In a dark, suffocating alleyway near an abandoned pier on the western edge of Yueguang, the evening twilight split the sky into a stark divide of fading light and heavy, overcast gray. Five battered pickup trucks rumbled into the shadows, their headlamps cutting through the gloom to illuminate a blockade of ten heavily armed mobsters. With cold, demanding gestures, the guards forced the convoy to a halt for inspection. Two mysterious figures, enveloped in heavy cloaks, stepped down from the lead trucks. The cargo strapped into the beds consisted of colored, stamped steel plating—curved and razor-sharp, mimicking the fangs of a wild tiger.
"Is this genuine TAOS hardware?" one of the mobsters in black demanded, eyeing the shipment suspiciously.
"No shit! You could build an AI tank with these mofos," one of the cloaked figures replied, his voice possessing an unnaturally deep, mechanical baritone.
The inspector took a deep, theatrical breath over the steel, verifying its authenticity. "It's the real deal, boss. Totaling two hundred and fifty kilograms." Upon hearing the report, a towering, heavily built man stepped out from the ranks, a meat cleaver mounted crosswise against his lower back.
"Two hundred and fifty?! Pok kai la! Are you fuckas trying to short' me?!"
"Calm down," the deep-voiced stranger replied, attempting to de-escalate. "The shipment was delayed. The transport convoy broke down en route."
"The fuck you mean? the convoy broke down?!" The burly boss's temper flared instantly. He turned his back, rubbing his face in a furious attempt to regain his composure. Then, without warning, he snapped. "Then I ain't paying a single damn dime!" he bellowed, his voice echoing violently through the alley.
In a fluid, practiced motion, he whipped the meat cleaver from his back, swinging it in a lethal arc meant to cleave both strangers in two. But just as the heavy blade was about to bite through their cloaks, both figures dissolved into thin air, leaving nothing but a sudden gust of wind.
"It's an ambus—!" one of the guarding mobsters tried to yell, but the warning died in his throat.
A pair of pitch-black hands materialized from above, violently jerking him into the upper darkness. The man's agonizing, blood-curdling shriek pierced the air, throwing the remaining ten mobsters into an absolute state of panic. They raised their weapons frantically, aims shifting wildy across the high walls flanking the alley.
"What the fuck?!" the boss roared.
No answer came. Seizing the initiative, his loyal enforcers hustled him through a nearby doorway to take cover inside the adjacent building. They found themselves crammed into a pitch-black corridor, choked on both sides by towering stacks of crates, leaving barely enough room for them to squeeze through single file. The hollow thud and rustle of shifting boxes rattled around them periodically. Tactical flashlights darted up and down, searching frantically for the source of the noise.
"I don't care who the hell you are or what the hell you want! If you don't show your faces right now, I'll burn this fucking building to bricks!" the boss bellowed into the dark, projecting his threat to whatever was lurking in the shadows.
As they pressed deeper, a dark, glistening trail of blood began to manifest across the faces of the crates, thicker and more pronounced with every step. Finally, they reached a dead end—or rather, stumbled upon something lying prone behind a massive cluster of rectangular boxes. A young woman's head slowly peeked out from behind a crate. Strands of matted black hair completely masked her face.
"Move aside, lady!" the enforcer at the front of the line barked, his gun trained on her.
"My back... it's tearing apart..." she whispered, her hand reaching out in an agonizing plea for salvation.
But something was profoundly, horrifically wrong. Her arm extended far past normal human limitations, twisting into a grotesque elongation. She let out a piercing shriek before leaping backward, vanishing into the shadows. The howling, wretched scream echoed through the warehouse, melting into a sickening symphony of tearing flesh and grinding machinery.
"Fire! Fire the goddamn bitch!" the boss screamed, ordering his men to unleash a barrage of lead into the dark.
In the ensuing chaos, the men jostled and collided against one another, causing the unstable stacks of crates flanking them to collapse, cascading down from both sides and burying the enforcers beneath a mountain of heavy wood.
The burly boss shoved a massive crate off his chest, scrambling to his feet. He was entirely alone now, the sole beam of light coming from the weapon-mounted flashlight in his hand. Then, a sickening sound echoed from the dark ahead—the screech of grinding metal dragging across concrete, closing in fast.
The light bounced off a shifting figure, revealing a young woman whose mouth had been replaced by a pair of blinking human eyes.
"The greedy always reap the horrific harvest they sow," she whispered.
She reached up, parting the matted hair away from her forehead. The boss's breath hitched as he saw what lay beneath. Where her eyes belonged, a row of jagged human teeth bared into a sickening grin.
"Zan....nli...." the boss stammered, his hands trembling as he leveled his pistol at the monstrosity's face. "I thought that bitch killed you."
"Bitch didn't have the gut to do her job..." Her anatomy began to warp violently, twisting into a deformed silhouette as multiple black appendages erupted from her shoulder blades. "And because of that... this is what I've been all along!"
With a violent snap of her shoulders, a roaring chainsaw blade swung outward with terrifying velocity. The flashlight-mounted pistol slipped from the boss's hand, clattering into the debris of scattered boxes. The fallen beam caught the wall, casting a sharp, stark silhouette of a headless torso collapsing onto the floor.
"I will find you, rip your heart from your chest, and eat your very soul! Evaaaaaa~~~~~~!!!"
A piercing shriek of absolute, murderous vengeance reverberated through the pitch-black warehouse, drowning out the night.