Chapter 48

Chapter 48

After hearing Huo Liangchuan's words, Qi Mo felt conflicted. Killing someone in front of the director—wouldn’t that be too much?

"Should we save them?" Qi Mo asked uncertainly, looking at Huo Liangchuan.

Huo Liangchuan shook his head. "Not killing her is already our mercy."

Jiang Nuan was ordering people to climb the gate.

Most of them were somewhat trained and could scale it with human assistance.

But just as one of the thinner young men was about to step onto his companion’s cupped hands, a massive mutated wolf lunged into view.

The mutated wolves had entered the village to track down the beast that had terrified them.

However, they'd never actually laid eyes on the terrifying creature—they only knew its voice. So they were still searching the village, certain that the beast threatening them came from here.

The three enormous mutated wolves howled, then plowed straight into Jiang Nuan’s group...

Jiang Nuan watched the wolves rushing toward them and shrieked, "Take them down! Now!"

"What the fuck is that thing? It's huge!" the skinny youth cried in terror.

Another burly man, who had been preparing to boost someone up the wall, went white as a sheet at the sight of the charging giant wolf and roared, "Move your asses! Giant wolves! Go, go, go!"

Before he could even finish shouting, he was already hauling ass.

The skinny youth immediately bolted after him.

Jiang Nuan was still processing—weren't they just oversized mutts? They had guns—why run?

"Kill them! Now!" Jiang Nuan yelled.

Three of Jiang Nuan's top enforcers immediately drew their guns and fired...

The burly man in the lead hammered on Chen Xia's door, howling, "Help! Help!"

When no one answered, he immediately fled.

The skinny youth turned and ran after him.

Before anyone could react, the giant wolves reached the front gate of Qi Mo’s courtyard.

Jiang Nuan’s three trusted enforcers managed to get off a few wild shots, but it was useless—the wolves wove through the gunfire with unnatural speed.

One of the enforcers lurched forward, shielding Jiang Nuan.

"Extract the boss! Now!" he shouted. "God damn it, move—"

Before he could finish, a giant wolf clamped its jaws around his arm.

*CRUNCH!* His arm shattered like dry kindling.

The man unleashed a scream that could wake the dead...

The scream was so horrifying that Qi Mo, who had been pushed back into the bedroom by Huo Liangchuan, immediately noticed that the chubby baby in his pocket dimension was screaming his little head off—utterly panicked.

Qi Mo hadn’t even entered the space when the chubby baby somehow materialized outside, sitting on the floor and wailing uncontrollably—clearly terrified. Huo Jingyan’s ear-splitting cries instantly drew the attention of the sole surviving mutant wolf outside the wall.

The other two were drawn away by Jiang Nuan.

Huo Liangchuan's expression darkened as he watched the last giant wolf suddenly retreat, then take a running leap forward. He instantly pulled the trigger of his gun.

With a *bang*, a gash opened up on the wolf’s cheek.

At the same time, the giant wolf leaped over the four-meter wall with its momentum, landed on the bicycle shed, and then dropped into the courtyard.

With a furious howl, the mutated giant wolf roared in pain—it had stepped on something sharp beneath its paw.

After Huo Liangchuan fired, Chief Huang Ming and the Special Forces soldier seized the moment while the other two wolves were distracted, opening fire together to eliminate this mutated giant wolf.

They had already realized that a four-meter wall was no barrier to this giant wolf, meaning the other three were likely just as capable.

Most village houses stood just over three meters tall, with burglar bars on the first floor but often none on the second. These wolves could easily break into villagers' homes...

These mutated giant wolves were an extremely deadly threat.

Especially since they were so fast they could evade bullets, making them incredibly difficult to kill.

*Bang, bang, bang*—gunfire echoed from all directions: outside the village, at the village's edge, within the village itself...

Three separate fronts in the battle against the mutated wolves, yet not a single one had been eliminated so far.

Inside the courtyard, the mutated giant wolf released a furious howl. It was injured, its green eyes turning blood-red, and it gathered speed before charging toward the water cellar...

Qi Mo, standing by the window to observe the situation outside, saw the mutated wolf rushing toward the water tower and immediately threw the window open, shouting, “Huo Liangchuan, run! Get inside—!”

But at this moment, Huo Liangchuan wasn’t about to listen to Xiao Mo.

As the mutated giant wolf neared the water tower’s platform, Huo Liangchuan held his gun in one hand and pulled out a combat shovel from his waist with the other...

He fired, swung the shovel, then kicked the wolf’s head just as its front claws landed on the water tower.

The wolf had immense strength, but being struck, kicked, and forced to dodge bullets disrupted its movements, throwing off its balance. The Special Forces soldier jammed his gun into the wolf’s maw and fired—

*Bang*—finally, one giant wolf was killed.

As the dying howl of this wolf echoed, the wounded wolf from the chicken farm outside the village immediately turned and charged back toward the village.

Inside the village, Jiang Nuan kept fleeing, but not a single villager would open their door for her.

Not even a million in cash could sway them.

The villagers of Huo Family Village were all cowering in fear—those on the first floor hid upstairs, those with a third floor hid there, and those with a cellar buried themselves deep inside.

Last night, at the victim’s house in Chen Family Village, everyone knew how it ended—they had opened the door for a neighbor fleeing from wolves. The neighbor lived, but the family was slaughtered, leaving only a sixty-year-old grandmother.

The villagers weren’t cruel, but they weren’t stupid either. No sum was worth risking their lives.

Besides, before nightfall, the village chief had issued warnings—no matter what sounds they heard tonight, no one was to come out.

Curiosity could kill a cat.

Doing a good deed could get you killed—along with your family.

If even armed men couldn’t fight them off, villagers would be walking to their deaths.

One by one, Jiang Nuan’s men stayed behind to cover her escape—two were killed, and the last was ripped apart by the two mutated wolves playing with him. Now, only Jiang Nuan remained.

The other two had long since fled to parts unknown.

Jiang Nuan stumbled and fell as she watched the hulking wolf approaching.

Staring at the monstrous creature now right in front of her, Jiang Nuan was overcome with despair—she was going to be mauled to death by a wolf...

No, she refused. She couldn’t accept it.

"Qi Mo, Qi Mo, help me! Save me!" Jiang Nuan screamed.

The mutated wolf looked at the terrified human before it, its muzzle seeming to curl into a cruel grin—a mocking expression reserved for prey.

Jiang Nuan scrabbled backward desperately, unwilling to surrender, tears streaming down her face.

She regretted it. Jiang Nuan truly regretted everything...

As the beast opened its gaping, blood-flecked jaws, the reek of carrion and iron filled her nostrils.

She closed her eyes. She was going to die.

One second, two seconds... Jiang Nuan opened her eyes. She wasn’t dead yet.

The mutated wolf was gone—had she just heard a shriek of agony?

Had someone drawn the wolf away? Overwhelmed with relief, she willed her jelly-like legs upright using sheer determination, leaning against the wall for support, before fleeing in blind panic toward the outskirts of the village...

One mutated wolf lay in a mangled heap in Qi Mo’s courtyard.

Then, one by one, three more beasts began circling the perimeter of Qi Mo’s house, never charging in—as if they were trying to trap the humans inside.

And every now and then, they let out hair-raising, ululating cries...

Qi Mo held the sobbing Chubby baby in his arms, trying to soothe him, only for the wolves’ howls to nullify his comforting—the baby kept crying anyway.

Huo Liangchuan had already led Huang Ming and the Special Forces Soldier into the house. The water tower above was now bristling with broken glass shards from smashed liquor bottles.

"What do we do?" Huo Liangchuan said. "They’re surrounding us but not attacking. If this drags on till morning, we’re in trouble. We’re trapped and can’t call for backup."

Chief Huang Ming remained calm. "Is your house sturdy? How strong are the windows?"

"They’re all reinforced security glass," Huo Liangchuan explained.

"That’s good. Our people at the poultry farm must still be alive. They’ll probably find a way back to get reinforcements," Huang Ming said.

Snowball the cat’s pupils dilated.

Did these creatures actually dare to ignore her warnings and deliberately scare her humans?

Enough was enough—no need to hold back any longer.

The small, white feline slipped out in one fluid motion from the third floor.

Sneaking to the village entrance, Snowball emitted a predatory chirrup, then took a deep breath—once, twice—and began to grow. Thirty centimeters, fifty centimeters, one meter, two meters, three meters...

A behemoth of a cat with a regal brow marking let out a challenge bellow before charging toward Huo Village.

The mutated wolves surrounding Qi Mo’s courtyard immediately responded with a hunting chorus.

Huo Liangchuan’s face went granite-hard. "Another one."

Qi Mo, still holding the crying Chubby baby, said, *“It doesn’t sound like the same kind. I heard this noise earlier—right when the pig farm was attacked.”*

Peering out the window, Qi Mo then hissed under his breath, "Come look—what is that? A behemoth of a feline—it’s barreling down on us!"

Only then did Qi Mo remember his own little cat.

Where had Snowball gone? She always shadowed Chubby baby, but now she’d vanished without a trace.