The falling rain seemed to be prevented by an invisible hand in an inconspicuous part of the tower, altering its course from all angles.

A shadow resembling shattered glass arose out of thin air, followed by the lime form of Yeh'kull. She was looking for something.

This "hunting ground" did not appeal to the warrior. It poured every time she came. There were mishaps every time she visited.

The surrounding area had been carefully scoured; it had taken her a little longer than normal to get rid of a few escaping face-huggers. Only one remained, most likely sheltering amid the debris near the ship.

She felt disoriented; her head may have been damaged during the crash landing.

Yeh’kull had just received another communication from the mother ship. The elders would arrive soon and express their dissatisfaction with her progress.

Calm the F down. Yeh’kull was about to begin her "blood test". This accident was merely an appetizer.

She adjusted her bio-chemical mask and spotted a faint heat signature, indicating one primitive chemical energy transport widely used by local humans.

The vehicle stopped not too far from her ship. Fortunately, the cloaking device was still factional. Unless the vehicle ran into the hull, humans couldn’t detect it with their naked eyes.

The three humans stepped out of the vehicle and paused for a moment, as if arguing. Then one of them pointed to a smelting facility not far away.

Yeh’kull Look past that direction. She adjusted her vision and detected a smaller source of heat. Intrigued, she jumped all the way down the building to find a human youngling strapped up next to a remote-controlled explosive device. The device was quite crude, but it was more than enough to kill an unarmed youngling. Yeh’kull felt sick; no matter how primitive a civilization, it was a universal belief that murdering younglings was unforgivable, a crime.

She looked at the three people again and found traces of a face-hugger outside a building not far from them.

According to the "hunter" code, Yeh’kull should not reveal herself to the humans, but if they came for the "baby", then she was obliged to help.

If not, she would take a few spoils along the way.

* * *

"Come, there’s something."

Echo Wang and Byron Gong tightened their raincoats and rushed toward the sound. They found Deschamps Ma checking around an empty minivan. "Look familiar?"

"I've seen this car before. It parked outside my apartment this morning and took up my parking space."

Deschamps remained silent. He went for the exhaust pipe and touched it. "Still warm. It's been here for a while."

Byron reached out and pulled the door, but was stopped by a furious Deschamps. "What the hell? You’ll mass up the fingerprints!"

Byron took back his hand, abashed. Then he took a screwdriver out of his bag. "Let’s deflate the tires first."

"Wait a minute! You idiot! It's not right; something is fishy here."

"What? Do you mean Bart?" Echo's voice trembled.

"Hard to say. But no matter who’s behind this, the car was just in plain sight. When the suspect has the money, wouldn’t he or she be running?"

The three of them were all looking at each other in dismay, puzzled.

"Let's go to the No. 6 blast furnace first. Maybe that scum is frightened and has run away already." Byron bellowed.

The three men turned around and advanced along the hot-blast stove towards the furnace.

"You two go ahead; I’ll cover the back." Deschamps whispered.

"Why, Captain Ma, are you afraid of danger?" Byron said it indifferently but moved on nonetheless.

"Shut up. I'll take the lead, satisfied?" Echo made several steps to the front.

"No, brother-in-law......" Just as Byron was going to make a point, he saw Deschamps take out an electric baton from the waist bag with such dexterity for his age, swinging backward.

In the blink of an eye, the baton seemed to be blocked by an invisible force and stopped in midair. Deschamps felt that his hands were strained and confused. He subconsciously pressed the button and lit up the falling raindrops with blue electric arcs. The three men were shocked to see a tall, bipedal figure emerging out of thin air, first like a large piece of broken glass, and then a big guy wearing a “motorcycle helmet" and dressed as a primitive tribal warrior appeared where they had just passed. This warrior was much taller and stronger than Byron, but he did not cover most of his body and only wrapped himself in something like a fishing net.

The warrior crushed the baton with such ease that Deschamps had no choice but to swing the remaining half of the baton toward his opponent's head. He didn't expect that the big warrior could move swiftly like a cat. The warrior swung, dodged his attack, and pushed Deschamps flying with just one big, strong hand.

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Seeing that Deschamps was lying on his back in the mud, Echo and Byron hurried to help him. Echo held up his head and said, "Captain Ma! Captain Ma!”

"Stop that, I’m not fucking dead yet." His eyes were a little out of focus, but he seemed unharmed. "Who do you think you are? You dare to strike me? Don't you know who I am?

At this time, the warrior took a big step and moved in close. Byron took out his screwdriver and said, "Stop now! Elder abuse is a crime here. Let’s dance, motherfucker."

"Hai ngãi là ai?" The warrior’s voice did not sound very human. It was something like computer-generated and came from the "motorcycle helmet".

"This is China. If you want to find some Vietnamese, you have to go southwest." Deschamps struggled to get up.

Echo and Byron looked at him, confused. Deschamps spit out some bloody saliva: "When I were in the army in the 70s, I went to Gaoping and learned several words."

The warrior paused for a moment and asked, "Who are you?”

This time, all of them understood perfectly. The pronunciation was actually quite good. Echo was desperate enough that he could not care more about the obviously bizarre scenario.

"We're here to save my son; he's been kidnapped. Whatever you are, wherever you come from, please help."

* * *

Yeh’kull was quite surprised.

When she got close, she realized that none of the three men were warriors or even in good health. In particular, the one with a brain abnormality actually sensed her presence even when she was in stealth and was able to launch a preemptive attack, damaging her clocking device. Maybe he could be of some use?

As she looked around, she noticed that there were traces of a face-hugger heat signature at the entrance of the next building. It seemed that the time had come. Now she and these humans were in danger.

"... the youngling... up there", She pointed with her left arm at the top of No. 6 blast furnace and said, "There. Danger ahead, you; follow me", she pointed at Deschamps, "inside is one of your kind."

Yeh’kull saw that the three men did not move a muscle, and then they got together and started discussing. She can't wait. The mother ship was coming.

"Now. We must act."

They were startled by her interruption and all shut up. The one who was looking for his son, Echo, walked to the blast furnace, while the other one called “Captain Ma” and the other approached her.

Yeh’kull, relieved that the humans understood her urgency, turned around and went to the Hot-Blast stove. According to sensor readings, that nasty face-hugger was here.

She advanced carefully toward the faint heat, and her wrist blades slid out smoothly.

Next to the heat source, she found the now-dead face-hugger, then a mutilated human corpse.

"Fuck, what's that bloody smell?" The young one shouted behind her.

Yeh’kull and the other human approached, and she lit the corpse with a beam of light from her mask.

"Who the hell is this? He got ripped open or something?" Captain Ma covered his nose and crouched down to examine the corpse. The dead human had a desperate expression. One eye opened with a wild expression, while the other half closed. "If I’m not mistaken, this is Erised Song, former general manager of the Steel City factory. The wound wasn’t caused by an external force. It seemed to have exploded from inside out. You can find the body’s fractured sternum; it's broken outward."

"Thank God that my brother-in-law did not come in here; otherwise, he would have seasonal nausea again." The younger human didn’t come close. "Erised? What's that son of a bitch doing here? Isn't he in jail?"

Deschamps forced himself to look again. "Was he eaten by a wolf? Intestines are all gone.. Then he found a strange object near the body, like a remote control for a toy car, with something taped to it. He picked it up and squinted.

"Bombs. youngling..." Yeh’kull pointed to the device and raised her arm outside.

At this time, a strange squeaking sound came from somewhere outside; it was a combination of a pig and an elephant in pain, making one's hair stand on end.

Yeh’kull tensed immediately, looking around in alertness.

"Shit! Dame you, Erised! Byron, hurry up and take this; find Echo. I have a bad feeling about this."

* * *

Deschamps saw Byron rush out of the building, then pick up a long, thin steel bar from the ground. He felt like he was being targeted by a gun, and years of experience just warned him: danger was near.

He caught a glimpse of that strange warrior; she was tall but nimble. Before anyone knew it, the warrior's right arm held out two sharp blades, and even in the dim light, there was a cold flash.

With a gust of wind blowing on his right side, he crouched down and rolled to the side. Then he looked up and saw something he would never forget in his life.

An almost pure black beast, or monster, had burst out of the darkness like a nightmare, running towards the warrior with long arms and sharp claws like hawk's, as if to tear her up. Instead of backing off, the warrior stepped forward and, looking for a right moment, swung her left fist and struck the beast's long black head right on; the beast, flight backward by the blow, then twisted in the air, landed on the ground with all four, its shining back sticks stood up, and its bony spear-like black tail was swinging back and forth, sweeping stones and mantel scraps on the ground.

Yeh’kull turned to the beast and made a peculiar sound, as if she were urging the beast on; it was not a sound that humans could make.

The black beast responded. Its upper and lower lips roll back, revealing silvery, almost transparent teeth and dribbled mucus. Then the sharp teeth opened; out of it wasn't a tongue. Instead, it was a tongue with two rows of spike-like teeth.

Deschamps was drenched in cold sweat right now; he couldn’t move his muscles. He never thought that at this age, he would be able to experience something even more exciting than being on the vice squad.

Fast like a cat, the beast turned around and swept the stones and mantels from the ground to the warrior with its tail. The latter covered her head with both arms, surprised by the trick. The beast, which seemed to have black, ragged bones all over its body, knocked the warrior to the ground, plunging the tip of its tail toward the warrior’s head like a spear. Wrist blades flashed, she moved in time, the tail was immediately cut off, and yellow-green blood spurted out. The warrior pushed the beast off, rolled over to one side, got up quickly, then leapt into the air, raised her right arm, and launched a deadly blow.

The black beast threw its mutilated tail forward, and a large glop of yellow-green blood flew out, hitting her mask. Yeh’kull, surprised by the attack, shouted and fell to the ground. The beast jumped on her again. It held the warrior's arms tightly with both hands and aimed her forehead with its big mouth open.

In the split second, Deschamps rushed forward, plunging the steel bar through the beast’s upper torso and driving it off Yeh’kull. Without delay, she thrust her blades into the beast's eyeless head.

It broke free in a shrieking screech. Deschamps had to cover his ears. This nightmarish creature would never have been born naturally. It must have been created by some lunatics.

The black beast stumbled out of the stove, yellow-green blood spilling along the way. It fell in the rain, and smoke rose from the body. The beast raised its head and howled for the last time, as if asking for help. Then it stopped moving.

Deschamps, still in shock, realized that there was a smoky sulfur smell in the hot blast stove. Yeh’kull stood up, looking all right except for some scratches on her armor and stains of yellow-green on the mask.

So Deschamps went out of the stove with her. Looking up, he spotted Echo and Byron, not far from the top of the furnace.

Alas, this crazy day was finally coming to an end.

It was then that a deafening roar came from behind. The ground was shaking, literally.