"Gone...?"

The observers in the distant high-rise stared blankly at their monitors.

The intense conflict they had anticipated in their simulations never materialized. The three contingency plans they had prepared went unused.

This was supposed to be a textbook Level 1 Psychic Contamination Zone—an ideal testing ground for a psychic variant with immense potential. Their encounter should have triggered a chain reaction, allowing them to pinpoint the contamination source within the café and eliminate it with precision. It should have been the perfect opportunity to assess the thirteenth variant’s abilities and decide whether to recruit or neutralize him.

Yet all they saw was the thirteenth variant entering the contaminated zone... and walking out unscathed.

No abnormalities whatsoever.

The staff instinctively turned to their leader, the short-haired woman.

She, too, looked momentarily puzzled before issuing a firm command: "Continue monitoring. Prepare a fourth contingency plan immediately!"

...

...

Lu Xin sprinted away from the café, his heart still racing as he made for the subway station.

He still didn’t know what he’d seen inside—that thing wasn’t human.

But one thing was certain: his sister had been trying to warn him about something.

Monsters.

The Crimson Moon Incident had turned the world upside down, unleashing hordes of madmen who roamed the wilderness like beasts. But those madmen were still human. What he’d just witnessed? That was something else entirely.

He didn’t want any part of it. He just wanted to run.

The subway station was empty except for a dozing security guard in the booth. Lu Xin slumped onto a bench, finally allowing himself to breathe.

He glanced around—no sign of his sister. No way to ask her what she’d meant.

He’d have to wait until they got home.

Lu Xin had always known his "family" knew things—things they shouldn’t.

Scritch... sudden sound of shoes scraping against the floor made him look up.

The station, which had been deserted moments ago, was now filling with people—dozens of them, dressed in mismatched clothes, moving with urgent purpose. They didn’t head for the platforms, though. Instead, they spread out around him.

Lu Xin’s blood ran cold.

He recognized them.

They were the same people from the café.

And then, emerging from behind an old man in a tattered sweater, he saw her—the waitress.

She still wore that unsettlingly pleasant smile, but under the station’s harsh lights, it looked wrong—wrong.

In her hands, she held the coffee cup Lu Xin had refused.

She tilted her head, her smile widening as she spoke in a voice too soft, too slow:

"You didn’t drink your coffee."

...

... chill crept up Lu Xin’s spine. He surged to his feet, desperate to escape.

But the crowd moved with him, blocking his path.

These people—those people—had been warm and cheerful inside the café. Now, they moved like sleepwalkers, their eyes vacant, their expressions blank.

No sudden movements. No aggression. Just an eerie, unyielding advance, shrinking the space around him until he was trapped in a human cage, hemmed in on all sides.

The waitress’s smile deepened as she raised the cup, offering it again.

Lu Xin’s voice wavered between panic and desperation: "I don’t have money—I can’t afford it..."

Her grin twisted further, grotesque now.

With a sudden flick of her wrist, the "thing" inside the coffee—the eye, the egg—launched itself from the cup, a black streak arcing toward Lu Xin’s mouth.

He recoiled, shoving past two or three people in a desperate bid for freedom.

But the café’s patrons moved with him, their stiff arms reaching out like marionette strings, snagging at his clothes, his limbs.

Too many. Too fast.

His struggles grew weaker, his body pinned beneath their weight. Someone grabbed his jaw, forcing it open—

...

...

"What the hell?"

Back in the observation room, the short-haired woman frowned. "He’s just an ordinary man."

"Maybe he hasn’t mastered his abilities yet," a staffer suggested. "Should we send in backup to end this test?"

As Lu Xin neared suffocation beneath the crowd, she gave a slow nod and turned to the doll-like girl in the next room.

The girl had already picked up her umbrella.

"Wait—" sudden shout from a technician drew everyone’s attention.

The psychic monitoring equipment had gone haywire, its readings spiking violently.

...

...

Crushed beneath the mob, his mouth forced open, Lu Xin heard a giggle.

"Heehee!"

Looking up, he saw his sister dangling upside down from a signpost, clutching her teddy bear as she swung back and forth.

"Hit me..."

Muffled through his forced-open jaw, Lu Xin’s plea came out as gibberish.

"Brother ignores me, pretends I’m not there when we’re outside, never talks to me..."

She swung there, pouting.

"Hit Gege..."

Lu Xin’s eyes locked onto the "eye" now bouncing atop the crowd, closing in on his mouth. Desperation clawed at him.

"Fine, but you owe me the best toy money can buy!"

His sister’s laughter rang out—her pupil-less eyes gleaming with mischief.

"No money!"

Lu Xin roared, his body lurching upward—

—and in that instant, something icy cold closed around his hand.

His sister had jumped down.

...

... wet slurp—to everyone else, it looked like Lu Xin had turned into a living eel.

One moment, he’d been pinned, arms wrenched behind his back, his jaw forced open. The next, his limbs twisted with impossible speed, slipping free of his captors. His mouth broke from their grasp, his head snapping sideways just as the "eye" dove toward him.

In seconds, he’d contorted his way out of their grasp, weaving through the crowd like a shadow.

The station was packed, the mob closing in—but Lu Xin moved in ways that defied logic, slipping between bodies with eerie grace.

...

...

"Precise bodily control... Spider-type!"

Back in the high-rise, the observers stared at the monitors in shock.

They’d seen him subdued, seen the contamination closing in—then, in a blink, his body had become a blur of motion, breaking free with inhuman agility.

Against the countless monsters in the subway station, he moved like a ghost, slipping through impossible angles, scaling walls without tools, his limbs bending in ways that shouldn’t be possible.

"What’s his percentage?"

"Too early to say, but... at least fifty!"

"So his base potential rivals ‘Gecko’?"

Excitement rippled through the room as they watched him hurtle toward the exit—

—until someone screamed:

"Wait—!"

...

...

In the station, Lu Xin grabbed his sister’s hand, ready to bolt for freedom.

But the waitress, standing just beyond the crowd, watched his impossible escape with a smile that grew wider—too wide—until her face froze, blank, her body an empty husk.

From behind her, seven or eight monstrous tentacles erupted, each as thick as a barrel, bristling with backward-facing spines and glowing eyes.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

They lashed toward Lu Xin like whips.

The walls around him exploded into showers of debris as the tentacles struck, the entire station trembling on the verge of collapse.

But no matter how fast, how vicious those strikes were, Lu Xin’s movements remained impossibly fluid, dodging with preternatural precision. He flipped and twisted across the walls and ceiling, dancing through the onslaught like it was nothing.

In seconds, he’d covered thirty meters, nearing the exit.

...

...

The short-haired woman inhaled sharply and turned to the girl in the next room.

"Finish it."

The girl stood, umbrella in hand, and began to open it—

—until a technician shouted:

"Look at this—!"

Everyone turned.

On the monitor, Lu Xin—having just evaded the tentacles, mere meters from freedom—suddenly stopped.

Instead of running, he hung upside down from the ceiling, slowly turning his head to point a finger at the waitress.

The short-haired woman blinked. "What is he doing?"

"Looks like... he’s taunting her?"

...

...

"Sister, what are you doing?"

Lu Xin’s voice rang out in shock.

The exit was right there—he could escape!

But his sister held him in place.

She pouted. "And what are you doing?"

Lu Xin’s frustration boiled over. "Running, obviously—you see the monsters, right?"

"Why are you so scared, brother?"

She giggled, pointing at the waitress with defiance in her eyes.

"He’s the one who should be afraid..."