Subject Zero

"Will that really work?"

Xiao Xiao watched Little Four, that sly man, carry out the operation with practiced ease. His gaze had already begun to waver.

"When it comes to people, principles have to be flexible..."

Little Four explained as he walked forward, "This thing isn't something the Guard Hall can deal with. If they rush over without thinking and get close, they'll only become fertilizer for the Despair Swamp. But we can't stop them from responding, either. At the very least, they have to seal off this place and create a buffer zone to cut off the flow of people. Otherwise, if we make a mistake while dealing with the problem, the Despair Swamp might spread outside."

"So, with one simple phone call, we get them to help seal off the crowds while also giving us room to work."

"Isn't that great?"

"..."

Xiao Xiao thought it over carefully and had to admit that Little Four made a lot of sense.

Without realizing it, he felt he had learned a great deal from the veteran team member once again.

As they spoke, neither of them stopped walking. They had already passed through the panicked crowd and were nearing the coffee shop.

A chilling, eerie sense of danger rushed toward them. Faintly, they could hear a woman's agonized screams and sinister laughter.

By then, Xiao Xiao could already hear his own heavy heartbeat. His thoughts seemed to have fallen out of sync with reality, sometimes speeding up and sometimes slowing down. It was as if he were reading a book while someone else continuously recited its contents aloud. Normally, his reading speed and the recitation would match, but now, with a single glance, he had already read through everything, while the voice reciting the book had only just begun.

"Not yet..."

Xiao Xiao could only control himself and keep himself from entering the state of Mind Burst too early.

"Brother, are you all right?"

Little Four was already showing signs of excitement. A flush had spread across his pale face. But when he turned to look at Xiao Xiao, he suddenly felt a little dejected.

This guy is so calm...

I've been in the Otherworlders for so long, yet I still get nervous whenever something happens. But this newcomer can remain unmoved even in the face of such enormous chaos.

Is this the difference between us?

"What should we do?"

Just as Little Four was feeling both dejected and excited, his thoughts running wild, Xiao Xiao had already turned and asked him.

"Huh? He actually asked me? He could've just told me what to do..."

"...Oh, right. I'm the veteran."

Little Four took a moment to react. Thinking of how much respect this newcomer had shown him, he couldn't help feeling grateful. He quickly said, "Let's split up."

"You deal with the pain core of that thing inside. I'll stop the Despair Swamp from spreading, and I'll also investigate what Yang Jia instructed me to look into earlier."

His eyes swept across the surroundings as he spoke rapidly, "I need to confirm whether those people will show up here."

Xiao Xiao felt slightly curious. "Who exactly are they?"

Little Four did not want to explain too much. He lowered his voice and said, "Some lunatics who often appear around Aberrant Creature incidents."

"But you don't need to know about them yet. In any case, we'll each solve our own problem, and split the points evenly. How does that sound?"

Hearing this, Xiao Xiao stopped wasting words. "All right."

One of them dared to invite him, and the other dared to accept.

For Xiao Xiao, one reason was that he could directly witness the birth of an Aberrant Creature and take the opportunity to observe the changes in the three dogs. It was a rare opportunity.

Besides, Little Four was an experienced veteran and had said there would be no problem, so Xiao Xiao naturally dared to take the gamble.

As for Little Four's division of labor, he did not think there was anything wrong with it, either.

The main issue was that he had no idea how to stop the Despair Vine from spreading, nor did he know who exactly Little Four was investigating. Even if they switched tasks, neither of them would be able to do the other's job.

Little Four, on the other hand, felt that this legendary newcomer had already dealt with the Choking Nest without suffering any injuries. Could this little thing in front of them even count as a problem?

After all, in terms of danger, the Choking Nest was widely acknowledged to be much stronger than the Despair Swamp.

The two immediately split up. Little Four was thin and frail, and he usually walked slowly, but once he decided to act, he shot away with a whoosh, plunged into a patch of shadow by the roadside, and vanished.

Xiao Xiao took a deep breath. His gaze turned cold and composed as he led the three alert, restless hounds toward the coffee shop.

"Buzz..."

As his foot stepped into the area roughly ten meters around the coffee shop, his brain suddenly seemed to begin spasming wildly, as if its signals had gone haywire.

Something intangible seemed to exist there—not something physical, but something on a spiritual level. The instant he approached, it began firing wildly, piercing through his mind.

In that instant, Xiao Xiao felt as if his brain had slipped beyond his control. Countless painful images flashed past at high speed.

For some reason, he suddenly recalled scene after scene of humiliation and torment.

There was the time in primary school when he had broken the windows of the school building and been forced to stand while the teacher cursed him in front of the entire class.

There was the time in high school when his father had argued with his mother and stormed out, leaving his mother at home crying and smashing things.

There was the scene of his mother, during their divorce, pointing a kitchen knife at him like a madwoman and saying that she would make his father regret it.

There was also the cold distance between his parents when they reluctantly took him to the hospital after his headaches began, along with the impatience and indifference they showed when they suspected he was pretending to be ill.

The cold instruments, the flickering fluorescent lights, the doctor's bright eyes, and the unknown pills...

Every uncertainty and strange feeling in Xiao Xiao's life surfaced at that moment. He could never forget those most painful and helpless moments.

"Dad, Mom, my head really hurts. I'm not pretending..."

"..."

"..."

"So... so powerful..."

Far away, beneath the eaves of a building, Little Four's thin body was curled into a ball, hanging upside down against the wall. He still couldn't resist looking back—and was instantly left dumbfounded.

He saw Xiao Xiao facing the countless dark-red tentacles inside the coffee shop, his expression calm as he advanced with cold determination.

Little Four could hardly understand it. "He actually faced the most painful experience head-on. Does this person have no emotions?"

Muttering to himself, he quickly began to act as well.

His sharp gaze swept across the surroundings, and he immediately spotted a mass of red, blood-vessel-like tentacles quietly spreading along the walls. They looked like vivid ivy, clinging tightly to the walls as they extended outward.

By now, with the coffee shop at the center, they had spread more than thirty meters away, sending out countless thin strands of blood that clung to one panicked passerby after another like a web.

Little Four hurried toward the end of the spreading tentacles, flipped over, and landed. His body resembled a twisted toad as he lightly crouched on the ground.

Looking at the twisted, spreading substance before him and the fleeing crowds, Little Four's expression turned serious. He lifted his shirt and began undoing his belt...

His belt was snow-white and crystal clear, but the buckle was shaped like a tiny human head. Having apparently smelled something, it twitched its nose and opened its eyes.

"Well now..."

An aged voice came from the human head's mouth. "What a delicious scent..."

"The quality of this batch is quite high..."

"..."

"Let's handle business first..."

Little Four casually pulled the belt into his hand and gave it a light shake. The belt instantly straightened like a blade, with faint dark-red patterns appearing across it.

With a casual flick, the dark-red tentacles writhing and extending toward him were severed by the blade.

Ignoring the group of people in front of him as they fell to the ground, Little Four held the blade and swept his sharp gaze across the chaotic area. In a low voice, he said, "See if those people are nearby."

"If you don't behave, I'll give you to Sister Hard to make into a whip and have you lash your master every day..."

"..."

"That's so unfair..."

The human head on the belt grumbled, "The meaning of my existence isn't to bring people joy..."

At the same time, as it lamented, a strange figure had already appeared on this street beneath the newly fallen night.

He was short and thin but exceptionally agile, darting rapidly through the neighborhood. His footsteps traced a circle with a diameter of forty or fifty meters around the coffee shop. At times he appeared beneath the eaves, at times he shot out from beneath a car, and at times he ran forward in a crouch along a vertical wall.

Holding a blade like a sword, he swung his hand and severed the dark-red tentacles spreading rapidly outward one after another with ease.

At the same time, he searched the entire area. After a moment of thought, he murmured, "I didn't find any trace of them. Was this incident really just a coincidence?"

At the same time that Xiao Xiao entered the coffee shop and Little Four investigated the surroundings for suspicious traces, a group of people in white protective suits had appeared at some point in an alley two streets away.

Carrying various precision instruments, they entered the alley, which was still littered with countless bloodstains, fallen phones, slippers, and undershirts.

The Black Forest Biological Laboratory logo was displayed on their clothing. Their movements were professional and swift as they rapidly covered the entire alley.

The fallen phones and other items were all placed into sealed bags, labeled, and preserved.

"Investigation Team Four has entered the scene. We are now testing the remaining traces."

"Results confirmed: Subject 019's mutation failed. Experimental data for new drug No. 0193 could not be obtained."

"..."

In a high-rise building not far away, a group of doctors in white coats watched the data transmitted to their computer screens. It included measurements of the radiation index at the scene, as well as surveillance footage of the alley from earlier. Their brows were furrowed, fingers tapping unconsciously.

"Subject 019 from Breeding Farm One was the case we were most certain would succeed. We never expected it to fail to yield data, too."

Another staff member said, "A mutated member who escaped from the organization appeared at the scene and interfered with our experiment."

"Those lunatics who can't distinguish reality from fantasy have always been difficult to deal with. This was a factor we should have considered before beginning the drug trials."

The woman in a crisp black uniform looked coldly at the screen. It displayed Xiao Xiao's face. He was crouched on a narrow second-floor platform, silently watching the alley.

"But can someone explain something to me?"

The woman in black looked cold and displeased. "Why did Subject Zero, who had long since been abandoned, appear at the scene?"

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