Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 87: Grotesque Face

It was past noon, and although the sun dominated the sky, its light failed to penetrate the ambient cold. The air remained icy, saturated with that strange mist that enveloped everything, as if it were holding winter in its arms.

Dylan moved silently, knees slightly bent, muscles supple, focused. The mist thickened in irregular patches, sometimes closing around them like a clammy hand. He felt his breath shorten reflexively, his eyes scanning the shadows, the stones, the weapons planted in the ground like warnings.

Ahead of him, Maggie led the way. Calm. Precise. Steady steps. Her axe on her back, ready to speak for her.

Behind, Élisa closed the trio, her daggers at the ready, golden eyes piercing every movement between the tombstones. A born huntress. Each of her steps seemed to anticipate the terrain’s traps.

This was their second hunt of the day.

The first hadn’t been easy. But they had held firm. The three of them had proven that taking down a third-rank demonic beast was possible. Difficult, violent, but doable.

The problem was, the day wouldn’t last forever. And the higher the sun rose, the more the zone’s atmosphere seemed... tense. As if the mist itself was becoming nervous.

They needed a second target. Quickly.

But they still had to choose it. It took them long minutes of observation, crouched between the stones, analyzing tracks, half-visible movements in the mist. Because these beasts weren’t stupid. Some were even cunning. They had been hunting here far longer than them.

And this territory was their domain.

Facing them head-on would be suicidal. They would have to lure them. Make them move. Flush them out. Then strike.

Which meant... someone would have to play bait.

Dylan clenched his teeth as soon as the idea was mentioned. He even discreetly crossed his fingers, praying internally that it wouldn’t be him.

And against all odds... Maggie volunteered. In a neutral tone. Naturally. As if it were obvious.

Which, for Dylan, was very good news.

Their target this time was a grotesque abomination. A mass of slimy muscles, lurking in a clearing surrounded by collapsed graves. It had the body of a deformed gorilla, but its face... its face was a nightmare: porcine, without a real nose, with pale, pockmarked skin, and yellow canines protruding from its jaw like feline fangs. Streaks of dried blood still clung around its maw.

Its coat, a dirty gray, seemed to blend into the mist, hiding its contours with each movement.

Its front limbs were massive, ending in long curved claws. But the hind ones, thinner, ended in black hooves that nervously scraped the ground.

It didn’t move much. It was sitting, in a corner of ruins. Almost carefree.

But the sound... That sound.

The noise of jaws slowly chewing something hard — then the sharp crack of a bone broken like a twig.

Dylan shivered.

"We’re dealing with a monster," Maggie declared in a neutral tone. Her eyes remained fixed on the creature, still busy devouring what was left of its last meal.

The sound of crushed bones still echoed, regular, sinister.

Dylan, a few steps behind her, almost replied, "We already know that," but refrained. He kept the remark in a corner of his mind, where it wouldn’t bother anyone.

He preferred to ask the real question:

"So... what’s the plan?"

He turned his head toward Maggie, then toward Élisa. She simply shrugged, a barely perceptible smile on her lips.

"It’s simple, isn’t it?" Maggie replied, her fingers cracking as she tightened her grip on her axe. "I lure it. You attack. And we kill it."

Dylan blinked.

"Easier said than done..."

He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the beast, which, on its side, continued to crush bones as if they were dry branches.

---

Dylan stayed back, crouched behind a fragment of a cracked tombstone, eyes fixed on Maggie’s silhouette as she slowly advanced into the mist.

She said nothing. Didn’t glance back.

She walked like a heavy shadow, shoulders straight, axe in hand, each step calculated. No noise. No hesitation. No apparent fear.

And yet, Dylan knew.

He knew her well enough to sense that even she – even she – had nerves stretched like bows.

He swallowed hard, his heart beating faster with each step she took toward the beast. He felt the tension rising in his own body, and yet he could do nothing but watch. Wait.

The creature was still there, slumped in a corner of ruins, back turned to Maggie, its maw still busy crushing the remains of another animal — or something else. It seemed calm. Heavy. But Dylan knew that this calm meant nothing good.

It was the kind of beast that unleashed in a second. A mass of brutal instinct under an apparently lazy carcass.

Maggie raised her hand in a sharp gesture, but it was clearly not to greet but to test the reaction.

But... contrary to what she had thought, there was no reaction.

So she picked up a small pebble, rolled it in her palm, then threw it with all her strength against a tombstone right next to the creature.

CLANG.

The noise echoed sharply, slicing through the silence.

The beast stopped chewing. Its neck slowly straightened, too slowly. A stiff movement, almost mechanical. Then it turned its head.

Dylan saw it face-on for the first time.

His heart skipped a beat.

The skin on its face was taut, damaged, crisscrossed with old scars, as if burned by acid. Two small black eyes sank into a broad skull, and the canines permanently protruded from its slightly open maw, dirty, cracked.

But it was especially that gaze. That fixity. That almost curious void.

The beast stood up.

Not with a leap. No. It rose like a mountain awakening.

Massive. Slow. Heavy. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

Its hooves scraped the stone. Its claws screeched on the ground.

Maggie stepped back. Then another. She began to run, without shouting. Just fast enough for the beast to feel the call of movement. The call of prey.

And it worked.

A growl rose, and the thing leaped.

Dylan inhaled sharply, tore himself from his hiding spot, and moved.

His heart was pounding.

The time had come.

And it was his turn to enter the scene.