Singularity Appears

The image froze, leaving only the woman's terrified eyes staring into the camera, filled with fear and despair.

Her voice still echoed in the bedroom, lingering in his mind.

"Shh!"

Having finished watching the videotape, Xiao Xiao suddenly felt a shiver run through his body, a current-like sensation instantly surging through him.

He pursed his lips, remaining silent, his mind filled with the woman's haggard and frightened appearance. Her anxiety, her suspicion and fear of the world, even her words, reminded Xiao Xiao of himself when he had first awakened.

He thought of the helplessness he felt when surrounded by malice, the terror of seeing the Shedding Skin monster.

He recalled the shock and profound sense of powerlessness he experienced in the subway station when he saw the entire city transformed into monsters.

This extreme similarity, this feeling of identification, caused Xiao Xiao to momentarily hallucinate.

The woman in the videotape was himself.

What he had just witnessed was actually the doctor questioning him!

This extreme shock and overwhelming sense of unreality enveloped Xiao Xiao, and he stared at the screen, speechless for a long time.

What exactly was this?

Was the woman in the videotape also an Outsider?

Did she not yet realize she had fallen into the Outlands, and so dismissed everything as a hallucination?

And who was questioning her?

Just a doctor treating the woman as a patient?

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

...Was this like when he had killed Jiang Cheng when he was Shedding Skin?

A wave of terror washed over Xiao Xiao, and he felt dizzy, the world around him seeming to distort.

For some reason, a deep sense of unease arose within him.

Why did the way this city granted enhancements seem so strange?

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

But this Extreme Sensitivity state was achieved through a videotape of unknown origin?

Did the woman in the videotape ever really exist? Did the state she described indicate that she was also an Outsider?

But if so, why would watching her videotape grant enhancements?

After taking a few deep breaths, Xiao Xiao continued watching.

Now that he had started, there was no point in stopping, and besides, Xiao Xiao was filled with questions and wanted to watch it several more times.

He pressed the play button again, and the videotape started from the beginning.

It was still focused on the woman, still the same questions as before, but the picture seemed a little rougher.

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

"..."

As the woman's cries suddenly rose, the videotape ended its second playback.

In the quiet bedroom, some subtle, restless energy seemed to stir.

The sky had long since darkened, and Xiao Xiao's bedroom was unlit, save for the faint blue light emanating from the display screen, illuminating his pale face.

Almost numbly, he pressed the play button again.

In the image, the woman looked as frightened and uneasy as before, but the picture quality seemed to have deteriorated further.

And whether it was his imagination or not, Xiao Xiao vaguely felt that her face seemed even more tired.

Xiao Xiao still watched the entire recording intently, not missing a single detail.

He watched the same dialogue take place in the same setting, watching the woman tremble, her fear, her efforts to conceal it, as if possessing some kind of "contagion," deeply imprinted on Xiao Xiao's eyes, and then on his mind.

This contagion grew more profound with each successive playback of the videotape.

Until the very last moment, the haggard woman, under the interrogator's questioning, suddenly raised her head sharply.

At that moment, Xiao Xiao felt a strange chill, but he still straightened his back.

He stared intently at the screen, suppressing the horror in his heart, controlling his gaze, not letting it stray from the image.

The extreme sense of strangeness made his heart clench.

This time, the woman was staring directly at the camera, her face seemingly devoid of the fear and unease he had seen before.

Only, a deep despair: "Our city has been devoured by a giant monster..."

"The Singularity has begun to spread, none of us can escape..."

"..."

"..."

Xiao Xiao suddenly widened his eyes, his entire being plunged into extreme shock, even his thoughts going blank.

Goosebumps erupted across his skin in waves.

This woman was speaking directly to him?

In this recording, made at some unknown time, the woman was addressing him directly?

But it was clear that when he watched it the first two times, the recording wasn't like this. Neither of the first two times. So why, on the third play, did such a bizarre scene suddenly appear? This incomprehensible strangeness sent a chill down Xiao Xiao's spine.

"Chi..."

Just as Xiao Xiao strained his eyes, trying to see more, the image flickered suddenly. Amidst the chaotic static, the already blurred picture dissolved completely into blankness.

The woman staring intently at the camera vanished.

Xiao Xiao hurriedly pressed the play button again, but there was no response.

He took out the tape and examined it closely, discovering that its contents had been completely erased.

It was now a completely blank, useless tape.

"How could this happen?"

Xiao Xiao put down the tape, took a deep breath, and slowly stood up.

As the tape turned blank, he couldn't help but wonder if what he had just seen was even real.

He couldn't help but close his eyes.

In his mind, the image of the woman being questioned remained clear, even more so than the contents of the recording itself, which were already starting to fade from memory. But the woman's anxiety and terror were perfectly preserved.

It seemed that some quality had transferred from the woman to him through the act of watching the tape.

After a long while, Xiao Xiao opened his eyes and looked around the dark bedroom, feeling a sense of unease.

Everything was shrouded in mystery.

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

The world seemed to become clearer in his eyes.

Xiao Xiao could feel every inch of the air around him, filled with a strong and uneasy aura.

He could feel the intense danger emanating from the three large hounds sleeping neck-and-neck in the neighbor's yard. But strangely, at this moment, he could feel that this dangerous aura brought a sense of security.

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

He could feel the butcher in the meat shop down the street, wearing a transparent raincoat, holding a blood-stained rag doll and crying in a repressed manner.

Further away, the entire city was submerged in an abnormal darkness.

And within this deep darkness, as he probed with his senses, it seemed that something was awakening.

It was slowly emerging from the shadows, gradually approaching the edges of Xiao Xiao's sensory reach...

"Hoo..."

Xiao Xiao suddenly woke up, took a step back, and gasped for breath.

Just as he was about to see clearly what was hidden in the darkness, he didn't know if his ability had reached its limit, or if an intense fear in his instincts forced him to wake up quickly.

"So, this is the Enhancement Element of Extreme Sensitivity?"

Xiao Xiao thought quickly, cold sweat beading on his forehead amidst the panic.

He had contracted the paranoid trait of the woman in the video by watching the tape.

Was he seeing the world more clearly, his perception of the things around him reaching a higher and clearer level, or...

...was he simply becoming more paranoid and overly anxious?

But was this really just a normal enhancement?

Xiao Xiao didn't know if this was a side effect of the Enhancement Element, just like how he had experienced a period of time after using Violence Factor where he would have violent thoughts and want to do irrational things to people.

Was he now experiencing the side effects of the Extreme Sensitivity element?

However, he couldn't convince himself.

His mind was filled with the image of the woman in front of the camera, her face filled with fear, and the woman's last words.

"Our city has been devoured by a giant monster..."

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

"..."

Countless twisted and chaotic thoughts flooded Xiao Xiao's brain, as if he had returned to the time when his headaches first started four years ago.

Xiao Xiao couldn't help but press hard on his head, wanting to get rid of these terrible associations.

Outside his bedroom, the whole world was silent.

The neighbor's three vicious dogs were standing upright, their front paws resting on the fence, looking worriedly at Xiao Xiao's brightly lit bedroom.

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

Behind the curtains, the sound of the Old Gramophone was hoarse and muffled, exuding an atmosphere of grief and pain, stirring together with the deep night, and somehow possessing a strange soothing ability, gradually, little by little, easing Xiao Xiao's tense and frightened emotions.

He slowly raised his head and looked in the direction of the gramophone.