"Tap, tap, tap."
Footsteps sounded behind Xu Ye.
The Aberrant's paws, caked with dust and grit, scraped against the dried dog shit on the stairs, the sound especially grating in the sinister stairwell.
The searing pain in his back made Xu Ye bare his teeth and suck in a breath. That fall had left him dizzy, but he didn't dare look back. He raced toward the eighteenth floor like a madman.
Even after taking out one of its dog heads with a surprise attack, Xu Ye realized that, as an ordinary person, he was still no match for an Aberrant under normal circumstances.
His only hope was to find the cause of the contamination, then figure out how to escape.
Otherwise, getting outside would only mean dying elsewhere.
Someone among the nobles of the floating city seemed to want him dead.
He ran all the way to the eighteenth floor and entered the apartment. The instant he slammed the security door shut, the stray dog Aberrant crashed into it.
Bang!
One impact.
Wood splinters flew.
Bang!
Another impact.
The center of the door bulged outward.
The vermilion security door shook violently, its pounding alternating irregularly with the thunder outside.
Xu Ye had no time to worry about it. He began surveying his surroundings.
It was a small apartment of just over sixty square meters, and the rooms were a complete mess. Bite marks covered the furniture. The television, coffee table, table, cosmetics, mirror... everything had been knocked to the floor.
The wall facing the dining table was covered in certificates.
"Night Spirit City's Most Compassionate Person," "Stray Dog Adoption Association Member of the Year," "Stray Dog Rescue Ambassador"...
His gaze shifted right. A strange corpse lay on the living room floor.
It was strange because this was the dog-owning middle-aged woman, Wu Shuyu. She had died three days ago, yet there was no sign of decay.
She wore a floral dress, her hair was permed and dyed, and her makeup was immaculate. A jeweled necklace hung around her neck. Her face was somewhat twisted, and her eyes were wide open, staring to her left.
Following her gaze, he saw her left hand gripping a cleaver, its blade covered in brown fur.
Xu Ye's mouth parted slightly. Then he turned and headed into the kitchen.
The kitchen was small, with only enough room for two people, yet it was filled with the dismembered remains of stray dogs. A dog's head sat on the chopping board, and the pressure cooker was full of foul-smelling dog meat soup.
"Just as I thought..."
Xu Ye sighed softly.
The dignified, affluent-looking woman in the living room, with her kindly face, had used adopting stray dogs as a cover. In reality, she had slaughtered and eaten them to satisfy her appetite.
He didn't have many memories of this world and had no idea why eating dog meat would cause contamination and aberration, but this was clearly the cause of the incident.
Boom!
Lightning flashed again, and the downpour continued.
A large hole had been smashed through the security door. The dog head with the human face poked through, its expression full of malice, its skin deathly white as though coated in paint.
Xu Ye watched it silently.
"The one who wronged you is the one who owes you. She's already dead, and you've eaten plenty of people. It's time to let go."
The stray dog Aberrant went quiet. The grotesquely mismatched human face suddenly crumpled like a chrysanthemum. Layer after layer of black vapor rose from its face, and its body abruptly doubled in size, bursting the security door apart.
Eat!
Eat!
Eat!
Nothing remained in its eyes but a crazed hunger for food. The moment its gaze swept over Wu Shuyu's corpse, every hair on its body stood up like a hedgehog's spines.
Only by devouring the corpse before it and venting its resentment could it ease the agitation inside.
At that moment, the Aberrant moved.
It was terrifyingly fast, appearing in front of Xu Ye like a cannonball.
Sharp claws had grown from its paws, slicing through the air with a whistling rush.
Even though Xu Ye was ready and brought his dagger up to counter it, the tremendous force tore his arm open on contact. He avoided the fatal blow, but its claws gouged a bloody hole in his abdomen.
Blood sprayed, and the wound began turning black.
Xu Ye was swatted against the wall like a fly, then dropped onto his backside, nearly passing out.
The dagger had left only a shallow cut on the Aberrant's paw.
[My life was hanging by a thread. With the strength of an ordinary person, I was no match for an Aberrant, even wielding an F-grade taboo item.] [The information was wrong. The degree of Heavenly Dao distortion here had already reached 2%.] [Those damned nobles had no intention of letting me live.] [I began searching for a way to save myself.] [A mirror! A mirror! I suddenly remembered something: anyone who came within half a meter of a mirror would be targeted by a "Mirror Spirit."]
Xu Ye lowered his head and watched the information emerge as his heart kept writhing. In the midst of despair, he had found a glimmer of hope.
He forced himself to draw a breath and, without warning, hurled the dagger at the Aberrant.
At the same time, he rolled and lunged toward the bathroom doorway. The wound in his abdomen made his movements clumsy, but he still managed to grab a mirror that had fallen to the floor.
By the time he finished, the stray dog Aberrant had effortlessly swatted the dagger aside.
It opened its mouth, which had split all the way to its ears. Its yellow-black teeth abruptly sharpened, and it pounced on Xu Ye again.
At the last possible moment, Xu Ye raised the mirror and pointed it at the Aberrant.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The Aberrant's body suddenly went rigid in midair, less than half a meter from the mirror, floating unnaturally.
Its panting suddenly turned shrill. Its face twisted as it struggled violently.
But it could do nothing.
Xu Ye watched as its head was rotated, bit by bit, like a screw, and twisted off its neck.
Thud!
The dog head hit the floor.
Thud!
The body hit the floor.
The Mirror Spirit had killed it.
"Phew..."
Xu Ye carefully placed the mirror facedown on the floor and kicked it far away. Only then did he let out a breath of relief.
Outside the window, the dark clouds dispersed and the rain gradually stopped. A warm red moon appeared in the deep night sky, its rosy light spilling across more than half the room.
Xu Ye clamped his hand over the wound in his abdomen, but he couldn't stop the toxin from spreading. Cold, exhaustion, and agonizing pain began seeping through his entire body. His consciousness slowly faded, and he passed out.
Just then, his heart began writhing again.
[After my first battle with an Aberrant, I summed up the following six points:...] [Although I was badly injured, someone came to rescue me three minutes later.] [I survived.] [The past would be locked away in memory. I was no longer lost. A traveler through time and space, I would begin my journey through this world with a new identity.] [I joined the Dawn Blade and became an Awakened.] [Five years later, I finally discovered this world's shocking secret-a secret that could overturn the entire world, a secret that could let me go home. Who could have imagined...]
Suddenly, his heart seemed to receive some indescribable warning and quietly stopped writhing.
The information ended there.
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