Bear School Astartes

The upper body of the beast-transformed patient was smashed into pulp by Hunter’s angry hammer.

Only the hind claws remained, twitching on the damp ground due to their tenacious life force, making a ’pat pat’ sound as the nails hit the ground.

Henrik turned around and rushed over a second later.

He was walking at the front, so when the incident happened, he had to turn around, delaying him by a second.

But both Hunter and Henrik had grim expressions on their faces.

Even though their faces were covered by masks, the displeasure was evident.

"We failed again."

The young Henrik lowered his head, speaking while looking at the scattered remains on the ground.

This was actually the second group of residents they found.

Due to their lack of experience, the people they saved from the first wave ended up being killed by the beast-transformed patients that jumped out from behind, while they were clearing the way in the front.

For the second group they just rescued, they made progress and learned from their mistakes.

One led the way, the other protected the rear, but in the end...

It’s only fair to say that the progress made by the two young hunters on this night was simply too insignificant for this brutal night.

"We..." Henrik was surprised to find that Hunter’s voice carried an indescribable bitterness, "Can we really save anyone?"

Beastly transformation disease.

This ancient disease, which had largely gone unnoticed in Yan’an and even seemed insignificant in the shadow of the Ashen Blood disease, why did it manifest like this tonight?!

Sudden onset without warning, leapfrogging progression of symptoms, the red glow in the patient’s eyes that had never been seen before...

Why today?

Why now?

—What on earth are we experiencing now?!

Hunter gripped the flamethrower in his hand; his mind was a blur, and the grip of the hunter made the metal handle creak.

A building on the street collapsed, unable to bear the weight after the bricks and wood had cracked from the heat.

There was a ’boom’ as an entire wall came crashing down.

Henrik pulled Hunter quickly aside, just narrowly avoiding being crushed by the building’s debris.

But when they turned their eyes, they saw many bodies in the rubble of the building.

Perhaps many families on the street had nowhere else to run and gathered together for refuge.

But perhaps the flames eventually reached them, or maybe, like Henrik and Hunter’s experience, a beast-transformed patient suddenly appeared among the crowd.

In any case, what was presented before Henrik and Hunter was just a tangled, piled heap of human corpses.

"Ah! Ah!"

A dry and feeble voice arose.

A human figure, stripped of skin and fat by the fire, sat up among the heap of human limbs... looking like a skinned, bloody frog.

Henrik and Hunter couldn’t help but gawk with their mouths open, staring dumbfoundedly at this human figure in the blazing ruins.

They knew that this was someone from that group who still had a blood vial. Before dying, they injected themselves, which is why they demonstrated such terrifying survival ability.

But this was also their first time witnessing the other side of [Blood Healing].

An aspect devoid of any sanctity or religious connotation.

That human figure who injected a blood vial had mentally collapsed in the pain of the flames. Unable to speak a coherent word, not even capable of calling out ’save me,’ he just raised his head and let out meaningless whimpers.

All his skin was burned away, and the liquefied fat from the heat streamed down his body, finally sticking his limbs to other corpses, inseparable.

At this point, he still couldn’t die.

Because of [Blood Healing].

Hunter blankly watched him, then dazedly raised the flamethrower in his hand.

Finally, he trembled fiercely, as if it burned his hand, and threw away the weapon in his left hand.

The flamethrower clattered across the ground, thrown far away.

"Calm down, Hunter!" Henrik took off his triangular hat and wiped his eyes hard with his hands.

Even though his face was only exposed through a slit for his eyes, they were reddened and covered with black ash from the smoke.

"Let’s head up! To Church Town! The fire here is getting bigger; we can’t hold on!"

Or rather, they could actually hold on, as they still had a few blood vials on them.

But after seeing that human figure screaming yet unable to die in the flames... they tacitly ’forgot’ this point.

"Save who we can on the way, and retreat upwards!"

Saying this, Henrik pulled the slightly recovered Hunter, and they climbed up a ladder across the street, retreating to the upper reaches of Yan’an.

Church Town.

The Church Town, built by the Healing Church, had a quarantine zone separating it from Yan’an. That was a natural quarantine zone created by the elevation differences along the mountains.

The fires in Yan’an were unlikely to reach up there.

Regardless, Church Town was definitely a good place for refuge now.

"Yes, Church Town." Hunter muttered to himself as he climbed upwards, "We can inform everyone to take refuge in Church Town! Yes! We can!"

The height they reached was now one of the tallest in Yan’an, able to overlook most of the city.

But Mark just glanced back once, then quickly turned his head away.

The city was burning, with houses ablaze everywhere, and flickering flames lifting columns of black smoke.

The smoke drifted upward, finally merging into the dark night sky.

The cries of crows and wild dogs mixed with the sounds of beastly patients, making human screams almost inconspicuous.

"Climb up, Mark! Move quickly!"

Henrik shouted from above.

He had also turned his head to look back while on the vertical ladder, but unlike Mark, he didn’t look away in shock after just a glance.

So he saw more.

—Three patients whose condition had progressed to being fully beastly, climbing with their limbs and glaring with their haunting red eyes!

Fully beastly patients... Henrik had never encountered before!

Let alone having combat experience with these red-eyed enemies!

He considered himself capable of taking on one, maybe.

But now, there were three of them!

"Climb fast! Climb up!"

Henrik shouted, scrambling up the ladder with his hands and feet.

Mark also perked up at this moment, following closely behind Henrik.

Their boots stepped on the vertical ladder, ’thud thud thud’, hurried and tense.

"Almost at the top, just a little more! We can’t fight them on the ladder!"

Henrik stared intently at the end of the ladder, where there was a platform.

Below, the three fully beastly patients with red eyes, their claws digging into the wall as they climbed, and the breaths from their deformed throats were getting closer.

To compete with them in climbing, Henrik never had such an idea.

There was no shaking them off, even visibly about to be caught up.

He only hoped to find a battlefield before being overtaken, unlike this ladder, where even resisting is awkward.

But as Henrik stared straight at the end of the ladder, he suddenly felt a flash of red light, followed by a cold numbness from his chest.

On the opposite side of the climbing ladder, there was a narrow crevice, but Henrik never imagined there was still a beastly patient inside!

Its claw reached through the gap in the ladder, grabbing Henrik’s chest directly!

Yan’an hunters have a swift direct fighting style, favoring light weapons for mobility.

However, in cramped spaces with limited movement... the ’defensive effect’ was hardly noticeable.

Henrik’s eyes glazed over as the beastly patient hidden in the crevice dug a claw, snapping two of his ribs!

With the claw yanked out, broken bone ends were pulled out with it.

In the blink of an eye, Henrik’s chest and front of his pants were soaked with streaming fresh blood.

"Beast!"

Below, Mark’s face was splattered with Henrik’s blood, but he quickly reacted to the incident, cursing and vigorously surging up the ladder!

He sprang upward, reaching the same height as Henrik.

Mark hooked a leg around the ladder side, securing the weakened Henrik with one hand, and thrust his one-handed sword through the ladder gaps with the other.

"Aow!"

The narrow crevice was hard to spot the beastly patient but also prevented it from dodging.

The one-handed sword pierced the cross-point of the patient’s neck and collarbone, eliciting a wail.

Mark simply let go, no longer clinging to his sword.

Meanwhile, the Church Stone Hammer’s head was removed from his back and tossed down the ladder.

The beastly patient closest on the wall was immediately knocked down by the heavy stone hammer.

Mark took a blood vial from his pocket and plunged it into Henrik’s thigh with a squelch.

In less than a breath moment.

Henrik, who had lost focus earlier and couldn’t grasp the ladder, immediately regained spirit.

"You have no weapon now!"

Henrik gasped, re-gripped the ladder on his own, and said to Mark.

"Survive this first."

The young Church Hunter said solemnly, pursed his lips tightly.

Using the delay caused by Mark’s series of actions, they hurried and finally climbed to the end of the ladder.

This was another street, with huge altitude differences between streets being a feature of Yan’an.

But the situation was still not optimistic.

The sounds of claws scraping walls followed closely; Henrik, ready in combat stance, faced the ladder direction they had just climbed from.

Meanwhile, Mark grit his teeth exploring around, hoping to find something on the burning street that could serve as a weapon.