Transfigured humans

The train arrived at the next platform, and its doors slowly opened.

Gu Yanzhi gasped for breath. The people around him had instinctively formed a buffer zone, and when the doors opened, they swarmed out as though they had found their last hope of escape.

Gu Yanzhi released his grip on the thug's hair. By now, all three thugs had been beaten unconscious.

But he had not come out unscathed either. Even though he had knocked one out with a surprise attack first, once the masked thug woke up, fighting all three at once in the cramped carriage had still been a little beyond him. He had sustained some injuries himself.

Gu Yanzhi stepped onto the platform.

He stopped and surveyed it. It was much smaller than Shibuya Station, with a few benches scattered across it.

The train did not depart. A line of red text scrolled across the electronic display: "Equipment malfunction. Please follow staff instructions."

There were only a dozen or so scattered passengers. No one spoke or moved. It was as though someone had pressed mute on everything.

He took one step forward, then stopped.

Something was wrong with the passengers' postures. One person's fingers hovered above a phone screen, their joints frozen at an angle no living person should have held. Another had an arm raised in midair, like an unfinished sculpture.

The air had changed texture. Every breath felt like drawing a wet cloth into his lungs, stifling and heavy.

Gu Yanzhi recalled the original story. He remembered that during the later group attack on Satoru Gojo, Mahito had created a trainload of transfigured humans and thrown them into the battlefield to restrict Gojo's movements.

No way.

With a bitter inward sigh, Gu Yanzhi noticed that something had begun to change in the crowd.

The passengers on the benches stood up.

Their knees straightened first, then their upper bodies rose section by section, as though an invisible thread were pulling them up by the tops of their heads. The others stood too, all turning in the same direction and walking toward the shadows beyond the reach of the lights at the end of the platform.

Their steps were so synchronized that his scalp prickled. A dozen pairs of soles scraped over the tiles at once, their rustling sounds layering together across the empty platform like a swarm of insects crawling inside the walls.

His back pressed tightly against the cold train door. Sweat slid down from his temple.

The oppressive heaviness in the air grew thicker, and his heartbeat pounded like a drum in his ears.

The changes came all at once.

The sounds of shifting bones rose from the crowd, as dense as a handful of bamboo chopsticks snapping simultaneously.

Everyone's bodies began to turn grotesque, swelling as new limbs and eyeballs sprouted from them.

Mahito's transfigured human plan had begun.

Gu Yanzhi had barely taken a step back when a chill suddenly closed in.

He saw nothing tangible, but the pressure in his chest abruptly intensified.

The sensation of a cold hand spread across his breastbone.

Idle Transfiguration.

He lowered his head and saw his fingers bending outward. Before the pain could even reach his brain, his shoulders began to deform-his shoulder blades pushed outward, his shirt pulled taut, and the fabric hissed as its seams strained apart.

His consciousness went dark in that same instant.

When his consciousness returned, the first thing he felt was pressure, squeezing him from every direction.

His shoulders were wedged between two hard surfaces, his back pressed against something icy, and something had trapped his knees.

The air was nauseatingly foul-the sourness of sweat, the smell of blood, and the acrid stench of scorched metal all mixed together.

He opened his eyes. The light was dim, with emergency lighting leaking through gaps in the shattered overhead tubes, barely outlining his surroundings.

Deformed bodies were packed tightly against his chest and back. There was not even enough room to turn his head.

He tried moving his fingers. His consciousness had fully returned to this body.

Mahito's cursed technique had turned his body into a transfigured human, but apparently the system had locked down his soul, allowing him to escape Mahito's control.

He felt out his body, flexing his biceps slightly. Strength far beyond what he had possessed before surged from his shoulders to his fingertips, forcing the arm of the transfigured human beside him two inches outward.

An unexpected bonus.

The physiques of two adult men had been combined in this body. Building on that foundation, Mahito's Idle Transfiguration had rewoven every muscle fiber and reworked the density of every bone.

He now probably had the strength of six or seven adults.

The train slowed. The friction against the rails grew increasingly shrill, and the carriage shook violently before jolting to a halt-an emergency stop.

The metal brake pads scraped out a long screech against the tracks, and the entire train shuddered violently.

The doors burst open. An entire door flew out and slammed into the platform wall, its thunderous crash exploding through the enclosed space. The transfigured humans inside the carriage were activated by the same signal. Their stiffness and silence shattered in an instant, and they surged toward the doorway together.

Gu Yanzhi was squeezed into the crowd and pushed outside.

With the strength of six or seven people, he no longer had to be swept along helplessly. He turned his shoulder into the back of the transfigured human ahead of him and shoved hard, forcing a gap through the densely packed bodies.

By the time he worked his way to the doorway, more than half the carriage behind him had emptied.

The platform was red. Dark red splattered the walls, ceiling, and tiles. Shreds of flesh clung to a vending machine's glass panel, slowly sliding down.

The smell of blood was so thick it almost solidified into a film. Every breath felt like a dull knife scraping inside his sinuses. The rotten stench of ruptured organs mingled with it, sickly sweet and pungent.

Screams poured in from every direction, the sounds of dozens of throats tearing themselves raw overlapping until his eardrums tingled.

The army of transfigured humans surged past him, lunging at the living people who were still screaming.

No one noticed that he had stopped. In their eyes, he was still one of them-a grotesque puppet whose soul had likewise been twisted, carrying out the same command.

Head lowered, he stood amid the flowing tide of transfigured humans. The command inside him felt like a cold iron wire piercing the back of his head and running down his spine, its ends taking root in every muscle.

Mahito was sending orders to every transfigured human: Attack! Kill them all! Leave no one alive!

He forced the impulse down through sheer will.

Then he moved.

The nearest transfigured human was lunging at a middle-aged woman lying on the ground. Gu Yanzhi rushed in from the side and drove a knee into its ribs.

The strength of six or seven people erupted at close range. The transfigured human's ribs caved straight in, and its entire body flew sideways into a vending machine, shattering the glass panel.

It slid to the floor and struggled, trying to get up. Gu Yanzhi planted a foot on its back and stamped it back down.

The surrounding transfigured humans stopped.

The closest ones turned their heads simultaneously, their cloudy whites staring straight at him. They no longer considered him one of their own.

They lunged at him together.

Gu Yanzhi had not fully adapted to his body yet and was a little slow to react, but he still dispatched the first wave with ease.

He rolled back to his feet and met the next wave of transfigured humans charging at him.

His fists never stopped, nor did his legs. His breathing grew heavier, but his movements became faster and faster.

His stamina was draining rapidly. After so many fights without a break, his breathing could no longer keep pace, and his calf muscles began to tremble.

Then he heard those words.

A low voice descended from high above the platform.

It was not loud, yet it drowned out every other sound on the platform.

"Domain Expansion-"

Gu Yanzhi whipped his head around.