Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 316 Another Face
"Let's go." Lilith raised her hands above her head and clapped them together. "It's best to finish everything here before this waste liquid pool melts... Tsk, I don't want to be a human refrigerator again."

"Do you want to... take a break?" Jiang Yu asked.

She suddenly had a bad feeling.

"No, hurry up." Lilith strode towards the open door of Factory No. 5. After a few steps, she suddenly turned around and looked at Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao, "I also made an appointment with my supervisor to go to the sauna together after get off work today... Do you two want to join us?"

"Sauna?" Jiang Yu was startled. "But aren't all the public baths in Tianfu City closed now? Where are you going..."

"Just take your hunter's license and requisition a sauna room in a bathhouse. Everything is ready. As for the energy supply, I can solve it with a snap of my fingers! How about it? Do you want to come? I tell you, every time I finish a mission and get all sweaty, it feels so good to go to a sauna..."

"Forget it..." Jiang Yu felt a little awkward when he thought about the red-haired witch in front of him who was once a man...

If he really wants to go to the bathhouse, should this guy go to the men's or women's bathroom?

"Finish the mission first." Ling Xiao said coldly. He put the "God-killing Gun" back into the holster, and then picked up a broken limb of a fluorescent spider from the ground.

The broken limb is about thirty centimeters long and slightly thicker than chopsticks. The cross-section presents an irregular octagon. Apart from the sharp tip of the limb and a small row of barbed serrations near the tip, the surface of the limb is very smooth, even feeling "as smooth as jade". The grip feel cannot be said to be good, but at least it can be said to be very comfortable.

"Are you planning to use this thing as a weapon?" Lilith glanced at Ling Xiao and asked.

Ling Xiao waved the spider's ring towards the lamppost nearby. The sharp front end instantly cut a smooth-edged incision on the metal lamppost. The whole process took place without even a moment's pause or obstruction.

"Tsk, it's quite sharp." Lilith nodded, "I think your standard dagger can be thrown away now."

As she spoke, Lilith had already stepped into Factory No. 5.

A layer of light golden shield enveloped her entire body.

Although Lilith always gave people a careless feeling, she was still a veteran hunter who had experienced many battles... If she was really as unreliable and cautious as her first impression, then no matter how powerful she was, she would not have survived until now.

If Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao checked Lilith's file, they would be surprised to find that... the earliest publicly available mission record of this "female" hunter who looked to be in her twenties was seventy-five years ago.

Excluding those mission records that have been sealed for various reasons, there are more than three hundred completed missions under Lilith's name. Even if Zhulong were here, he would have to respectfully call her "senior".

"It's safe." Lilith stamped the metal floor with the heel of her boot. "Come in."

Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao were on guard on the left and right sides respectively, taking turns to provide cover as they walked into the factory.

"The tactical moves are totally substandard," Lilith commented nonchalantly. "Even if he's a newcomer, he shouldn't be this bad, right?"

"Ah?" Jiang Yu was a little puzzled. "We followed the standard moves in the CQB tutorial... Why did we fail?"

"CQB? Who taught you CQB?" Lilith asked.

(Note: CQB, Close Quarter Battle, the acronym for indoor close-quarters combat.)
"Tianfu City Emergency Tactical Team..." Jiang Yu replied, "They should be considered the stronger ones among Tianfu City's special forces, right?"

"Emergency Tactical Team? Haha." Lilith laughed disdainfully. "This group of people may be good at dealing with kidnappers and KB elements, but in operations against monsters, they can only be regarded as a group of helpers at best... The CQB tactics they taught you are not suitable for monster hunters at all."

"Why?" Ling Xiao asked immediately.

"When you two came in, one of you stared at the left side, and the other at the right side. Your sights were focused on the windows and doors of those rooms, and secondly on the skirting boards close to the ground... But do you think the monsters would stick a gun out of the window and shoot at you, or would they set up trip mines on the ground?" Lilith gestured on her head with her right hand, "Do you know what you missed? Right above! Right above your head! Damn it, CTs really never look up!"

After hearing what Lilith said, Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao raised their heads and looked upwards. It would have been better if they hadn't looked up. This look scared Jiang Yu - the inside of the dome of the entire Factory No. 5 was covered with a layer of flesh membrane, and the surface of this flesh membrane was covered with large and small vesicles. These vesicles moved rhythmically as if they were breathing. Through the translucent membrane of the vesicles, one could vaguely see that there seemed to be something curled up inside the vesicles.

Near the gate, the vesicles had burst, and the mucus inside dripped down, solidifying and hardening in mid-air, forming a stalactite-like landscape.

"This...what is this?" Jiang Yu was shocked.

Against the backdrop of these membranes and vesicles, Factory No. 5 looks like it has been transformed into the nest of some alien creature... and it's the most terrifying "living nest".

Jiang Yu felt like he wasn't walking into a factory, but rather into the body of a monster.

"It's a seedling bed for hatching those weird creatures." Lilith said calmly, "The small vesicles contain the little spiders just now. As for the big vesicles... it looks like there are people inside them."

"People?!" Jiang Yu subconsciously turned around and looked in the direction of the waste liquid pool.

"Yes, the 'deputy factory director' should also have been hatched from these vesicles." Lilith nodded.

"Then...then if the things inside these remaining vesicles come out..." Jiang Yu had already begun to have the idea of ​​retreating.

"Not yet." Lilith shook her head. "I can sense that it will take some time for them to hatch... Otherwise, after we dealt with those monsters just now, more monsters would run out of the factory."

"How long is a period of time?" Ling Xiao asked.

"It could take several hours or even a dozen seconds." Lilith said, "So from now on, we have to seize every minute and every second! You two follow me closely, don't act separately, don't look around, keep your ears open, and listen carefully to any sounds around you - Ling Xiao, if something goes wrong, just use the rune stone I gave you, don't hesitate!"

After saying that, Lilith ran directly towards the stairs.

Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu hurriedly followed.

Jiang Yu stared at Lilith in front of him, and a question arose in his heart - why did Lilith say that she had to hurry up, but no longer used the magic of teleportation?

Is he worried that the two of them won't be able to keep up, or is there too many obstacles in this scene that will affect teleportation?

Or... Lilith doesn't have much magic left?

Jiang Yu was a little unsure. During the time she spent with Lilith, she realized that as a hunter, she was too immature. Whether it was experience, tactics or mentality, none of them could be called "qualified"... She didn't dare to think about how she and Ling Xiao would complete the next mission if she lost Lilith.

No...it's not about completing the mission. What she should think about is how to leave this place alive.

Lilith ran along the steel-structured stairs, her leather boots making crisp sounds on the steel plates, and the sound echoed in the empty factory.

Every time he ran a certain distance, Jiang Yu would look up at the vesicles hanging on the dome's flesh membrane, fearing that the things hatched inside the vesicles would break out and pounce on him.

"Don't use your eyes to see these things, they are all weird things, you just need to feel their memetic fluctuations." Lilith's voice reached Jiang Yu's ears, "When they are about to hatch, the memetic fluctuations will have very obvious characteristics, I think you should be able to feel it."

"Memetic...fluctuation? Feeling?" Jiang Yu was confused again, "How to feel?"

"Calm down. For the infected, everyone has this perception ability, but some are stronger and some are weaker... They are just like eating and drinking water, no, it should be as natural as breathing. It is an ability you are born with. Damn, who is your direct supervisor? Didn't he teach you anything?"

"I... I don't have a person in charge yet." Jiang Yu replied, "I just became a hunter not long ago."

To be precise, Jiang Yu's direct supervisor is Sun Hang...but Sun Hang himself was extremely busy recently and had no time to teach Jiang Yu something that seemed to Sun Hang to be almost instinctive for the infected.

"Damn it, breathe... Try to breathe, and try to get rid of all distractions. While breathing, feel the 'other breath' of those weird things... The frequency of memes is like breathing, it has a rhythm. As long as you can find this rhythm, you can naturally sense the other person's breath, do you understand?"

"I...I'll try."

As soon as Jiang Yu finished speaking, Lilith, who was running in the front, suddenly stopped.

"We're here." Lilith said.

In front of her was an exquisitely decorated solid wooden door with a sign hanging on it with the words "Reception Room" written in gold-plated fonts.

Faintly, the sound of a violin could be heard coming from behind the door.

"You two, step back a little," Lilith said.

Lilith reached out and grasped the door handle.

She turned the doorknob gently - for some reason, she always felt that this action was familiar to her.

It seems like I've done it somewhere before.

But Lilith quickly put this thought behind her - it was just turning the doorknob to open the door, an action that most people would have to do countless times a day, so it was completely normal to feel a sense of déjà vu.

The door to the reception room was not locked, and the bolt came out of the keyhole smoothly. But when Lilith tried to push the door, she found a resistance coming from the back door, as if something was pushing against the door from behind.

Lilith let go of her hand, took two steps back, then suddenly accelerated, kicked the door hard with her foot.

"Pfft-"

The door opened with a sound like rotten cotton being torn into pieces.

Only then did Lilith see that the entire reception room was covered with the same flesh membrane as the factory dome. It was the flesh membrane stuck to the back of the door that blocked the door gap and hinges, causing her to feel that strange resistance.

The flesh membrane on the dome looks very thin, but when you get closer, you will find that it is actually five or six centimeters thick. When this layer of flesh membrane is spread in the reception room, it looks like a Cthulhu-style interior soft-pack wall.

"The flesh-textured carpet feels nice on the feet." Lilith sneered and stepped on it directly.

The flesh membrane under her feet squirmed and made a "puffing" sound.

"Alive, alive?!" Jiang Yu subconsciously took a step back.

In order to be able to crawl in the ventilation duct, she and Ling Xiao took off their boots, and now both of them were barefoot - to be honest, she really didn't want to step on this thick flesh membrane with her bare feet.

"Of course it's alive. If it's dead, how can it provide nutrients to those hatching monsters?" Lilith said.

As she spoke, she had already walked to the center of the reception room.

On the coffee table in the middle, there is a retro-style vinyl record player. As the round record on the machine turns, the melodious sound of the violin and the light sound of the piano keys echo in the room, and the harmonies of woodwind and brass instruments can be faintly heard.

Compared with the "messy" reception room, this record player and the coffee table on which it was placed were exceptionally clean - the sofa next to it was almost completely covered with flesh membrane, and the dark red blood-like substance had stained the surface of the sofa red and black, but on the coffee table and the record player, there was not a drop of blood or a grain of flesh to be seen.

"Strange... why is this room empty?" Lilith muttered to herself, "The projection of the strange creature should be here? Why is it empty?"

"Will it leave?" Jiang Yu asked tentatively, "Or will it...will it hide in a corner, waiting to ambush us? Just like it attacked you before?"

"Ah... yes!" Lilith's tone suddenly became strange, "I remember it, I remember it!"

"What did you remember?" Ling Xiao asked.

At some point, he had already pulled out the "God-killing Gun" and pointed it at Lilith who was standing in front of the record player.

"It hasn't left, it's in this room now." Lilith's voice had completely turned into a hoarse male voice.

She turned her back to Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu and slowly lifted her hair.

Under the long crimson hair, there is a man's face.

Jiang Yu recognized this face—it was the missing director of Factory No. 105: Wu Zhiyuan!
(End of this chapter)