"Is there something behind me?"

Feng Yuhuai looked suspiciously at [Mask], her brow slightly furrowed, and her fingers unconsciously clenched the edge of her clothes.

Her gaze lingered for a moment on the sinister smile of [Mask], causing an inexplicable tremor in her heart. Instinctively, she started to turn to check the pipes behind her.

Feng Yuhuai’s neck just turned to a 15-degree angle when [Mask]’s whisper slithered into her ear like a venomous snake:

"Nothing, just a few sneaky rats... and a father who arrives fashionably late?"

Feng Yuhuai’s body instantly turned into a statue, her facial features frozen as if in ice, and even her breath stopped.

"Boom—"

The blinding white light devoured everything, and the scorching shockwave roared like a furious tide.

Feng Yuhuai herself was blown away, her body below the neck becoming a whirl of red lines, while her head, like a discarded balloon, smashed heavily into the ceiling, her crimson hair spreading out like a spider’s web.

Her pupils shrank into trembling circles, yet her gaze remained locked onto the center of the explosion.

The shadow-formed [Mask] was violently contorting, its body rippling with folds as if enduring unimaginable impact.

The next second, it dissipated like smoke, silently melting into the air.

And the real [Mask] flickered momentarily in a daze, standing firm in the center of the explosion, completely unmoving,

Then, the two [Masks] merged back into one [Mask], one standing while the other flowed back like ink at his feet, turning back into his true shadow.

Yuhuai’s peripheral vision caught a glimpse of [Mask] and was shocked to find — in the opposite pipe, similarly shifty and familiar figures were also revealed by the light, tumbling like cut strings into the depths of darkness.

Though it seemed long in telling, only a moment had passed.

Tang An was still dry-heaving, with some alarming rat hairs sticking to his lips.

Deng Jiajia finally came to her senses because she felt something pulling hard on her pants.

But it wasn’t a person; instead, a few slick, black-haired rats were crawling up her pant leg, their sharp claws creating a subtle "rustle" as they hooked into the fabric.

"Ugh!"

She shuddered subconsciously, instinctively stomping her feet and kicking her legs but biting down hard on her lower lip to swallow back a scream.

The rats were indeed terrifying, but rousing those monsters wearing human skins was truly a catastrophe to be avoided.

The swarm of rats was terrifying for sure, but those monsters wearing human skins must absolutely not be disturbed.

"Quick... let’s go, we can’t keep filming."

With trembling fingers, she clawed at the camera’s memory card slot, as for the camera itself, it had fulfilled its mission and could heroically sacrifice itself.

Just as she pulled out the memory card, her peripheral vision inadvertently caught sight of the viewfinder, and Deng Jiajia felt as if she had plunged into an ice hole, her scalp prickling with a chilling numbness.

The two [Masks] had somehow turned toward the camera, four pupils—two abyssal black, two blood-red—were staring fixedly at her. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Despite the nearly hundred-meter distance and the viewfinder in between, Deng Jiajia felt bony, ghostly claws reaching through, clawing toward her eyes.

The chill climbed up from her soles, as if dark tendrils were caressing inch by inch up her spine.

"[Mask] discovered us, he’s watching me?!!"

Deng Jiajia felt as though she had plunged into an icy pit, her entire body’s blood seemingly frozen instantaneously.

Plop!

A drop of cold sweat fell onto the LCD screen.

The next moment, a strong light surged, making the two faces appear even more eerily pallid.

"Ah—"

Deng Jiajia couldn’t hold back any longer, emitting an ear-piercing scream from her throat, the camera slipping from her grip and crashing heavily to the ground, the screen shattered to pieces.

Ren Xuan and Tang An were frightened to the point their hearts felt as if they’d stopped at the sound of the scream.

Before they could react, the explosive shockwave accompanied by heat violently surged over.

The three of them were lifted off the ground like leaves in a gale, followed by a group of screeching rats,

And a wildly spinning camera heading straight towards...

Feng Ju was sprinting through the sewers, his metallic black arm swinging vigorously as he panted heavily.

He had nearly reached them, almost able to grab the three sneaky journalists, his curiosity piqued to see what their camera had captured, if it had filmed [Mask], or his own daughter.

Then, the white light almost blinded him.

After that, a flurry of flying rats mixed with the spinning figures of three people shot towards him like debris launched from a catapult.

And a camera screen, unexpectedly, hit him squarely on the chin.

"Damn—"

Feng Ju, weighing in at two hundred pounds, was directly knocked flying, spitting out a mouthful of blood mid-air, and along with it, half of a molar.

......

On the concrete steps at the entrance of the crematorium.

Wang Jian leaned crookedly against the wall, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, with a long trail of ash.

He was focused, watching a live broadcast on his phone.

Suddenly, the [Mask] on the screen turned its head without warning, four eyes staring fixedly at the camera.

It felt just like a creature’s deathly gaze through the screen, similar to a jump-scare from a horror game.

"Holy shit!"

Wang Jian shuddered, the back of his head knocking hard against the wall.

The cigarette butt fell from his opened lips, leaving a blister as it burned.

His finger reflexively twitched, the phone slipped from his grasp with a ’snap’ on the concrete floor, screen freezing on [Mask]’s eerie grin.

A calloused hand picked up the phone.

Wang Lei stood behind him at some point, bending down to pick up the phone with its cracked screen, his gaze lingering on the image a short while.

"Stop watching this nonsense."

He tossed the phone back to his son, then hunched over, coughing loudly as if he were about to hack up his lungs.

Once his breathing steadied somewhat, he lifted his murky eyes and rasped, voice grating as sandpaper:

"Some sinister things... seeing too much of them is unlucky."

He wiped his mouth corner,

"Easy to catch ill-fortune."

Wang Jian scrambled to catch the phone, sorrowfully feeling the cracks on the screen, his mouth involuntarily twitching.

Suddenly he sprang up like a coil, clutching his father’s sleeve and speaking urgently:

"Dad! This isn’t some made-up online video, it’s a live broadcast from the Light Prism Platform! Something big happened at the Eighth Academy! The sewers... are full of monsters!"

"It’s terrifying... turns out you were right... it’s not just Calamity Corpses in this world, but all sorts of... monsters..."

The last word was nearly forced out through grit teeth.

A wind swept through, carrying the crematorium’s peculiar charred stench, cooling the cold sweat on his forehead.

Wang Jian’s throat bobbed, his voice quivering:

"But, Dad, why? Why are there monsters?"

Wang Lei covered his lips with his hand to cough, then clenched his fist and stuffed it back into his pocket, with a dark red stain in the palm.

He didn’t answer his son’s question, just hunched his increasingly emaciated body and silently turned away.

The worn rubber shoes scraped a rustling sound on the crematorium’s concrete, much like the sound of autumn leaves skittering to the ground.

After walking several meters away, he slowly turned, watching his son who again was fixated on the phone:

"Because where there are people... there are monsters."

His lips dampened, murmuring:

"Humans... are the original... monsters!!"

Behind him, the chimney of the crematorium was billowing thick smoke, staining the sky over Lower City a murky darkness.