Chapter 51: Colossal Size, Joyful Laughter! [Please add to favorites and recommend]

After leaving the rooftop that afternoon, Li Can went straight to the office building’s property management and managed to get a few business cards for purified water companies. By calling the numbers on the cards and asking if they delivered water to Tianhui Décor, he quickly pinpointed Delu Purified Water Company—the very company where Zhou Chang and his companion worked.

Finding out who delivered water to the Castle School was even simpler. He spun a tale about being an insider at the school and asked to confirm water delivery times directly with the person in charge. With the company’s address and the identity of the school’s water delivery contact clear, the next step was easy: call a rideshare, discreetly follow the van, and it would lead him straight to the Castle School.

The only complication was the security check at the school’s back gate, which meant Li Can had to get out of the car ahead of time and sneak in over the nearby wall. What troubled him most was the long stretch from the back gate to the designated delivery point—unlike Zhou Chang, he couldn’t just drive in openly.

So when Li Can finally tracked down the van, he arrived just in time to witness a monster overturning it. Motivated by both humanitarian spirit and a certain kinship, he couldn’t simply watch Zhou Chang and his colleague be devoured—so he stepped in without hesitation and killed the creature.

What he hadn’t expected was that the same punch that had barely managed to blow apart “Liu Huadong’s” head before now utterly pulverized this little creature—reducing it, quite literally, to a puddle of sludge. Disposing of such a thing without a shovel would be impossible.

“Who would’ve thought that after absorbing the black vapor, the power of the white flame would become so terrifying,” Li Can murmured, licking his lips. Seeing black vapor start to billow from the meat sludge, he quickly controlled the white flame to form a vortex and draw all the vapor into himself.

“There’s much less than with ‘Liu Huadong’—must be because this creature was weaker.” He shook his head in disappointment, glancing around. Many windows in the once pitch-dark castle complex were now lit, likely because the commotion had drawn the attention of other monsters.

Though Li Can knew he was some sort of formidable agent of the gods, he was largely in the dark about what that meant. The school reeked of danger and the uncanny, and he didn’t believe that a single white flame would be enough to let him run wild here.

His original plan was simply to sneak in and “borrow” some ingredients, not to seize them by force.

After stowing away the white flame and picking up the black-bound book that had fallen nearby, he finally strolled unhurriedly to the overturned van and knocked on the roof.

Bang bang—

“Can the van still drive?”

Zhou Chang was too scared to speak, unable to tell if the young man was friend or foe.

Bang bang—

“If no one answers, I’m leaving. You can stay and wait for death yourselves,” came Li Can’s voice from outside, followed by footsteps departing.

Panic seized Zhou Chang—clearly, the stranger had no intention of killing them. He shouted, “W-wait!”

“So damn indecisive,” Li Can’s voice replied.

Suddenly, Zhou Chang let out a strange cry—the young man had single-handedly righted the van!

One person? Was he even human?

Bang bang—

“What are you waiting for? Start the engine,” Li Can said, seeing Zhou Chang sitting inside, stunned, and knocked on the window.

“Oh, right!”

Thank goodness Zhou Chang hadn’t dislocated his right arm; otherwise, even if the van could start, he wouldn’t have gotten far. He needed his right hand to shift gears—the left couldn’t reach.

Vroom—

The engine roared to life, better than expected.

Without another word, Li Can circled to the van’s left side, about to open the sliding door when a sharp whistling cut the air behind him. His pupils contracted—he barely managed to turn before something black struck his chest, sending him flying over ten meters to land motionless on the ground.

It was only then that Zhou Chang, sitting in the driver’s seat, snapped out of it and looked out the left window. There, standing in the middle of the road, was the all-too-familiar security guard!

Worse still, though he was still wearing the security uniform, the shirt was full of holes—barbed tentacles wriggled in the air from within. His hands too had become tentacles, only longer and thicker than the rest. It was one of these massive tentacles that had struck the young man.

They were all monsters!

Despair overwhelmed Zhou Chang; he had no will left to resist.

The security guard took a stride forward, his shoes bursting open to reveal monstrous feet. Each step, sharp, hooked claws gouged into the ground.

“You actually killed the youngling!” the monster security guard roared, his face twisted with rage as he glanced at the puddle of sludge. Retracting his right tentacle, he thrust it toward Zhou Chang with lethal speed.

Swish swish—

At the same time, two thin dark shadows shot from the darkness—one piercing the tentacle, the other aimed straight at the monster’s brow!

The monster, in pain and unable to dodge, brought up another tentacle to block the shadow, but it was still pierced and the shadow struck his brow, sinking deep into bone.

Had the tentacle not absorbed most of the force, the shadow might have gone clean through his head!

The security guard pulled the hard object from his brow with another tentacle and peered at it—a black scale the size of a fingernail.

Alien scale?

That was a substance only their kind possessed! And the dark energy lingering on it was strong, suggesting its owner in life had been of high rank—not someone ordinary humans could deal with.

He looked at the human he’d knocked flying. The man, apart from grimacing and rubbing his chest, was completely unharmed!

Impossible. That blow was enough to kill a bull, yet it hadn’t killed a frail human?

Meanwhile, Li Can’s back was soaked in cold sweat. Had he not taped the two pieces of cartilage from “Liu Huadong’s” body to himself before leaving home that morning, he’d probably be dead now.

“Damn… that was close.”

He regulated his breathing, waiting for the pain to subside, then let out a long breath and locked eyes with the monster security guard.

“Who are you?” the guard demanded. Except for reverting to his monstrous body, his head remained unchanged, and his voice was much clearer than “Liu Huadong’s.”

Li Can didn’t answer. Instead, he drew a small black knife from his belt—the very cleaver that had been corroded by black liquid and had served him so well.

“A dark core! You actually used one of our clan’s dark cores to upgrade a lousy knife!” the security guard exclaimed in horror.

Dark core? Li Can frowned slightly. So that black liquid in the tumor was a dark core…

“Not bad. It works well—makes slicing meat easy.”

“So it died terribly at your hands, then!” As the guard spoke, his head began to change. Bone spurs jutted from his scalp, his eyes turned pitch black, his face hollowed, and his forehead bulged as if something were crawling inside.

The terrifying sight would chill anyone to the bone.

Inside the van, Zhou Chang was scared out of his wits. But when he glanced at the young man beside him, he saw not fear, but a strange, inexplicable excitement!

Of course, he would never know that in those brief moments, Li Can had already come up with several ways to cook this monster.

Moreover,

“With a creature this size… I could eat for three days at least.”

(To be continued…)