Iron beasts were an extraordinarily rare phenomenon — rarer by far than iron people.
The Research Institute’s working theory on iron person bonding required two conditions: the person had to be deeply familiar with their vehicle, and they had to be present with it during the moment of mutation. Both conditions together were what made iron people uncommon. For iron beasts, those same conditions were even harder to satisfy — what animal could become meaningfully familiar with a vehicle?
Plastic Rabbit had never stopped puzzling Shen Cong. A rabbit bonded to a motorcycle — what was the connection? Now the Tentacle Monster added another impossible pairing: a star-nosed mole bonded to a subway train.
Unless Plastic Rabbit was kept as a pet on the motorcycle. The star-nosed mole is a foreign species — someone might have imported one as an exotic pet. Maybe it belonged to a train operator.
It was the only explanation that mapped even loosely onto the bonding theory. He filed it away without resolution.
More immediately relevant: the light rail cab in his possession was bait. When Plastic Rabbit’s motorcycle had been in danger, the rabbit had felt it and gone into a frenzy trying to reach the vehicle. The Tentacle Monster would feel the same pull. The bonded vehicle in enemy hands was the only lure he needed.
He set the vibration sensor down at a good observation point, checked the surrounding terrain, and waited.
He didn’t wait long. Five minutes. The sensor triggered — direction indicator pointing northwest.
Shen Cong dropped into a combat stance, Ape King Long Blade in hand, body coiled.
The ground beneath him split open.
The Tentacle Monster erupted from the earth — heading directly for him. He launched upward, clearing the attack, and landed watching the creature through the settling dust. Small calf-sized body. A cluster of tentacles ringing its nose, each about half a meter long, writhing with uncomfortable independence. Forelimbs massively enlarged, claws showing dark silver through the earth coating them.
Near-Heavyweight classification.
Respectable name. Profoundly ugly creature. One look at the twitching nasal tentacles eliminated every hypothesis he’d entertained about someone keeping this as a pet.
But he was already moving — the aesthetic assessment took zero of his attention. Dodge, pivot, blade sweeping down onto the Tentacle Monster’s hindquarters as it tried to re-enter the ground. It had forgotten, emerging into daylight, that underground mechanics didn’t apply up here. Before it could raise a forelimb to dig, the Long Blade had found its mark.
He twisted the grip, angling the blade to hook under the creature’s body, and lifted.
The Tentacle Monster went into the air.
Ssssss— Its call was genuinely unpleasant.
All four limbs thrashing. Tentacles whipping around frantically. Nothing it could do from that position.
Weaker than expected. For a near-Heavyweight, this is closer to Featherweight performance on the surface. He reassessed as he held it. Though underground — its digging speed on its home terrain probably would be genuinely difficult to counter. Classic environmental advantage.
Different locations produced different animals. Underground, the Tentacle Monster was near-Heavyweight. On the surface, exposed, it was falling far short of that.
Kill it or keep it for research?
One second of consideration. Keep it. A rare iron beast, encountered alive — killing it immediately would be wasteful.
He brought it down hard against the ground, then applied several strikes from the flat of the blade across the back of its neck — enough to drop its energy from frantic struggling to labored breathing, badly injured but viable. He bound it with cable, hoisted it to Great Vajra’s roof rack, and attached the light rail cab section to the tow point.
Then he drove toward camp.
“Humanity’s strongest? Ha.”
Zhou Ningning — Coal Lady — had no patience for this particular claim.
Her nickname had nothing to do with her being a female iron person; it came from her manner and methods, which were sharp-edged and direct. Since arriving at the Mingfa Camp, she’d found its military administration structure immediately congenial — her own instinct was that when social order collapsed, firm governance was the only viable response. People’s tendency toward internal conflict required strong framework to redirect.
She’d integrated quickly. She was helping coordinate the resettlement of the Juchao District and Huainan arrivals. She also carried private guilt about failing to detect Big-Fly Brother’s activities — survivors under her faction’s nominal umbrella had been harmed, and she hadn’t known. That guilt had channeled into action: she was organizing the camp’s female survivors, preparing to establish a women’s welfare council that would ensure female residents had formal representation and recourse.
Commander Zhao Weiliang had endorsed the initiative. Zhou Ningning had taken that endorsement and run with it at full speed.
Today she’d gathered the camp’s senior female personnel for an organizational meeting. Conversation had drifted to yesterday’s underground tunnel attack — the Tentacle Monster that had killed evolved people, that was classified near-Heavyweight in The Huoxue, that by any reasonable accounting should have the camp on edge.
Zhou Ningning had barely slept worrying about it. Back in Coal City, they’d had no answer for evolved beasts at that tier. The Violent Ape King had been unthinkable. The Giant Condor had been unthinkable. Now there was a near-Heavyweight living under the subway system.
What she encountered instead was a room of people who were completely calm about it.
When she asked why, everyone said the same thing in different words: Colonel Hu Ge was Edge of Evolution. Near-Heavyweight threats were temporary inconveniences.
“Colonel Hu already killed the Golden Jiao — an actual Heavyweight. A near-Heavyweight is just something that gets hunted and eaten around here eventually.”
“This isn’t blind optimism,” Zhou Ningning said firmly. “This is a serious threat.”
“It’s genuinely not optimism,” one of the other women replied. “Colonel Hu is the strongest evolved person among humans. He’s the camp’s real guarantee.”
“That executioner who kills people on impulse?” Zhou Ningning’s lip tightened.
“I think you may have misread the situation, Coal Lady.” The speaker was an ordinary survivor, not an evolved person. “Colonel Hu is unconventional and not easy to approach. But he’s never acted with cruelty. Compared to some of the evolved people here who think they’re inherently superior — he’s more respected than almost any of them.”
The comment had teeth beyond just Shen Cong. It was true that evolved people in the camp, receiving the best food allocation and resources, tended to let that advantage become visible as entitlement. The military structure and shared survival threat kept the resulting tension suppressed — for now.
Zhou Ningning didn’t let it distract her. “I don’t believe evolved people are inherently superior to anyone. People are people. No one is born more valuable than anyone else. Which is why I think the camp’s treatment of Hu Ge represents a fundamental error — his strength doesn’t justify giving him exceptional privileges that no one else receives.”
She looked around the room at expressions ranging from skeptical to politely blank, and pressed her point.
“And I’ll say this directly: you’ve all been misled about what he actually does. I’ve reviewed the combat footage. He is genuinely powerful — I’m not disputing that. But without the garrison’s military support in every major engagement, he couldn’t have achieved what he did alone. The Tentacle Monster today — without troop support, he cannot successfully hunt it. The credit doesn’t belong entirely to one person. Placing everything on one individual is a form of magical thinking, and it will fail when that individual is unavailable.”
The room didn’t have much to say to that.
Zhou Ningning felt the clarity of having said what needed saying.
“Let’s close here for today. Everyone put energy into the women’s council — let this camp know that women are not less capable than men in any of this.”
The meeting dispersed.
She walked out along the stone-paved path between platforms, her mind already ahead to the next task, the next organizational problem to address, the future that was worth building toward.
(End of Chapter 186)