Special Dangerous Entity-Pain Hound

"Whimper..."

That mysterious gaze instantly triggered a certain metamorphosis in the three vicious dogs.

Crack, crack, crack—their bodies suddenly began to snap and pop from within. Some invisible force twisted their forms, making them bulkier and stronger. At the same time, their multicolored fur rapidly shed away, exposing solid, ugly skin. Thick, twisted veins crawled all over their bodies, hideous as a terrifying spiderweb.

Some strange substance was being carried through their veins, gurgling as it rapidly poured into their hearts, which pounded like war drums.

The three vicious dogs let out low snarls in unison.

The air around them warped under an intense aura of danger. Their bodies became indistinct, leaving only their dark-red eyes clearly visible, vicious beyond measure.

Even their long fangs had turned an eerie dark red, carrying a bloody scent, and had nearly doubled in length.

"This effect..."

Xiao Xiao was astonished. He felt an intense sense of familiarity.

It was the nightmare of those four years.

After receiving this enhancement, the three dogs no longer resembled anything that could exist in the real world. They looked more like twisted monsters that could only appear in a nightmare.

The sheer visual impact made Xiao Xiao's movements halt for a moment.

A certain connection seemed to be forming in his mind, and lines of new information appeared clearly within it:

Special Dangerous Entity: Pain Hound

Danger Level: Class C

Ability Description: The berserk Pain Substance has caused them to undergo an extremely distorted transformation. From this moment on, they are no longer dogs, but special dogs.

Note: Damn it, there's poison in the dogs...

"What the hell?"

Xiao Xiao had been somewhat frightened by the three vicious dogs' current appearance. This rather unserious description suddenly threw his emotions into disarray.

But he immediately turned back toward the three vicious dogs—or rather, the eerie, terrifying eyes of the three Pain Hounds. Forcing down the discomfort of his wildly pounding heart, he issued an order with an expressionless, icy face:

"Tear those things apart..."

"Whine..."

The three vicious dogs reacted at the same time and immediately charged around him.

The force of their charge was so great that the distorted figures hovering around Xiao Xiao were knocked staggering in every direction. Countless chunks of flesh-like matter were torn apart and swallowed by them.

Gulp, gulp...

Under their frenzied, terrifying assault, the interwoven dark-red tendrils surging through the coffee shop were instantly torn into a tangled mess. The figures packed together were knocked aside, as if some monster were being ripped into pieces. Even the tendrils outside the coffee shop, which had already spread thirty or forty meters away, seemed to sense something and began rapidly retracting toward the center.

"How long has it even been?"

Outside the coffee shop, Little Four had been quickly searching for the group of people while severing the spread of the Despair Vines. When he suddenly noticed the flesh-and-blood vines retracting, he was both shocked and delighted.

He knew that this meant the Pain Core had come under threat and was withdrawing the material it had spread in order to protect itself.

But just how powerful was that newcomer to have frightened this Aberrant Creature in such a short time?

Inside the coffee shop, the space before Xiao Xiao had suddenly become spacious.

With three nightmare-like vicious dogs guarding him, even the crowded, frenzied dark-red flesh could no longer spread to him for the time being.

Like the center of a storm, he had unexpectedly gained a moment of peace.

He slowly walked forward and saw a woman huddled on a sofa beside a coffee table near the window, trembling violently.

The woman looked completely nonaggressive. She merely trembled, while her body had already undergone extensive mutation. Her skin had split open, and strands of dark-red matter burst from her wounds, clinging to the walls, tables, and chairs as they continuously wriggled and spread outward. Everyone inside the coffee shop, as well as the panicked and suffering crowds outside, had been affected by this dark-red matter.

When Xiao Xiao looked directly at her, he felt the painful memories boiling in his mind suddenly intensify more than tenfold.

Some invisible mental force had affected his brain. It was as if scene after scene of hallucinations flashed before his eyes.

He saw himself being bullied at school, falling into despair and pain, dropping out, entering a psychiatric hospital, taking medicine day after day until he became numb, and finally gathering the courage to return to the real world.

She avoided everything that made her anxious, still intending to forget the pain and return to reality.

She lifted her coffee and gazed out at the world beyond the window. It was a rare, peaceful afternoon, as if all disasters would eventually pass and sunlight had finally begun to shine into her life.

Just as that rare feeling of happiness descended upon her, she suddenly saw a demon's face appear before her, filling her entire field of vision.

It wore a smile and greeted her amiably, as if nothing had ever happened.

"Whew..."

Xiao Xiao shook his head with effort before he finally awakened from that profound despair and terror.

He stared at the woman who was the Pain Core in disbelief, unable to imagine that such a twisted and terrifying Despair Swamp had originated from such a pitiful woman.

"Let bygones be bygones"—for some people, that was probably the cruelest sentence in the world.

He took a step back and gripped his gun.

When he had charged inside earlier, he had done his best to knock people unconscious or let the three vicious dogs bite them. He had not killed anyone.

But when facing the core of this despair, he had no other choice.

He had to kill her.

Or rather, she was already dead. Her reason and humanity had long since been snuffed out, leaving only a mass of twisted, maddened memories spreading wildly like vines of pain.

But...

Xiao Xiao raised his gun, yet did not pull the trigger.

He glanced to the side and looked before the woman. There stood the terrified shop assistant. She had somehow retained her sanity. Although her body was already wrapped in dark-red matter, she still trembled in fear.

At that moment, she kept silently begging him for help with her eyes.

Having experienced the memories of the Pain Core, Xiao Xiao naturally recognized who this woman was.

The original instigator. The source of the nightmare.

Yet although the Pain Substance radiating from the Pain Core had caused countless people inside and outside the coffee shop to feel pain and even fall into deep confusion,

the instigator standing closest to it had alone retained her sanity.

This was simply unimaginable...

But as he sensed the aura radiating from the two women at close range, Xiao Xiao faintly understood the answer.

The Pain Substance could affect people's minds, making them involuntarily recall painful memories and suffer attacks. But there was one kind of person who was exempt—such as this shop assistant.

She and the Pain Core had shared a period of their lives, but she had experienced nothing similar.

The Pain Core's despairing, even maddening experiences had merely been a few trivial jokes to her, beneath notice. Naturally, she could not feel them.

She did not even understand how she had suddenly encountered a monster.

No wonder he had disliked this woman from the moment he saw her. It turned out she herself was a monster...

Xiao Xiao suddenly found it laughable.

The difference between people was simply too great. Even if you became a monster, you could never force the other person to feel the pain you had once suffered.

He silently tightened his grip on the gun and looked at the shop assistant. Her mouth had been sealed shut, but her eyes pleaded with him—pleaded for him to fire quickly, eliminate this monster, and save her.

Xiao Xiao looked at her and suddenly smiled.

Then he reached out, pulled her over, and shoved her against the broken woman's body.

Countless hostile strands of Pain Substance instantly pierced the shop assistant's body. A desperate, terrified muffled roar rose from her throat.

Xiao Xiao aimed at her and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Xiao Xiao had brought a total of six bullets. Without hesitation, he fired all six.

The bullets pierced the shop assistant's body, flew out from her front, and then lodged in the Pain Core's body, destroying the last remaining physiological functions of her ruined form.

All the Pain Substance seemed to possess life. It let out desperate cries, swelling and surging to its limit before gradually dying down.

Inside the coffee shop, all the dark-red matter that had been writhing came to a halt. Those who had been tormented nearly to madness by it also felt a burden lift from their shoulders.

Although the dark-red matter still existed, and their bodies continued trembling endlessly from the pain,

the pain seemed to have reached its peak at that moment. It no longer intensified, but slowly began to recede from their minds.

Xiao Xiao paid no attention to the changes around him. He simply looked past the shop assistant at the Pain Core.

At the instant her life was about to end, she seemed to briefly recover her sanity. She saw the shop assistant lying dead in her arms, as well as the fear and despair frozen on her face.

Her pupils widened slightly, and a trace of relief seemed to appear.

There was more than one way to ease one's own pain. One could silently heal alone—or make the other person feel one's pain and despair...

She might have lacked empathy, forever unable to understand how much harm she had caused him.

But that was fine. There were other ways to make her feel pain.

It was all the same.

"Is it over?"

Just as Xiao Xiao finished emptying his magazine and slowly lowered the gun he had held aloft, Little Four's voice sounded behind him.

Seeing that the Despair Vines had rapidly retracted, he had hurried back into the coffee shop, only to happen to see Xiao Xiao slowly lower the gun after firing all its bullets.

Looking at the female shop assistant whose body was twitching in death, he was somewhat bewildered. "Why did you kill her too? That'll cost us points..."

"Oh..."

Xiao Xiao regained his composure. Looking at the shop assistant whose body had nearly been blasted apart, he thought of many explanations.

In the end, he merely smiled and said, "It's nothing. I just wanted to test whether bullets could pass through a person's body..."

Little Four instantly froze. Looking at Xiao Xiao's pale, carefree smile, he took a step backward...

Good heavens, he really was a psychopath...

I'm in a great mood today. If you give me some votes, I'll be in an even better mood.