Volume One: The Apocalypse Descends Chapter 11: The Deadly Look—Striking Like a Hanging Painting

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Xiang Chengguang’s face was equally solemn as he gave a firm nod.

When the two men emerged from the apartment, He Wan, who could already tell the outcome from their expressions, said nothing. She merely bit her lower lip lightly and followed behind her husband.

All four security doors on the third floor were tightly shut. Without pausing, the four of them proceeded directly to the fourth floor.

The moment they entered the stairwell, another powerful stench of blood reached them. Both security doors diagonally opposite the stairs were closed.

After lingering briefly at the stairwell entrance, they exchanged a few glances. Xiang Chengguang, who had been covering the rear, moved past his mother and younger sister. He and Xiang Dongliang then stepped into the corridor together, each guarding one direction.

The security door on Xiang Chengguang’s side was closed. He turned quickly, and sure enough, the other security door stood wide open. Waves of blood stench poured from the open doorway.

As before, Xiang Dongliang led the way with his shield while Xiang Chengguang followed close behind. He Wan and Xiang Xiaoxiao remained outside the door, keeping watch.

However, the instant Xiang Dongliang stepped inside, a huge, vivid-red centipede head silently lunged down from above.

The disadvantage of having low Agility revealed itself at once. Faced with the sudden attack from overhead, Xiang Dongliang was completely unable to react.

Fortunately, Xiang Chengguang, right behind him, possessed an Agility of ten points. His reaction speed and ability to track movement had both reached the limits of the human body.

In that split second, he thrust his riot baton forward like a spear, driving its tip straight into the giant centipede’s open mouthparts.

Because the attack had come so suddenly, he could not put his full strength behind it. The blow failed to burst the centipede’s head, but it still knocked the enormous creature loose from the ceiling, sending it crashing to the floor.

Xiang Dongliang finally recovered from his shock. Without sparing a thought for his lingering fear, he hurried two steps forward and pinned the giant centipede to the floor with his riot fork.

In his haste, he failed to catch its neck and instead pressed the fork against the creature’s fourth segment.

The giant centipede immediately twisted around and clamped its two enormous fangs viciously onto the riot fork. Its rear half coiled around as well. The creature was far longer than the fork, and its tail lashed toward Xiang Dongliang like a whip.

Xiang Dongliang blocked it with the riot shield in his hand, producing a dull thud.

Xiang Chengguang struck again. His riot baton landed squarely on the centipede’s head with vicious precision, smashing the vivid-red skull to pieces.

The centipede had actually known how to lie in ambush and launch a surprise attack, something no one had expected. Fortunately, Xiang Chengguang’s reactions had been fast enough.

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This apartment belonged to a young married couple. Neither of them worked as civil servants for the county government. Instead, they ran a shop selling roasted nuts and other snacks on Fuzheng Street, renting a place in this residential compound.

There were quite a few tenants like them in the compound, most of whom ran small businesses on Fuzheng Street.

This time, the couple’s bodies had not been completely devoured by the giant centipede. Both corpses lying in the living room had been gutted, their blood-soaked abdominal cavities left hollow. The scene was far more horrifying than what they had found on the second floor. Even Xiang Dongliang could not help frowning and turning his gaze away.

Xiang Chengguang, however, showed little reaction to the gruesome sight, as though he had already witnessed countless scenes far more bloody and terrifying.

Yet he knew perfectly well that he had never encountered anything like this, whether in his previous life or this one.

From the marks on the floor, he even deduced that the giant centipede had crawled in through the window.

In this residential compound, only the windows from the first to the third floors had security grilles. From the fourth floor upward, there were only glass windows.

Judging from the centipede’s swollen abdomen, it was likely that it had eaten Old Qin the gatekeeper’s wife and grandson, then crawled in through the open window on the fourth floor.

The young couple had apparently even opened their security door, preparing to flee downstairs. In the end, the giant centipede had caught up with them and dragged them back inside.

Since it had already eaten its fill on the second floor, this time it had consumed only the couple’s internal organs, which it evidently preferred.

Then, after sensing Xiang Chengguang and the others coming upstairs, it had crawled onto the ceiling and ambushed them at the doorway.

That had been Xiang Chengguang. Anyone else would probably have found it nearly impossible to evade such an attack from above.

After resting briefly and calming themselves, Xiang Dongliang suppressed his discomfort and used the riot fork to move the couple’s bodies into the bathroom, then firmly shut the door.

Given the circumstances, there was little else they could do.

After locking the apartment’s security door again, they continued toward the fifth floor.

This was the last occupied floor in Building One, Unit Two. Since the building had no elevator and the top floor was exposed to the blazing sun, the sixth floor of the compound was essentially uninhabited.

The first floor was also vacant, owing to the compound’s low, damp location.

After all, this was merely a backward small county in central China, suffering from severe population loss as people left in search of opportunities. In truth, many homes throughout the county town stood empty.

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When they reached the fifth floor, they saw that the security door of the apartment on the left, facing the stairwell, stood open. No smell of blood came from inside, however, and the room was completely silent.

The situation was somewhat strange. At least from the doorway, there seemed to be no sign that a monster had invaded. But after having just been ambushed, Xiang Dongliang remained cautious. He raised the riot shield diagonally above his head, guarding against an attack from overhead.

The two men entered the apartment without incident.

The owners were a middle-aged couple. The wife worked at the civil affairs bureau, and they had a daughter who worked in another city.

They made their way to the master bedroom. The shocking sight inside made their scalps prickle. The husband and wife lay quietly on the bed.

The woman had withered until nothing remained but skin stretched over bones, like a mummy dried by the wind for many years. Not the slightest trace of moisture could be seen in her body.

The man, on the other hand, was grotesquely swollen. The exposed skin looked like a water-filled balloon ready to burst at any moment. They could even see liquid shifting beneath his skin.

The scene was strange and horrifying. Even Xiang Chengguang felt a chill rising along his spine.

However, he had already learned something about the habits of low-level insect monsters from the Elementary Illustrated Guide to Otherworldly Creatures. He knew that this was the result of a spider monster feeding.

The spider monster was not visible from the doorway. But after the giant centipede’s ambush, Xiang Chengguang suspected that it was most likely hiding on the ceiling directly above the door, waiting to launch another attack from overhead.

Xiang Chengguang signaled for Xiang Dongliang to stand guard outside. Holding the baton in both hands, he rested its middle section diagonally against his shoulder. Then, as if completely unprepared, he walked into the room.

Sure enough, the instant Xiang Chengguang entered the master bedroom, a dark brown spider the size of a millstone dropped from the ceiling. Its long, slender legs spread wide in midair as it prepared to give him an enthusiastic embrace.

The riot baton resting against his shoulder sprang upward. After a low whistle through the air, it slammed heavily into the lunging spider monster, sending it flying sideways into the bedroom wall.

The spider monster’s corpse clung to the wall like a strange three-dimensional painting. Only after more than two seconds did it slowly slide down onto the floor.