The white-haired girl kept her eyes lowered, gazing intently at her drawing board as her fair little hand gently moved a brush across it.
It was a simple motion, yet the girl seemed to find it difficult. Even the hand holding her brush trembled slightly.
A warm spring breeze blew gently past, carrying a stray lock of hair from her forehead across her eyes.
The girl raised her eyes and gently brushed the lock behind her ear. Then she seemed to notice something and slowly turned her head, her long white hair sweeping gently through the air before settling back down to her waist.
[HeLa Cell] stared intently at the girl before him, who had now spotted him, and slowly approached her.
When the girl saw [HeLa Cell] in the shape of a dog, she put down her brush, the corners of her lips curving into a gentle smile, like an angel.
She slowly reached out toward the... "dog" in front of her.
The sun hanging in the sky was about to set. [HeLa Cell], now several sizes larger, stuck out his tongue and licked the bloodstains remaining on the grass.
Beside him lay the discarded drawing board, along with all kinds of paints and brushes. [HeLa Cell] licked the bloodstains clean, then turned and sniffed the drawing board. Deciding it did not seem tasty, he turned his head back.
Come to think of it, that really was a strange creature. She didn't fight back when she was attacked, and by the end she wasn't even struggling. Her will to live was really weak.
But she had so much meat and didn't resist. She's the perfect first choice of prey from now on.
Still, with a body that big, even if she couldn't fight back, she should at least have been able to run.
So why didn't she even try to run?
For the first time, a question arose in [HeLa Cell]'s mind. Then his body began to melt rapidly. He wanted to try out that kind of body.
After all, practice was the sole criterion for testing truth.
Having melted into a puddle of black liquid, [HeLa Cell] slowly began to reshape himself, carefully recalling the girl's physiology. If he was going to test it, he had to make it exactly the same.
The liquid slowly took shape, gradually forming the girl's torso, limbs, and head, followed by her hair, facial features, and various organs.
Before long, [HeLa Cell] looked exactly like the girl from earlier, except that his expression was somewhat more vacant.
But what puzzled [HeLa Cell] no matter how hard he thought was why he could not produce the strange fur the girl had been wearing.
I ate that fur too, didn't I?
Oh well, no fur it is. It's just a little fur; it won't make any difference.
[HeLa Cell] then controlled his body and took a step forward, but a wave of weakness instantly surged through his leg, sending him sprawling to the ground.
This was completely different from his previous falls, which had been caused by his lack of coordination before he had adapted.
This time, it was simply because he was not strong enough.
[HeLa Cell] had felt this before, when he had eaten too much and grown too large for his body's structure to support his weight.
[HeLa Cell] struggled to get up, but the weakness in his arms made him collapse again halfway up.
Why is she this weak? How did this creature survive until now?
[HeLa Cell] tried again, but found he still could not do it and finally gave up. Now he finally understood why she had neither run nor fought back.
It was not that she had not wanted to, but that she could not. That was why she had neither fled nor resisted.
Having reached that conclusion, [HeLa Cell] immediately turned into black liquid and took the form of a black dog again.
The two consecutive transformations had consumed some of [HeLa Cell]'s energy. He was a little smaller than before, but still 1.7 meters long, and his teeth were noticeably sturdier and sharper.
Now that he knew humans were weak creatures, [HeLa Cell] had a clear target for his hunt.
He sniffed the air carefully with his dog's nose, then slowly looked in one direction and raced toward it.
He had caught the same scent as the girl's, and there was more than one. It looked like he could have another feast.
[HeLa Cell] raced across the lush green grass, his four dog paws like crossbows, every stride strong and powerful.
As he ran, his four dog paws also seemed to be slowly changing. The shapes of his muscles and bones gradually shifted, and even his back slowly changed.
At the same time, his running speed increased at an astonishing rate.
A few kilometers away.
Beside a red-and-white picnic spread laid out on the grass, a red-haired girl lay comfortably on the lawn.
"It's not often we get to come out for a picnic~ This feels so nice!" She stretched, then rolled over and continued lying there.
"Hey! Yan Ling, stop slacking off! Hurry up and help me pitch the tent! It's getting late!"
"Yeah~ I know, captain~ I'm coming right away~" the girl answered lazily, then reluctantly got up from the grass.
"Honestly, you've been slacking off this whole picnic." Seeing the red-haired girl amble over to help, the captain sighed helplessly.
"Oh, come on~ We spend all day, every day dealing with the other species. It's exhausting, so of course I need a good rest.
"Besides, isn't the vice-captain slacking off too?!" The red-haired girl looked at the man lying on the grass nearby with a blade of foxtail grass between his lips. Two travel backpacks lay beside him.
"Just focus on pitching your tent. Han Xuan made both breakfast and lunch, so it's perfectly normal for him to take a break, unlike you." The captain even glared at the red-haired girl after saying that.
"Uh... Hehe, got it!" The red-haired girl scratched her head and playfully stuck out her tongue.
"Captain~! Dinner's ready! Come and eat!" On the other side, a girl who looked a little younger than the others waved to the three of them.
"Ah, got it! All right, hurry up. We can eat once we're done."
"Okay!" At the mention of food, the red-haired girl immediately worked faster.
"Hm?!" The vice-captain suddenly opened his eyes, sat up, and looked at the bushes nearby.
"What's wrong?" The captain, having finished pitching the tent, turned to look at the man and asked.
"Nothing. I just thought I heard something over there?"
"A sound?"
"Yeah." The vice-captain nodded.
"It sounds like...
"Ah!" Before he could finish, a black dog two or three times the size of a normal dog suddenly sprang out of the bushes and bit his arm, tearing through his skin in an instant.
The man let out a scream, then immediately raised his foot and kicked the dog several meters away.