Subject Zero

"Is that even allowed?"

Xiao Xiao watched Little Four's sly and skillful maneuvering, his eyes widening in disbelief.

"When it comes to being a person, principles should be flexible..."

Little Four explained as he walked forward, "The Guard Hall can't handle this thing. If they rashly respond and get close, they'll only become nutrients for the Despair Swamp. But we can't just not let them respond, we need them to seal this place off and create a buffer zone to prevent the Despair Swamp from spreading if we mess up."

"So, a simple phone call gets them to help seal off the area and creates space for us to work."

"Isn't that great?"

"..."

Xiao Xiao thought about it and felt that what he said made a lot of sense.

He felt like he had learned a lot from the veteran member without even realizing it.

As they spoke, they continued moving, passing through the panicked crowd and approaching the coffee shop.

A chilling and eerie sense of danger washed over them. They could faintly hear a woman's painful cries and sinister laughter.

At this point, Xiao Xiao could hear his own heavy heartbeat. His thoughts seemed disconnected from reality, sometimes speeding up and sometimes slowing down, like reading a book while someone was reading it aloud. Usually, the speed of reading and the speed of the voice were the same, but now, he could read the entire page in an instant, while the voice was just beginning.

"Not yet..."

Xiao Xiao could only control himself, trying not to enter a state of mental explosion too early.

"Bro, you okay?"

Little Four seemed excited, his pale face flushed. He turned to look at Xiao Xiao, but suddenly felt a little dejected.

He's so calm...

I've been an Outsider for so long, and I still get nervous every time something happens. But this newbie is unfazed by such a huge mess.

Is this the difference in skill?

"What should we do?"

Just as Little Four was lost in a mix of dejection and excitement, Xiao Xiao turned and asked.

"Huh? He's actually asking me? He could just tell me what to do..."

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

Little Four paused for a moment, then, feeling grateful that the newbie respected him so much, he quickly said, "Let's split up."

"You take care of the source of the pain inside, and I'll stop the Despair Swamp from spreading and investigate what Yang Jia asked me to do."

He scanned the surroundings and quickly said, "I need to confirm if those people will show up here."

Xiao Xiao was curious. "What kind of people?"

Little Four didn't want to explain too much about this, and whispered, "Some crazy guys who often appear around Aberrant Creature incidents."

"But you don't need to know about it yet. Anyway, we each solve our own problems, and we split the Points, okay?"

Xiao Xiao didn't say anything more and said, "Okay."

One dared to invite, and the other dared to accept.

For Xiao Xiao, he felt that it was a rare opportunity to witness the birth of an Aberrant Creature and observe the changes in the three dogs.

Plus, Little Four, a veteran, said it was okay, so he was willing to give it a shot.

As for Little Four's assignment, he didn't think there was a problem.

Mainly because he really didn't know how to stop the Despair Swamp from spreading, nor did he know who Little Four was investigating. If they switched, he wouldn't be able to do it.

Little Four, on the other hand, felt that the legendary newbie had already dealt with the Choking Nest without taking any damage, so this little thing in front of them was nothing.

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

The two immediately split up. Little Four was thin and weak, and usually walked slowly, but after deciding to act, he darted out and disappeared into a patch of shadow on the side of the road.

Xiao Xiao took a deep breath, his eyes became calm, and he walked towards the coffee shop with his three vicious dogs, who were looking around curiously.

"Buzz..."

As his feet stepped into the area about ten meters around the coffee shop, he instantly felt his brain vibrating wildly, as if the signals were scrambled.

It was as if some invisible substance, not on a physical level, but on a spiritual level, was frantically ejected and pierced through his mind the moment he approached.

In that instant, Xiao Xiao felt as if his brain was out of control, and countless painful images flashed by quickly.

He didn't know why, but he suddenly remembered scene after scene of embarrassing and torturous memories.

There was the scene of him breaking the school's window when he was in elementary school, and being punished by the teacher in front of the whole class.

There was the scene of his father and mother arguing when he was in high school, his father slamming the door and leaving, and his mother crying and smashing things at home.

There was the scene of his parents divorcing, his mother holding a kitchen knife at him like a madwoman, saying she would make his father regret it.

There was also the aloofness and indifference of his parents when they reluctantly took him to the hospital after he started getting headaches, and their suspicion that he was faking it.

Cold instruments, flashing fluorescent lights, the doctor's bright eyes, and unknown pills...

All of Xiao Xiao's uncertainties and strangeness in life surfaced at this moment. He would never forget that most painful and helpless moment.

"Dad, Mom, I really have a headache, I'm not faking it..."

"..."

"..."

"So... so powerful..."

Far away, under a roof, Little Four's thin body was curled into a ball, hanging upside down on the wall, but he couldn't help but look back, and then he was stunned.

He saw Xiao Xiao facing the endless dark red tentacles in the coffee shop, his expression calm, moving forward indifferently.

He almost couldn't understand in his heart: "He's actually facing that most painful experience head-on, does this person have no emotions?"

Muttering, he quickly began his own actions.

His keen eyes swept around, and he immediately noticed a piece of red, vein-like tentacles quietly spreading along the wall, looking like a bright ivy, clinging to the wall.

Now, with the coffee shop as the center, it had spread more than thirty meters away, extending countless thin blood threads, like a spider web attached to one panic-stricken passerby after another.

Little Four hurried to the end of the tentacles' spread, flipped over and jumped down, his figure like a distorted toad, gently crouching on the ground.

Looking at the twisted and spreading substance in front of him, and the panicked crowd fleeing, Little Four's expression became serious, he lifted his shirt and unbuckled his belt...

His belt was snow-white and crystal clear, but the belt buckle was in the shape of a small human head, which was now twitching its nose and opening its eyes, as if it had smelled something.

"Yo..."

An old voice came from the head's mouth: "What a delicious smell..."

"The quality of this stuff is very high..."

"..."

"Business first..."

Little Four casually pulled the belt into his hand, and with a gentle shake, the belt instantly straightened like a sharp blade, with faint dark red patterns faintly appearing on it.

With a casual flick, the dark red tentacles wriggling and extending in front of him were cut off by the blade.

Ignoring the group of people falling to the ground in front of him, Little Four's eyes were sharp, holding the blade, he quickly swept towards the surrounding chaotic area, and said in a deep voice: "See if those people are around."

"If you don't listen, I'll send you to Sister Hard to make a whip and whip her master every day..."

"..."

"So bullying..."

The human head on the belt muttered: "The meaning of my existence is not to bring joy to people..."

And also in his sigh, on this street where night had just fallen, a strange figure had already appeared, he was short and thin, but exceptionally agile, quickly traveling through this block, his footsteps drawing a circle with a diameter of forty or fifty meters centered on the coffee shop, sometimes appearing under the eaves, sometimes darting out from under the car, and sometimes running quickly forward on the vertical wall.

Holding a sword-like blade in his hand, with a wave of his hand, the dark red tentacles that were rapidly spreading outwards were easily cut off by him.

At the same time, he swept the entire field and pondered slightly: "Didn't find any trace of them, was this incident really accidental?"

At the same time that Xiao Xiao entered the coffee shop and Little Four investigated the surrounding area for any suspicious traces, a group of people in white protective suits appeared in the alley two blocks away.

They carried various sophisticated instruments and entered this alley, which still had countless blood stains, and dropped cell phones, slippers, and tank tops.

With the "Black Forest Biological Laboratory" LOGO on their bodies, their actions were professional and swift, quickly covering the entire alley.

Those dropped cell phones and items were all put into sealed bags and labeled for storage.

"Investigation Team 4 has entered the phenomenon and is now conducting a test on the remaining traces."

"Result confirmed: Subject 019 failed to mutate, and experimental data for New Drug No. 0193 failed to be obtained."

"..."

In a tall building not far away, a group of doctors in white coats looked at the data transmitted from the computer screen, which included measurements of the radiation index at the scene, as well as surveillance video of the alley from before. They frowned and tapped their knuckles unconsciously: "Subject Zero 019 from Farm No. 1 was originally our most certain successful case, but we didn't expect that we still failed to obtain the data."

Another staff member said: "A mutated member who escaped from the organization appeared at the scene, which affected our experiment."

"Those guys who can't distinguish between reality and fantasy have always been tricky, which is a factor we should have considered before starting the drug testing experiment."

A woman in a crisp black uniform looked cold and her gaze fell on the screen, which showed Xiao Xiao's face, he was squatting on the narrow second-floor platform, quietly watching the alley.

"But who can explain to me?"

The woman in the black uniform was cold and dissatisfied: "Why did Subject Zero, who had already been abandoned, appear at the scene?"

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