Bear School Astartes

Henrik felt a bit relieved when he pulled the trigger of the Hunter’s Firearm.

Although he had no idea what was happening now, fortunately, he had just switched to mercury bullets, and the gun muzzle was already aimed at the forehead of the beast-transformed patient.

A flash of gunfire, no matter what...

However, before the young hunter’s relief faded, it was immediately followed by astonishment!

"Aow!"

He did hit the beast-transformed patient in front of him, but on one hand, he underestimated the vitality of a severely beast-transformed patient; on the other hand, he underestimated the limb deformity caused by this rapid transformation.

The beast-transformed patient who just a moment ago still maintained a basic human cranial appearance, now had a skull that elongated forward, resembling a wolf!

Henrik’s shot during such a skull deformity only hit the tip of the upper jaw.

It smashed its upper jaw along with part of its nose!

For a normal beast, such an injury would basically be equivalent to not being able to survive, but the beasts of Yan’an have never been normal.

The beast-transformed patient with a deformed wolf head had half of its upper jaw blown off by a shot.

But it remained fierce and violent!

Pushing off the ground with one claw, it was about to pounce on Henrik, who had just fired a shot and hadn’t yet retracted his arm.

"Move!"

Suddenly, a shout came from behind Henrik, and immediately his body was pushed aside.

The beast-transformed patient that lunged forward did bite into something, making a ’snap’ sound.

But it wasn’t human flesh, it was Mark’s flamethrower!

At this critical moment, Mark could only shove Henrik aside, and because of their relative positions, he used the hand holding the One-Handed Sword to push.

So there was only the flamethrower left to use.

The flamethrower, resembling an enlarged iron perfume bottle, was directly stuffed into the half-jawed mouth of the beast-transformed patient!

Bonemarrow and sharp teeth still wounded Mark’s hand through the glove.

But the Church Hunter merely frowned, and amidst the screech of metal and teeth clenching, he pressed the flamethrower’s trigger with force.

High-temperature flames exploded from the beast’s mouth, and that orange-red flame spread along the hollow, emaciated body, eventually even spraying out from the exposed ribs of the beast-transformed patient!

The beast whimpered and roared under the flames, its indistinct voice sounded both human and beastlike.

Yet it was precisely this ambiguous state between the two that was all the more nauseating and terrifying.

Henrik, who had just been pushed aside, quickly steadied himself and swiftly approached again.

The saw cleaver in his hands chopped into the beast’s waist that was still blazing, amidst the sounds of its serrations cutting bone, activating the transformable weapon’s mechanism.

With a ’snap’, sparks flashed as the force of the unfolding cleaver added to the hunter’s sweeping strike.

[Transformation Slash] severed the beast in two at the waist!

Then Henrik adeptly raised the Hunter’s Firearm, firing a ’boom’ at the beast-transformed patient’s head!

The beast-transformed patient, its head blown off by the mercury bullet, finally released Mark’s hand and the flamethrower from its jaws. The corpse fell to the ground with a ’thud’.

"Hiss!"

Because the corpse fell directly to the ground, causing the hand and flamethrower to be yanked out from its mouth, Mark drew a sharp breath.

His hand now bore not only the scratches from bones and teeth but also burns from using a flamethrower at close range in a confined space.

The gloves on his hands and the sleeves of his coat were now burnt and stuck to his skin.

But this wasn’t a big deal.

Henrik shook the blood and fur from the saw cleaver, pulled out a blood vial from under his coat, and jabbed it into Mark.

"What the hell is going on." Henrik cursed under his breath, still shaken, as he lifted his head, scanning the outside of the alley with suspicion.

The continuous beastly roars were still echoing, showing no sign of abating.

"I don’t know."

The precious blood vial was drained and shattered on the damp cobblestone, Mark involuntarily showed an expression of enjoyment, tilting his head as he spoke.

But he quickly reverted to his usual aloof demeanor, tearing off the gloves and sleeve scorched onto his skin, and asked seriously.

"And that beast-transformed patient just now... have you seen anything like it? I mean its eyes."

"Never seen it." Henrik answered without hesitation, as if the question required no thought. "A beast-transformed patient with glowing red eyes, who leaves luminous trails in the dark with just a shake of its head, I’ve never heard of it either!"

"And evolving the disease to such a severe stage in the blink of an eye... what kind of creepy horror story is this?"

Horror story.

Mark remained silent, letting Henrik’s words echo in his mind.

The young man, newly inducted into the Church Hunters, walked to the alley entrance and stood beside his companion, looking at the still chaotic Yan’an filled with beastly howls, which had turned from dead silent to chaotic.

In an originally pitch-black sky with only a round moon above, orange-red lights had now appeared in many directions.

These weren’t some strange celestial phenomena; the light emanated from the ground, reflecting into the sky... that was a fire!

In Yan’an, fire hazards are a common calamity.

After all, beasts fear fire, and since ancient times, Yan Nan People plagued by the beast transformation disease tend to neurotically store combustibles at home to fend off potential beast-transformed intruders.

As if they’d rather burn to death by fire than fall victim to the beast-transformed patients.

But the fire has already developed so obviously in such a short time... What is the Church doing?

The weak and powerless Good Golden Cup Church aside, in Mark’s heart, the Healing Church should have stepped in to control it by now.

This night... might truly be more terrifying than a ghost story.

Inexplicably, this absurd thought arose in Mark’s mind.

"So many fires... where exactly is the source of the fire?!"

Henrik mumbled sullenly under his mask.

"I don’t know," Mark replied while checking his flamethrower, finding that only the fuel canister was a bit dented. "But we need to save people now. Let’s find the nearest fire and beasts, and go."

The cold fog that originally covered the ground at night now seemed to vanish under the firelight, and the young hunters quickly stepped out of the alley.

Only the corpses of beastly patients were left behind, their foul-smelling blood making the stone brick ground even more damp.

-----------------

Mark and Henrik weren’t idiots; just from the sudden transformation of the first beastly patient after that eerie silence, they already knew something remarkable must be happening in Yan’an now.

But even exhausting the imagination of these two young hunters, they never would have thought... things would develop to this extent.

"Breathe!"

Henrik shouted under his mask, extending his hand backward and making a pressing gesture.

"Bend down and keep breathing, or you’ll choke to death!"

Behind him was a group of citizens, still wearing pajamas or even bare-chested.

These people were as panicked and fearful as newborn chicks. So much so that even following the ’ominous’ hunters, they had no complaints.

Mark was at the very back of the group, covering their retreat.

How could things... how did they turn out like this?

In the eyes caught between the triangular hat and mask, even with the calm indifference of a Yan Nan Hunter, an indescribable panic and helplessness could be seen.

This fire, with no known source, was burning too fiercely and too quickly.

And even now... no one was coming to take charge!

Forget the Good Golden Cup Church, whose prestige had long collapsed under the blow of the Grey Blood Disease, but what about the Healing Church?

Weren’t they supposed to manage Yan’an better?!

"Boom! Bang!!"

On both sides of the street, the roaring flames stirred the air, followed by a burst of ear-piercing explosion!

Henrik first covered his head with his arms, then looked up after the noise passed.

On the third floor of the street-side building, the brick outer wall bulged outward from the impact of internal explosions.

No need to guess, the residents there must have stored a lot of flammable materials in their rooms.

Outside of Yan’an, such people would be considered maniacs, dangerous elements. But in Yan’an, it’s quite normal.

Henrik turned his head and nodded to Mark at the end of the group, indicating that there was no problem.

Yes, spreading fires and sudden explosions, while dangerous, were not very serious problems for hunters with superhuman physiques and reflexes.

The truly serious issue was...

"Hey, are you alright? The explosion is over; we need to get through here quickly. Make haste!"

Among the people rescued by the two young hunters, a plump woman still wearing a lace-edged nightcap, kindly asked a girl beside her as she followed Henrik forward.

The girl looked about fourteen or fifteen years old, seemingly scared stiff by the explosion. Even as everyone continued moving forward, she still held her head with her hands, trembling all over, muttering something under her breath.

The plump woman approached her, seemingly intending to pat her shoulder or hug her, offering comfort through gestures.

But at this moment, Mark at the back of the line suddenly shouted amidst the flickering firelight.

"Don’t go near her! Stay away...!"

Before he even finished saying ’stay away from her,’ the girl, who had been curled up, seemingly terrified, suddenly looked up and screamed.

But that sound was not an ordinary scream a scared girl would make... It was the scream of a beast!

"Awoooo!!!"

The mutation completed in an extremely short time; dense black fur burst forth from the girl’s body, her form elongating and twisting amid the bone-cracking sounds that would make one’s teeth ache.

Her flesh, during this process, was even squeezed into a mash of meat and blood froth, erupting into a blood-red mist as she howled!

Everything happened too fast.

No precursor, no time for anyone to react.

The beastly patient among the crowd transformed from appearing indistinguishable from an ordinary person into the late stages of the Beastly Disease in the blink of an eye!

It howled and, like tearing apart a paper doll, shredded the people around it with just a wave of its hand!

It was only then that Mark, at the back, just barely arrived.

"Monster!"

He shouted through gritted teeth while the one-handed sword in his hand was already slotted back into the hammer’s grip on his back.

The muscles on both hands bulged, and the Church Stone Hammer "thud!!!" came down with a muffled sound, driving the beastly patient’s upper body, which had just killed people, straight into the ground.

The stone-brick street of Yan’an was left with a radiating spiderweb-like crack where Mark’s hammer had struck.

The beastly patient who had just transformed into a beast now had its sticky flesh and black fur smeared over the face of the stone hammer.