Creation

"Twenty meters?!" A nearby Peacekeeper was so startled that he immediately drew his gun.

"At this distance... I should be able to find a way to pinpoint it precisely..." The researcher holding the device paced in a small circle. As he moved, the device kept emitting beeps... At last, the researcher picked a direction and started walking forward, one step at a time.

The beeping grew steadily more frequent, which meant he had chosen the right direction... The distance between the device and the anomaly was continuously shrinking.

Behind the researcher, a group of fully armed Peacekeepers stood at the ready. Everyone tried their utmost to suppress their breathing and heartbeats. The scene was so quiet that only the device's beeping and the researcher's boots striking the ground could be heard.

The beeping became increasingly urgent, while the researcher's steps grew slower and slower...

Eventually, he stopped before a pile of shattered Taishui shell fragments.

A fifteen-meter-long Aberrant Long Blade stood vertically embedded in the ground, its tip thrusting into the sky.

The blade of the Aberrant Long Blade was covered in bizarre patterns—it had not been forged or cast from molten metal, but formed from countless steel rebars twisted together and compressed by an unimaginable force.

The compressive force had been so immense that even the atoms between the rebars had penetrated one another, binding them tightly together.

"You're not going to tell me... that the anomaly you detected is this thing, are you?" Sun Hang asked from behind the researcher, his expression somewhat strange.

It couldn't be that there were still "food scraps" left on the "tableware," could it? But they had repeatedly emphasized that the Taishui had been completely eliminated. Even if there were "food scraps," they shouldn't have triggered the detection device.

The researcher did not answer. He merely pulled a cable ending in an electrode pad from the device and carefully pressed the pad against the Aberrant Long Blade.

More than ten seconds later, he turned around and nodded at Sun Hang.

Sun Hang immediately fell into deep thought.

This... this wasn't right, was it?

Wasn't this thing just a handy tool he had casually molded with his "ability"? How had it become an anomaly?

Could this machine... really be malfunctioning?

"Preliminary assessment: it should be a Self-Type: Artifact Anomaly," the researcher said. "But the specific details can only be confirmed after it is transported back to the institute for thorough study."

"How did this anomaly appear here?" Yang Lian walked up to the Aberrant Long Blade and asked Sun Hang, "Did you see the process of it appearing?"

More than saw it... I made this thing myself... Sun Hang muttered inwardly, but he did not say it aloud. Anomaly Hunters were not under the Investigation Bureau's jurisdiction. Given their current identities and positions, Yang Lian had no right to demand that Sun Hang answer her questions.

The more he said, the more likely he was to slip up. Sun Hang decided it was better to remain silent for now.

If this Aberrant Long Blade really was an artifact anomaly... did that mean he possessed the ability to "create anomalies"?

The ability "Creation" already sounded ridiculously impressive, but "creating anomalies"... that was beyond merely being impressive.

Sun Hang recalled the scene when he had "created" this Aberrant Long Blade...

At the time, all he had wanted was a handy weapon capable of dealing effective damage to the Taishui. He had not even given much thought to the weapon's material or shape. Those rebars had automatically been pulled from shattered concrete blocks, collapsed walls, and even cement-poured foundations, drawn into the air before being "pressure-cast" into this Aberrant Long Blade.

It could be a blade, a sword, a spear, or something else.

To Sun Hang, its definition was simply "weapon."

Sun Hang suddenly remembered a saying he had seen somewhere—

"Only anomalies can destroy anomalies."

Originally, this phrase referred to the fact that Anomaly Hunters who dealt with anomalies were themselves infected with the Anomalization Virus. The most obvious difference between them and anomalies was merely that Anomaly Hunters retained human self-awareness.

In essence, hunters could also be considered a type of anomaly—"Humanoid Anomalies."

Could it be that he had been influenced by that saying? Had he subconsciously believed that, to eliminate the Taishui, the weapon he used had to be an "artifact anomaly," and that was why he had created this thing?

Sun Hang felt that his guess was absurd, utterly ridiculous... but considering the current situation, it seemed to be the... "most reasonable" explanation.

Sun Hang ignored Yang Lian, silently walked to one side, took out his phone, and sent Yang Qi a text message.

"Do Anomaly Hunters use artifact anomalies as weapons?"

Just a few seconds later, Yang Qi's reply arrived.

"Of course they do... Not only do they exist, there are quite a lot of them. But these artifact anomalies used as 'special equipment' are kept under strict containment whenever they aren't in use. The Anomaly Research Institute in Tianfu City has several such anomalies in containment. By the way, why are you asking?"

"What are the conditions for an artifact anomaly to form?" Sun Hang asked again.

"That's hard to define... There are too many kinds of anomalies and too many ways of 'infection,' so it's difficult to generalize," Yang Qi wrote. "Some artifact anomalies are born naturally, while others form when ordinary objects undergo anomalization. For example, if someone uses a knife to stab an Anomalization Virus-infected person to death, and the knife gets the infected person's blood on it, then there is a certain chance that the knife will become an artifact anomaly."

Before Sun Hang could finish composing his next message, Yang Qi sent another one.

"Of course, that chance is extremely, extremely low—lower than winning the lottery jackpot. And artifact anomalies formed this way aren't particularly threatening... At most, their abilities give their holders some buffs. One artifact anomaly I studied before was a broken hunting knife. As long as someone held its handle, it would slightly enhance the holder's physical abilities, but the side effect was that it made the holder extremely bloodthirsty. If held for too long, it could even drive the holder completely insane, making them hack apart everyone they saw."

"There are also some very powerful artifact anomalies. I haven't seen them myself, but I've read about them in the records. The Anomaly Research Institute in Chang'an has a clepsydra in containment that is said to be capable of briefly stopping time... Are you asking me about these things because you're planning to apply for an artifact anomaly as a weapon?"