Chapter 113: Behind

That thin line of coldness was not particularly sharp; after slicing through the clothes and piercing the skin, it left a brief moment for a reaction.

"Behind!"

A large portion of the light behind was blocked out. Peter, who had done nothing, cried out in panic to warn, but it was already more than a step too late. The proliferating, rusted blade brought a grinding pain like a misaligned carpenter's saw being used on flesh and blood, turning the wound into an irregular zigzag that could not be aligned.

Couldn't you think of something using the stool in your hand?

Unable to turn around, Kup crouched and lunged forward, tumbling out of the house for a few steps to escape this attack.

He held the hammer in one hand, covering his lower back as he looked back. The muscle contraction produced even greater pain, as if a rat soaked in seawater were gnawing at him, with salt-grain-sized particles stuck in the wound causing continuous, long-lasting irritation.

That strangely moving attacker stood behind the door, behind Kup's original position, drawn by the sound Peter made.

The hunched body began to turn; for his posture, this was far too flexible. The spine, which had never straightened since it appeared, twisted toward Peter, bending sideways to an angle that would snap a normal person in half.

Yet he, or rather it, was also rigid. The back did not bend according to the overall curve, but held a segmented posture, as if several vertebrae had fused together, including the neck.

He did not follow the most suitable way to turn his head to observe; instead, relying on rotating his body, he directed the eyes beneath the tattered, stitched fabric toward Peter.

"Lord..."

Now even the most dull-witted person could sense something was wrong. Peter clutched the wooden stool and retreated; the room was not large, and he pressed directly against the wall, with nowhere left to retreat.

Kup released the hand covering his waist; the wet palm slipped on the hammer handle. He could not tell if it was his own blood or residue from the previous fight. He tried hard not to think about this problem, enduring the pain as he approached the hunched figure.

Working at the dock had a downside: one would occasionally suffer minor to moderate injuries, cut by some thorny catch, or perhaps caused by distraction while moving large cargo; in severe cases, it could even involve the bones.

But laborers could not rest because of such injuries, so in a sense, this was also a good thing; the rich experience of injury prevented him from rolling on the ground in pain from the wound in his lower back.

A guy holding a stool and shivering against the wall could not be regarded as a threat. The attacker turned around before he got close, apparently not intending to waste energy on Peter first.

Realizing things were bad in his heart, Kup pushed off the ground and charged at the opponent. The hammer head swung out in a large semi-circular arc, crashing down with a whooshing wind sound.

His eyes locked onto the target; he wanted to see with his own eyes how this guy moved.

Charging toward the door, he swung the hammer down.

The person wrapped entirely in cloth made no evasive movement; just as before, he adjusted the dagger with his curled arm on his own, assuming a strange attack posture.

Kup smelled a familiar scent coming from the hunched figure, but it was not the body odor caused by long-term residence in dust and lack of water for washing the body.

It seemed to come from an unsettling place, some house or other, a workshop for processing salted fish, or a back kitchen full of shattered shell fragments and entrails. A strange smell leaked out from a window that wasn't closed tight, which was the attacker himself.

This scent was especially obvious when the hammer head was about to crash down; that window stood wide open, spewing an atmosphere as if known from past dreams.

Under the dim light, objects with already unclear edges began to twist. The backlit hunched figure standing between him and the flame was stretched, layered, and compressed, disappearing before his eyes in a completely incomprehensible form through some small hole, crack, or other kind of loophole opened on the picture plane.

【Honestly, I've been using Wild Fruit Reading to read and follow updates recently. Switch sources, multiple narration voices available.. yeguoyuedu works on both Android and iOS.】

Swinging and missing again, momentum carried him through the doorframe, crashing into the room and throwing himself onto the table.

The not-very-sturdy table immediately broke a leg, tilting to one side, and he stumbled and fell toward the foot of the bed along with his body.

The oil lamp, along with the oil, was knocked over onto the ground, igniting a pool of flames. The scorching heat rushing at his face forced his body to roll and dodge away.

The firelight dimmed slightly; the cutting sensation of small saw teeth touched his right shoulder, from the upper edge of the collarbone to the shoulder peak. Intense pain surged out with warm liquid. If he hadn't instinctively rolled away from the lamp oil, this blow would have landed on his neck.

"Peter!" Kup rolled away from the attack, holding the hammer with one hand to block a thrust that followed closely.

This deformed guy had much more strength than imagined. The pressing force pushed the blade against his face; clear reddish-brown rust was visible, the source of the saw-toothed cutting sensation. Blood soaked into it, like rot growing on metal.

The belated support was too slow and too indecisive, and had already been noticed. Peter closed his eyes and swung the wooden stool down; the posture made it look nothing like a fight.

Fortunately, he hadn't used full strength. The attacker abandoned the stalemate and jumped back, repeating the act of vanishing into thin air; the wooden stool struck Kup's arm, which was protecting his face, with moderate force, making no obvious sound of bone cracking.

Unfortunately, a scream immediately followed this chaotic ensemble. The hunched figure appeared behind Peter and stabbed solidly. The guide, with no awareness of defense, fell to the ground, a large red stain spreading across the clothes on his back.

As if pushing aside an insignificant coffin lid, he cast no more than a glance at the victim in the pool of blood, or perhaps his body structure did not allow such a movement. He raised the dagger and lunged at Kup again.

Kup, who was halfway to rising, was pressed to the ground again. The brief time Peter had bought only allowed him to mobilize his injured left shoulder, holding the hammer handle to intercept the dagger, so that he did not immediately lose in another round of stalemate.

But his defeat was only a matter of time; the force applied to the dagger was no worse than when his arms were uninjured, let alone now that his injured hand could not exert strength.

Approaching along with the dagger was that tightly wrapped face. The three strange movements just now obviously had a cost; beneath the cloth strips came a mix of heavy and coarse panting and hissing noises, especially noticeable during inhalation. Airflow passed through the cloth strips, moving between layers of hard objects that were not teeth, producing a rattle like rocks rolling on bones.

The smell of iron rust rushed from his breath, carrying metal rust powder from the dagger into the nasal cavity, mixed with some never-before-smelled sour rot of old food, synthesizing an atmosphere that seemed like blood but carried a strange familiarity.

Kup wanted to curse, but his wide-open mouth was exerting all its strength just to breathe, unable to make a sound.

He also didn't know who to curse: this damned village, the strange attacker, or Kup himself, the idiot. He should have thought of Kraft's words the first time he swung and missed; he shouldn't have blindly swung his weapon to attack, shouldn't have acted blindly. This guy's behavior wasn't actually that complicated.

But under the shock of the first encounter with conflict and the first time swinging a weapon at a person, emotions fluctuated wildly; who could have thought of that?

Now the opportunity was long gone. In a struggle with no room to exert force, he was still on the losing side, with the dagger hovering over his skin. Could he go to the Heavenly Father to summarize his experience then? Probably no chance left; he didn't believe in that anyway.

The firelight changed slightly again, perhaps from shaking, or perhaps something blocking it.

A foot wearing a small leather boot decisively kicked out from under the bed nearby, striking the hunched figure in the face, who had never expected someone hidden in the room.

It had to be said that the wooden sole of the shoe was very sturdy; plus, this guy's neck had no ability to bend and absorb force at all. It acted solidly on the fragile side of the face, causing psychological shock to the guy who had entered unscathed, as well as a heavy physical blow.

Yin Feng crawled out from under the bed, raising the bundle to deliver another hard hit.

Kup felt a lightness on his body; without even needing to think, he swung the hammer with all his strength toward Yin Feng's back. A sensation like a mixture of shell and rock flakes shattered under the iron.

That was right.