Chapter 53: The Hunting Game

The ripples of the “Love Bomb” gradually dispersed with the drifting air, leaving behind a cloying sweetness—like cheap candy burnt to ash.

Drained of strength, Lin Yu half-collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air.
Every breath was agony, like swallowing a fistful of glass shards mixed with dust and blood. They scraped down her throat and into her lungs, setting everything aflame.

The surge of adrenaline was fading, ebbing out of her overdrawn body—
and in its wake came the pain, relentless and tidal.

The bullet wound tearing through her wrist burned as if seared by a hot brand. The hole in her thigh pulsed with fiery anguish.

“Never been hurt this badly before…”
She stared uneasily at her wounds, trying to lift her transformation—only to find she couldn’t.

“So the training manuals were right… You can’t undo a transformation when you’re critically injured. Looks like I’ll have to hold out until I get out of here…”

Leaning against the floor, she forced herself upright.
Her maid uniform—once pure and sweet—was now shredded and soaked with blood and grime, a pitiful sight.

(…Is it over?)

The faint thought flickered in her buzzing, half-numb mind. Her vision swam; when she tried to stand, everything went black for a heartbeat.

And then, at the edges of her sight, something strange appeared—
black specks, like static snow on an old TV screen, flickering faintly in the air.

They drifted slowly downward, like fine black ash falling through air so thick it felt frozen in time.

(…What the hell… Is this from the explosion? Or am I losing too much blood and starting to hallucinate?)

Bzzzz…

A low, whispering hum began to crawl into her ears, like countless voices murmuring just behind her skull.

(No… this isn’t right.)

Her temples throbbed violently.

(It feels like… something’s trying to crawl into my head…)
(Could it be subspace contamination? From overusing psychic energy?)

“Ugh—whatever! Doesn’t matter now… I need to check on that guy…”

No time to think. She slapped herself hard across the face, forcing her mind into focus, then staggered toward the rusted metal railing at the edge of the platform.

Leaning over, she peered down.
Below lay a cracked concrete floor littered with debris and industrial scrap.

The Red City gang thug who had fallen earlier was twisted into an inhuman angle, unmistakably dead.
Not far from him, Luo Shaotian lay face-down in a thick, dark pool of blood, motionless.

The back that always stood so straight and proud had collapsed—
like a monument pushed from its pedestal.

(…No way…)

Lin Yu’s heart clenched tight, as if an invisible hand had crushed it. For a moment, even breathing stopped.

(He’s… really dead?)

Half-crawling, half-stumbling, she bolted down the narrow metal stairs, driven by desperate hope.
She didn’t even feel the stabbing pain in her wounded leg as she descended.

“Haah—nnngh—”

She crashed to her knees beside Luo Shaotian, a pained groan escaping her lips. The hem of her torn maid skirt soaked up the blood pooled beneath him, staining it a deep, hopeless red.

With trembling arms, she turned his heavy body over. A quick inspection—and relief flooded her pale face.

(He’s alive…)
(His pulse and breathing are weak, but he’s still alive…)
(If I can just get him out… to a hospital… he might make it!)

Without hesitation, she wiped the grime from her face and summoned what remained of her strength to lift him onto her back.

Ordinarily, a girl of fifteen or sixteen could never have carried a muscular man weighing over eighty kilos—
but this was a magical girl’s body, far stronger than it looked. She might not punch through steel plates, but hauling dead weight was still within reach.

However—
as soon as she hoisted Luo Shaotian up, something else caught the air.

A wound on his shoulder, raw and torn, was now exposed. Clinging to the blood-slick flesh were a few pale, grainy particles—like coarse salt—the remnants of some powder from the earlier fight.

The instant the powder touched his warm blood, it sizzled softly—
“Zzzt…”—
like ice dropped onto a red-hot iron plate, dissolving instantly.

A faint purplish tint began to creep outward from the wound…
But Lin Yu didn’t notice.

“…What was that sound just now?!”

At the far end of the derelict factory, Crimson Fox led her crew through a sluggish, fruitless search.
The explosion that had just shaken the air was powerful enough to make the concrete floor tremble underfoot.

She was about to curse whatever idiot caused it—
but then came that strange, rippling pulse accompanying the blast.
Her heavily lined fox-eyes narrowed at once.

(Wait… that feeling… Could it be ‘psychic energy’? Don’t tell me one of those freaks is involved again…)

A sharp intuition made her frown.

“Enough searching!” she barked, voice like a whip crack.
“All of you—move out! With me!”

They rushed down the corridor, and when Crimson Fox reached the site of the explosion—
even she, hardened by years of blood and gore, felt her pupils contract in shock.

The place looked like a slaughterhouse after a massacre.

The Butcher and his two underlings were no longer men but smears of flesh—smeared across the control room wall in grotesque, abstract streaks of blood and bone.

Chunks of meat and shattered organs slid slowly down the concrete, dripping with the stench of iron.
Below, a blackened human silhouette still smoldered faintly.

“Crimson Fox-jie… Wh-what the hell could do something like this…?”
One of the younger thugs stammered, voice quivering with terror.

“Shut up.”

Crimson Fox shot him a cutting glance, then muttered to herself:

“So those three idiots… just like that, wiped out?”

She crouched near the human-shaped burn mark, gloved fingers brushing a fragment of flesh from the floor.

(That witch… what kind of monster-level power did she unleash?)
(Still… power that explosive always comes with a price. There’s no way she’s unscathed. She must be completely spent now…)

That realization didn’t calm her—it thrilled her.
The anger at her dead men twisted swiftly into the sharp gleam of a predator’s hunger.

(Which means… this is the perfect time to catch her.)

“Find her.”

Her tone dropped to a deadly calm as she looked over her trembling subordinates.

“Check where that girl A-Cui ended up. Now.”

They obeyed without a word, forcing themselves to search through the carnage.

Soon, one of them froze.
“Crimson Fox-jie! Over here!”

His voice trembled—but with relief.

“T-there’s a body! Burnt to a crisp… but from the size, it’s gotta be A-Cui!”

Crimson Fox strode over.

The corpse was so charred it had lost all shape—only the outline suggested it had once been a small girl.
Her expression didn’t change; not an ounce of sorrow crossed her face.

She turned sharply to two nearby men.

“Bring me the Haolala driver from the basement. The one who’s still our… guest.”

A few minutes later, two burly men dragged in what was left of the delivery driver—broken, bloodied, barely human.

The moment he saw the scene around him, he collapsed to his knees, shivering and babbling through cracked lips:

“B-big sis, please—please spare me! I don’t know anything, I swear! I’ll do anything, just don’t kill me!”

“Now, now…”

Crimson Fox crouched down with a smile that looked almost kind—
but it was the kind of smile devils wear before they start flaying.

She raised his chin with one crimson-painted fingernail, her eyes gleaming with mockery.

“I just want to ask you one thing,” she purred.
“You lost something very important to our Dragon Brother. How exactly do you plan to pay that debt back?”

“I—I’ll pay! I swear I’ll pay!” the driver cried, seizing on her words like a drowning man.
“Just give me another chance! I’ll do anything! I’ll make it right!”

“Good.”

Crimson Fox nodded, clearly satisfied.
“An opportunity?” she said softly. “I’ll give you one right now.”

She straightened, gesturing with her chin toward the blackened corpse beside her—a charred husk still reeking of burnt flesh.

“See that?”

Her voice dripped with counterfeit sorrow.
“That little sister of ours died trying to retrieve the goods you lost. She was Dragon Brother’s most beloved goddaughter. And now, he wants her body brought home—intact.”

She paused, her tone turning light, almost charitable.
“How about this—you can make it up to him. Deliver her as your apology gift to Dragon Brother.”

Her lips curved in mock pity.
“But look at her. All burnt and filthy… we, as her seniors, could never bear to touch her ourselves. So this honor falls to you. Carry her back to our truck at the station. Do that well…”
Her smile sharpened.
“…and your debt to us is cleared.”

The delivery driver felt as though he’d been pardoned by heaven itself.
Though revulsion clawed at his gut at the thought of touching that thing, the primal instinct to live overwhelmed every shred of disgust.

“Thank you, Big Sis! Thank you! I’ll do it—I’ll carry her right now!”

Stumbling forward, he approached the charred corpse. The air was thick with the acrid stench of roasted meat. Gagging, he bent down and heaved the body onto his back.

(…Why… why does it feel so cold…)

A creeping chill raced up his spine—from the base of his tailbone to the crown of his head.

And just as he lifted the corpse fully, ready to stand—
something icy pierced the back of his neck.

It felt like two needles of frozen iron driving straight through his flesh.

“Uh…?”

He didn’t even have time to scream.

A second later, he felt it—
his blood, all of it, being drained.
Siphoned out of his body through that tiny wound as though some monstrous pump were sucking him dry.

Before his disbelieving eyes, his thick arms began to wither.
The flesh shrank and collapsed, the skin wrinkling and yellowing like an orange left to rot in the sun.

He wanted to scream. To beg. To move.
But his mind, crushed beneath terror and pain, could no longer send signals to his body.

He could only watch as his life ebbed away—
until, at last, under the horrified stares of every Red City gangster present, his body collapsed with a dull thud, nothing left but a shriveled husk.

“Mm…”

The corpse on his back stirred.

Like a cat stretching after a nap, it slid gracefully down to the ground and landed softly on its feet.

A-Chui extended a crimson tongue, licking the fresh trace of blood from her lips with relish.
Her face curled into a smile—strange, sensuous, and utterly wrong.

The eyelids that had been burned black now lifted, revealing eyes of pure scarlet—feral, ravenous, alive.

“…”

Silence.
The remaining Red City thugs stared, frozen pale. Their weapons rattled in trembling hands.

Only Crimson Fox remained still.

She stood with an unreadable calm, as if the grotesque resurrection before her had been expected all along.
In her fox-like eyes burned no shock, no pity—only the cold satisfaction of a craftsman admiring a tool restored to working order.

“Awake?”

Her voice was low, commanding—
like a master addressing a hunting dog just roused from sleep.

“Good. Then get to work.”

She turned, her gaze following the path Lin Yu had fled.

A predatory gleam shimmered in her narrowed eyes.

“That little bunny in the maid outfit…” she murmured, lips curving into a cruel smile.
“She can’t have gone far.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper of delight.

“Let’s begin the real hunt.”