Chapter 320: Stairwell Encounter: A Heart Unlike a Heart

He had thought his opening this time was relatively safe, but he hadn't expected the crisis to only just now begin revealing itself!

Baichuan, who felt the crisis approaching deeply and was somewhat uneasy, could no longer hold himself back.

No! They absolutely had to move and change locations!

This place was too dangerous; the opponent's strength was truly not something that his current weak Mao Mao and the seemingly ordinary Zhou Yun could handle.

Thinking of this, Baichuan no longer cared about the food and various tool materials he had just painstakingly scavenged earlier. After all, although supplies were important, his little life still came first.

He also didn't know how strong that monster's keen perception was, so it was better not to approach that floor again.

He had to think of a way to get that pair of siblings to move.

If it weren't too impractical to leave this building right now, he would have wanted to leave immediately.

As his gaze flickered, Baichuan nimbly returned to the floor he lived on.

This time his luck was better; whether it was due to the deterrence of that Ghost Claw, the shadows that had been pestering him before were nowhere to be seen.

This once again silently told him that the opponent was truly not ordinary in strength!

……

"Kitty, why did you run out again? I was so worried about you…"

He had just returned when he was spotted by the pair of siblings who had stood up to look around.

Nimbly dodging the Anlu Claw the girl reached out, Baichuan looked at the young man, whose face at this moment was also a picture of shock and lingering fear.

It was obvious that the commotion caused by that terrifying Ghost Claw earlier had already alerted them.

It seemed he wouldn't need to think of a way to make them move after all.

Baichuan silently thought.

The next moment, he saw the restless Zhou Yun constantly glancing at the color of the sky outside, then walking straight to Zhou Xiaoxiao's side, half-squatting and saying seriously: "Xiaoxiao, we absolutely have to move tomorrow… I didn't expect our upstairs neighbor to be this terrifying…"

"Mm."

The girl's little face also wore an expression of lingering fear.

As for why not today, it was because—

The sky had once again begun to darken, and the Time Baichuan had spent out exploring was not short.

At the same time, they still had a lot of things that hadn't been packed up yet.

Although being neighbors with a "monster" was very dangerous, moving under the cover of night without the ability to see in the dark was undoubtedly even more dangerous.

Watching the siblings take advantage of the last remaining daylight to start packing things into their backpacks, Baichuan sighed inwardly. It seemed he would have to risk another sweep of observation through this building tonight.

The night was indeed dangerous, but the danger came more from outside, relative to that group of humans.

But for him, a cat with high agility, the danger probably wasn't that great. After all, within the building, it was unlikely that such an abnormal monster would appear on a lower floor, right?

Thinking about it, Baichuan also became somewhat unsure.

If it really were like that, then it truly would be wolves in front and tigers behind, and they, caught in the middle, would basically be unable to escape.

Amidst his churning thoughts, Baichuan, who had eaten his fill outside earlier, also sank into a deep sleep from exhaustion.

"Brother—"

The girl's soft voice rang out.

"Mm, shh—"

Zhou Yun nodded, raised his index finger, and shushed.

Inside the room, the sounds of packing grew much quieter.

……

At night, in the darkness, the golden eyes lit up once again.

Baichuan gently slipped out from under a blanket, glanced at the deeply sleeping siblings, and soundlessly walked out once again.

Passing through the window and clinging to the outer wall again, Baichuan carefully glanced up at the horrifying hole on the upper floor, then nimbly moved over to the next floor down.

This trip he still didn't encounter those hard-to-guard-against shadows from before; perhaps the residual might of the monster above was still present?

Not choosing to break the glass, he instead soundlessly used his incomparably sharp claws to gently cut out an opening large enough for him to enter and exit, then quietly slipped inside.

Once inside, Baichuan familiarly began carefully patrolling this floor. This was also thanks to modern floor design—the room layouts within a building were basically all cut from the same template.

Before long, Baichuan discovered a high-level "human shadow" standing at the stairwell entrance on this floor, seemingly resting?

Not far from its feet lay the corpse of a young man, his expression twisted, with less than half his body remaining, and a strong smell of urine faintly wafting from it.

Baichuan carefully identified it and recognized whose corpse it was.

It was the little sidekick of the leader among that group he had scared off earlier. It seemed that after they escaped, they had tried to run to the next floor down, only to run straight into a "human shadow" blocking the way at the stairwell entrance, and one of them had died on the spot.

Baichuan slowly guessed, but for some reason he actually felt a sense of relief inside. Although these high-level "human shadows" were terrifying, they weren't something he couldn't deal with at present. Only that "monster"—he truly couldn't think of a way to deal with it right now.

Firmly anchoring himself to the wall, arching his back and soundlessly closing in, wisps of gray dust began to drift down from Baichuan's movements. Just as Baichuan was about to launch his attack, a flickering light bulb on one side of the wall suddenly made a strange sound.

"Pfft."

Then the entire light bulb stopped flickering, emitting a dim yellow light like corpse oil, casting out a large number of shadows—walls, stairs, windows, human shadows…

The flickering shadows under the light began to writhe, looking like a Fierce Beast that had come to life in this dim, weakly lit environment!

A sharp shadow writhed into a whip and lashed out viciously, smashing over with a terrifying sound of tearing through the air.

At the same time, Baichuan's originally normal shadow on the wall also began to twist, spreading out like a pool of ink, and a pair of pitch-black hands burst out from within it.

'Damn it!'

There was no time to think. Baichuan abandoned his ambush and leaped away with a light bound.

"Boom!"

A muffled sound rang out. In the dim light, the spot struck by the shadow whip cracked open with a deep fissure.

Baichuan, who had successfully dodged this strike, also felt some lingering fear. He could only blame himself for not being familiar enough with the Characteristic of these "human shadows"—to think they could control strange shadows to attack.

Thinking about it, his approach had long since been detected by the opponent through the shadows.

Fortunately, it was only a shadow — a shadow that depends on light. If the only light source in this cramped room were shattered, what would happen?

A darkness rampage swallowing everything? Or perhaps?

As Baichuan kept moving, he raised his head and looked at the lightbulb that had stopped flickering because of the strange noise, the thought drifting through his mind.

The next instant, as if it had sensed Baichuan's intent, the shadow moved again. Tendrils of viscous, liquid-like darkness writhed continuously, forming sharp spikes that stabbed toward him.

But though the shadow was fast, compared to his baseline speed — which already rivaled a cheetah's Burst — it was still far too slow!

His speed nearly reached forty meters per second; to an ordinary person's eyes, he moved at the speed of an afterimage. And compared to a cheetah's comparatively straightforward Burst, he was more like an almost invisible phantom, flickering continuously within this cramped space, his sharp claws occasionally tearing off chunks of stone and wood to hurl out.

In less than fifteen seconds.

"Snap!"

"Pfft."

The light vanished in an instant; the writhing shadow lost its vitality,

and through the darkness a pale-grey phantom flashed past. A dull thud of something collapsing sounded, blood gushing out in a steady flow, and before long it had turned into a thin layer of grey powder.

"Ha— ha—"

Seeing that this high-tier "human shadow" had finally gone down, Baichuan could no longer hold on either — his four paws gave out and he collapsed.

His speed, though fast, did not mean it required no energy to sustain — especially in his clumsy cat body. One must remember the true source of this ability — even cheetahs are constantly troubled by the need for food.

Less than fifteen seconds of Burst, and he was already so hungry his legs were going weak.

After catching his breath a few times, he struggled to prop himself up. Ignoring the corpse, Baichuan headed toward the food location he had already memorized.

A few breaths later, the sound of gulping down mouthful after mouthful rang out continuously.

At the same time, he also opened his currently almost half-crippled Ability Panel to take a look,

'Energy: 4.'

Baichuan nodded in satisfaction. After his previous discovery — that the mutated claws would steal energy — he had begun deliberately restricting the flow of excess energy within his body,

and the results looked good so far. Even though only about a day had passed, his panel's numbers had risen by a few points.

After all, this kind of work, he had encountered it back when he was still weak.

Although these 4 points of energy couldn't do anything yet — because this panel required a hundred points to strengthen one LV1 Ability, two hundred for LV2…

No way around it — this was a knock-off he had cobbled together himself. It was also from this that he realized just how powerful his Ability Panel truly was: no matter the level of the ability, the points required for its evolution were fixed.

It was absurdly powerful.

After eating his fill and replenishing his stamina, Baichuan finally returned to the corpse, extending his dark, sharp right claw and slowly cutting it open,

"…Let me take a look at your structure!"

For Baichuan, across countless evolutions and all manner of contact and study, he already possessed an extremely profound understanding of biological flesh and blood.

The same applied to the human body. Over several thousand years, with his split-consciousness use of abilities, he had never treated it as mere decoration — he was learning every single moment. When he had attempted to take human form, he had already dissected the human body countless times.

Although humans from different worlds and planets might have certain differences, and his previous knowledge might not all apply, no matter how they changed, their essence was largely the same and interconnected.

So he was thinking — through this dissection, could he find the differences between these "human shadows" and ordinary living humans, understand where "their" mutations lay, and how they exerted these strange powers?

As long as he could find out, then on his main body's side, within the trial world inside the Bì'àn body, he could carve out a laboratory with the appropriate environment, and then, using his split-consciousness and various abilities, simulate and Assimilate the structure within a sub-body,

so long as the structure was correct and there was no special "field" born from the interaction of particular substances required to possess power, then it meant he could truly master this power. When that time came, he could refine it and manufacture Biochemical Agents to directly act upon and strengthen a creature's body.

When that time came, as long as he had sufficient energy on this side, he could directly use his own body to distort, treating a corner of his flesh as a factory to produce Biochemical Agents of that ability within himself.

This kind of Biochemical Agent could act not only upon himself, but upon other creatures as well.

One of his original purposes in researching this had been to free himself from reliance on the Ability Panel and grant his followers strength — while also not exposing his most important ability.

After all, his Ability Panel was too bug-like. Even if those followers wouldn't let it slip, he feared someone directly searching soul memories and the like.

This was also the principle behind the Gold Finger he had cobbled together himself: every ability he screened was one Baichuan had thoroughly mastered. As long as there was energy, he could birth this kind of agent within his own body, then directly dissolve it into flesh and blood to begin strengthening.

This was something only a being like him — who understood biological evolution with extreme thoroughness and had immensely powerful control over his own flesh and blood — could accomplish!

From beginning to end, his strength had never relied solely on the Ability Panel — it was also the product of his tireless learning.

Don't be fooled by the fact that he was currently just a weak little kitty — his consciousness traveled between two locations. There was no situation of two separate consciousnesses. Just because conditions were lacking on this side didn't mean his main body's side lacked abundant conditions.

Behind his Mao Mao body, a Planet Overlord Earth Immortal powerhouse was providing support!

In just half an hour, Baichuan had, based on his various knowledge of the human body, completely dismembered this high-tier "human shadow."

Now, he was still short one normal human body structure, and then he could establish the initial complete model for comparison. Of course, a single pair of models certainly couldn't compare everything — he would need more material.

That could only wait for Time to accumulate.

Fortunately, what he currently lacked least was lifespan. Even a mere sub-body possessed one-tenth of his main body's lifespan — that is, a full ten thousand years…

"…A heart unlike a heart, and the absence of blood…"

After simply dealing with the dismembered remains, Baichuan looked at the bizarre heart before him that looked extremely strange at first glance,

This was the abnormal heart dug out from that high-tier "human shadow." Although the entire corpse had many subtle differences from the human body structure he had previously understood, those differences were all extremely minor small structures, not involving any particularly important organs,

except at this heart, where a very major change had appeared!

It had changed directly from a normal blood-red heart into a pale-grey thing that seemed to be stuck together from grey powder — calling it a heart, it was more like a fairly tough grey gelatinous mass.

The abnormal heart made Baichuan think of that "woman" he had killed earlier — the blood that spurted from her slashed neck had, within just a few breaths, turned into a grey powder-like substance.

Was there some connection between the two? Was the root cause the same?

Was this the change produced when those phantoms came into contact with matter? Was this the essence of the phantoms?

Was the source of those "human shadows'" power related to this thing?

……

Baichuan stared at the bizarre heart before him, his thoughts drifting for a time.

After a long while, Baichuan slowly gathered his thoughts and looked at the floor that had become a sliver safer. After some thought, he decided to gather all the food together in one place, so that when the time came to flee, he wouldn't be caught short searching for it.

As for this heart, he planned to put it together with them as well.

Although he still didn't understand this heart's function, its extraordinarily unusual appearance was already silently proclaiming that it was no ordinary object — perhaps at some moment it might prove useful.

With such a Hoarding Mouse Characteristic, how could he possibly let this Gray Heart slip by?

After another hour or so of rummaging and scrounging, once he had finished dealing with everything, Baichuan headed toward the next floor once more.

The further down he went, the more Baichuan noticed the lower floors growing increasingly dangerous.

It was no longer just a single high-tier "human shadow" holding the floor, but two, three… and there began to be some ordinary "human shadows" without consciousness mixed in among them.

Fortunately, for Baichuan, who was growing ever more vigilant and familiar with the situation, although it was quite difficult, it wasn't as though he was completely helpless.

The only thing that struck him as a little odd was that, apart from that underling at the very beginning who had been gnawed down to half a body, he seemed not to have spotted that original group of people on any of the lower floors.

Had they been completely devoured? Or had they fled toward higher floors?

Of course, he wasn't particularly curious either way — their life or death had nothing to do with him. He was only somewhat regretful that he hadn't run into that group, because otherwise his anatomical collection would have gained its first and second normal living-human specimens.

After clearing a total of three floors, Baichuan looked up at the sky, which had begun to glow faintly, and promptly stopped, heading back the way he had come.

He still understood the principle of "too much is as bad as too little"; under the present circumstances, he could not allow his own condition to fall into too poor a state.

……

(End of this chapter)