Volume Two: The Youth of a Thousand Faces, Truth in Disguise Chapter Sixty-Eight: We Must All Return Alive

“So, a single-horned animal… Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Hoye turned to the group and asked.

Everyone paused, then replied in unison, “Rhinoceros!”

Just then, Hoye’s crystal-brain chimed. He glanced at the number—it was the contact who had sent him information, the local Hunting Squad. He gestured for silence, answered on speaker, and spoke quickly and urgently:

“Hello. Since your timing is poor, please state everything you need to say within ten seconds. If it’s not urgent, hang up now. Don’t make me repeat myself. If you do, I won’t mind tracking you down afterward and teaching you a lesson.”

The person on the other end was clearly startled. “I’m Karstan, the one who spoke out of turn earlier. First, please—”

“If you’re calling to apologize, I don’t care. If you have business, get to the point,” Hoye interrupted bluntly.

“Right. Here’s the situation: the survivor is still under our squad’s care. I wanted to ask whether you’d like to question him in person?”

Hoye glanced at the others; everyone seemed to agree it was a good idea. He replied, “Fine. Arrange a meeting as soon as possible.”

He hung up, chuckling, “Looks like this Hunting Squad has some experience. I’ve already reviewed the current information. You all make valid points, but I think there’s much that isn’t shown in these reports—things we urgently need to know. An in-person interview is essential.”

The Hunting Squad was efficient—and unexpectedly enthusiastic. Twenty minutes later, they brought the survivor directly to their hotel, which surprised Hoye. He attributed it to his own rank as a captain in the Death God Hunting Squad; after all, he technically outranked these third-level squads.

Hoye didn’t summon the survivor before the whole group, knowing it would burden him unnecessarily and risk missing key details. Instead, he sent Jiang Feng, their best negotiator, to talk privately, while the rest waited in another room, listening in via crystal-brain.

The five sat around the speaker, listening to Jiang Feng’s conversation with the survivor.

“Sir… I believe I’ve already given my statement once. Why do I need to do it again?” The survivor, seeing Jiang Feng’s youth, seemed to doubt he was a squad soldier.

“Oh, don’t worry. We just want to clarify a few uncertainties. Relax, there’s no need to be nervous.”

“Alright, I’ll try.”

“Good. Please describe the attack again, as detailed as possible.”

The man’s words triggered something fragile within him; he began to whimper quietly, crying as he spoke: “You cannot imagine—it was pure horror. That catastrophe… it was a demon. He played with my companion’s head as if it were a toy, like a ball, head-butting it back and forth, then sending it flying over the horizon. If the soldiers hadn’t arrived in time, my head would have met the same fate!”

The man, clearly traumatized from his brush with hell, seemed fixated—his mind obsessed with the idea of heads, unable to think of anything else.

The conversation stalled; Jiang Feng had to patiently comfort him, “It’s over now, sir. You’re safe. I know it’s hard, but please try to recall everything from the moment the catastrophe appeared. Your information can help us defeat it and prevent further tragedy.”

Jiang Feng’s words seemed to help; the man stopped crying, though his voice remained choked, “We were traveling through a desert, passing a ruin—it looked like an old city from a previous era, abandoned due to war. Some places had severely sanded ground, others retained cement roads. That’s where we were ambushed.”

“At first, we drove normally along the cement road. But the instant we entered the desert, the world seemed to change. We, ordinary people, could sense it, though we couldn’t describe how. It felt strange, as if something had been added—or taken away—from the world. The mercenaries with us said it might be the catastrophe’s supernatural ability.”

Those in the other room understood instantly—this was indeed the catastrophe’s power, of the spatial type.

So, the ultimate form had opened its own passage to Earth, cleverly avoiding the colony proper; otherwise, after a certain amount of destruction, it could have been suppressed by the local squads’ superior numbers and firepower.

The man continued, “We drove for a long time, leaving the city without incident. But in a brief moment, I realized our convoy—once over a dozen trucks—was now just ours, the rest vanished. We stopped to investigate, and that horned catastrophe appeared. It rammed and overturned our truck; I was thrown out the window and landed beneath the flipped chassis, unharmed. To this day, I believe God was watching over me—there’s no other way I could have survived so intact.”

“Then our supernatural walker fought the catastrophe—he was impaled through the heart by its horn and died. Suddenly, the world seemed normal again, and the other trucks and people appeared nearby, all in similar conditions. But only I survived.”

At the end, the man broke down again; this nightmare would surely haunt him for life. Many people develop a phobia of animals after being attacked, but in this case, the attacker was a humanoid monster, heedless of human morality, treating lives as playthings and food.

Jiang Feng spent a long time calming him, then asked a few more questions. Once the man left, Jiang Feng returned to the group.

“Well done,” Hoye praised.

“Whew, don’t make me do this again. I’m good at extracting information, not counseling trauma,” Jiang Feng complained.

“Enough griping—sort out the new intel. Rest tonight; we’ll set out tomorrow.”

The next morning, the six departed without any squad soldiers accompanying them. Six hover-bikes left the colony as they had arrived. This was their task, their trial; if others intervened, it would lose its meaning.

Battling a catastrophe wasn’t just a matter of direct combat. Gathering intelligence beforehand, organizing and analyzing it, and the kind of brainstorming they’d done last night were all indispensable. Never fight unprepared—this was what Eddy told Hoye on his first day with the Death God Squad.

After a night of preparation, Hoye and his team finally had usable information.

As the rocky road faded and endless yellow sand stretched across the horizon, they knew they had reached the desert where the ultimate form lurked.

Hoye said, “Everyone, stop.”

They parked; Hoye continued, “Once we enter the desert, any moment could bring a catastrophe’s supernatural attack. Let’s make final preparations now.”

This was one of their conclusions from last night. The caravan had suffered a spatial-type power, akin to illusion magic. Its exact mechanism was unknown, but it required a medium—sand, in that case.

Since it was a rhinoceros-type catastrophe, favoring charging attacks, why forsake the easy running of cement roads to launch supernatural attacks in the desert?

Their answer: the creature couldn’t use tightly structured solids as a medium for its powers.

No one got out, but everyone made their last adjustments.

Kazama Luli glanced at the sky: harsh sunlight baking her skin. She opened her white parasol, murmuring, “I wonder how many calories I’ll burn this time~”

Alice floated all her magazines in the air, checking each for proper function.

Jiang Feng and Leilimi, the weakest among them, prayed quietly, swallowing hard.

Shangguan Jade Butterfly drew her Frostblade Morning Dew an inch, inspecting its cold gleam before relaxing.

Hoye held six energy syringes between his fingers, jabbing them into both sides of his neck. The needle tips, as fine as blood-drawers, pierced his jugular, injecting energy that could restore him even if his head was blown clean off.

He discarded the syringes, picked up the cross hanging from his chest, kissed it lightly, and said, “Let’s go. All of us must return alive!”