American comic book: I, with my abundant martial virtue, love to do good to others.

Highest alert level!

Lynn's heart sank.

He didn't look back, nor did he stand up and run.

Exposing yourself on enemy territory is tantamount to suicide.

He quickly stuffed the camera back into his pocket and pressed himself against a thick cooling pipe like a stone.

The exhaust fans in the backyard continued to roar, and the dozen or so mercenaries remained on guard, none of them looking in Lynn's direction.

If they didn't find it, what was that approaching?

Tap, tap, tap.

A strange sound came from the shadows on the side of the building.

That wasn't the sound of human tactical boots on the ground, but rather the sound of something heavy, with sharp claws, stepping on concrete.

Walking on all fours.

Lynn stared intently at the shadow through the gap at the bottom of the pipe.

A dark figure slowly emerged.

That was a "person".

At least, he was once a person.

He was naked, his skin was a sickly grayish-white, and his muscles covered his bones like tightly twisted steel cables.

His spine was severely curved and deformed, which meant he could only crawl on all fours like a wild animal.

His fingers and toes had mutated into several-inch-long black horny claws, which would scrape sparks every time they landed on the ground.

But what's most chilling is his head.

His eyes were covered by a thick layer of gray mucous membrane, indicating that he had clearly lost his sight.

However, his nasal bridge was unusually prominent, and his entire mandible extended outwards, filled with sharp, interlocking canines.

A tongue half a foot long dangled from his mouth, dripping with sticky saliva.

The saliva fell onto the cement floor and produced a slight hissing sound of corrosion.

This is the "hound" Thorne was referring to.

A tracking weapon stripped of its sight, reason, and human form, with its senses of smell and hearing enhanced to an abnormal level.

The hound stopped less than twenty meters from Lynn's hiding place.

He lay on the ground, his head twisting nervously from side to side.

His nostrils flared violently as he inhaled deeply the scents in the air.

Lynn held her breath.

He forced himself to keep his heart rate as low as possible.

To this monster's ears, an excessively rapid heartbeat might sound like a resounding war drum.

The hound seemed somewhat confused.

The air was filled with the acrid smell of burning incinerators and the chemical odor of coolant, which greatly interfered with his sense of smell.

He crawled around in place twice, his claws making a screeching sound as they scratched the concrete.

Then, he suddenly stopped.

His nose was pointed directly at the cooling pipe where Lynn was hiding.

Lynn's heart skipped a beat.

He noticed the frequency of the twitching at the tip of the monster's nose.

He smelled it.

It wasn't Lynn's sweat.

It smells like blood.

When Lynn slid down the lamppost, his collarbone dislocated, his previous wound reopened, and a drop of blood seeped out of his clothes.

For this genetically modified hunting dog, even a trace of fresh human blood mixed in with the overwhelming stench was as bright as a lighthouse in the dark.

"A low, mournful growl came from the hound's throat."

He clawed four deep grooves into the ground with his limbs, and his whole body, like a cannonball, hurtled madly toward the pipe where Lynn was hiding.

"Miles! I've been spotted! Send data!" Lynn roared, tumbling out from under the pipe.

boom!

The hound's massive body slammed heavily into the thick metal cooling pipe, which was capable of withstanding ten atmospheres of pressure.

He knocked a huge dent into it.

The white, high-pressure cooling gas shot out like a sharp sword, condensing into a thick, cold mist in the air.

The alarm sounded instantly throughout the entire air-raid shelter.

Blinding beams of searchlight swept wildly across the night sky.

The dozen or so mercenaries in the backyard immediately picked up their rifles and rushed in that direction.

"People are in the pipeline area! Clearance to fire!" the mercenary captain roared.

Lynn ignored the excruciating pain from her broken collarbone.

He couldn't fight the monsters in this narrow area, nor could he allow himself to be surrounded by the mercenaries.

He had no choice but to run.

Lynn rushed into the billowing white cooling mist, using it as cover to run wildly toward the woods on the other side of the building.

From the mist behind them came the angry howls of the hunting dogs and the increasingly frantic sounds of pursuit.

In the cold mist where visibility was obstructed, the monster relied entirely on its ability to lock onto the scent of blood, keeping its jaws firmly on Lynn's back less than five meters away.

Da da da da!

The mercenaries opened fire with their automatic rifles.

A hail of bullets struck the cooling pipes and concrete walls, sending rubble and metal fragments flying everywhere.

Lynn weaved through the piles of debris on the side of the building in an irregular S-shaped pattern.

He did not fire back; any hesitation would have meant being torn to shreds by the hounds behind him.

There are still fifty meters to the wall.

That hound was so fast it defied biomechanics.

Lynn could even smell the nauseating stench of rotting flesh emanating from the monster's mouth behind him, and hear the sound of its claws tearing through the air.

Lynn suddenly stopped and swerved, swerving around a huge, abandoned generator set.

The hound was too fast to turn instantly and crashed headfirst into the thick steel plate of the generator set with a deafening bang.

But this only delayed him by a second.

The monster shook its deformed head and pounced on it again in a frenzy.

Thirty meters.

Ahead was a 30-meter-wide acoustic gravel belt and a 3-meter-high electrified wire mesh.

Lynn simply didn't have time to climb the tree anymore.

Even if he climbs a tree, this mutated monster will climb up the trunk and tear him to pieces in half a second.

"Lynn! Data transmission complete! Department of Homeland Security has received it!" Miles shouted hoarsely into the headset. "Where are you?!"

"Running for their lives!"

Lynn rushed to the edge of the gravel belt.

Amidst the piercing alarm, the beam of the searchlight had already caught his figure.

"Target sighted! Open fire!" the mercenaries behind shouted.

Two bullets grazed Lynn's thigh and shoulder, taking away a piece of his clothing.

Lynn took a deep breath, turned around, and faced the hunting dog that had already pounced into the air.

The monster's gaping maw, filled with sharp teeth, was wide open, aimed straight at Lynn's throat.

Lynn did not dodge.

Just as the monster was about to bite him, he mustered the last of his strength, gripped the black ceramic knife tightly with his right hand, blade upwards, and plunged it fiercely into the gap of the monster's open jaw.

puff!

The ceramic knife was extremely sharp; it severed the monster's tongue, pierced its palate, and plunged into its brain.

But this monster was extremely resilient; it did not die immediately, and the immense inertia carried it and Lynn backward.

Lynn and the giant mutated hound crashed heavily onto the thirty-meter-wide white acoustic gravel belt.

The piercing acoustic friction sound instantly triggered the highest level alarm in the underground defense line, and the directional riot control grenades hidden under the rubble began to detonate in succession.