Captain 012

Only the candlesticks on the wall emitted a faint glimmer of light.

Its eyes began to grow bloodshot. To think someone had intruded into its lair, seemingly even provoking it!

As an Anomaly, it could not possibly tolerate being provoked by humans, whom it viewed merely as food!

The Lizardman darted through the house at breakneck speed, but it failed to find any trace of the intruder. This made it start to doubt whether it had simply misheard.

It was impossible for any human to move so freely within its territory.

Could it be... another Anomaly? The Lizardman felt a pang of apprehension.

A sudden noise caught it off guard. It snapped its head around and saw the door leading to the basement open, slamming against the wall with a muffled thud.

It hesitated for a moment before swiftly approaching the basement entrance, craning its neck to peer inside.

The basement was pitch black. The downward staircase seemed to be beckoning it, luring it to descend.

Despite being an Anomaly, the Lizardman felt an inexplicable sense of panic.

"Who are you?" it spoke, its voice harsh and grating.

No one answered.

Feeling slighted, the Lizardman suddenly charged into the basement, even adopting a combat stance.

However, after pacing around the damp, cold basement, it still found absolutely nothing.

Instead, a coughing sound came from the basement entrance.

It dashed up the stairs at lightning speed and looked left and right.

"Am I getting sick?" An absurd thought popped into the Lizardman's mind.

Next, it patrolled its lair once more. The entire house was eerily quiet, with no signs of human activity.

Feeling somewhat uneasy, it returned to the room where it usually stayed.

But just as it crouched down, clear tapping sounds echoed from the ceiling above.

This time, the Lizardman was not angry; instead, it shrank its neck back as if frightened.

Just what kind of thing had entered its lair?

This time, its movements were very slow. Step by step, it climbed the stairs and opened the door to the upstairs room. However, what met its eyes was an empty room—well, not entirely empty, as there was still a pile of white bones stacked there.

It stared blankly at everything in the room. The door slowly closed behind it, startling it so much that its whole body shuddered.

The Lizardman began to roar somewhat neurotically.

"Who are you? Who exactly are you? Come out!"

But no one responded to it. Instead, footsteps echoed outside once more, though it no longer had any desire to go and check.

The footsteps soon disappeared, followed by faint tapping sounds coming from the passage it usually used to hunt humans.

Every sound seemed to strike directly at its sensitive nerves.

As an Anomaly, it felt incredibly weak right now. A sense of fear that shouldn't exist gradually welled up in its heart.

"Who..."

"No, I must be hallucinating from hunger." It began to forcibly comfort itself. It was impossible for anyone to toy with it like this in its own territory. Impossible.

But when it returned to its room with heavy steps, it saw the rocking chair left in the corner by the original owner slowly rocking. Instantly, its pupils dilated, and it suddenly lunged forward, pinning down the rocking chair: "You finally..."

It froze. Lying in the rocking chair was a high-level Anomaly, and at this moment, that Anomaly was looking at it with a face full of pity.

It sprang back violently. To think a fellow kind had invaded its territory! But a moment later, it shook its head. No, the aura from earlier didn't belong to the Anomaly in front of it.

"Who are you..."

Coffin Lady sighed, "Who I am is not what's important..."

The Lizardman's pupils suddenly dilated, its two eyes glancing backward. Behind it was a human shadow, and that person reached out a hand toward it.

On any normal day, it would only think these humans were courting death, but at this moment, its heart was filled with terror. Heaven knew what exactly was behind it!

It slowly turned its head, gradually meeting the gaze of a smiling face.

Coffin Lady covered her eyes, but her fingers remained spread open. Truth be told, watching Fang Zhiyi deal with her fellow kind gave her an inexplicable sense of schadenfreude.

Watching helplessly as the Lizardman was skinned alive by Fang Zhiyi, Coffin Lady swallowed a non-existent gulp of saliva, a habit she had formed when she was still human.

"Let's go, next place."

"Okay, Boss." Coffin Lady stood up obediently.

At the entrance of Lingnan Village, a leafless tree stood eerily. The few remaining villagers listened to the sounds of a baby crying emanating from the tree, their faces showing fear.

The Thousand-Child Tree had come again, but they had no way out. This place was too far from the city; even if they wanted to notify the Guardians, they couldn't.

The Thousand-Child Tree swayed its branches, and the wails of infants spread in all directions.

And those emotions of fear nourished its body like nutrients.

But in the next moment, the Thousand-Child Tree paused, looking in confusion at the figure sitting on its branches.

Under the moonlight, a deathly pale face turned toward it: "Good evening?"

The Thousand-Child Tree was somewhat bewildered. Was this person not afraid of it?

That night, the villagers of Lingnan Village slept unusually well. When they heard the night watchman talk about what he had seen last night, everyone's face was filled with disbelief.

"It's true! That person carrying a knife chopped that monster tree bald! I swear!"

"Second Zhang, did you secretly drink alcohol again?"

"If you don't believe me, go look for yourselves!" The night watchman pointed in a direction.

The villagers hesitantly gathered at that spot, but there was absolutely nothing there.

"Stop arguing, hurry up and prepare. That thing will come again tonight," the village chief finally ordered. But preparing meant nothing more than getting more food and drink ready and doing some chores while it was still daylight.

Second Zhang looked hesitantly at the flat piece of land. There was no reason for him to have seen it wrong...

An old man beside him said, "Stop thinking about it. How could that thing die? It lives purely to torture us. It's all sinful karma..." He sighed and walked away, "We all deserve to die, we all deserve to die..."

When that tree first appeared in the past, they thought it was a divine tree because after its arrival, no other Anomalies came anymore. It wasn't until the cries of babies rang out every night and all the villagers had the same terrifying nightmares that they realized it wasn't a divine tree at all; it was also an Anomaly.

As people continuously went mad and committed suicide, they knew there was no escape.

A long time ago, Lingnan Village had a cruel custom. If a family had boys die prematurely in succession, they needed to find a newborn baby girl, wrap her up, and hang her on a tree, leaving her to be pecked at by vicious birds. Nine days later, they would bury the remains in the tree's roots, and the family of the prematurely deceased boys would soon be able to give birth to a baby boy.

It was just that the initiators of this custom were all already dead, and their descendants had either gone mad or died off. Yet, this tree still appeared here every night, as if to settle the accounts of their sins.