“Why attack me?”
This thought flashed through Linden’s mind.
The fierce assassination launched from behind was clearly meant to kill him.
For such a powerhouse to appear in Bull Town, even if not a member of the Boothslot Family, there had to be a significant connection.
But the Boothslot Family had just offered the Seventh Group three choices—why strike so quickly now?
No…
Linden suddenly realized that only the other four had made their choices. He, Amber, and Ashley hadn’t. The slightest hesitation, and the enemy struck without mercy!
He gritted his teeth. The Boothslot Family clearly followed a cruel and extreme creed, no less ruthless than his own Jenkins Family.
As Linden pondered how to respond, a vortex-like transparent distortion suddenly appeared in the air before him. The sheep-horned man’s distance closed in an instant!
Visually, it was as if the sheep-horned man had stepped right in front of Linden!
In the next moment, that hand—knuckles bulging like an old magic wand, covered in rough thorny skin and thick black fur—lifted. The finger bones abruptly extended, thrusting straight in like a piercing strike!
At such close range, there was no time to dodge. The twisted, elongated finger bones pierced through his chest like a Helix Spear!
Then, Linden’s bones and flesh twisted and contracted, emitting the crackling sounds of bones shattering! It was as if a pair of invisible giant hands had kneaded a person alive into a ball!
Linden didn’t even make a sound. His pupils clouded over with a layer of deathly gray, and his entire face stretched into a human-skin mask as his skull was crushed.
One-shot kill. The bone spear rotated in reverse, slowly retracting into the hollow finger.
The sheep-horned man’s hand dropped naturally to his side as he turned elegantly, preparing to leave.
Suddenly, from the twisted, spasming mass of flesh slowly oozing blood at his feet came an ice-cold, furious voice!
“You… dare to kill my pawn… Your name is Promush McIntosh… the McIntosh Family’s mongrel… I’m watching you… You have nowhere to escape… only death awaits…”
“Who are you?!”
A horrified question echoed from beneath the mask. Both hands gripped the gun at waist level, firing continuously!
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Cone-shaped holes continually bloomed on the meatball, the flesh already turned to mush, forming vortices of differing speeds that flowed eerily.
The voice didn’t sound again, but he noticed the starry sky above spinning. Dizziness surged in his head, the supportive earth turned soft and powerless, each step like trudging through mud.
Promush gripped his left hand and suddenly wrenched the wrist bone in a reverse joint fold!
With a crack, the bone dislocated, skin tore, and the pale forearm bone pierced through the wound!
Yet he seemed to feel no pain. His fingertips clenched, drawing out an amber-colored bone etched with pitch-black patterns from the dripping flesh and muscle. The flesh and tendons writhed and twitched, emitting a scalp-numbing squelch squelch, and it grew longer and longer, forming a nearly two-meter Helix Spear! Using it as a third point of support, he finally overcame the spinning heavens and shifting earth.
–
Chloe stopped at the town entrance and turned back to gaze at the darkness-shrouded town. Her heart clawed like a cat’s, repeatedly gnawing at her lips—as if that place was somewhere she had to go, or she’d regret it forever.
“I can’t just leave like this. I’m a proper investigative journalist—what kind of life is it to write trashy memoirs smearing Ashley every day?”
Chloe thought it over. The town was strange, but she wasn’t a Tribunal investigator; she probably wouldn’t get dragged into any conflicts…
With that excuse found, her heart fully relaxed.
Bull Town’s layout wasn’t complex—just the Breeding Farm, the Boothslot Family Villa, and the slaughterhouse workers’ residences. Any secrets would be in the first two.
Chloe wasn’t dumb enough to sneak into the enemy’s lair, so she decided to scout the Breeding Farm.
Though heavily guarded, she had a bold idea…
Rumble rumble rumble…
A cart hauled grass bales and bean meal through the Breeding Farm gates.
No one knew that curled up inside a one-cubic-meter grass bale was a loli.
Hee hee hee… These idiot workers do the same thing every day… Their brains are rusted shut… They won’t find me…
Chloe inwardly snickered. Suddenly, she felt the cart bed slowly rising. She peeked through a gap, and a high-speed rotating mixer was right in her face!
“Ah—!”
Chloe nearly screamed, desperately scrambling out and escaping just before the hydraulic arm fully lifted the cart bed.
Being small and landing on the unmanned side of the cart, the workers didn’t notice her.
Grass bales and bean meal weren’t fed directly to the livestock; they had to be shredded, mixed with fermenting agents, and processed into feed in the fermentation pools.
Chloe hunched over and crept along the feed pipe, over a meter in diameter.
To her disappointment, it looked like an ordinary Breeding Farm—one that would pass hygiene inspections with flying colors.
But after passing several doors, she sensed something off.
Chilly air wafted over her ankles, pricking her skin like needles. The light was dim, with only red bulbs near the doors flickering a tension-inducing crimson glow.
This factory area was all corridors and small rooms, giving the feel of exploring a horror cruise ship.
In the silent darkness, rusted valves dripped water with rhythmic drip-drops. At the red-painted pipe joints, pressure relief valves popped occasionally, spewing scalding steam with a hiss.
Chloe’s eyes gleamed unusually bright, dopamine surging wildly.
Weaving through the twisting corridors, she faintly heard mechanical whirring.
Following the sound, she pushed open a door. Before her stretched a tunnel with a conveyor belt at the bottom, lined with rows of fat, massive pigs. Layers of fleshy folds on their faces squeezed their eyes tiny—looking comical.
Chloe jumped onto the conveyor belt, squeezing in among the pigs.
Moments later, a room appeared ahead. Upon seeing it clearly, she gaped in shock: there sat a little giant!
At least five meters tall even sitting, his head nearly brushed the ceiling.
He was grotesquely obese, his neck drowned in layered fleshy folds, his abdomen unnaturally bloated, crushing his legs into shapelessness.
The little giant had a vacant, dumb expression, not very bright-looking. In his hand, he gripped a slightly curved spike about a meter long, as thick as a wooden staff at its widest, with a silver-carved shepherd’s crook head twisted into sheep horns.
Well-traveled as Chloe was, she recognized it wasn’t a cane but a Shepherd’s Crook, symbol of a shepherd’s religious authority.
The Shepherd’s Crook was toothpick-thin in the little giant’s hand. Whenever a pig reached him, he mechanically thrust forward—pfft—opening a hole in its neck.
Eerily, no fat, muscle, or blood showed inside the hole; it was pitch-black, as if hellish cold emanated from it.
The pigs, pierced, reacted dully and numbly, feeling no pain at first—but soon they shrieked in hunger torment, eyes red as they tore into each other, gnawing relentlessly even as teeth snapped and flesh split!
Chloe’s face paled, swallowing dryly. It was clear: even if not pierced, she’d be devoured alive by the frenzied pigs.
Pig bite force and molars were terrifying; she’d heard killers confess to tossing bodies into pig pens, reduced to bone scraps in half an hour by a few hogs.
Chloe bolted back desperately, but the pigs behind panicked, ramming chaotically. A few steps, and she’d be bowled over, retreating instead—drawing closer to the horrific room!
“Nooo!”
Chloe cried out, despair surging.
In the crisis, a figure dropped from the overhead pipe!
A girl of sixteen or seventeen, toes hooked in pipe gaps, her slender, toned legs unfolding.
Her flexible, powerful waist flipped downward, long hair trailing to the ground. Slender fingers pinched the dizzy loli’s head—amid the pig-ramming—and with pure core strength, flung her upward!
