That creed had never failed him. After all, failure ant death in his previous line of work.
’What’s that sound?’
He began sensing vibrations from the surface. They were not random. They followed a rhythm.
Carefully, he began ascending and climbed out of a manhole, erging into a narrow alley between two old apartnt buildings.
Several cars were parked in loose rows. So had their hoods open, while others glead under the streetlights. The air slled of gasoline, smoke, and alcohol.
Right away, he noticed a group of people nearby, and he quickly slipped under a parked automobile to hide.
Francis stayed still, watching through a narrow gap.
So leaned against their vehicles while smoking cigarettes. Others sat on the hoods, laughing and drinking from bottles. Loud music played from one of the van, echoing through the alley.
Modified engines .Lowered suspensions. Fresh paint jobs.
Most of the vehicles looked customized.
’A car et, huh?’
’So even in a world filled with monsters, hobbies like this still exist.’
Well, it was not that surprising. Humans, especially n, had a strong love for anything they could ride.
’There’s about forty of them.’
But Francis did not move.
He hesitated.
Based on his estimate, this area was close to a Defense Force branch. That was likely why these people felt safe enough to gather here.
In addition, the space was too open, aning any attack now would only cause commotion and offer little gain.
Just as he was about to go back into the sewer, the sound of an ergency alarm echoed through the area. But instead of panicking, everyone started laughing, already used to this kind of occurrence.
So even clinked their bottles together.
Francis, on the other hand, shook his head. ’These people have no sense of danger. Might as well teach them.’
He scrapped his first plan, knowing it would be harder to find a cluster of people with the alarm going off. So he would make a splash here instead.
Four n stood near a convertible red car, leaning against it. One of them laughed loudly, holding a bottle loosely in his hand.
"Last night was insane," he said, wiping his mouth. "That girl from the club was wild."
Another snorted. "You didn’t even rember her na, did you?"
"Why would I? It was just a one-night thing." he replied bluntly. "Are you still mad she didn’t go with you? Sorry, man. I just can’t help it. Chicks dig ."
They began laughing, careless and loud, voices bouncing off the narrow walls of the alley. None of them looked worried. The ergency alarm still echoed faintly in the distance, but to them, it was just background noise.
Francis listened from beneath the parked car. Their conversation ant nothing to him. His focus was already elsewhere—figuring out the fastest way to kill all four of them.
The space beneath the car darkened as his body expanded, bones and flesh shifting.
The first man noticed the shadow.
He tilted his head down slightly and knelt to check under his car, even leaning in closer—
Thud.
His body dropped to the ground.
"Hey, bro, stop joking around." One of his friends laughed as he kicked the body lightly.
There was no response.
A nervous laugh slipped out as one of them grabbed the legs anyway, pulling harder.
"Alright, co on, stop ssing—" He paused.
The body didn’t move the way it should have.
Sothing felt wrong.
He leaned in, squinting into the dark under the car.
Then he saw it.
His friend had no head, and blood was pooling where it should have been.
"He’s de..."
Before the words could fully land, sothing struck him.
His head snapped upward so violently that his neck twisted and slit at an unnatural angle, as if it had its own mouth.
"MONSTER!"
Finally, the others realized the danger they were in—but it was already too late. Francis stepped out of his hiding spot and began the massacre, quickly killing anyone close to him and knocking down those further away.
’One minute.’
While moving through the corpses, he destroyed their abdons, retrieving what he needed before turning away and retreating.
It was enough of a distraction.
His second target was a laundromat. When the alarm went off, the people inside chose not to evacuate, making it far easier for him to eliminate them.
He destroyed the CCTV caras in the store first, then moved through corpses and left without delay
From there, he moved to another establishnt. His actions were now high-profile enough that he could hear helicopters in the distance, but he did not care. He focused on indoor targets, where detection was lower and response ti was slower.
And it worked like a charm. Soon, the area of his attacks expanded to five locations in total. For his sixth target, he chose a nightclub.
It was perfect—dark, crowded with intoxicated people, and most of all, it was underground.
When he entered through the vents, he noticed the music was still playing, and the alarm was barely noticeable inside.
From his position, he saw bouncers at the entrance preventing anyone from leaving, insisting that there was an ergency outside.
Instead of going for the kill, he checked the exits first. He noticed that, aside from the main entrance, the only other exit was small and narrow.
That detail gave him plenty of ideas.
He stayed in the vents, watching.
Below, the nightclub still moved like nothing was wrong. Music thumped through the floor.
Lights pulsed. People laughed too loudly, drank too fast, and danced like there was no tomorrow—ironically, it might really be the case.
Then sothing changed.
A man near the bar turned toward the exit.
At first, it looked normal. Just soone deciding to leave early.
But when he pushed through the crowd, a bouncer stepped in his way.
"No one leaves yet," the guard said, hand raised.
"What do you an, no one leaves? There’s an alarm outside. What if the monster cos here?"
"It’s under control. Stay inside."
The man tried again. The bouncer didn’t move.
Voices started to rise.
Another person nearby stopped dancing.
Then another.
A glass slipped from soone’s hand and shattered on the floor.
The first sign of real fear wasn’t the alarm—it was hesitation.
People stopped syncing with the music.
So looked toward the entrance. Others toward the ceiling. A few reached for their phones but didn’t press anything yet.
Francis watched all of it without blinking.
The room was no longer stable.
It was waiting to collapse.
And when enough people finally decided to move at once—
That was when he dropped.
BANG!
The bouncer’s head ca apart— one instant a face, the next a red mist and the wet percussion of bone fragnts clattering against the door behind him.
Those nearest him felt it before they understood it — a warm spray across cheekbones, the tiny sting of bone shard against skin — and for one second, nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
Then the screaming began.
"RUN!!"
"Move! MOVE!"
"Get away from the door!"
"Don’t push —don’t push—!"
People collided instantly, drinks spilling as hands grabbed anything nearby for balance. Chairs scraped hard against the floor. Soone fell and got stepped over.
"I can’t breathe—!"
"Get off !"
"I’m dying! Stop stepping on !"
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