Chapter 1: The Meteorite Town

On the narrow road, a black Jeep was parked. A man wearing a leather jacket leaned against the car door, holding up a telescope in his hand, staring at the distant valley.

Morning fog filled the air. Three meters away from the car stood a crooked road sign. Faded paint letters formed the blurry name “Meteorite Town”. The low broad-leaved forest by the roadside stood still without any signs of life, with thick layers of dust accumulated on its leaves.

The road surface was covered everywhere with cracks caused by heavy trucks. The small town lay just over five hundred meters away in the valley. Not far from this western American small town there was also an iron mine that was almost depleted, but it had already been half abandoned, with only one piece of machinery still monotonously rumbling.

“This godforsaken place…” the man holding the telescope muttered to himself, “…is the mission target?”

“The small town where the most disappearances occurred in ten years.”

Two young men and women got out of the Jeep, all carrying travel bags and wearing sports shoes. One of them, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, stuffed a revolver into his pocket and grinned sinisterly. “The person most suspected in the small town has already been investigated quite thoroughly by those agents. Unfortunately, they all walked into a blind alley; he vanished into thin air.”

The man in leather jacket put away his telescope and nodded as he said: “Apart from motel service staff, gas station workers, and church ministers, what other people in this small town could be the first to come into contact with outsiders?”

A yellow light lit up at the end of the road.

An old bus drove out from Meteorite Town, saw the jeep by the roadside and the waving “traveler”, made an abrupt stop, stirring up much dust.

“Hi.” The window on the driver’s seat opened, a young man with an Asian face curiously examined them. “Good morning! Looks like you’ve encountered trouble?”

“That’s right, our car broke down! We may have to wait here for three hours before the auto repair shop can arrive! Where is this bus going? We’re preparing to take it.”

“What?” The bus driver was very surprised. “For God’s sake, you’re only hundreds of meters away from Meteorite Town.” As he spoke, he still opened the door.

Although armed robbers occasionally appeared on the remote road, their targets should be trucks or private cars. No one would hijack a small-town bus, let alone this was the first bus, with no passengers except for the driver.

The insidious “traveler” boarded the bus and tossed a large denomination bill into the fare box, which made the driver who was originally going to say something immediately stop talking. After all, this money was enough for three round trips’ worth of fares, why did he care where these guys were going? The bus route was always fixed.

He had no idea about his own situation; the three passengers on the bus were far more dangerous than robbers.

Wen Luan, Meteorite Town’s bus driver, of Chinese descent.

In his view, this was just an ordinary morning: gray skies, desolate roads, people still dreaming in their sleep. Few outsiders ever appeared in Meteorite Town, many of them getting lost along the way, and every ten days or so Wen Luan would always pick up a few on the road.

The car radio played rock music, while Wen Luan was pondering over lunch issues today. He glanced at the rearview mirror and noticed that among the three passengers he carried, their expressions were somewhat strange.

Wen Luan’s heart skipped a beat, alarm bells ringing loudly.

That female traveler tightly closed her eyes, cold sweat continuously beading on her forehead. Her companion stared at Wen Luan with disbelieving eyes, one hand reaching towards a bulging pocket.

Wen Luan unconsciously moved his foot away from the accelerator. This road was very bumpy, and his driving style belonged to the wild school—long-term experience driving on desolate roads without cars, combined with his decent driving skills, caused the bus to race along a series of S-shaped curves on this road full of large and small potholes. Many outsiders who rode his vehicle would turn pale-faced.

But surely they wouldn’t pull out handguns just because he made them suffer from motion sickness, right?

Could they be gangsters fleeing from the east coast?

A wry smile tugged at Wen Luan’s face, little realizing that his grin looked like that of a demon to his “passengers.”

“God, how could it be? Psychic ability control is completely ineffective.”

“No, I can’t even activate my ability attack…”

The passengers sat stiffly in their seats, instinctively huddling closer together in fear. Indeed, this devilish town wasn’t as simple as they thought; they had been too careless!

These fearful whispers were completely drowned out by the rock music blaring from the car radio. Wen Luan didn’t hear what they were saying at all; he just felt the atmosphere was dangerous. If he didn’t say something, chances were he’d get shot today.

“This unfortunate road has been broken for over ten years. You won’t find our Meteorite Town on any slightly larger map, so of course nobody comes to fix our road… Hey, there’s really no way.” Wen Luan patted the steering wheel, speaking as if nonchalantly.

The stiff atmosphere in the coach relaxed somewhat, passengers gasping for breath, their expressions momentarily unable to adjust.

It seemed the devil didn’t plan to drop the pretense and make a move. After escaping peril, doubts arose simultaneously, filling the carriage with silence.

Seeing his attempts at conversation met with no response, Wen Luan felt slightly annoyed.

How hard it is! What kind of people are these?!

Wen Luan made up his mind; upon returning, he would fetch old man Su Ta’s gun from town. In this world, one must hold a gun to speak with conviction. Those damned firearm permits were not something easily obtainable by Chinese immigrants whose parents were stowaways.

“If you had come six years ago, there were still decent hotels and coffee shops near the iron mines,” Wen Luan said loudly. “Now, even finding a mouse in the mining area would be difficult.”

Many American small towns were similarly remote, lacking any entertainment venues. Residents had to drive private cars or take early morning buses to reach service areas at gas stations tens of kilometers away. With some luck, they might catch a ride to more bustling districts.

As the vehicle jolted along the road, its old seats creaked eerily. The engine roared and vibrated, causing seated passengers’ bottoms to nearly leave their chairs.

Bang!

The bus roof suddenly shook violently. Wen Luan startled and looked up, his hands losing their grip on the steering wheel. The front wheels of the bus plunged into a large pit before struggling out again with difficulty thanks to the engine.

The bus came to an abrupt stop, causing three passengers to nearly crack their foreheads against the back of the seats in front.

“Damn it! Is he trying to murder us by car accident?” one passenger growled, face pale.

They leaped off the bus as if fleeing, which made Wen Luan call out after them in surprise:

“Hey, this isn’t a stop!”

The three travelers rushed away without even turning back.

“Is my driving really so bad that people will run away from me? This is due to poor road conditions, how can you blame me?” Wen Luan muttered as he jumped down from the driver’s seat. He took a few steps back and tilted his head to look at the roof, and sure enough, there was something black lying on top.

“God tells us that no pies fall from the sky, but vultures do!” After climbing onto the roof via the window, Wen Luan was instantly overwhelmed with frustration.

Oh well, he thought, this is still a decent find.

Wen Luan hummed a tune as he carried the neck-broken vulture into the bus and casually tossed it onto a chair.

Clang. The sound of metal colliding echoed.

“Huh?” Wen Luan turned around in surprise, discovering that within the vulture’s claws was a large brass key.

This key was quite large; judging by the size of its lock hole, it might be a door as big as the church in Meteorite Town.

Wen Luan scratched his head and muttered to himself, “There really were too many strange things this morning.”

He stuffed the key into his pocket, pressed down on the accelerator, and the bus continued to hum loudly as it sped along the narrow yet spacious road.

Rock music blared messily.

A faint black light slowly seeped into the key. The rust-stained marks on the brass key suddenly lit up with a dim glow. These were ancient words and the magical symbol of an evil hexagram array.

Immediately afterwards, tiny cracks appeared around the key. A few coins in Wen Luan’s pocket rolled into the cracks and silently disappeared.

Just as the cracks tried to expand again, a hand reached into the pocket, fingertips continuously groping.

As if encountering something terrifying, the space cracks constantly dodged the movement of the fingertips. In the end, they all shrank back onto the key, and the faint glow also disappeared, becoming still.

Wen Luan, who was driving, didn’t notice these slight tremors at all.

He fished out a box of chewing gum from his pocket, then casually tapped the steering wheel again with the rhythm, driving the bus at an even wilder speed, swaying left and right as it flew down the desolate highway.

Wen Luan had no idea that three kilometers behind him, Meteorite Town was already boiling over.

Half of the residents were woken from their dreams by screams coming from their neighbors’ houses. They were ordinary humans who had absolutely no idea what was happening, angrily cursing their suddenly crazed neighbors.

“I felt something, oh! Satan in hell!” Old Man Su Ta trembled with tears streaming down his face. The table and chair made a loud noise as they turned into dust, and this old man rolled onto the ground, crying with joy: “Raymond Gaeton! The legendary Raymond Gaeton, the key that can open the gates of hell and summon demons!”

He sprang up from the ground, eyes rolling, and ranted madly:

“This won’t do, I must act quickly. This town has two vampire grand dukes living here, seventeen weres, four dark wizards at my level… Oh! Damn it, this competition is too fierce!”

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Translated through Omni Literary Translator.