Upon sensing the approaching storm, the creature stopped and tilted its head towards them. It had thought there would be a few of them, like all the groups it had encountered before, not an entire horde of humans!

It looked like the creature was thinking about something, and then it started moving again.

The clawing got even more frantic this time, and it even forgot about its damaged leg and used what little control it had over it to push itself forward.

Seeing this, Aiden put a third shot into the ground in front of it. The creature flinched back as the shot hit, but recovered faster this time, adjusting its path sideways instead of retreating entirely.

With all the shots, it had deduced the location and the angle from which Aiden was sniping him. As long as it got out of the angle, there was still time to escape.

"Genuinely too smart for your own good," Aiden said quietly. "Just what are you?"

[Unknown classification, Host. I have no entry for it other than the few pages the wolves found before.]

"Do you have a habit of repeating the same shit every few days?"

[Most likely.]

"..." Aiden sighed, turning his attention back to the creature so it doesn’t disappear. "You’re not even denying it anymore."

He watched it drag itself another few meters before putting a fourth shot down, this time not in front of it but behind it, cutting off the retreat route toward the building it had been angling for.

The creature didn’t stop anymore. Just changed its course and kept moving. It was as if it could sense the approaching crowd and wanted to escape, even if the bullets hit it.

It was just as the creature predicted. The crowd was closer now. The wolves were coordinating the approach, telling everyone to fan out to cut off the surrounding streets so the thing couldn’t find a gap to push through, even if it got its legs magically repaired themselves.

Seeing as they were getting closer, Aiden bought a radio from the shop and set it to the frequency used by the wolves.

[You could have bought it before to order Marcus around.]

"And broadcast my plan of teaching an old woman a lesson? Good job, system."

[...]

Even though he had told them to capture it alive, knowing how thorough the wolves were, they’d definitely ask for more instructions once they got there.

And sure enough, the radio cackled to life a moment later.

"Sir, we have visual," Marcus informed. "Approximately two hundred meters out."

"Hold the perimeter," Aiden said. "Move slowly to enclose the creature. Don’t go yourselves, send the common folks first."

"Copy that."

He watched through the map as the group stopped advancing and held their positions. Aiden saw a wide ring of white dots move slowly to close off every direction.

The creature was in the center of that ring now, crouched low, head moving slowly from one point to the next, but didn’t make any progress to escape.

If anyone saw it, they’d think someone powerful and influential was bullying a child. After all, three hundred grown people had surrounded a single injured creature the size of a child.

And somehow, watching it sit there in the middle of all of that and not panic, Aiden still wasn’t entirely sure the numbers were as comfortable as they looked.

"Move in," he said. "Slowly. Keep the line tight and don’t leave gaps."

The ring of lights began to shrink on the map. The creature watched them come, yet it didn’t run.

Aiden had expected it to run, or to try to, working the damaged leg as hard as it would go in one desperate attempt to find a gap in the line before the gap closed entirely.

Most creatures did something like that when cornered. As animalistic instinct would often override everything else. Instead, it crouched lower and went completely still.

Aiden’s hand tightened slightly on the rifle.

"Watch it," he ordered through the radio. "It’s got something in its—" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Before he could say the words, he saw the creature rush towards the thickest part of the circle, directly at the cluster of people who were approaching it from the north side.

"What the hell..."

Aiden couldn’t believe his eyes as the creature stood on its hands and ran towards the group.

It covered the distance between them with a speed that made no sense to Aiden since it was on its hands. Before he could issue the group any commands, the creature hit the tenants there.

Aiden heard the shouting through the radio as all hell broke loose. He shot to his feet, almost wanting to rush at them, but he couldn’t. He was trapped there by the barrier.

"Marcus, Damian, rip that bastard’s limbs now!" he barked into the radio. "Everyone else back the fuck up, don’t let it—"

Before he could say the words, he saw the creature’s ruined legs work again, but not in the way anyone would have expected. Instead of fixing it, the mutilated legs turned into some sort of turret and began firing shards of bone at the people around.

Just the first volley of shards took down over two dozen people. Aiden didn’t get any death notifications. The people were injured, not dead.

It seemed the creature merely wanted to clear an escape route and didn’t care about killing them.

Unfortunately, the creature’s plan worked. The ring collapsed inward on itself as people scrambled backward. Under the torrent of bone shards, people forgot all about coordinating.

Soon, the smallest of gaps was made, and the creature used it to charge out. Aiden could only see it through the map, as the creature had long since entered his blind spot.

"Marcus!" Aiden barked into the radio. "Stop chasing after it! Fan out and get ahead of it!"

"We’re trying, sir, it’s—" Marcus replied over the panicked crowd. "Shit! It just spiked another four people, the crowd is breaking up faster than we can—"

"Then use the wolves only! Get the tenants back!"

Aiden gritted his teeth as the creature was on the verge of escaping. However, just then, he noticed a few new tenant markers appear in front of the creature.

Someone charged at it with a ballistic shield, knocking it off the ground!

The creature was flung back by the hit, its hand falling flat in front. It tried to get up and run into some other direction, but the next moment, two blades came down from above, driving through the backs of both hands and pinning them to the rubble beneath.

"...what the hell are they doing here?"

Aiden was in disbelief upon seeing the two purple-haired swordswomen working alongside Glenn.