3.Who's the monster?

Li Xian was a newcomer to the Bureau of Demon Removal, with her loved ones inside the organization.

She had followed in her loved ones' footsteps and started training inside the organization since she was sixteen years old.

Today, she was about to become an official team member.

Chief Commander Li Bo stood on the stage and was giving the newcomer a speech on the transition.

"Every one of us has the seed of evil thoughts in our hearts, some extreme ideas, dark thoughts, twisted moods, etc. will catalyze the development into evil things, which are equivalent to the products of the dark side of society.

"Evil objects are generally spirit-like and can possess ordinary people, influencing their behavior and changing their minds.

"Some evil things that have existed for too long can also congeal into entities that produce their own minds and physically attack other living beings.

"If one dies with an obsession, it will catalyze the transformation of the evil seed into an evil ghost.

"Evil ghosts retain a portion of the deceased's memories from his or her life and do not disappear until the grudge is removed or dispersed by an external force.

"If a person's mind is twisted to a degree, the evil seed will distort his form and turn him into a demon, which will further deepen the original owner's evil thoughts.

"Demons possess strong destructive abilities and will also produce a steady stream of evil things for their own use.

"We at the Bureau of Demon Removal have been battling these monsters since 300 years ago.

"These monsters can only reveal their forms and hunt around after midnight.

"During the daytime the monsters without entities will hide and will not attack, while the ones with entities will disguise themselves as humans or animals, but at the same time will be extremely limited in terms of strength.

"Our job at the Bureau of Demon Removal is to uncover and dispose of the monsters hiding amongst the crowds during the daytime, while at night we patrol the streets and clean up after these monsters, defending the safety of the citizens as some of these monsters are capable of breaking and entering.

"Our division has lost a total of three members and seriously injured 507 members over the past 10 years, all of whom were fearless heroes!

"Behind us are our families, our friends, our compatriots, and I hope you recognize our mission well.

"What is our slogan?!"

"Remove all monsters and defend the safety of the citizens!"

Li Xian stood on the stage, she had joined the organization mainly for her brother, and she planned to climb up to the next level of the organization on this and fight alongside her brother.

...

It was now one o'clock in the morning, and the only people on the streets were the members of the organization and the monsters.

It was the first time Li Xian had ever patrolled with her own crew, all of whom were each armed with cold weapons.

Two axes, a bow, a shield, and a spear were the combined weapons of their team of five.

As for, why no hot weapons? Because this small broken county couldn't use those either.

These evil things flying in the air were more threatening to ordinary people, and could destroy their spiritual will.

But to the members of the Demon Removal Bureau who had been trained in spiritual power, it was nothing.

They patrolled the streets, removing the evil things that occasionally appeared.

A random member of the organization could clear out evil things like these that had no consciousness.

The real danger at night was mainly the demons and evil spirits.

However, it was unlikely that a small place like this would spawn demons.

At this time, Li Xian inadvertently noticed a battery car collapsed on a street corner not far away, something that shouldn't be on the streets right now.

Because the government office side was looking out for their Demon Removal Bureau, they had invested some money in the construction of a local garage.

It allowed them to patrol and fight at night without being affected by vehicles parked on the side of the road, guaranteeing their work and safety

--and would get a ticket for not parking their vehicles in the garage at night.

"Did some citizen have an accident?"

Li Xian looked over to the outdoor restroom not far away, and the more he looked at it, the more suspicious it seemed.

"Come on, let's go up and take a look."

...

"The traces left here indicate that it seems that someone had a fall here more than an hour ago, and the fall was ... quite a mess."

Li Xian investigated the inside of the toilet, and the traces were still relatively fresh.

"There's no residential area anywhere near here, so this citizen friend fell and may still be lost in this neighborhood.

"He might be in danger, let's look around here. If he's possessed by something evil, we'll bring him back to the organization."

On the ground, there was only one trail from the restroom, through a path to a place that was on the outskirts of the city.

Li Xian validated his thoughts more and more in his mind, this citizen definitely did not make it home safely.

The place was heavily wooded, and a winding forest road extended to an abandoned warehouse.

With the moonlight spilling down, the warehouse looked a little spooky, like a haunted house that had been forgotten by time.

As the team walked along the path, the dry tree branches under their feet made muffled sounds from time to time, as if warning them.

The wind in the forest felt like it was blowing from hell, skimming over the skin of the squad members and chilling their hairs.

When they walked near the abandoned warehouse, Li Xian was suddenly alert.

She smelled the scent of coyotes, which she was all too familiar with.

After living in the mountains and forests for more than a decade, she had often dealt with these voracious creatures; her father was an experienced veteran hunter, and her brother was a renowned wolf hunter.

"Shhh~"

Li Xian softly made a gesture, signaling everyone to keep quiet, and then told them to pay attention to the safety of their surroundings.

In front of the warehouse was a large open space, and not far away was a pond.

They tiptoed and groped their way to the warehouse and were about to enter when they heard a crunching sound from inside.

"Who's there?"

Li Xian shouted, while pushing open the hidden door.

The warehouse, which was around forty square meters, was filled with a large number of boxes and miscellaneous items, and the air was filled with a bit of dust.

Moonlight spilled silently onto the floor through the tiny window on the right wall.

Li Xian stood in the doorway and surveyed the environment inside the warehouse. The dim light and dry air made it feel extraordinarily depressing.

She was about to go find a switch to turn on the lights when she suddenly realized that behind a box not far away, there was a pair of eyes that flashed with green light, staring at her.

Those were definitely not human eyes, but belonged to a wild beast.

Li Xian saw it, Li Xian knew that it saw herself, Li Xian felt like a prey being watched.

"Quickly ... ah!"

Before Li Xian could say anything, the beast hidden in the shadows suddenly stormed out.

Jumping out of cover, it leapt over, its sharp claws aimed at Li Xian.

Without too much surprise, Li Xian reacted and blocked the claw strike with his shield.

But the iron-thick skin was like paper, cut open by the knife-like wolf claws, and the remaining force, unabated, dug deep into Li Xian's shoulder, seemingly breaking one of his collarbones.

Only two seconds of actual time passed, and the gray-furred werewolf directly pushed Li Xian away and rushed out the door.

In a trance, she saw a gray, two meter four tall humanoid beast.

It looked just like a coyote, like a wolf head had been placed on a human torso ... Is this a werewolf?

Using the remaining strength that survived in his left hand, Li Xian threw his axe at the werewolf.

But the werewolf seemed to have eyes in his back and dodged, Li Xian then crashed into the wall on one side, and the axe was deeply inserted into the wall.

There was nothing to do but watch as the beast got on all fours and charged towards the city center.

Blood was flowing from her shoulder in a steady stream, and she forced herself to endure the intense pain of her shoulder being pierced by the wolf's claws as she took out the walkie-talkie that organized the squads to contact each other.

"Squad d23 has discovered an unknown humanoid beast in the area of G03, inferred level B, moving towards the center of L16, requesting backup!"

After saying that, unable to hold on any longer and seemingly disengaged - Li Xian collapsed to the ground.

------

It was a girl with a masculine aura, as if she was a seasoned old hunter.

Rao Tian commented so.

Rao Tian, who had become a werewolf, was hiding behind a box and pricked up his ears to listen to the sound of footsteps outside the door in three or five.

He knew that something was coming in.

The footsteps stopped at the door and after a while there was no sound.

Rao Tian poked his head out, wondering what exactly was coming, was it some kind of monster?

He saw a country girl, 18 years old by sight, holding a lumbering axe and wearing a special uniform, standing in the doorway, looking around the warehouse.

Was this the monster?

Rao Tian watched the girl nervously, his body already instinctively ready for his next move.

At that moment, the girl looked at herself, and the lines of sight overlapped.

Rao Tian saw her, Rao Tian knew she saw herself, and Rao Tian felt like a prey being watched.

After a few seconds of eye contact, Rao Tian decided to make the first move.

He suddenly jumped up and rushed towards the girl, pushing her away as he blocked the doorway.

Ignoring the other team members standing outside the warehouse, he got on all fours and ran in the direction of his house.

He still wasn't quite used to this body, the presence of his antipodal foot was too strong, and now he could only run like a dog.

"Today is really bad, is there any more bad luck?"

Rao Tian, who was dashing through the city center, noticed the occasional half-floating spirits on the streets.

They were oddly shaped, had twisted expressions, had horns similar to those of a bull, and emitted eerie cries.

"What the hell?"

A spirit body flew towards Rao Tian, blocking his line of sight.

Feeling puzzled, Rao Tian slapped it apart with a claw, but he didn't look at his feet and kicked Hu Jia's battery-operated car away, and almost fell over himself.

The battery car arced through the air and landed not far away with a small explosion.

"Report! c025 squad has found the target monster in the H05 area, it's destroying the city, requesting backup!"

The voice came from behind, Rao Tian was about to turn around to confirm, but he heard a crisp bow sound and instinctively dodged to the right.

A bow and arrow grazed Rao Tian's cheek, leaving a wound bleeding out a few drops of blood, staining the wolf fur on his face red.

Listening to the sound of the bow behind him, it seemed that it would be drawn full again.

"Is this the monster of the night, they still know how to jointly hunt prey, how could this be!"

Rao Tian didn't dare to linger and ran at a faster speed.

The "monsters" at the back didn't stop either, and kept following Rao Tian closely.

Rao Tian didn't dare to fight them to the death because he wasn't sure what their cards were.

His own life was the highest priority.