Xu Xiangyang truly wished he had Neo's ability from The Matrix to dodge bullets, but he was just an ordinary student who couldn't even evade dogs, and could only watch helplessly as the snarling rabid dogs lunged at him.
He barely had time to pull the girl behind him, staring ahead, his body stiff as if frozen in cement, standing rigid in place, bracing himself for the inevitable bite.
But in the next instant.
——"Get lost!"
A girl's shout came from behind him.
The voice was so spirited and powerful that it almost made him feel as though a fierce wind had sprung up from nowhere in the alley.
And following that shout, the mad dogs that were about to pounce on them suddenly stopped in their tracks, their long, filthy, and curled fur waving backward in the wind; as if they had hit some sort of invisible air barrier, they bounced back mid-air, maintaining their biting posture as they slid across the concrete floor to the far corner of the wall.
...
He turned his head in astonishment, just in time to see the girl's long black hair fluttering in the wind that had not yet completely settled.
At the same time, Xu Xiangyang suddenly shivered, his body hair standing on end. For in that instant, he clearly felt some "enormous entity" glide past his shoulder——
Xu Xiangyang's eyes widened.
What was that?
The light in the alley seemed to refract problematically, as Xu Xiangyang saw the air ripple quietly like the surface of water disturbed by a stone; his vision was like standing on an asphalt road on a hot summer day, the ground slightly warped by the intense heat.
The alley appeared to have become a large fish tank, and "that thing" seemed to glide through the water like a fish, Xu Xiangyang almost immediately began to feel short of breath and tightness in his chest, as though an invisible, bloated object was pressing against him;
And after a short breath, the vague and enormous shadow that seemed to overflow from the sides of the walls, burst like a bubble and completely vanished into the air.
No... gone?
It was all in an instant. The strange pressure appeared for less than half a second, only to disappear, as if the whole episode had been nothing more than an illusion produced by a state of extreme nervous tension.
Xu Xiangyang couldn't help kneeling down, clutching at his suffocating chest, his forehead dripping with cold sweat, feeling the clamminess under his clothes.
Was it my illusion? No, that's not right——
Xu Xiangyang felt dizzy and heard the girl's anxious shouts faintly, someone grabbed his shoulder as he fell backward then he lost consciousness entirely.
*
When the wild dogs lunged at her, Lin Xingjie did not move.
From deep within her body surged an uncontrollable impulse.
That was... "hunger," or perhaps "covetousness."
Any normal person witnessing this strange spectacle would likely feel disgusted, afraid, or panic-stricken, but the girl felt like someone starving who has just caught the scent of tempting food, her stomach inevitably beginning to rumble.
Fortunately, Lin Xingjie was not controlled by this bizarre emotion, but she was so shocked by her own inexplicable thoughts that she was rendered speechless.
No one understood her body's condition better than she did. It was an impulse that had begun to emerge before, only to be willfully or unwittingly ignored; and now, as the girl watched the boy standing in front of her, her heart *fluttered*, and that emotion could no longer be restrained because she had subconsciously let go of the rationality, intellect, and... common sense that had been suppressing it.
It was as if she had deliberately unlocked the shackles of a fierce beast that had been trapped in a cage.
Afterward, her pupils mirrored the profound darkness.
Similar to her experience in that house: it was like a black hole that appeared not far from Lin Xingjie, suspended in front of her as if not even light could escape its pull. At that moment, nothing else in the world mattered to her but it.
And there, on the other side of the "hole," awaited something colossal and immense.
It was the very entity that had called to her and followed her in the Haunted House.
In the face of this abnormal sight, Lin Xingjie didn't feel the slightest fear. Instead, she felt a very intimate connection, seeing no need to resist or reject it, for it was inherently a part of her own body and consciousness.
The past self was like someone who had just awoken from a coma, limbs numb, and hence unable to feel the existence of their body; but now, she had finally become whole, a healthy person, her "limbs" had returned to her side, without a hint of estrangement.
Was it because of the dream last night?
Lin Xingjie suddenly realized.
That was indeed not a dream.
However…
"Only a part could come out."
Just like in the dream, because the hole was too small, she could only summon a small part of her true form.
The next moment, the girl's perception of time returned to normal.
The hole disappeared, and the winding stream of light surged forward like a tide.
In Lin Xingjie's eyes, the massive entity that had emerged from the black hole, which was also the shell her consciousness had borrowed last night, appeared to be a giant...
"Fish".
The fish's body contained a deep, murky current while its surface rippled with waves; it thrashed its tail, smacking the wild dogs rushing towards them onto the ground with a "thud."
"Ugh…"
The boy standing in front of her seemed to have witnessed something unbelievable. Clutching his forehead, he let out a pained grunt, squatted down, and toppled backwards.
Lin Xingjie hurriedly steadied the unbalanced figure.
Her arms encircled Xu Xiangyang's neck, anxiously checking his forehead and nose with her hand.
"…Seems like there's no issue. Is he just unconscious? Still, we should probably go to the hospital to be sure."
Lin Xingjie tried to help him up.
But the wild dogs that had been knocked down didn't seem to have given up; they growled from their throats, stood up together, and snarled at her, the leading wild dog's face smeared with blood, its pupils shining with an increasingly intense, greedy, and fierce light, revealing a row of white, sharp teeth that seemed to exude a strong, foul odor.
One of the wild dogs had its skull crushed by a tremendous force, leaving half of its face visible with one eye missing, yet it still struggled to its feet.
Between the limbs of the wild dogs—the pink muscles that covered their tendons began to swell and contract, gradually pulling the half-missing face towards the pack of dogs, dragging it right next to the leader's head. The two dog heads slowly amalgamated, turning into a grotesque monstrosity as if a child had carelessly modeled it out of clay.
It looked completely irrational in biological terms, its skin protruding with lumps of flesh of various sizes due to the excessive squeezing and muscle growth.
The thick neck of the alpha dog now bore a lump of flesh mixed with numerous teeth, eyeballs, noses, and other facial features, accompanied by the terrible sound of heavy breathing, as blood plasma and brain fluid flowed down the quivering lumps.
…
The whale-like shadow circled in the air, returning to the girl's side, quietly waiting.
Lin Xingjie furrowed her brow; she subconsciously hugged the boy in her arms tightly, crouching in place, watching the horrifying scene unfold before her.
It was no longer merely "strange."
They were no longer dogs or any other kind of animal; after the pack had devoured the dead Wang Nana's body, they had transformed into true monsters.
But at this moment, Lin Xingjie felt no surprise or fear; her emotions were so calm that even she found it astonishing, her mind as still as a mirrored lake.
As the lump of flesh moved unsteadily toward them, Lin Xingjie stretched out one hand into the air and swung it downwards.
—"Eat it."
Obeying its master's command, the giant fish roared from behind the girl, completely engulfing the monster in front of it.