Ripp--
Snap--
Crunch crunch--
The texture of Back Anomaly was like chewing a crispy cracker; it tasted quite good, even having a decent bounce to it.
[You have devoured a Level 7 Anomaly, Back Anomaly.]
[Back Anomaly has been digested by you.]
[You have acquired an Anomaly Ability!]
[3.5 stars - Level 6 - Back Anomaly]: Watch your back, or else if something sticks to it, this body might not belong to you anymore.
Along with the prompt's appearance.
After being digested, Back Anomaly turned into a powerful surge of energy that flooded Chen Yu's limbs and bones.
It finally flowed into a certain part of his body, transforming into the energy of Headless Ghost Shadow!
[Headless Ghost Shadow absorbed energy, successfully upgrading from Level 6 to Level 7.]
[Headless Ghost Shadow's power has been vastly increased.]
[Headless Ghost Shadow's speed has been vastly increased.]
[Headless Ghost Shadow's concealment has grown stronger, making assassinations much easier.]
[Headless Ghost Shadow has completely become a part of your body, at your beck and call.]
The Headless Ghost Shadow inside Chen Yu's body underwent a series of intense changes.
Finally, it successfully upgraded to Level 7!
Chen Yu felt delighted in his heart.
Headless Ghost Shadow was inherently capable of challenging higher levels. In combat, Chen Yu used Headless Ghost Shadow very frequently because Headless Ghost Shadow was born for fighting.
Now, having transformed into a Level 7, Headless Ghost Shadow pushed Chen Yu's lethality to the next level, and his escape capabilities also rose by several steps.
Right now, his three major battle assets were Time Ghost Eye, Ghost Butcher Knife, and Headless Ghost Shadow.
Now all three battle assets had vied with each other to upgrade to Level 7.
Normally, if an ordinary anomaly wanted to naturally raise its anomaly level, it was absolutely impossible without the accumulation of time.
Even for anomalies harnessed by Ghost Controllers, trying to raise their level was as hard as ascending to heaven.
Yet Chen Yu, in just a short span of time, had successively upgraded all three anomalies to Level 7.
This was already extremely heaven-defying.
Yet Chen Yu was still not satisfied, thinking that he was upgrading too slowly.
After the upgrade concluded, Chen Yu stood up, patted the non-existent dust off his hands, and said to Han Ningning, who was in a state of bewilderment and shock:
"Let's go, I'll take you to find a fun little thing."
"A fun little thing?"
Han Ningning wore a puzzled look.
Seeing that Chen Yu had already taken Tong Jian and left, she hurried to catch up.
That thread left behind and connected after the mutual anomaly mediums came into contact.
Except for Chen Yu, who possessed Time Ghost Eye, no one else could see it.
This thread was very long, stretching endlessly at a glance, and it twisted and turned throughout the zoo.
Chen Yu led Tong Jian and Han Ningning as they searched all the way.
Finally, the medium clue stopped near the zoo's service station.
Chen Yu raised his head and looked at the plaque of the zoo service station.
The plaque was covered everywhere in turbid marks, much like the grease stains on a chef's apron that hadn't been washed in years.
The service station was meant to serve tourists who entered the zoo to view the animals.
Just as they arrived at the zoo service station.
A sound of sobbing came from within the service station.
This weeping sound was extremely sorrowful, causing Chen Yu and the others to slightly furrow their brows.
Presently, the zoo had been ravaged by anomalies, and the people had long since fled.
How could there be the sound of someone crying?
Chen Yu, Han Ningning, and the others drew closer to take a look.
They discovered that at this moment, a somewhat frail figure was squatting at the entrance of the service station, weeping mournfully.
This was an old woman, with a full head of white hair and a frail build, looking to be sixty or seventy years old.
Only, the old woman had a kind expression, possessing the appearance of a neighbor's elderly grandmother.
In her distress, her wrinkle-filled hands trembled incessantly.
Her lips were pale.
Seeing the old grandmother crying so sorrowfully, Han Ningning instantly softened her heart, walked over, and asked, "Grandma, what's wrong with you?"
After the old woman looked up at Han Ningning, she cried even harder, "I, my granddaughter is lost! That's my granddaughter who depended on me for survival! If she can't be found, I won't live anymore..."
As soon as these words came out, Han Ningning frowned.
She was a Ghost Controller and could sense anomaly aura.
There was no anomaly aura on this old grandmother, which meant she should be a normal person.
Yet why would a normal person appear in an anomaly zoo in the middle of the night?
And at the same time lose her granddaughter?
"Grandma, don't worry, we'll help you find her."
Han Ningning spoke to comfort her.
The old grandmother grasped her hand, so moved she couldn't speak.
Tears streamed down like rain, and she just kept repeating with a trembling voice, "Thank you... thank you..."
Han Ningning sighed.
Musing in her heart, her granddaughter was most likely never going to be found.
Odds were... she was taken away by Ghost Infant.
Chen Yu, on the other hand, glanced at the old woman a few more times, then entered the service station together with Han Ningning and Tong Jian.
[Woo woo woo--]
Just as they stepped through the front doors, the sound of a child's crying chimed out.
This eerie sound of weeping was like an alley cat howling for a mate in the middle of the night; hearing it in this anomaly zoo made one's spine chill.
The hair on the back of Han Ningning's head twitched, and the Ghostly Smiling Face on it trembled, clearly terrified of this crying sound.
Han Ningning felt the fear of the Ghostly Smiling Face, then said, "Just now, this crying sound forcibly stripped away my lifespan. To be able to affect my anomaly from this far away, it seems very likely that this inside is Ghost Infant."
Ghost Infant was an existence that even the Investigation Bureau spoke of with pale faces.
Just hearing its voice had indirectly caused her a loss of three years of lifespan; one could imagine how powerful its true body must be.
Chen Yu didn't hesitate; he neither nodded nor shook his head.
Han Ningning continued, "Are we going in? Ghost Infant is an extremely terrifying anomaly with a very high difficulty rating."
Instead, Chen Yu said directly, "Since we're already here, of course we're going in. Since there's a Ghost Infant, we might as well deal with it along the way."
He said these words very calmly, as if he were talking about a trivial matter.
If anyone else heard these words, they would probably laugh their heads off.
Yet the few people present did not doubt Chen Yu's strength.
After all, the strength Chen Yu had previously displayed had already shocked them beyond measure.
Perhaps he really had a chance of dealing with Ghost Shadow.
Following the sound of crying, they walked all the way inward.
The service station was a place where some zoo customer service personnel lived and also worked.
This place was different from the outside.
The outside was filled with the smell of blood, with animal corpses everywhere; various feces and entrails littered the ground.
Yet here, it was very clean and very quiet.
So quiet that it felt like plunging into an endless abyss.
Nothing could be heard, nothing could be felt.
The only things that could be felt were everyone's breathing, footsteps, the heartbeat that was beginning to slowly accelerate, and then that eerie crying sound of a little child.
In the surrounding pitch-blackness, countless terrifying entities seemed to be lurking.
Coupled with the weeping sound, it elevated this terrifying, killing atmosphere by several levels.
As they penetrated deeper and deeper.
The sound also became more and more distinct.
At this moment, that crying sound was as if it were right beside their ears, constantly echoing in their brains!
The surrounding walls began to slowly undergo changes.
The white walls were covered everywhere with all sorts of bloody handprints.
On the ground were bloody footprints, overlapping and crisscrossing in a complex maze.
In the photo frames of the service station staff, every single photo bearing an official smile appeared so piercing and spine-chilling at this moment.
In the photos, their eyes were entirely bloodred, their faces stained with blood.
When they first stepped inside, they didn't feel much.
But afterwards, that terrifying sensation grew more and more obvious.
As they walked, beneath a counter not far ahead, a pitch-black figure was squatting on the ground.
[Woo woo woo woo...]
[Snap! Snap--]
[Crick crack--]
Waves of weeping sounds were emitted from the small figure's mouth.
Aside from the weeping, there were also sounds of tearing and biting, along with teeth-gritting noises that set the teeth on edge.
Han Ningning and the others fixed their gaze upon it.
They were immediately seized with terror!
They saw that the small figure squatting on the ground was none other than a child!
Beneath skinless eyelids, a pair of crimson eyeballs stared fixedly at the thing in its hands.
And what he was holding in his hands
Not only was he eating, but he was also whimpering and weeping at the same time.
This scene looked extremely terrifying.
Han Ningning was already frightened into a panic.
The way this child ate corpses was far more terrifying than Chen Yu.
She instinctively tugged at the corner of Chen Yu's clothes, hiding behind Chen Yu.
At this moment, it seemed only Chen Yu could give her a sense of security.
Upon seeing this eerie child, Chen Yu instead smiled faintly.
What the fuck, they had run into a fellow professional!
Not only was he not scared, but as he watched, his stomach even felt a little hungry...
The child seemed to have sensed something as well, abruptly turning his head to look.
Beneath skinless flesh were only bright red muscles, and the half-face of skin hanging at his chin swung along with his movement!
He stared fixedly at Chen Yu, and even without putting on a ferocious expression, his face naturally carried a ferocious look.
Han Ningning's expression immediately changed drastically!
If she hadn't covered her mouth, she probably would have screamed out loud.
The terrifying and bloody scene made Han Ningning's stomach churn violently.
Mainly because the child was excessively weird and terrifying, and when eating corpses, he didn't have even one percent of Chen Yu's elegance.
Chen Yu gently patted Han Ningning's shoulder. "Don't be scared, don't worry, it's just a child."
This sentence seemed to give Han Ningning a reassuring pill, easing her trembling body.
Meanwhile, in a corner.
A surveillance camera that had drooped its head due to a power outage lifted its head the exact moment Chen Yu entered this place.
From the camera lens, an eerie red glare emanated, akin to the gaze of a devil in hell, emitting an irresistible deterrence.
Although this surveillance camera was very well concealed, it still drew Chen Yu's attention.
The zoo had lost power long ago.
The camera had already stopped operating.
Yet why was this camera operating again?
Han Ningning naturally hadn't noticed that eerie surveillance camera; right now, her eyes held only that terrifying, eerie child.
A foul stench spread from the child, occupying the entire space from an angle invisible to ordinary people and from a direction impossible to discern, corroding the mucous membranes in the nasal passages and throats of Chen Yu and the others.
This indescribable odor was even assimilating the air of the entire space.
Ferocious like a demon, the crimson chunks of meat lying on the ground were mocking the living who ate and gazed upon corpses in the name of death.
Flee!
Reason warned Han Ningning over and over again; she turned her head to look at Chen Yu, wanting to have Chen Yu leave with her.
She was also smart, thinking of it right away...
This smell was probably the medium.
If they didn't leave now, something would definitely go wrong.
Sure enough!
That child, covered in blood and burying his head to eat meat, the moment they and the others smelled the odor.
Suddenly raised his head and looked at Chen Yu.
He raised the other fist-sized chunk of bloody meat in his hand toward Chen Yu, an unrecognizable body part.
It seemed to be inviting Chen Yu to come over and eat.
This is bad!
Han Ningning's expression shifted.
Eating that chunk of meat meant certain death!
Yet, what Han Ningning could not foresee was—
Chen Yu, who had always remained gentle, refined, and graceful, was at this moment smiling quite happily as he looked at Anomaly Child and that pool of scarlet liquid.
The corners of his lips curved into an eerie, smiling arc.
Just as Han Ningning wanted to open her mouth and tell Chen Yu to leave—
Chen Yu made the first move, grabbing Han Ningning who was about to leave and saying, "Let's go, let's go over and take a look together."
As the words fell, Han Ningning was dragged right beside Anomaly Child by Chen Yu.
"It smells quite nice. Are you going to give me some to eat?"
Chen Yu spoke with a smile.
The child covered all over in blood raised his head, glanced at Chen Yu with pale eyes, and then put down the original piece of meat. Lowering his head, he tore into the corpse, ripped off an even larger chunk of thigh meat, and handed it to Chen Yu.
Chen Yu, however, did not reach out to take it.
Seeing that Chen Yu did not take the corpse chunk he had offered—
Anomaly Child's expression instantly drooped and distorted.
[Wuu wuu wuu...]
Accompanied by his eerie crying sound capable of piercing a vacuum, an ominous aura spewed forth from within his body, as tangible as reality!
[Hum!]
[He is willing to let you eat the largest piece of meat.]
[You did not accept it, hurting his feelings.]
[Right now, he wants to kill you for being impolite.]
A series of prompts appeared on the phone.
It proved that Anomaly Child was about to start killing!
Chen Yu, however, smiled, then squatted down beside Anomaly Child and said, "It's not that I'm refusing your things. Let's just eat together directly."
Hearing these words, Anomaly Child reined in his eerie aura, and the expression of bitter crying instantly dissipated, nodding as if he possessed human emotions.
Then, one big and one small, the two fellows squatted on the ground, devouring the corpse bite by bite.
Yet what Chen Yu was actually eating was not any human flesh, but an anomaly.
The meat chunks that passed through the hands of this Anomaly Child were similar to the mush the Ghost Zookeeper took out to feed people, having transformed to a certain degree into a medium for killing.
They were fundamentally no longer meat in the physical sense.
Standing off to the side, Han Ningning's jaw dropped in shock, unable to recover for a long time.
This scene was just too harmonious?!
In this world, Chen Yu was probably the only one who could appeal to Anomaly Child's tastes.
Ask yourself, if it were anyone else, and they saw Anomaly Child handing them a piece of corpse meat—
Would they take it?
Would they squat down like brothers and wolf down the meat bite by bite?!
After eating a few bites, Chen Yu turned his head and spoke, "Sorry for the trouble, go help me pick a fruit."
"O-okay."
Han Ningning snapped out of her shock, though she had no idea why Chen Yu wanted a fruit.
She still followed his instructions, however.
There were quite a few ornamental trees in the zoo.
Only, after the anomalies ran rampant, the trees had all withered and the fruits had fallen to the ground.
Han Ningning picked up a small, yellowing fruit from the pile of fruits and handed it to Chen Yu.
Holding the fruit, Chen Yu smiled at Anomaly Child and said, "Since you're willing to share your food with me, I'll give you something to eat as well."
(End of chapter)
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