First Encounter With Devils

Leng Yueyan went to the Logistic Department to submit the names of her team members. Then everyone set off towards the Evergreen Forest with glittering eyes and excited faces. However, as they neared their destination the excitement vanished from their faces like smoke in the sky, and rage started to burn over their faces and inside their hearts—

—wherever they passed only burned houses and torn pieces of bodies were found. Now and then they would find naked women, lying on the ground—or tied on the trees or pinned on the walls—covered in wounds, horrified looks on their faces. Dead. Anyone could guess what unspeakable things had happened with these poor souls, and that set Qin Meng and others' hearts on fire.

"Animals!" shouted Yan Yunjie as he saw a naked woman pinned with nails on the wall, eyes hollow and dead. "How could someone be this cruel?!" There were tears in his eyes and then he vomited followed by Qian Jie and Wu Hui, when they saw the gash in the woman's stomach from which her guts were falling out.

"Unforgivable!" shouted Princess Zhong Liqiu. "I will never forgive them. Never!"

"Neither will I," said Leng Yueyan from beside the princess, her voice calm. "However, we need to control our emotions, otherwise we won't even know how we died. Devils are cruel and cunning creatures who came from Otherside. They are insanely bloodthirsty and horny. They would kill any man they find, absorbing their blood and souls to improve their strength, however—" she stopped briefly before continuing, "—if they find a woman, death won't come so easily. Death would be a mercy as compared to the unspeakable things they had to endure." 

She looked at the pinned woman on the wall with sorrowful eyes.

Everyone in the group appeared shaken at her words. Qin Meng eyed Leng Yueyan and was about to ask something when Yan Yunjie said, "What kind of place is Otherside that you mentioned, Sister Yueyan?"

"You just need to know that it is a horrible place," she said. "Alright, let's go."

"Aren't we going to bury this woman?" said Qian Jie. "At least we should give her a proper burial before departing."

"Our time is precious," said Leng Yueyan sternly. "People are dying as we are wasting our time. She is already dead and I am sorry about that—but we can't let others die and endure the same suffering that SHE went through, just because we were giving a proper burial. Sorry, but for me, living people are more important."

"But—"

"Enough!" interrupted Princess Zhong Liqiu. "Yueyan is right. We need to save people instead of wasting our time on the dead. Moreover, we don't know if any devil is hiding in the village. We would be asking for trouble if we waste our time burying the woman."

"Let's go," said Leng Yueyan as they exited the reeking house. The street—the village—was silent, a spooky kind of silence, the one that you feel when you walk alone in the middle of the night. The only difference was that at that time you know that everything is normal. On the contrary, the silence that Qin Meng and others felt was terrifying. The pieces of bodies lying on the ground, puddles of blood reeking, faeces and guts scattered in the silent street of the dead village.

Suddenly something came under Qin Meng's boot, he lifted his leg and his face paled, and then vomited on the side of the road. What had come under his foot was someone's eye that he had crushed under his boot. He had never seen such disgusting sight ever before in his life. 

"Be careful, everyone!" Leng Yueyan suddenly said from in front of the group. Qin Meng wiped his face with a handkerchief and looked in front of him: two men were standing there. However, soon he discovered something wasn't right with them. Their eyes glittered with crimson red, their bodies swung from one side to the other, and they had nails too long for a normal human. And most terrifying of all: their faces, claws and bodies were painted in blood.

"Die, devils!" shouted Yueyan and unsheathed her sword before rushing towards the weird men.

Princess was second to act, following Leng Yueyan, her own sword gripped tightly in her hand.

"Roar!"

The devils roared like a beast and one of them dashed towards Leng Yueyan and the other went towards the Princess.

"Don't fight them head-on," informed Leng Yueyan, "their bodies are too powerful, neither look in their eyes, they can cast spells through them."

"Clang!" The sword and the claw came into contact and the sound reverberated in the silent alley. "Kill them as soon as possible. We don't know if there are more devils in the village—if their number is large it would be dangerous to stay on the same spot." Leng Yueyan pushed the devil back and then swung her sword towards him and the head flew towards the sky. The blood pumped from the headless neck, and then the body slumped in its own pool of blood.

And soon after that another head separated from the shoulder of the other devil. Princess had also defeated her opponent. 

Qin Meng and his three companions looked at the scene in front of them, completely shaken from inside. They were humans! "Th—they… owww!!" Yan Yunjie couldn't take the pressure and vomited once more, then Wu Hui and Zeng Hong followed the suit and poured everything out that they had eaten before setting on the mission.

"Come, let's go!" Qin Meng rushed behind Leng Yueyan and others and urged his friends to follow. No time to feel sorry for them. 

Soon they were in another alley. Then they heard roars—the similar ones that the devils had produced, but this time there were more than just two.

"At least ten," said Yao Ying.

Qin Meng looked at his former maid and found a white shadow flickering behind her back. A white owl. The owls had one of the best hearing senses in the animal kingdom, it was not shocking that Yao Ying could tell the number of devils just by hearing them roar. Qin Meng also realized the value of such a comrade in this kind of situation. With her, they would be able to avoid most of the dangers.

"Oh no!" suddenly Yao Ying shouted.

"What happened?" asked the princess.

Yao Ying looked pale as she replied, "I was too focused on a single point that I failed to notice the second group of devils coming from another direction."