Chapter 229: Inhuman

At that moment, Zhang Wenda's pupils dilated to their limit as he stared fixedly at the small animals huddled together in the basement. The rage in his heart felt like it had been doused in gasoline, the flames roaring ever higher.

As Zhang Wenda looked upon the children, they seemed to notice the light and movement. One of the vaguely shaped little creatures struggled to lift its head and let out a faint, familiar voice. "Teacher Rabbit…"

The cry was a sledgehammer to Zhang Wenda's temples. Blood rushed to his head, his vision turning scarlet. He became a blur, charging violently into the fray. "MOTHERFUCKER!!"

SHIIING! Ten scythes, glinting with a cold light, instantly shot out from Zhang Wenda's rabbit-like claws.

Simultaneously, Zhang Wenda summoned Wai Rabbit again. It quickly used the Double Fish Jade Pendant to replicate itself, and the copies screeched bizarrely as they swarmed around Zhang Wenda, coordinating their attacks.

This Big Circle stronghold was well-staffed, and its members were quite skilled. It was, after all, a B3 Level stronghold that had warranted a cautious approach from Shuisheng and his team.

But none of that mattered against the Zhang Wenda of this moment—especially not against the selfless, mindless onslaught of his rage. It was no match at all.

The ten scythes became a dazzling, deadly storm in his hands. Air screamed across the vicious barbs on the backs of the blades, creating a sound like the wailing of ghosts and gods.

The more Zhang Wenda killed, the more frenzied he became. The scent of blood electrified his nerves. For the first time, the sharp fangs of his former monstrous body erupted from his rabbit mouth. He let out a furious roar: "You crazy bastards are all going to fucking die!"

Accompanied by a cacophony of screams, flesh and severed limbs flew everywhere. In an instant, the Big Circle stronghold transformed from a battlefield into a living hell.

The Big Circle members obviously tried to fight back, their survival instincts driving them to use every trick they had. But it didn't matter whether they used their bizarre and unpredictable Thought Wave weapons or their various modified firearms.

Any damage they managed to inflict on Zhang Wenda was almost instantly redirected back onto themselves.

Worse still, most of them couldn't even keep up with his incredible speed.

Even when some, seeing how hopeless it was, desperately dropped their weapons and raised their hands in terrified surrender, the blood-crazed Zhang Wenda showed no mercy. A sweep of his scythes tore them in two.

Initially, the Big Circle members had shown some organization. Relying on cover and crossfire, they had managed to hinder and delay Zhang Wenda to some degree.

But once they broke and fled, exposing their defenseless backs to him, the scene devolved into a brutally efficient, one-sided massacre.

As the number of enemies dwindled, Zhang Wenda's scarlet gaze locked onto the last conspicuous target: a man wearing a lion-dance head.

He was stumbling backward in retreat. Zhang Wenda crouched, about to pounce like a cheetah, when seven or eight blue pillars of light shot out from all directions, intersecting precisely on his body and pinning him to the spot, unable to move.

"Don't kill him! He's one of us!" Shuisheng's urgent voice rang out just in time, causing Zhang Wenda to abruptly halt the command he was about to give the Wai Rabbits to pounce and deliver the final blow.

The razor-sharp, gleaming incisors of several Wai Rabbits were just centimeters from the lion-dance-headed man's neck.

The shout was like a bucket of cold water, shocking a sliver of reason back into Zhang Wenda. Only then did he suddenly recall that the Third Line did indeed have a tradition of planting moles inside enemy ranks. He himself had once been one of them.

The ten blood-soaked scythes slowly retracted into his claws. Zhang Wenda glanced at the field of corpses and took a deep breath of the air, thick with the metallic scent of blood. He ignored Shuisheng and the other team members running toward him and, with heavy steps, walked toward the basement.

"Don't be afraid. Teacher Rabbit is here to save you." Zhang Wenda raised the Black Cat, now transformed into a large ladle, and began to carefully scoop the small, nearly melted-together animals out of the basement, one spoonful at a time, as if ladling soup.

However, once freed from the cramped space, the small animals seemed to have lost all skeletal support. They collapsed onto the ground like melting wax figures and began to spread out, their forms terrifyingly unstable.

Even when Zhang Wenda tried to prop them up with his hands, it was no use. They slipped through his fingers like jelly, their bodies greasy and nothing at all like how children should be.

Seeing Shuisheng approach with the still-shaken man in the lion-dance head, Zhang Wenda suppressed the churning rage in his heart and asked the man, "What in the world was the Big Circle doing to these children?"

The man with the lion-dance head was clearly terrified of Zhang Wenda. He took an unconscious step back, swallowed hard, and said, "They… they think conventional growth is too slow. They feel that time in Thought Wave One is a complete waste, so they wanted to see if they could skip Thought Wave One and Thought Wave Two entirely, and send children straight to… to Thought Wave Six as laborers from birth."

"My god! These lunatics aren't even human!" an older woman on the team exclaimed, unable to contain her anger.

"Who would join the Big Circle if they weren't lunatics?" Shuisheng said, walking over. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. I've seen them do things far more disgusting and inhumane than this."

Just then, Wang Xiaohua and her companions came over carrying a large, elastic-looking bag made of a special material. They began to carefully place the liquefied little animals into the bag one by one. Clearly, they had come prepared for this exact possibility.

Zhang Wenda hurried to Wang Xiaohua's side, his voice tight with anxiety. "Is there any way to turn them back to normal?"

Her brow furrowed, Wang Xiaohua slowly shook her head. "I don't know either. We'll have to wait until we get them back and see what the department's doctors say."

"FUCK!" Hearing this, Zhang Wenda's pent-up rage and helplessness erupted. He kicked a toppled office chair beside him.

Staring at the shattered remains of the office chair, he turned and walked in silence toward a relatively "clean" area on the stronghold's perimeter.

Seeing that Zhang Wenda was losing control of his emotions, Wanli Shuisheng quietly walked over to his side.

"You'll get used to it," Wanli Shuisheng said. "This is the Big Circle's philosophy. They believe nothing is taboo. If they want to do something, they should be able to do it. They have no bottom line."

"But that philosophy is complete bullshit! Absolute freedom just leads to absolute chaos. Without rules, there can be no order. There are some things that should never be done, no matter what. It can't be that just because someone likes to kill, they should have the freedom to do it, right?"