In an instant, countless black hands surged from the alley, with human-like fingers and infinitely elongating soft arms. Like black ropes of death spewing out from the gates of hell, hundreds of them sward out, grabbed Ren’s arms and ankles, and dragged him into the alley.
He didn’t even have ti to leave a single word.
Finally. Jax let out a sigh of relief, hardly believing he had finally dealt with Ren. He didn’t know whether to rejoice or mourn, his heart aching with a sense of loss.
However, only a mont later, his world spun, a huge sense of weightlessness overca him. A black arm, coming from nowhere, coiled around Jax’s arm, lifting him up into the air.
"Help... Help !" Jax shouted in panic.
Creepy, soft, noodle-like black arms, as if attracted by sothing, crawled out one after another.
From all directions, from behind the group, those arms crawled out of the endless, dirty black alley.
Aid only at him, tightly coiled around his arms, shoulders, and neck.
These hands piled on top of one another, drilling in, coiling around the shoulder that Ren had just touched, hoisting Jax up, dragging him into the pitch-black shadows.
The alphas had just run towards the spot where Ren had disappeared. Reacting, they rushed in the opposite direction to rescue, the light of their pulse guns illuminating, sweeping back and forth, severing countless black arms.
But the arms coiling around Jax were layer upon layer, unending. Those smashed arms fell to the ground, writhing and converging like a viscous liquid, quickly regenerating as before. Unkillable, unstoppable, inexhaustible.
To rescue soone from this, they would need extrely powerful firepower that could cut off all the black hands in one go without harming Jax, who was wrapped in the middle.
"Hurry, pull out!" Jax clung desperately to the brick wall of the alleyway, his screams were heart-wrenching.
"Pull , damn it, pull out!"
"I don’t want to die, don’t want to die! Help!"
No one dared to go pull him, no one wanted to get near those soft, bizarre black hands. The alphas could only stand at a distance, sweeping back and forth with their pulse guns, watching helplessly as their leader was slowly dragged into the darkness.
Jax felt a bone-chilling sense of despair.
Among everyone here, only Jax knew what this monster was, and what would happen after being dragged into the lair by this mutant. This was the hell he had prepared for Ren.
He didn’t understand why this was happening, because he hadn’t stepped into the danger zone at all, he was supposedly in the safest place.
The pulse guns of the alpha team had overheated, and the bricks of the streets and walls were softened and glowing red from the radiation of the electronic pulses, but it was all in vain. Those black arms kept regenerating, eagerly wrapping around him. Jax’s body was gradually dragged into the dark world, his voice was silenced, his mouth was covered by a black palm, he couldn’t even cry out for help.
The alpha team started to slowly retreat. They knew it was useless, they couldn’t save anyone and if they weren’t careful, they would be caught too.
This was their first ti experiencing the horror of Polluted Zone Five. This happened even during the safe ’dayti’, not yet "night"; in a mont of carelessness, they had lost two n - their captain and Ren.
Just at that mont, countless crescent-shaped red blades exploded from the alley where Ren had been dragged, severing countless tightly wrapped black arms.
Ren, holding a strange red knife, rolled out from the devouring darkness. Once free, he landed on solid ground, bit open the incendiary grenade he was carrying, threw it behind him, and jumped clear of the combat area, standing in a safe area far from danger.
Standing there, his eyes still glowing purple, his palms stained with blood from the blade, full of killing intent, the huge explosion’s flas reflected on his stern face.
Ren, alone with no assistance, escaped from the monster’s clutches, and he was basically unscathed.
"Ren, you actually managed to escape," the alpha closest to Jax was both shocked and overjoyed, "Quick, you have to save the captain."
His words trailed off as he noticed Ren’s expression.
Ren, holding the bloody strange knife, standing against the light, with cold, purple glowing eyes, stood still as he looked back at the alley where Jax was still struggling.
The street lamp cast his long shadow wriggling on the ground, which looked exactly like those strange black hands that had taken Jax away.
The alpha swallowed back the words in his throat.
He understood that Ren wouldn’t take action. Also, the guy himself didn’t dare to go, and thus he had no right to ask Ren, who had just escaped danger, to put himself in danger again.
Suddenly, the guy had a feeling that Ren knew everything— knew all of Jax’s plans, knew Jax’s intentions to harm him. When the incident happened, Ren and Jax were far apart, and Ren was in danger even earlier than Jax, which made it seem like Ren was completely innocent regarding Jax’s death.
Deep down, however, the guy had a vague feeling that Jax’s death had sothing to do with Ren. Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but shudder. But these were words he would never say to anyone, because he knew that man under the night sky, with an indifferent expression, was a demon in the flesh, a person that he shouldn’t provoke.
Jax was trapped and there was a high chance that he was already dead. No one would risk their own peace for a lost soul.
The purple light in Ren’s eyes slowly died out. His icy black gaze focused on the alley ruined by the pulse guns.
The thick black smoke in the alley had receded to its deepest parts. Even with an alpha’s sharp vision, Ren couldn’t see Jax anymore—the latter’s entire body had been swallowed whole. A bloody hand struggled from the last shadow for a mont, desperately trying to grip sothing, only to be grasped by three black hands and pulled back in.
mories flooded Ren of his school days, when he used to sneak to the top of the wall at the alpha academy, reaching out to Jax, "Jax, we’re sneaking out. You coming?"
Back then, although Jax was hesitant, he would always eventually reach back.
"Goodbye, Jax." Ren picked up the map and backpack Jax dropped on the street, gave it a glance, and turned to continue walking.
"Wait, Ren." An alpha ca up to him, "Jax’s gone. You’re leading us now, right?"
"Yeah, Ren. You lead, we’ll follow."
"We’ll listen to you."
All the alphas chid in. Even those who used to be closest to Jax agreed.
"The leader’s gone, we’ll follow your lead."
They all ca from the alpha academy. Like any other young man, they had once admired the easy-going and powerful Ren who had won the championship countless tis with his team mbers.
In recent years, however, following Cass and Jax, those simple young n had gradually stopped valuing power and ability. They learned to suck up, competing in who could please their superiors more.
It was only when they entered the terrifying place, the Polluted Zone, that they rembered the alpha’s instincts, and that strength was an alpha’s survival skill.
A strong leader like Ren, who could travel through the Polluted Zone alone, rescue a blimp full of people, escape unhard from monsters that resembled a muddy swamp with just a knife – that was the leader they truly acknowledged.
"If you want to follow, then keep up." Ren put away his knife and wiped his left hand, stained with fresh blood, on his clothes. The hand that had once touched Jax’s shoulder had traces of revulsant. Even though the blood had washed it clean, Ren always felt sothing sticky there – a trace of his childhood friend’s life.
Ren knew that the alphas behind him still saw him as the passionate young man he once was, and they wanted to get close to him. But he was not that person anymore. He was a madman, a walking ghost stained with blood, walking a road with no future. Anyone involved with him would be sucked into a bottomless whirlpool. His world was pitch black, full of blood.
If there was anyone who had offered him a hint of warmth in these blood-soaked years, it was the beta who had given him a sip of water before his execution on the gallows.
As he moved swiftly forward, Ren felt an inexplicable itch on his ankle, reminding him of the sensation of a certain tendril brushing there, bringing back mories of a pair of bright eyes and a clean face.
Ren hadn’t done anything with her, hadn’t even dared to say a word to her, but even so, he had nearly pulled her into this bloody conflict, which made him feel imnsely guilty.
"She’s a beta, she should be pursued and cherished by alphas, living in a peaceful and safe world. She should never have t soone like . From now on, I won’t think about her, I won’t have any connection with her," Ren thought to himself. Yet a mont later, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of regret: "If I get a chance, I really want to have a proper conversation with her."
...
It was as if rry music was emanating from sowhere. The slowly revolving vortex-like stars in the sky, as if responding to a call, suddenly beca brilliant and bright, spinning with a rainbow of colors. The thick and static sky, like canvas, ca to life at this mont.
On the golden sand beach, wet figures slowly climbed up from the sea floor. These black, damp bodies ford a slow line, one by one, heading towards the deserted, brightly lit streets.
"What’s happening?"
"What’s going on?"
alphas under the starry sky watched the sudden change in the world, asking anxiously.
"It’s the ’night’," Ren looked at the night sky above, his brows furrowed, speaking in a low voice. "’The Night’ has co early."
"How can that be? We still have plenty of ti."
"How can it co early?"
"Why is this happening? If we want to leave now, it won’t be easy."
The alphas began to panic. Everyone knew that when the ’night’ fell, all the sleeping monsters would awaken. This place would beco a "living" world.
Surviving the ’night’ in the Polluted Zone, even for an alpha, was extrely perilous.
"Move." Ren lowered his center of gravity, pushing off his toes, running at full speed along the gradually brightening street.
As he ran, he couldn’t help but wonder, "That beta, has she already left? Those alphas, can they protect her?"
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