Falsely Accused, I Started Plundering Monster Traits

Marcus stood frozen in place for a long moment.

The ringing in his ears grew heavier and heavier, pressing in until he could barely hear anything else. His breathing came faster with every breath, but his chest still felt like it could never quite fill. His heart hammered hard and fast behind his ribs, every beat surging through his blood and pounding against his eardrums.

In the end, all he could hear was his own breathing and heartbeat.

"...Marcus."

His palms were slick with sweat.

Huff—

Huff—

The finish line swept beneath his feet.

Marcus ran several more steps before finally slowing down. He bent over with both hands braced on his knees, gulping down air. Sweat dripped from his chin, and every breath tugged painfully at his chest.

By the time he lifted his head again, everyone else had already stopped farther ahead.

He was the last one across the line.

What happened after that was a blank.

When things became clear again, Marcus was already sitting beneath the bleachers.

The awards ceremony was taking place not far away.

The runners who had been standing beside him on the track only moments earlier stepped onto the podium and lowered their heads while staff placed medals around their necks. Marcus sat there watching, his spikes still on his feet. The laces were already undone, but he had never taken them off.

His father walked over, tossed Marcus’s jacket onto his lap, and sat down beside him.

Neither of them said anything.

After a long time, his father looked down at his shoes.

"You moved the blocks?"

Marcus gave a quiet "Mm."

"Why?"

He didn’t answer right away.

Before the start, the guy in lane four had suddenly stood back up and moved his rear pedal farther back.

That guy had beaten him several times before.

Marcus had watched him for a couple of seconds.

Then Marcus reached down and moved his own rear pedal back a notch.

He had worked out that position bit by bit in training. Just the day before, his coach had crouched beside the track and adjusted it for him again, telling him not to move it anymore.

But he moved it anyway.

"The guy in lane four moved his."

His father raised his head and looked toward the track in the distance.

There was no one on it anymore.

A burst of applause came from the podium.

Then the applause slowly faded.

His father kept looking that way.

After a while, he finally gave a quiet response.

"Oh."

The two of them simply sat there.

The people around the podium gradually began to disperse.

A long time later, his father finally stood up.

"Let’s go."

Marcus blinked, then looked up.

His father was already walking ahead.

Marcus picked up the jacket from his lap and followed him.

His father didn’t mention the race again all the way to the parking lot.

It was almost dark, with only a trace of orange and violet still lingering in the distance.

In the years that followed, Marcus ran more and more hundred-meter races.

What year that race had been, what the boy in lane four was called, who had ended up standing on the podium—he had forgotten all of it long ago.

Yet for some reason, even after all these years, he still remembered that moment before the starting gun.

Crouching there, turning his head, and looking twice at lane four.

"Marcus!"

A large hand came down hard on his shoulder.

The sound of rain flooded back into his ears.

In the distance, the hoarse growls of rotters carried through the rain. Nearby, the Humvee’s engine roared.

In that moment, Marcus knew what he had to do.

He raised his head and met Coach’s gaze.

"We stay."

---

"ROOOOOAAAAARRRR—!!!"

The roar hit them head-on.

Lin Yan’s brow suddenly furrowed.

Why the hell does that sound so much like a dragon?

The next second, a blast of hot, foul air came rushing down the passage. The heavy smell of blood was mixed with the reek of entrails, rotting flesh, and something sour and fermented, flooding their nostrils almost instantly.

Lin Yan’s brow furrowed at once, his nostrils tightening with it. A wave of visceral disgust wiped the last trace of laziness from his face.

Ahead of them, an enormous mass of flesh blocked the center of the passage.

A grotesquely oversized mouth was embedded in the front of the flesh mound, its corners ripped sideways through the bright red layers of meat, the opening crammed with crooked, uneven teeth. It threw that enormous mouth open and roared. Foul saliva and bloody foam sprayed out with its breath, while the faces embedded in the surrounding flesh squeezed and warped along with it.

"...Gross."

Lin Yan yanked the M2 off his shoulder and lowered the muzzle toward the creature in one smooth motion.

The thing’s enormous body filled almost the entire passage. Layers of bright red and dark crimson flesh were piled over one another, their surface densely studded with human faces and arms. Blood ran slowly through the folds between the layers and spread across the stone floor in broad, wet, gleaming smears.

Some faces were buried sideways in the flesh. Others were tilted upward. Several more were crushed against one another, their eyes, noses, and open mouths shifting back and forth as the mound writhed. Dozens of arms protruded from all over its body, their hands gripping the stone walls and floor, every finger tightening at once as they dragged the heavy body toward them.

"Looks like shit."

The way the bodies had been pieced together looked a lot like that corpse Gundam they’d run into before, except this thing was obviously much fresher. Much of it still had the raw, vivid red of freshly torn tissue, with taut fascia visible across several of the open breaks. Each time the arms pulled, blood squeezed out in spurts from the seams between the bodies.

The flesh mound kept dragging itself forward on dozens of arms. Then the mouth at its center gaped wide once more, and a roar burst through the passage with a spray of bloody foam.

Lin Yan had seen enough. He lifted the muzzle of the M2 and rested his finger on the trigger.

"Wait!"

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!