Pilot

On a certain street in a certain city in China, if someone was around, they would have been graced with the sight of the figure of a humanoid male running through the streets in the dead of night. Indeed, if they were to look closely, they would find that it was in fact a human man. A very normal seeming, average human man, nothing special to say about him at first glance.

That is, of course, besides the fact that he was panting and heaving out every last breath he had in him in a bid to try and run, as fast as he could, from whatever was behind him.

He had a horrified look on his face, and he was somehow pale-faced despite his running pace and rapid breathing. If there was someone around, surely this sight would have distressed them, and served as a warning for them to quickly get away from the location.

That would be  if  there was someone around. Unfortunately for the man, despite his rampant desire to manifest into existence the presence of even just one other person in the vicinity, that wish was bound to never be fulfilled. He was alone. Well, him, and there was the monster behind him too. Behind him? In front? He didn't know, but he just kept on running anyways.

This man's name was Liao Guiren, and moments prior he had just witnessed a massacre. It was no normal massacre either. It was bloody, vicious, and most importantly, not possible. It couldn't be. That's what Liao Guiren kept telling himself, but even as he did so, his legs kept moving, and the deep, heartfelt terror he was experiencing resounding across every inch of his body as he ran told him that not only was what he had just seen possible, but in all likelihood...

He was next.

Rewinding the clock back about 7 minutes, Liao Guiren had heard some strange sounds outside his apartment, and he couldn't sleep because of them so he went out to take a look. Walking around, he found the sound coming from behind an alleyway, so he went to go take a look. He thought to himself that thinking back, he should have just minded his own business. 

As he rounded the corner, what greeted him was the sight of 10 men surrounding 1, all very large and buff, and while the solitary man standing in the middle of their encirclement wasn't thin by any means, he wasn't very big either, at least not relative to them, and moreover he was surrounded.

Nobody seemed to have noticed Liao Guiren's presence then, so a smarter man would have turned around then. But of course, he wasn't one of such smarter men, or else he wouldn't have dropped out of college and ended up working a dead end job. He wouldn't be renting a small apartment in the city's backstreets, and he wouldn't have been anywhere close to what was happening in front of him at that moment. So he stayed, like a fool, and watched from the corner where he wasn't spotted.

"Gao Zian, come with us peacefully and we won't have to break your limbs!"

The men were talking about something or another, and the other man, Gao Zian evidently was his name it seemed, was continuously looking more and more annoyed.

Now, keep in mind, if 10 large, buff men corner and surround one man who smaller than any of them, threaten him with permanent damage to his limbs, and all the man does is look ever more annoyed, that's probably a sign that the situation is not going to go how you'd expect.

Indeed, it didn't.

As the men kept talking, Gao Zian finally lost his patience and just punched one of the buff men closest to him.

The buff man was downed in one punch, and promptly lost consciousness. The rest of them stood in a daze for a moment, astounded that anyone would dare to attack them in this circumstance, and immediately after, they got enraged, failing to process the strength Gao Zian had managed to display in that one instant.

The men rushed up on Gao Zian, and Liao Guiren, who was watching, didn't even have the time to process what was going on before the men were all on the ground, limbs broken, some bleeding out, all either heavily injured or dead and dying.

The way Gao Zian had moved was so fast, so precise, and so lethal, it left Liao Guiren unable to see his movements clearly. The only thing Liao Guiren managed to process was that, although he didn't know too much about fighting to be fair, but he reckoned it probably wasn't possible for a human to move like that.

As Liao Guiren was staring at the scene in a daze, he noticed Gao Zian stand up straight and turn his head, and the place he looked happened to be right into Liao Guiren's eyes. Liao Guiren saw in Gao Zian's eyes the soul of a remorseless killer, and he whole-heartedly believed that Gao Zian felt absolutely zero remorse or guilt for what he had just done.

Time seemed to come to a standstill, as the two men stared at each other, until finally, Gao Zian moved first. He was fast, and he'd reach Liao Guiren's position in a short few seconds max, so Liao Guiren quickly turned around and ran. He thought there was no way he would get away, but to his surprise, the moment he rounded the corner he had been hiding behind to watch the scene unfold for all this time, the rapid footsteps behind him abruptly halted, and when he looked behind him, Gao Zian was gone.

Right as he was confused, he felt a touch on his back. Liao Guiren jumped, and there he was. Liao Guiren ran, without looking back, and he heard no footsteps, but he didn't stop because of that anymore. As he ran, he would occasionally hear a laugh echo around him, sometimes from his left, sometimes from his right, and time passed he grew more and more tired and afraid. 

He had understood by now that Gao Zian was toying with him. He thought about using his phone to alert the police but he had left it in his apartment, and he had already ran far away from where he lived by the time he thought of that. Plus, he even doubted if the police could do anything to that monster in human form. Back then, he even straight up ripped out one of the buff men's hearts. 

Let me repeat. He ripped out a man's heart with his bare hands!

After running for a while, Liao Guiren accidentally tripped over a can on the road. Damn litterers! 

Getting up, he found Gao Zian right in front of him, smiling an eerie smile, and this time, Gao Zian didn't let Liao Guiren get away. He grabbed Liao Guiren by the hair and thrust his hand forward with his fingers tensed and placed together, looking like he was trying to stab Liao Guiren's skull with his bare hand. The only thing was, Liao Guiren was sure the man in front of him could do it!

Liao Guiren tried to put up his hands to protect his head, knowing it was probably useless anyway, and right as he was about to be impaled, time seemed to slow to a halt. It wasn't a hallucination, or one of those near death experience type things. No, time literally seemed like it had slowly slowed down to an imperceptibly slow pace, and just as Liao Guiren was questioning what was going on, he heard a voice in his head all of a sudden.

[Commencing binding process with host...]

[Reverifying host compatibility...]

[Verified. Finishing binding process...]

[Finished]

All that sounded in a couple of seconds. Liao Guiren was very confused, but before he could comprehend his circumstances, he heard another sound in his head.

[Detected host in life threatening danger. Initiating emergency procedures, eliminating immediate threat.]

With that, time slowly started to go at its normal pace again, and partway through the process of time starting up again, Gao Zian disappeared from the spot. That's right, disappeared. Vanished into thin air, not a trace to be found.

Liao Guiren breathed rapid, shallow breaths, unable to calm down for a long time. He waited, but he didn't hear any more sounds in his head. He looked around, uncertain as to what has just happened. He wanted to believe it was all just a dream, but the sound of his rapid breathing in his ear, and the feeling of perspiration on his skin as he sat there in the middle of a city street at night told him that it was all real. And the only explanation for what had just happened lay in the strange voice he had heard in his mind earlier. 

So, he called out in his head, "Is anyone there?"