Chapter 10: Awakening in Darkness: The Hetero Beast’s Trap

Drip… drip…

It was the sound of blood falling to the ground, accompanied by the anguished wails of countless people injured.

This was what Liu Xingluo heard as he awoke from his unconscious state.

“What exactly happened?”

Having just awakened from a coma, only to be confronted with a scene resembling a hellish tableau, Liu Xingluo was compelled to recall what had transpired before he lost consciousness.

He was supposed to be heading to work, after all…

Initially, he had boarded this bus, following the route provided by that ‘morally bankrupt’ map (TL Note: A humorous jab at navigation apps that give inconvenient or questionable routes).

The journey had been smooth, devoid of any accidents.

That was until the bus entered the tunnel.

Then, a tremendous commotion erupted all around.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the entire tunnel.

The bus carriage itself seemed to detach from the ground, tumbling uncontrollably.

A powerful impact followed, as if they had plummeted.

He had lost consciousness in that impact, only to wake now.

Fortunately, despite the carriage being warped by the impact, Liu Xingluo had been incredibly lucky, sustaining no significant injuries.

While the force of the collision had left him with some bodily aches, they didn’t appear severe.

At the very least, Liu Xingluo felt nothing abnormal within his body, merely a lingering soreness.

However, the other passengers within the carriage weren’t so fortunate; all had suffered varying degrees of injury due to the impact and the mangled vehicle.

In any case, since he was unharmed, he first needed to find a way to exit the carriage and then assist the others in escaping.

As for what came next, that could wait.

Thankfully, when Liu Xingluo had boarded, he’d chosen a window seat, intending to admire the scenery on his commute and note nearby landmarks for his stop.

The emergency hammer, hanging within the bus, was also conveniently within his reach.

He easily grabbed it, and with a few swift blows, shattered the window, successfully clambering out of the carriage.

His next task was to rescue the injured individuals trapped inside, one by one.

Yet, even before he could begin, Liu Xingluo sensed something amiss with his surroundings.

Typically, tunnels were equipped with lights; even in the event of a collapse or similar accident, some illumination should persist.

However, his surroundings were utterly devoid of light, let alone any discernible source.

The ground beneath his feet also felt wrong; it wasn’t the concrete surface of a road, but rather plain earth.

These myriad anomalies screamed to Liu Xingluo that his current location was not, in fact, a tunnel.

‘Could he actually be underground?’

‘No, that couldn’t be right.’

‘This tunnel had been in use for years; there was no logical reason for it to suddenly collapse into the earth today.’

‘If there had been any indication of a potential road collapse, such an accident would have surely occurred much earlier.’

‘Was it simply a cruel twist of fate, a stroke of terrible luck that this particular accident befell the very bus he took on his first day of work?’

‘If that were truly the case, once he escaped, he would absolutely have to visit a shrine and draw a fortune slip to check his luck.’

“Never mind,” he mused.

“Even if it was an underground space, it wouldn’t hinder his efforts to save people.”

“Moreover, judging by the other vehicles that had fallen with them, this subterranean area seemed quite vast.”

“He would rescue the people first, and then figure out if he could contact the outside world for help.”

Just as Liu Xingluo prepared to resume his rescue efforts, a peculiar sound from his surroundings captured his attention.

‘What was that sound? It seemed to be some kind of mechanical noise.’

Not only did the mechanical whirring reach him, but also the thud of heavy footsteps.

From the sound alone, he could deduce that the creature’s weight must be considerable, its size undoubtedly immense.

Since there was no light source, his surroundings were plunged into absolute darkness.

Even though he could hear the creature’s movements, Liu Xingluo still couldn’t pinpoint its exact location.

He had no choice but to activate his phone’s flashlight, hoping to reveal the identity of this mysterious presence.

The very next second after he switched on his flashlight, the creature’s true form was unveiled before Liu Xingluo’s eyes.

It was a creature standing five meters tall, covered in blue fur, and resembling a mole.

However, unlike a mole, where its nose should have been, there was a rapidly spinning drill.

Hetero Beast (TL Note: ‘异生兽,’ Yìshēngshòu, a monstrous creature often found in sci-fi/fantasy settings, typically hostile)!!!

The instant he saw it, Liu Xingluo immediately understood what it was.

After all, no creature on Earth naturally possessed a drill for a nose.

Only a Hetero Beast could be formed in such a manner.

If the bus he had been on had fallen underground due to the actions of a Hetero Beast, then everything suddenly made sense.

With a drill like that, it would be entirely plausible for it to excavate a passage leading deep beneath the surface.

Yet, something still felt odd.

From what he knew, Hetero Beasts typically caused ‘fissures’ (TL Note: ‘裂隙,’ lièxì, dimensional rifts or spatial cracks) before their appearance.

Upon detecting such fissures, the city’s alarm systems would activate, alerting people to evacuate to shelters to escape the creatures.

How, then, had this Hetero Beast before him managed to manifest in this world without triggering any alarms?

Before Liu Xingluo could ponder further, the drill-nosed mole-like creature lunged at him, its spinning drill hurtling towards him, clearly intent on piercing through his body in a single strike.

However, Liu Xingluo’s reflexes were swift; a quick side-roll allowed him to evade the drilling attack.

‘Unlucky, unlucky, unlucky, unlucky.’

‘He had barely clawed his way back from the gates of hell yesterday, only to encounter this predicament today.’

‘It seemed his recent luck was truly abysmal.’

The thought of yesterday’s absurd events, coupled with today’s misfortune of falling into a Hetero Beast’s trap, brought a throbbing headache to Liu Xingluo.

Whom had he offended to attract such an unbroken string of bad luck?

‘Oh, well, no matter,’ he sighed.

‘For now, he needed to focus on how to survive against this Hetero Beast.’

‘An ordinary person, without specialized weaponry, simply possessed no power to fight a Hetero Beast.’

‘And he was clearly no superhuman capable of easily slaying such a foe alone.’

‘His only option was to constantly maneuver and evade until rescue arrived.’

Turning back to the drill-nosed mole-like creature, its previous strike had missed.

Typically, it would have continued its pursuit of Liu Xingluo until he was thoroughly dealt with.

Whether it was due to dismissing the seemingly weak Liu Xingluo, or simply believing he couldn’t escape this underground space, the drill-nosed mole-like creature did not continue targeting him.

Instead, it shifted its focus to the twisted bus carriage before it.

Within that carriage were many injured individuals unable to extricate themselves, and if its goal was to target humans, aiming for the bus itself would be most efficient.

The bus’s material hardness would undoubtedly be no match for its drill.

Liu Xingluo also perceived this shift.

‘Damn it, its attention isn’t on me anymore.’

‘If things continue like this, everyone inside the bus will undoubtedly be killed by this thing.’