The captain lowered his eyes, pondering: This wedding was obviously abnormal. The guests were likely all weirds, and the main couple probably wasn’t human either. He just didn’t know the purpose of this wedding.
The music played, and the newlyweds made their entrance.
The team member looked toward the entrance and jolted upon seeing them. “Captain, it’s the Landlord’s daughter and son-in-law!”
The captain looked over. Sure enough, approaching were the Landlord family members from the photos they’d seen.
“Weren’t they fully mutated?” the team member wondered. “But they look completely human now.”
The bride wore a pure white wedding dress, her exposed arms smooth and white, without the bugs the guests had.
The groom was the same.
“Don’t act rashly.”
“I know, Captain.”
The emcee stood at the front, smiling as the couple approached.
But that smile looked utterly eerie no matter how one saw it.
It was an indescribable feeling.
Indeed, as the newcomers took the stage, the emcee’s smile grew wider and wider on his face. His mouth split all the way to his ears, and wriggling black bugs crawled out one after another from under the torn skin.
The captain turned his head and was horrified to discover that the other guests were the same.
The guests drooled as they stared at the newcomers, as if looking at a delicious meal.
“Save them first!” The captain dashed onto the stage in one bound, grabbed the two newcomers, and ran.
His team members followed right behind.
After running for a while, the captain felt the resistance growing greater and greater. No, it wasn’t resistance—the people he was pulling were getting heavier and heavier.
Were the things he was pulling really people?
Almost at the same moment this thought arose, he heard his team member’s stunned voice.
“Captain, they, they’re…”
The captain looked back and was horrified to see that what he was pulling weren’t the bride and groom at all, but two massive coffins covered in sharp spikes!
The captain let go at once, but the thing stuck to his hand like glue—he couldn’t shake it off.
“Captain!”
One of the coffins suddenly turned around. The team member failed to dodge in time and was engulfed by the coffin in one gulp.
The captain stopped in his tracks and activated his supernatural ability.
Wind blades sawed through the wood stuck to his hand. The moment he broke free, the captain rushed to save his companion.
The coffin lid was sawed open, and the person inside tumbled out amid a mess of sticky slime. The team member broke free and immediately activated his supernatural ability, attacking the coffin.
Under their combined assault, the coffin shattered into fragments.
More guests surged toward them.
The two didn’t fight head-on but dodged all around.
Their connection to the outside world was intermittent, and they had no time to report the details—only a rough overview.
Supernatural ability usage had its limits, but the guests kept coming endlessly. For every one they eliminated, two more appeared. The pair gradually ran out of strength.
“This won’t do,” the team member said after killing an approaching guest, panting for breath. “Captain, I’ll hold them off. Use your wind-type ability to boost your speed and get out of here first!”
“You want me to abandon you and run away on my own?” the captain roared. “We’re not at that point yet! Don’t do anything stupid!”
With so many guests, even the two of them were struggling. He didn’t even want to imagine what would happen to his companion if he left.
“My supernatural ability is stronger than yours. If anyone’s leaving, it should be you first!”
The two drew close, back-to-back, as they struck down the guests.
He didn’t know how much time passed or how many guests they killed, but their supernatural abilities were depleted, and their movements grew slower and slower.
They knew they couldn’t hold out much longer.
“Captain,” the team member swallowed the blood in his mouth, “I have just enough strength left for one last 【Aurora】. Find your opening and run!”
“No!”
But it was already too late.
Intense light gathered on the team member. The C-rank supernatural ability 【Aurora】 came at the cost of overdrawing his life, enough to destroy everything around him.
By the time Lin Juan and the others arrived, this was the scene they saw.
In the midst of the surging crowd of heads, a brilliant light flared up.
“Hurry, stop him!” Sheng Tianzong, who knew exactly what this meant, activated his supernatural ability.
Under the pressure of the A-rank supernatural ability, the light’s explosive momentum slowed temporarily.
Then, it gradually dimmed.
The team member spat out a mouthful of blood with a “wah.” Though gravely injured, his life was saved.
Raging flames swept through the guests, and Lin Juan heard the crackling sounds.
When the flames died down, Lin Juan smelled the scent of completely burned wood.
With the crisis resolved, an ability user helped the captain, who had collapsed on the ground, to his feet.
Seeing the reinforcements arrive, the captain’s taut nerves snapped. He slumped against his comrade in exhaustion. “Go check on Xiao Qiao quick!”
Xiao Qiao was the ability user who had nearly self-destructed—his full name was Qiao Shuang. He wasn’t very old, so everyone called him Xiao Qiao.
Xiao Qiao’s condition wasn’t good. His supernatural ability was severely overdrawn, and his pollution value had spiked to the limit. Zhuang Yufeng immediately treated him.
Otherwise, he would have turned into a pollutant before he even died.
Fortunately, after his rebirth, he had diligently trained his supernatural ability. With memories from his past life, he wielded it with ease. Ten minutes later, the pollution in Xiao Qiao’s body was purified to a safe level.
Lin Juan and the others also learned about their ordeal from the captain.
“It was the Landlord Family again.” The ones Lin Juan and his group had encountered were also the Landlord Family.
The Forest Cabin had surely devoured more than just the Landlord Family, so why were both weird phenomena they ran into connected to the Landlord Family?
Lin Juan pondered the link between the two.
He didn’t know about the others that had been devoured, but the Landlord Family had been swallowed after mutating into weird phenomena. Could that be the key?
Lin Juan made a mental note of it, planning to discuss it with the Anomalous Affairs Bureau after they got out. For now, their main goal was to find the people and figure out how to destroy the Forest Cabin.
“Captain Sheng, how did you find us?” Ability users were tough. After a short rest, the captain had recovered somewhat. “We didn’t run into a single comrade the whole way.”
“Mr. Lin brought us here.”
The information from the captain had been incomplete. They only knew he was at the wedding of the Landlord Family’s daughter—a weird hybrid that Lin Juan had threatened into revealing the location.
“How did Mr. Lin know?” The captain was a rigid man. He’d only heard rumors about Lin Juan, who dealt with weird phenomena often. He didn’t think anyone could handle them so casually.
Lin Juan’s methods were too bizarre.
Just the fact that he could communicate with weird phenomena was enough to raise suspicions.
The captain even wondered if Lin Juan’s sudden rise was tied to some faction, or if someone was artificially creating a god.
Or perhaps Lin Juan himself had some connection to the weird phenomena?
He believed plenty of others shared his suspicions, but Director Liu and the others were suppressing it—no one dared voice them.
Detecting the doubt in his words, Sheng Tianzong warned coldly, “Kang Zhenghao!”
Gu Kai glanced at Lin Juan, saw no reaction, and smoothed things over. “Old Kang, Mr. Lin naturally has his ways. Why do you have to dig into everything?”
His words carried a warning not to pry further.
“You want to know how I knew?” Lin Juan walked over, beckoned, and the wood rope trailing far behind them whooshed over. With a boom, it hurled the bound weird hybrid right in front of Kang Zhenghao.
Whether by accident or design, a grotesquely twisted face landed directly in Kang Zhenghao’s line of sight.
Caught off guard by the distorted, unrecognizable face, Kang Zhenghao drew a deep breath and nearly cried out.
“There, I asked it,” Lin Juan said, giving Kang Zhenghao a deep look before sincerely suggesting, “If there’s anything you want to know, you can ask them too.”
“As for whether you’ll get an answer,” Lin Juan added, “that I can’t guarantee.”
To get the accurate locations of Kang Zhenghao and Xiao Qiao, Lin Juan had beaten the weird hybrid several times.
Kang Zhenghao was left speechless.
“Alright, Old Kang, quit overthinking. We still need to rescue the others.”
After a few beatings, the weird hybrid had become much more obedient, answering whatever was asked without any tricks.
At first, Lin Juan had considered leaving the thing outside, but the wood rope refused. While Lin Juan was inside the house, it had sneaked along behind him like a guilty dog, startling several ability users.
“Mr. Lin, how about letting it follow us?” Gu Kai suggested cautiously.
Otherwise, its sudden appearances were really frightening!
Lin Juan said nothing.
The wood rope shrank back a little, as if trying to hide.
Fine.
Lin Juan spoke up. “Follow along then.”
With permission granted, the wood rope swayed leisurely behind Lin Juan.
Lin Juan had also considered just asking the wood rope about the ability users’ whereabouts directly, but at that moment, it acted like an idiot—clueless to every question.
When they found the second group of ability users, they were in pretty bad shape too, though the injuries weren’t severe. They couldn’t contact the others and relied entirely on the weird hybrid’s directions.
When they located the third group, Lin Juan eyed the coffins before him uncertainly. “The people are inside?”
The tip of the wood rope curved, as if nodding.
Alright then. Take them along first.
Gu Kai and another ability user hoisted the coffin onto their backs. They had no idea how the people inside were doing, and both felt heavy-hearted.
Soon after, they found several more groups turned into coffins.
There were too many coffins and not enough manpower, so Lin Juan simply directed the wood rope to extend, wrapping up the coffins and letting them float behind.
The ability users occasionally glanced at the coffins drifting in midair, feeling like they were dreaming.
Once they gathered everyone—or rather, all the coffins—the group returned to the wooden cabin.
The sixteen coffins were neatly arranged inside the cabin. Lin Juan stood at the front, wondering if the people inside were still alive.
They should be alive… right?
“Should we call people in to transport them out first?” Sheng Tianzong frowned. “Or open them directly?”
No one knew if they’d find their comrades or monsters masquerading as comrades once they opened them. After all, they’d heard from Kang Zhenghao about the coffin monsters his group had faced.
“I’ll open them.” Lin Juan placed a hand on one coffin lid.
Just as he was about to act, the extended wood rope nudged over and pushed Lin Juan aside a bit.
Lin Juan was puzzled.
The tip of the wood rope bent, pointing toward an empty spot.
Lin Juan tentatively took two steps that way.
The wood rope bent further.
Lin Juan stopped in the empty area, and the wood rope suddenly thickened and lengthened.
The ability users watching closely shouted, “Mr. Lin, watch out!”
They prepared to counterattack.
With a boom, the wood rope smacked open a coffin lid, reached inside, and pulled out the unconscious person within.
It sprouted two forks, patted the wrapped person up and down, then extended forward until it reached Lin Juan.
In an extremely fawning manner, it placed the unconscious ability user at Lin Juan’s feet.
Seeing no reaction from Lin Juan, it repeated the process, laying out the ability users from the other coffins at his feet as well.
Lin Juan fell silent.
The other ability users also fell silent.
So they really weren’t dreaming?!
