Kaodin spun around, limping through the mud he accidentally slipped in from the slippery road, as if it was in blind terror, the road was carved thinly by mud, causing it to be very slippery.
His own shoe made a wet sucking sound when he shifted his weight.
That was when he saw them.
Then he had just realized, his shoes sagging on the mud gave loud thud earlier, it was too loud, yet too late to react otherwise.
Bodies lay scattered across the stretch ahead. A man face-down near a collapsed cart. A woman slumped against a garbage rack, her head tilted too far back. Another shape half-buried beneath loose concrete, fingers exposed and twitching.
For a heartbeat, he thought, they were only dead corpses, now his knee almost felt as if it was just going to give out.
And, before he realized it, the woman's shoulder jerked. She hurled up like something pulling her up by wires, both arms hung up before legs snapped up vertically. Another one near the cart rolled onto its back, one eye filmed white, the other snapping open with sudden focus, pointing at where the sound was last heard. From beneath a fallen rack, another crawled out, ribs visible through torn fabric. From behind a broken doorway, a thin figure stepped into view, upper stained clothing partly exposed, the lower clothe nearly hanging in strips. Some wore what had once been shirts, now only the thorn brown-hardened upper part. Some wore nothing but grime. Skin stretched tight over bone in places, swollen in others. They are groaning, calling long, faint sound, as if calling to each other's, but unlikely so. They would sniff on each other close by before diverting their attention toward something that they knew were of fresh flesh and blood.
Kaodin tried to move, his feet betrayed him, suddenly hit a scattered of rock on the road.
The sound gave out.
He halted midway, his right feet froze where it hit the rock.
Then their heads, snapped toward the boy at different speeds. One lifted its face and drew in a sharp breath through its nose, testing the air. Another angled its head sideways, ear tilted toward the faint scrape of his shoe. And one of them, as if its eye can still see, he gazed maliciously at Kaodin, or was its eye still work, Kaodin thought.
One of them with piercing eyes, its pace kept faster, directly towards him.
Now he knew. They can… they can see; They simply relied less on sight than on other senses.
Kaodin put right foot to its weight, fear the others would hear him too, his arms held close to his chest now, ready.
They adjusted one by one, each sensed him in its own way, until their attention settled in his direction.
He put his left leg forward, as soon as it hit the road dirt.
Crack.
Now, they all came, full rushed to his small frame, all from various directions.
Kaodin twisted his foot hard against the ground, knocking thick clots of mud from his soles. Once. Twice. And scraped it out, thinking, if he would lose it, at least, his shoes would not catch up sound again.
He quickly glanced to his bottom side of his shoes, fully certain, the dried muddied dirt now completely gone, Shoes will not betrayed him and catching on dirt and gave out sound again.
A four-limbed, lunged low, jaw stretched wide, teeth broken and uneven. It snapped shut with a wet chomp just foot away from Kaodin right thigh, but before it reached him, he pivoted off, and spin to a 180-degree lower back kick, to use its head as a shooting-off point to send him off a beat faster before feet catch the ground to sprinting off full speed.
Ahead, he pulled sharp right, another small alley, the left, a swamp-like, with dirt shallowed out to a lower terrain with soggy light reflecting dirt.
He noticed an ached entrance, but behind him, something let out a tearing rasp with, another answered, sounded energetically gave whooping cry, almost like they are responding to each other as if to alert themselves for something. And one of them sound felt so close behind his lower rear, so close to his butt.
He leapt past in a quick swift, without ever bothered reading.
'仙公安卓机器人二手零件
(Xiangong Android & Robotics Used Parts)'
A line of structures stood beyond it. Metal shutters. Reinforced ladders bolted to the front entry. Door frames stood slightly inside the entrance foyer. Above the each door, names were sprayed in black on silver metallic plate with light flickering in contrast to the darkness of the night.
Shops road, he thought.
There were people walking by carrying large cargo boxes, doing their trade, this had to be a safe zone.
A quick electrical zapped loudly, Kaodin quickly turned back to find the electrical residue reverted through the arche he had just leapt past, but many were still trailing after behind.
a man with high hat over his head.
Face in shadow.
"Welcome, young customer, please come in."
The voice was metallic, clipped, static-laced.
Kaodin couldn't afford to care anymore.
He sprinted toward him with even greater desperation, as if racing toward a finish line.
The man grabbed him by the arm. the grip strangely cold. and pulled him inside, closing the metal door behind them with a careful, practiced motion.
The hut was built entirely in rustic metal, cluttered with rusted servos, cracked optical sensors, and old limb frames tangled together like bones. Shelves sagged under scavenged drone parts and gutted battery cores leaking thick, dark fluid.
The air smelled of oil, mold, and faint scent of burnt circuit.
Kaodin stumbled across the grated floor and nearly collapsed. His breath came in sharp, trembling pulls. half panic, half shock from the freezing, damp air clinging to his sweat-soaked hoodie.
His voice broke before he realized he was speaking.
"Th-thank you… thank you so much, Mr. Shopkeeper… I. I was being chased by some strange creatures… please… could you call the cops? Or anyone? Please."
His words shook. His eyes were still red from exhaustion, legs trembling from relentless chase.
He hugged himself without thinking.
Is this Bangkok? Or some other city?
Kaodin thought, as the chill bit through his thin hoodie like needles.
The "shopkeeper" didn't answer.
A middle-aged shopkeeper with a lined but gentle face, short dark hair combed neatly back, and eyes that held a steady, almost patient warmth. His upper torso was dressed in a worn apron over a simple shirt, fabric stretched naturally across a frame that looked convincingly human from the front. But where his shoulders met his back, synthetic plating replaced cloth and skin. Segmented metal vertebrae ran down his spine, partially exposed beneath torn fabric. Below the waist, polished mechanical joints and reinforced alloy limbs were fully visible, cables threading along the inner thighs, pistons compressing softly with each shift of weight.
In a series of jerky, mechanical motions, he yanked down to look closely at the boy, cracked shutters and sealed them with warped metal plates. Each movement produced a faint servo whine mixed with the gritty scrape of rusted joints.
A security-service drone behind the counter flickered awake. Its abrupt movement knocked into a shelf stacked with rusty gears, and a loud thud followed as several pieces fell to the floor. Unfazed, it shifted forward to observe the boy more closely.
Its old lens adjusted with a dry click before scanning Kaodin from head to toe.
"MINOR. HUMAN. INJURED"
"VITALS: ELEVATED. BLOOD LOSS. MINOR."
Kaodin flinched, wondering if he was still inside a dream. He had never stepped into the metropolitan heart of his home country. He had never seen the scale or power of a great city, let alone machines like this. High technology belonged to films and cartoons, not to the world he stood in now.
The boy was in awe.
The android shopkeeper, standing next to him, finally spoke, each word breaking through damaged vocal modulators.
"Where are you from, young human boy?."
Kaodin's throat tightened.
"What… are they?" His voice came out thin, the sound scraping from a dry throat. His jaw stayed slightly open, as if more words pressed there but he could not find the right way to form them properly. He spoke as he frantically looked outward through the door's square panel at the center frame.
They looked like dead men, but they didn't move like that. Their joints jerked at the wrong time, yet they still pushed forward, snapping ahead in a limp run. One dragged a leg that struck the ground in hard, repeated knocks. Crack. Crack. Crack. They kept running like that, frantic and never slowing.
"Bot, give a cub of H2O for the boy, he's extremely dehydrated."
"RIGHT AWAY. MASTER.", the security android stood up after setting up the gears at the back shelf before scurrying through the PVC partition leading to the back of the shop.
Kaodin followed gaze before getting blocked by the partition, drifted his sight to the objects hanging along the wall to his right. A metal prosthetic leg. Exposed gears. Plates of old machinery bolted in rows. His thoughts stalled there for a moment before he turned back to the attentive, kind-looking single-eyed android.
"And… some of them had one eye filmed white. Some lost one entirely. The other eye just stayed on me." He swallowed. "When they got close, they showed their teeth, or what was left, and they would start chomping…" His breath caught in his chest.
"Are they eating people?"
A faint glow stirred in Kaodin's eyes as the weight of his own question settled between them.
The smell reached me next. Rotten meat left too long in damp air. Wet stone. Old coins pressed in a closed fist.
They lunged with their arms wide. The distance between us vanished in a blink.
They looked hungry. Saliva hung from their mouths in thin strings. Whatever moved inside them did not feel human anymore.
Kaodin searched for a name, any word that could hold the shape of what he had seen, but security android already came out from the partition, his hands carefully hold an aluminum cup, brimming with water before handing it to the boy.
"drink slowly or you will.."
Before the shopkeeper android had ever completed the sentence, the boy had already coughed.
"Or you will coughed up from dehydration.", at the corner of the android shopkeeper, it flicked upward slightly as it looked at the boy.
The security bot, standing next to the shopkeeper, its head rotated a few degrees to match the boy's eye sight. Internal components clicked as it stepped closer, movement measured, almost curious.
Then it began speaking as if to answer the boy's earlier question.
"DESIGNATION: C.C.
CONSUMPTION CLUSTER.
POST-MORTEM HOSTILE.
FORMERLY HUMAN."
Kaodin's breath stalled in his chest.
"What does that mean?"
The shopkeeper android paused. Static cracked between syllables.
"C.C. was no more human, but Cannibal Corpse, you will not want to be near them unless you knew what you were doing."
A brief pause followed. The security android, built from exposed metallic struts and matte 3D-printed composite plates, its frame skeletal and utilitarian with visible joint actuators and cable runs along the hips, pivoted toward the window and advanced with measured steps. Its optic adjusted focus as it scanned the exterior through the fractured pane, posture angled in alert assessment.
"PRIMARY BEHAVIOR: HUMAN FLESH CONSUMPTION.
TRACKING METHOD: SCENT. SOUND. AND MOVEMENT.
YOU. BLEEDING.
THEY. ADVANCING."
"The community's electrical arche will not hold if their numbers increase." The shopkeeper android paused and turned toward the security unit. "Give the boy another cup of H2O. He will need it."
"Human boy, you will not be safe. It has sensed you. It will continue pursuit, not until your scent had been engrossed in blood." After completing the sentence, he glanced toward the rear of the shop. "ES-Tee-One, expedite."
The security android moved quickly out from the partition, both hands steady around a refilled aluminum cup. Water trembled at the rim and spilled in small drops.
"ATTA. BOY."
"Thank you, sir." Kaodin bowed slightly to the security android, then turned and lowered his head again. "Thank you, Mr..."
A heavy impact struck the wall.
"NGAAA….", the sound erupted as the electrical arche completely stopped working its magic.
Kaodin startled, coughed out the precious water he had been slowly drinking not to lose any of its essence he had been eager to find for days. His face draining of color.
The pounding gradually grew louder.
Each hit shook rust flakes from the ceiling.
Kaodin saw the worn android pivot toward the front-center entrance of the shop. The movement was purposefully attentive.
He sprang up from his cross-legged position and lunged forward, fingers closing around the android's forearm.
"Don't go out there. They'll kill you." His breath caught, chest rising fast. "I… I can fight. I can do something."
"No, you are hopeless, only a strong damage directly at its head to be exact death for them."
The android's voice stuttered through broken modulators.
"YOU. HUMAN.C.C.. ACID. SALIVA.CONTACT. WITH BLOODSTREAM = DEATH."
Kaodin's stomach dropped.
"D-death…? Just from a scratch?" he whispered.
"ACID. CORRODES. SKIN.MICRO-TEARS. ALLOW. ENTRY.SYSTEM. FAILURE. MINUTES."A glitch in the chest panel. "REANIMATION. FOLLOWS."
Kaodin's legs nearly gave out.
"But you! You saved me. I can't just. "
"YOU RUN."
The android's hand clamped the doorframe. Metal groaned.
Kaodin shook his head wildly. "No! I won't leave you! Let me help!"
The android paused. one flickering optic studying him.
"…YOU. FIGHT?" The tone sounded like a sarcastic disbelief.
Kaodin answered by ripping open his hoodie pocket.
Inside, his prized knuckle guards, the used, durable white plain stretching strip, worn by his hero.
He wound them tight from his knuckles up along his forearms, reinforcing bone and tendon. They shielded against teeth and tearing nails while allowing full torque release on impact. The oversized strips left loose lengths hanging near his elbows, almost the span of his hand on both sides. He was supposed to secure them neatly, tucked and hidden so they could not be seized and turned against him, but he had never been careful with that part of the uniform.
His Muay Boran stance settled without thought. Frantic cries and low growls swelled outside the shop, closing in until they pressed against the walls. His feet widened beyond his shoulder line. Heels rooted into a triangular base. Knees bent deep, hips lowered, center compressed. His torso angled slightly toward the open frontage.
At least he could flex his hands like this. It would have to be enough.
Elbows sealed close to his ribs. Forearms guarded the centerline. One hand extended halfway to measure distance. The other stayed near his cheek.
Something rushed from the side of the shop.
He did not see it fully. He felt the air shift a fraction before contact. His rear heel dug in. His body pivoted off the line.
His left leg snapped backward in a tight arc, heel cutting through the attacker's left torso. The impact tore into soft tissue. Dark blood burst outward and splashed across the floor.
The ghoul's balance broke. Its upper body pitched forward, head dipping into his height.
Kaodin drove a straight kick up the centerline. The ball of his foot struck the center of its skull, completely gave in. its movement immediately halted from the struggle. As he withdrew his leg, dark blood burst outward as well as some while mushy content.
He glanced down at his red shoes. The heel of his right one was coated in thick, blackened blood that clung and stretched when he shifted his weight, not dripping out. The smell rose at once, heavy and metallic. His stomach tightened, bile climbing into his throat as he fought to steady his breathing.
KRNNNCH.
A C.C. smashed its head through the shutter, its grin peeling wide as it bit off the head of the security android. Acidic saliva began eroding the metal plating and the surrounding frame, and the light within the single optic flickered before dying out.
The shop keeper android braced the door with his shoulder.
"Listen. Young human." static crawled under his tone. "Run, North, find, The wall...human… settlement… beyond…"
"People…?" Kaodin gasped. "Real people!?"
"Yes", His voice beginning to sputter, "They will… surely… help…
The wall buckled again before the metallic frame blurted opened.
Cold fog slammed into Kaodin's face.
"No!" he reached out, but the machine slipped through the gap with mechanical precision.
The door slammed shut.
Outside. the first CC hit the android instantly. Jaws unhinging. Saliva spraying.
SIZZLE.
Acid burned through synthetic cheek and metal ribs.
More swarmed. fast. climbing over each other, fighting for bites.
Kaodin snapped.
"HANG ON! PLEASE!"
He threw himself forward as the door buckled, squeezing through a widening split.
The swamp air hit him. cold, wet, stinking of rot.
He saw the android buried under three, then five CCs.
A sixth crawled up his back, gnawing at exposed wiring.
Kaodin lunged.
A CC grabbed for him. jaw open.
'Jarake-Fad-Hang' (the Crocodile Tail Heel Kick)
Kaodin twisted and whipped his heel sideways. The impact cracked the CC's skull, red pressure swelling unnaturally under its skin.
He followed instantly. 'Rue-Si-Bod-Ya' (the Hermit's Downward Elbow)
His elbow dropped clean onto the swollen point.
The CC's head burst. a spray of black-red fluid fanning outward.
Acid droplets hit Kaodin's arms, on top of his wrapped clothes.
SIZZ. then vanished, evaporated, against the rising heat of his Qi energy.
The boy didn't understand it.
He only felt fire racing through his bones.
Another CC rushed him. Then two more from the side.
He backpedaled, guard tight. elbows shielding, forearms braced.
But the CCs ignored him.
They began devouring the dead one. Ripping it apart. Fighting each other.
Kaodin froze.
They eat their own… just to eat the prey themselves…
A terrifying instinct. A perfect swarm predator.
More CCs spilled from the swamp. twenty shapes now, maybe more. drawn by the heat, the blood, the movement.
The first wall of the shop collapsed behind him, eaten through by acid.
The android was pinned. legs torn off. torso shredded.
He lifted one shaking arm.
Not to be saved.
To point a way off the back of the shop behind the partition door.
"RUN…"A sputter."…North… -settle. Ment."
Kaodin grabbed his cold, torn fingers.
"What's your name? Sir, what's your name!?"
The optic flickered. dying.
"…Desig… na… tion…m. k…th…model… Kanya–thorn… Series…"
Kaodin whispered it back, trembling:
"Kanya-Thorn…"
The android's lens dimmed.
One final burst of static:
"good…boy…"
The CCs swallowed him whole.
Kaodin backed away, tears streaking his face.
His fists tightened; His knuckle guards were soaked. sweat, mud, blood. but steady.
He noted the sun was setting by his right so he turned opposite, and he kept on, started running.
Not because he was told.
But because someone had died to give him the chance.
Behind him, the swamp echoed with the death of his first ally in this world.
Inside him, his Qi, kept growing….