Singularity Appears

The screen abruptly froze, leaving only the woman's terrified eyes staring at the camera, filled with fear and despair.

Her voice continued to echo through the bedroom, refusing to fade and etching itself deep into his mind.

Whoosh!

After watching the recording, Xiao Xiao suddenly felt his body tremble. A sensation like an electric current instantly surged through him.

His lips pressed tightly together, and he remained silent. His mind was filled with the woman's haggard, terrified appearance. Her unease, her doubts and fear toward the world—even the words she had spoken—made Xiao Xiao think of himself just after he had awakened.

He thought of the bewilderment he had felt while trapped in malice, and the panic he had experienced upon seeing the shedding-skin monster.

He had been in the subway station, witnessing the entire city turn into monsters, overwhelmed by extreme shock and a profound sense of powerlessness.

The resemblance was so extreme, so immersive, that Xiao Xiao briefly wondered if he was hallucinating.

The woman in the recording was himself.

What he had just seen was actually a doctor's questioning of him!

The extreme shock and overwhelming sense of unreality deeply enveloped Xiao Xiao. He stared fixedly at the screen, remaining silent for a long time.

What exactly was this?

Had the woman in the recording once been an outsider too?

Had she not yet realized that she had fallen into the Otherworld, and thus mistaken everything for a hallucination?

Then who had been conducting the questioning?

Was it merely a doctor treating the woman as a patient?

The woman had mentioned that she had killed her own mother, yet her mother was still alive and well outside...

...Was this the same as when he had killed the shedding-skin Jiang Cheng?

For a moment, immense panic swept through Xiao Xiao's body. He felt dizzy and disoriented, and the entire world seemed to twist faintly around him.

For some reason, a deep sense of unease welled up inside him.

Why did this city grant enhancements in such a strange way?

The Violence Factor was achieved through a low-level genetic enhancement drug developed by the Black Forest Biological Laboratory.

Yet this Extreme Sensitivity state had come from a recording tape of unknown origin?

Had the woman in the recording truly existed? Did the state she described mean that she was also an outsider?

But if so, why could watching her recording grant an enhancement?

After taking several deep breaths, Xiao Xiao continued watching.

Since he had already started, there was no need to stop. Besides, his mind was filled with questions, and he wanted to watch it a few more times.

He pressed the play button again, and the recording began playing from the start.

It was still aimed at the woman, and the questioning was still the same as before. Only the picture seemed rougher.

"A huge monster is devouring our world..."

"..."

When the woman's sobs suddenly rang out, the recording finished playing for the second time.

In the quiet bedroom, something seemed to be growing restless, a vague sense of agitation emerging from the shadows.

The sky had long since gone completely dark. Xiao Xiao had not turned on the light in his bedroom; only the display cast a faint blue glow, illuminating his pale face.

Almost mechanically, he pressed the play button again.

In the image, the woman still looked frightened and uneasy, just as before, but the picture quality seemed even worse.

And perhaps it was an illusion, but Xiao Xiao vaguely felt that her face looked more exhausted as well.

Xiao Xiao continued watching the entire recording intently, not missing the slightest detail.

He watched the same conversation unfold in the same setting. He watched the woman tremble, her fear and efforts to conceal it seeming to possess a kind of "infectious" power, imprinting themselves deeply in Xiao Xiao's eyes before sinking into his mind.

This infection grew more profound as the recording played three times in succession.

Until the final moment, when the utterly haggard woman suddenly jerked her head up under the questioner's relentless interrogation.

At that instant, Xiao Xiao inexplicably felt his scalp crawl, yet he still straightened his back.

He stared fixedly at the image, forcing down his horror and controlling his gaze so it would not leave the screen.

The extreme strangeness made his heart contract violently.

This time, the woman was staring straight at the camera, and the fear and unease she had shown before seemed to have vanished from her face.

Only deep despair remained. "Our city has already been devoured by a huge monster..."

"The singularity has begun to spread. None of us can escape..."

"..."

"..."

Xiao Xiao suddenly widened his eyes, plunging into extreme shock. Even his thoughts went blank.

Goosebumps rose layer after layer across his skin.

Was this woman speaking to him?

In this recording, made at some unknown time, was this woman actually speaking to him?

But when he had watched it the first two times, the recording had not been like this. It had not been like this either time. So why had such a bizarre scene suddenly appeared during the third playback? The incomprehensible phenomenon made Xiao Xiao's scalp prickle.

"Shhh..."

Just as Xiao Xiao strained to open his eyes wider, trying to see more of whatever was there,

the image suddenly flickered. Amid the chaotic static, the already blurry picture turned completely blank.

The woman staring fixedly at the camera disappeared.

Xiao Xiao hurriedly pressed the play button again, but nothing happened.

He removed the tape and examined it carefully, only to discover that its contents had been completely erased.

It had become nothing more than a thoroughly blank waste tape.

"How could this happen?"

Xiao Xiao set down the tape, drew a deep breath, and slowly stood up.

As the tape turned blank, he could not help wondering whether what he had just seen had really been real.

He could not help closing his eyes.

In his mind, the scene of the woman being questioned remained vivid. In fact, he had already begun to forget some of the tape's contents, but the woman's unease and terror had been preserved intact.

It seemed that some kind of trait had transferred from the woman to him through the act of watching the recording.

Only after a long while did Xiao Xiao open his eyes and look toward the pitch-black bedroom around him. He suddenly felt a chill.

Everything had taken on a mysterious hue.

The bed, the tables and chairs, the walls, and even the calendar hanging on the wall all seemed to possess faint life, breathing slowly and heavily.

The world seemed clearer in his eyes.

Xiao Xiao could sense that every inch of air around him was filled with an intense, unsettling aura.

He could feel a powerful danger radiating from the bodies of the three large hunting dogs in the neighbor's yard, their necks intertwined as they slept. Yet strangely, he could now sense that dangerous aura, and it brought him a feeling of safety.

He could sense the Old Gramophone still playing its mournful music from the second-floor window across the street, at a frequency lower than the human ear could detect.

He could sense the butcher in the street's meat shop, wearing a transparent raincoat and hugging a bloodstained cloth doll as he wept in suppressed sobs.

Farther away, the entire city was submerged in abnormal darkness.

And within that profound darkness, as his perception probed outward, something seemed to be awakening.

It was slowly reaching out from the shadows, inch by inch approaching the edge of Xiao Xiao's sensory range...

"Huff..."

Xiao Xiao suddenly came to his senses, stepped back, and began gasping for breath.

Just as he was about to see what was hidden in the darkness, he did not know whether his ability had reached its limit or whether some intense instinctive fear had forced him to awaken rapidly.

"So this is the Extreme Sensitivity enhancement?"

Amid his panic, cold sweat seeped from Xiao Xiao's forehead as he thought rapidly.

By observing the recording, he had been infected by the suspicious, paranoid nature of the woman in the footage.

Had he simply come to see the world more clearly, with his perception of the things around him reaching a higher and sharper level, or...

...was he merely becoming more suspicious and paranoid, excessively tense?

But was this really just an ordinary enhancement?

Xiao Xiao did not know whether this was a side effect brought about by the Enhancement Element. It was like how, after using the Violence Factor, he had also experienced a period when brutal thoughts would suddenly arise inside him, making him want to do something irrational to other people.

Was he now enduring the side effects of the Extreme Sensitivity element as well?

But he could not convince himself of that.

His mind held only the terrified woman facing the camera and the words she had spoken at the end.

"Our city has already been devoured by a huge monster..."

The despairing voice said, "The singularity has begun to spread. None of us can escape..."

"..."

Countless twisted, chaotic thoughts flooded Xiao Xiao's mind, as if he had returned to four years ago, when his headaches had first begun.

Xiao Xiao could not help pressing hard against his head, wanting only to escape the terrifying associations.

Outside the bedroom where he stood, the entire world was silent.

The three vicious dogs in the neighbor's yard stood upright, their forepaws resting on the fence as they gazed worriedly at Xiao Xiao's illuminated bedroom.

The white curtains on the second floor diagonally across the street billowed in the wind.

Behind the curtains, the Old Gramophone's sound was hoarse and husky, exuding an air of sorrow and pain. It mingled with the deep night, possessing a strange soothing power that gradually eased Xiao Xiao's tense, prickling emotions.

He slowly raised his head and looked toward where the gramophone was.