A Strange Sight Appeared in the Sky

The car emerged from the underground garage and turned onto the main road.

Many people had already stopped along the roadside to watch.

"What are they looking at?" Honglian asked.

"Holy crap... Just focus on driving..." Wang Baihu climbed out through the sunroof and lay on the roof, staring in disbelief in the direction everyone was looking.

A blood-red wasteland was reflected in the sky.

Against the thin white clouds and blue sky around it, it stood out vividly, like a long, narrow painting. Countless people had witnessed the astonishing sight. They took out their phones and snapped pictures of the horizon, their faces alight with excitement.

This was completely different from the invasions that had happened before... He could already imagine how desperate the Logistics Team would be when it had to clean up this mess.

"No way..." Honglian soon spotted the strange sight in the sky through a gap between the high-rises. "What the hell is that!?"

"I can't be sure, but it looks like it's raining over there... The rain is blood-red..." Wang Baihu murmured, squinting. He had the best eyesight on the team and could make out the value of a coin from five hundred meters away with the naked eye. "What do we do now? I bet the whole city's going to see this!"

"Not just the whole city." Honglian silently rolled her eyes. "Give it a few minutes, and the whole world will know."

In the past, pollution incursions had usually been confined to a single doorway, a building, or some other limited space, and most of these spaces had shown signs of what they were. For instance, the No. 98 incursion they'd encountered last time had been set in medieval France, so its connection point had appeared inside a shop on a replica of the Champs-Élysées.

That was why they had spent a fortune building a massive Window of the World on the outskirts of the city—to concentrate the incursions. With foreign travel becoming easier, an amusement park filled with replicas of famous landmarks from around the world had clearly become outdated. Honglian remembered that plenty of newspapers had "condemned" the park's construction at the time, unaware that attracting tourists had never been its real purpose.

But the sky was clearly empty. Why had an incursion suddenly appeared there?

Wang Baihu climbed back into the car and turned on the radio. Every station was broadcasting the same announcement.

"...A rare optical phenomenon, one not seen in a century, has appeared in the skies above our city. Experts say it is a special mirage caused by a cold air mass moving south from the north and being partially blocked by Foothill Mountain, resulting in the refraction of light. Please remain calm and observe the phenomenon in an orderly and courteous manner. Here are several viewing spots recommended by our radio station reporters..."

"A mirage? That's a pretty good idea," he praised. "The Logistics Team's quick on the draw."

"It'll only fool people for a little while." Honglian was unimpressed. "The incursions don't just bring strange sights. They bring mutations, too. If we don't handle them properly, we won't be able to keep the secret that this world has long been riddled with holes."

As she spoke, she took a police light out of the glove compartment and slapped it onto the roof.

The siren blared, and the cars dawdling in front of them moved aside.

"Hey, that's against the rules. We're not—"

"We don't have time to worry about the details! At this rate, the roads will be jammed in no time. Are we supposed to run there?"

Wang Baihu had to admit she had a point. The strange phenomenon had drawn in not only the people along the roadside, but drivers as well. Traffic was slowing noticeably, and quite a few people had pulled over and gotten out to watch the rare "mirage." It was easy to predict that a massive traffic jam would soon hit all the city's main roads.

"Relax. The traffic police definitely won't have time to stop us now. They've got their own hands full." Honglian gripped the steering wheel and floored the accelerator. "Buckle up. I'm speeding up!"

In less than fifteen minutes, the two of them raced into Heping Avenue in Tianlu District.

A small park sat directly beneath the strange phenomenon.

It wasn't quitting time yet, so there weren't many people wandering around the park—only a few dozen at a glance. They were directly beneath the "mirage," and all they had to do was look up to see the sight tearing across the sky.

Wang Baihu felt his breathing quicken.

He had to admit that watching the phenomenon from a distance was a completely different experience from standing directly beneath it and gazing up. For one thing, it was enormous. Hanging overhead, it filled more than half his field of vision, its sheer size oppressive. And at its edges, he could clearly see several clouds abruptly cut in half, their wispy white fragments falling into the phenomenon, as if that blood-red land were devouring everything in this world. It hung high in the sky, yet looked like an unfathomably deep abyss.

"Take this and get those people out of here." Honglian tossed him something.

Wang Baihu caught it and saw that it was a police ID bearing his photo.

"Where'd you buy this?"

"Pinduoduo."

"That's against the rules—"

"Hmm?" Honglian arched an eyebrow. "Then I'll go."

"No, I'll handle it." Wang Baihu hurriedly stopped her and nimbly got out of the car. He knew they were trying to clear the crowd for their own safety, but his colleague's disregard for the rules was plain as day. And after taking such a big hit earlier, she had plenty of pent-up anger with nowhere to vent it.

"Hey! This place isn't safe. You need to leave, now!" He held up the police ID and hurried toward a couple who were holding up their phones.

"Didn't they say it's a mirage?"

"Yeah. What's unsafe about that?"

"You think I'd lie to you?" Wang Baihu waved the ID in his hand for emphasis. "They're about to put up a police cordon around the park. Get out, now!"

Maybe it was the authority of his police credentials that persuaded them. The couple heeded his warning and left, glancing up with every step.

He immediately ran toward the next group.

But just then, a shrill scream rang out!

Everyone heard it and turned toward the sound. A young woman in her twenties was sitting on the ground, twisting frantically as if trying to get away, but she was too terrified to move. She clutched her right wrist with her left hand, blood spilling from between her fingers.

Wang Baihu's heart lurched. He dashed to her side.

The only thing in front of the woman was a collared pet dog.

The dog lowered its head and lapped at a pool of strange, glittering golden blood, paying no attention to the woman's screams. A severed hand, skin and all, lay scattered beside its paws.

He recognized it at a glance. It was the woman's hand.

Then the dog looked at him—not by lifting its head, but by moving both eyes to the same side and staring at him, one above the other! Its mouth gaped even wider, splitting almost from the tip of its nose to its neck.

Wang Baihu felt a chill run down his spine.

Divergence... had happened to the dog?

He didn't hesitate. He drew the gun tucked at his waist and fired at the pet dog!

With a soft whizz, the bullet struck the dog squarely between the eyes.

It wasn't an ordinary handgun, but a specially made weapon issued by the organization. It looked like a toy, and its bullets were powerful tranquilizers. The advantage was that even if the public saw it, they wouldn't get too alarmed... Its downside, as became clear now, was that the pet dog showed no signs of being tranquilized. It only paused for a moment before opening its mouth and biting at the ground!

Biting the ground?

Wang Baihu suddenly noticed the grass beneath his feet wriggling.

In the blink of an eye, a dog's mouth burst out of the ground and sank its teeth into his calf! The bizarre thing was that the pet dog hadn't left its spot. It was as if it had buried its head in the soil; its body was still three or four meters away from Wang Baihu!

The woman who witnessed the bizarre scene let out a sob and fainted.

But the dog's mouth failed to bite through his calf. It even cracked several of its sharp teeth, and sparks flew where its teeth clamped down.

Wang Baihu easily pulled his leg free. He leaped backward to put some distance between them, scooped up the unconscious woman, and ran toward the car. "Honglian, MZ3 bullet!"

"Countdown: one second," his colleague replied calmly through the earpiece. "Run faster."

"Couldn't you give me a few more seconds—" Before he could finish, an explosion behind him drowned out every other sound.

Boom!

The blast wave sent Wang Baihu staggering. He looked back to see nothing but charred grass and the pet dog's lower half, blown to pieces.

After that, nobody dared linger in the park. In the blink of an eye, everyone had fled.

"That was convenient," he muttered. "I wonder what the Logistics Team will say."

"What else? A gas pipe exploded." Honglian walked over. "What did you just shoot?"

"A dog."

"What?" She furrowed her brow.

Wang Baihu still could hardly believe it. "That dog... It gained an ability."