Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 47: Bitter Will to Live

The "thing" struggled to get up, its head lowered, water streaming down its broad, bare back, and its blood gushing swiftly into the river. It was then that Dylan noticed about a dozen spikes—no, not spikes, crude spear-like things, resembling pickaxes, piercing the creature’s body.

Some gaping wounds looked like they had been hastily torn out, as if the beast had tried to rip them from its own flesh. But seeing it move in slow agony, Dylan understood it was suffering horribly.

He recognized those weapons. After all, he had witnessed the moment when the bony creature—the one from the second row—had been riddled with those deadly projectiles.

The Hystrix.

The one they thought they had escaped, the one whose territory they believed they had left behind.

But faced with this dying creature, impaled like a macabre trophy, one truth became clear: they had been wrong.

This whole place belonged to it.

"Shit!!!"

His gray eyes locked onto the beast as his fingers tightened around the handle of his machete, still resting on the rock. The metal vibrated with a sharp ring as he raised it.

No time to think.

He charged.

Maggie did too.

She counted her steps—three quick strides across the flat stones—then leaped from the last rock, her axe raised above her head in a flawless arc.

Dylan’s blade struck first.

But instead of biting into flesh, it slid across the gray skin as if over invisible armor. A hard, almost metallic shock twisted his wrist.

Maggie, meanwhile, aimed for the skull.

The impact sent a jolt through her arms like an electric shock. Her axe had only grazed the creature, leaving a thin trail of blood.

"What—?!"

Her eyes widened.

Her foot slipped.

She missed the last stone and toppled into the water with a desperate splash.

Slowly, the creature raised its head.

Its glassy yellow eyes fixed on Dylan.

Then its jaw opened.

Then a thunderous noise, like a roar tearing through the air, erupted.

Dylan and Maggie didn’t even have time to move. A visceral fear seized them, as if their worst nightmare had come to life before their eyes. Their bodies trembled, racked with a chilling shudder. They felt the fear, felt the raw fury of the creature, like a crushing wave twisting their guts.

"We can’t win."

"We can’t even run."

Their muscles locked up, betrayed by their own instincts.

Then—

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Three gunshots rang out in rapid succession. The bullets struck the abomination’s forehead in a flash of torn flesh, splattering chunks of gray skin. The impacts made the creature stagger, its head snapping back from the force.

Elisa.

Dylan barely turned his eyes toward her. Standing on the shore, the still-smoking pistol in her hands, her features were hardened with deadly focus.

The creature growled, a hoarse sound that vibrated through the air. Slowly, with calculated rage, it turned its gaze to Elisa.

"Oh no..!"

Dylan felt adrenaline burn through his veins. His body finally moved. He rushed toward Maggie, still half-submerged, and grabbed her arm.

"Move!"

The creature took a step forward. Then another. The water splashed around its massive legs, tinged red.

Elisa stepped back, reloading with a sharp motion.

"Dylan!" she screamed. "Finish it!"

Dylan couldn’t understand why Elisa was so insistent on killing this creature. They could have run. Should have run. Yet she persisted, her gun trained on the beast as if their survival depended on it.

But he knew Elisa. She never asked for the impossible. And if she insisted, she had a plan.

A plan... or madness.

Their blades couldn’t even scratch its skin. So how?

No time to think.

The creature was leaving the water now, its massive feet crushing the shore with dull thuds. Dylan and Maggie rushed after it, leaping from rock to rock.

"Commander!" Dylan yelled, zigzagging between the stones.

Elisa, running parallel, her eyes locked on the beast, answered sharply:

"Got any ideas? I’m all ears."

"Try to hold it back!"

Without hesitation, Maggie climbed onto a rock, took a running start, and jumped.

Her body soared in a perfect arc, axe raised. The blade came down on the creature’s neck with a sickening crack. Not enough to kill, but enough to disorient.

And most importantly—enough to distract.

Maggie landed hard on the creature’s back, her muscular legs wrapping around its neck like a vise. The beast roared, shaking its head like an enraged bull, but Maggie held on, her clawed fingers digging into one of its eye sockets.

"Dylan, NOW!" Elisa bellowed as she reloaded.

Dylan understood instantly and lunged.

He dove forward, his machete spinning in a flash of steel—not toward the impenetrable skin, but toward the wounds. Toward those gaping holes left by the Hystrix’s spikes.

Where the flesh was already torn open.

The blade sank into one of the wounds with a wet squelch.

The creature screamed.

For the first time, it screamed in pain.

Maggie and Dylan didn’t let up.

Maggie’s muscles tensed like steel cables as she tightened her grip around the monstrous neck.

With a brutal motion, she wrenched her axe free from the ruined eye socket and raised it high—her arms trembling with effort. The metal came down with the force of a storm, carving deep into the gray flesh.

Beside her, Dylan struck like a madman. Not with the blade, but with the flat of his machete, hammering the spikes already embedded in the creature’s body.

Each blow drove them deeper, widening the gaping wounds from which black, viscous blood gushed.

The creature shuddered.

A hoarse roar, full of animal suffering, tore through the air. Maggie felt its muscles convulse beneath her—a tremor of pure agony. Yet it still resisted.

"Goddammit, it just won’t die!"

Dylan changed tactics. His eyes scanned the massive body, searching for a weak spot, a flaw...

He aimed low.

Very low.

The machette plunged into what should have been a vulnerable spot.

The creature arched with a piercing shriek, its knees hitting the ground with a dull thud. Maggie nearly lost her balance but caught herself at the last second, her fingers desperately clinging to the hardened plates of skin.

For a suspended moment, they thought they had finally defeated it.

Until its remaining eye fixed on them.

A yellow gleam, filled with a hatred so primal it froze Dylan’s blood. Even Maggie, usually unshakable, took an instinctive step back.

Then Elisa stepped forward.

With a calm step, almost surreal in the chaos, she approached the dying creature. Her fingers brushed its wrinkled forehead, stroking the gray skin with a macabre gentleness.

"Shhhh..."

Her voice was a soothing whisper, as if lulling a child to sleep.

The gun slid into the empty eye socket—a wet scrape of mangled flesh. The creature shuddered.

Elisa smiled.

"Sleep tight, big guy."

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The last three bullets exploded inside the skull, obliterating what remained of its consciousness. The massive body finally collapsed with one last ragged sigh.

Silence fell at last, leaving only the river’s persistent ripple, as if nothing had happened.