It Is Too Early to Draw Conclusions...

Seeing Li Wei slap the three men across the face three times without a word, the supermarket manager quickly stepped forward to stop him. "That's enough, stop! Let's hear what they have to say!"

The three men, having been slapped for no apparent reason, felt deeply aggrieved, especially Wayne. He was a local from the town, yet he had been slapped by an outsider—it was absurd!

Is this what it feels like to be betrayed by your own companions? I was the one who lured them in; we're supposed to be on the same side!

David and the others avoided Wayne's grief-stricken gaze, not daring to meet his eyes.

"Ahem, alright, hurry up and confess what exactly you were doing at the military base in the mountains!" Brent stepped in to mediate, demanding that the three explain what the military base was researching.

Aside from Wayne, the white man with a chubby face was named Moras, and the shortest of the three, a black man, was named Donaldson.

Donaldson, the most articulate of the trio, spoke first. Not wanting to be hit again, he rattled off what they knew in a rapid-fire, rhythmic flow.

"At the military base, the scientists believed there were other worlds beyond our own. They built a window to observe another world, but they messed up and brought monsters into our world! That's all I know! We really don't know anything else!"

The chubby Moras nodded quickly. They were only responsible for guard duty and occasionally heard fragmented news from the veteran soldiers inside, but they truly didn't know the specifics!

Compared to this story, David and the others were more inclined to believe that some kind of biological experiment had created the mutated monsters.

Opening a window to another world?

It sounded far too fantastical!

"I don't buy it!" Brent looked at Donaldson as if he were an idiot. "A window? Why not a door? I'd rather believe the military was conducting biological experiments than this talk of another world. Do I look like a fool to you? Does anyone here believe this?"

David, Ollie, and the others were also skeptical. Although these monsters were strange, they hadn't yet exceeded the limits of their imagination.

Opening a window to another world to observe it—that premise worked fine in science fiction, but in reality, their imaginations wouldn't allow them to believe such nonsense.

"I believe it!"

But as a visitor from another world, Li Wei certainly believed the claim, and he seemed to understand why the key had prompted him to go there; perhaps it was to collect something.

"You believe it?" The supermarket manager asked, looking at Li Wei with a face full of confusion.

He actually believes this nonsense?

David, Ollie, and the others found Li Wei even stranger. His words and actions were completely out of sync with their own, and now his way of thinking was different too. They had reason to suspect that Li Wei was mentally ill.

No, no!

It was too early to draw conclusions; perhaps he was just joking...

Li Wei smiled and said, "Because I came to this place from another world!"

Confirmed!

"Uh..."

Now even the three men tied to the racks were stunned. They glanced awkwardly toward their companions, and then everyone silently moved past the subject.

In the end, the three were untied. The information obtained was very limited; other than knowing the monsters outside were created by the military base, they knew nothing else.

The night was quiet. Just as everyone was sleeping soundly, the faint light emanating from the supermarket attracted the intense attention of certain mutated creatures.

With a "thud," a mutated mosquito landed on the glass exterior wall.

A bearded man sleeping against the glass was awakened by the sound of the impact. Irritated, he climbed up and looked through the observation gap in the dog food barricade, only to see a super-sized mosquito, magnified a thousand times, clinging to the glass.

The mosquito's abdomen was a mix of black and gray, and its eight long, thin, segmented legs were covered in tiny, vibrating hairs. Its bizarre face and curled body definitely touched upon the deepest taboos of human fear.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!"

After two seconds of stunned silence, the man's expression shifted from irritation to terror, and he let out a blood-curdling scream.

The thunderous shout caused everyone sleeping to jump up from the floor, looking around in panic, trying to find the source of the scream.

The group emerging from the storage room heard the scream and were instantly alarmed, rushing toward the source.

The others didn't even need to get close to the source to see the large mosquitoes flying in from outside one after another.

Dozens of mosquitoes, each the size of a dinner plate, emerged from the mist, illuminated by the supermarket's still-functioning streetlights. One by one, the mutated mosquitoes landed on the glass, clinging tightly to the light.

Everyone woke from their dreams and gathered toward the glass wall. They turned on the lights and stared at the super-sized mosquitoes covering the glass. Those who hadn't seen the tentacles before were struck with horror.

Li Wei walked through the aisles, looking at the head-sized mutated mosquitoes outside, and showed an expression of interest.

Suddenly, his pant leg was tugged. Looking down, he saw Anna, who was dragging a groggy little black bear, with Isha following behind her daughter.

Both the mother and child wore expressions of fear, seemingly terrified of the mosquitoes outside.

"Mr. Demon, are you afraid?" Anna asked, fidgeting.

Li Wei picked up a flashlight from the shelf and handed it to Anna's mother, Isha. Without answering Anna, he instructed, "Go to the storage room; it's safer there."

Isha nodded silently and led Anna into the storage room.

"'And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth!'" Watching the mutated mosquitoes covering the glass wall, Carmody finally recited the "prophecy" from the Old Testament, walking through the crowd step by step until she reached the glass wall.

Looking at the hideous and terrifying mosquitoes, she let out one exclamation after another: "Wow~ wow! Look at these monsters with stingers!"

While everyone was observing the mosquitoes outside in shock and fear, a "Damn it" escaped someone's lips. The situation outside the supermarket had changed again!

Monsters with two pairs of wings flew out of the mist and snatched the mosquitoes clinging to the glass. Li Wei, relying on his exceptional eyesight, saw what the monsters looked like.

Their color was like raw, unprocessed pork belly, but with a deeper, reddish hue.

Their two copper-bell-sized eyes looked like those of a goldfish, their mouths resembled those of baby birds, and their torsos were like hairless bats. Their legs, however, looked like nothing else—like chicken claws wrapped in a layer of flesh; thinking of them as dinosaur feet was perhaps more appropriate.

To eat the mosquitoes, these strange birds kept slamming into the glass wall covered in them. The imported tempered glass began to show cracks under the repeated impacts.

Everyone who had been crowding near the glass wall retreated in a panic. Those who only knew how to scream were the most proactive in leaving. Watching the cracks spreading across the glass, they began to worry about their own safety.

In front of the glass wall, Ollie watched the strange birds repeatedly slamming into the glass and guessed nervously, "They seem to be attracted by the light."