruined building and interrupting Flora’s plan.
The second and third shots were fired simultaneously by Mark Sterling and Irvin Holden, successfully forcing the vanguard, who had been about to enter the building, to retreat.
"Mission accomplished!"
The three of them high-fived, grinning cheerfully at a mission easily accomplished.
Quinn, Yvonne Lynch, and the rest of the vanguard emerged from the ruined building in succession. Faced with questions from the four other teams, Herbert, the Second-level plant-type adept, stepped forward in a rage.
