Chapter 235: Distant Water Can't Quench Nearby Fire

Tianmian City is where the Church headquarters is located, and it is covered by the Church's protective shield; as long as the Church exists, the chance of Aberrant Species invading Tianmian City is pitifully small.

Hmm, it's that the heavily defended Tianmian City was breached directly from within.

The farce in Tianmian City hasn't yet reached the Dome, and they've already gone offline; Hua Jian Lei can only make deductions from the intel she gathered earlier.

"Only Tianmian City can keep people and Aberrant Species that far apart."

Hua Jian Lei tossed the phone back to Xi Ren Sheng; saying this now is useless.

"Putting aside whether he has awakened Aberrant Arts, even if he has, do you think he could get from the Church headquarters to the Dome Headquarters?"

Xi Ren Sheng fumbled to catch the phone, gently wiping the screen as if it were a treasure.

Sigh, another day of the kid being isolated.

It's fine; the partner will be here soon to keep him company!

Hua Jian Lei's gaze shifted to the orange‑haired man standing nearby with his arms crossed, looking indifferent.

"Where did we leave off?" Hua Jian Lei asked lazily.

The orange‑haired man simply spread his hands.

"We were talking about how those kids at the Dome are still catching mice everywhere, and your ridiculous recruitment schemes."

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Yang Yixie's finger hovered over the phone screen for a few seconds; pixel games, players, another world… these fragments were snapping together in a disturbingly unsettling way.

He temporarily suppressed the surging thoughts and continued to ask Xi Ren Sheng about the relevant settings.

He needed more solid information, not the vague settings the game provides.

At the same time, his gaze turned again outward; the crisis downstairs was gradually Level Up.

That Aberrant Species had already locked onto the household on the second floor of the neighboring building; evidently, its intelligence didn't allow it to enter the building and climb the stairs to the second floor.

The Aberrant Species' twisted body clung to the exterior wall, several pairs of oddly shaped limbs protruding, their sharp hooked claws easily piercing the cement plaster of the old building's outer wall.

It began scaling the vertical wall upward, its goal unmistakably clear.

"Is the Mutation Source of this thing insects?"

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It's a standard two‑room, one‑hall old‑style residence, simply furnished yet cozy, with a child's doodle stuck on the wall and a family portrait of three placed on the table.

It was past midnight, yet the living‑room light remained on.

He is the male head of the household, a taxi driver.

He had taken a long‑distance night shift today and had just gotten home less than half an hour ago; he collapsed on the sofa, lazily flipping TV channels with the remote.

The female head of the house had just finished washing up, a towel in hand, drying her damp hair.

She glanced at the clock on the wall, frowned, and said to her husband,

"What time is it? Aren't you going to wash up and go to sleep?"

"I'm going right now, I'm going right now,"

The husband muttered, yawned, indeed exhausted.

The wife shook her head, went onto the balcony to check whether the clothes she had hung out were dry; if they were, she could fold them up.

"Dong!"

A muffled thud came from outside the window, as if something heavy had slammed against the building's outer wall.

She froze, instinctively looking at the tightly drawn curtains—was something blown in by the wind outside?

"Dong!....... Crack........"

Another muffled thud followed by the sound of something scraping the cement wall, and the problem was that the noise seemed to be right outside their window.

"What's going on?"

"Those stray cats outside are probably causing trouble again,"

Unlike the wife's vigilance, the husband seemed especially weary, with no energy to worry about anything outside the window.

The wife furrowed her brows but still pulled the curtain aside a crack to look out.

Outside, the dim yellow streetlights barely outlined the trees and road below, but there were no stray cats darting about.

She first looked down and saw nothing unusual, then her gaze slowly rose......

A "face" almost pressed against her window glass, staring through the pane with several cloudy compound eyes.

"Ah—!!!"

The wife let out a terrified scream, uncontrollably stumbling backward, crashing into the coffee table behind her; the cup on it wobbled and shattered on the floor.

"What's wrong?!"

The husband sprang up to her side, and when he looked up, he too saw the nightmarish scene outside the window.

The creature's entire upper body clung to their windowsill, several bizarre limbs gripping the sill and outer wall, its twisted head slowly peeking in.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The old aluminum‑alloy window frame warped under the creature's blows, and fine cracks spidered across the glass.

"Mon‑ster!!"

The husband was also stunned; he quickly pulled his terrified wife behind him and snatched an old baseball bat leaning against the wall.

It was the one their son had used to play with as a child.

"Call the police! Call the police!!"

The wife, looking at the figure shielding her behind, finally found her voice again, trembling as she reached for the phone that had fallen to the floor.

"Bang— splash!!!"

After an even heavier impact, the glass window shattered, and the night wind, laden with a strong scent of blood, rushed in instantly.

The Aberrant Species tore the broken window frame apart, and its twisted body forced its way through the cramped opening.

The Aberrant Species still had bits of torn curtain cloth hanging on it, and its thick dark bodily fluid dripped onto the floor, emitting a faint sizzle of corrosion.

Several compound eyes reflected a cold, eerie light under the living‑room illumination, and it instantly locked onto the nearest food.

"Quick, take the son and get out first!"

The husband let out a howl, his hands still gripping the baseball bat; although his legs trembled, he resolutely stood between his wife and the monster.

The wife, while waiting for the phone to connect, scrambled to her feet and rushed toward her son's bedroom, bursting in and pulling the bewildered child straight out.

The Aberrant Species seemed drawn to the wife's sudden action; it lunged forward, but the old baseball bat struck it at the waist and sent it reeling back.

That blow indeed had some effect, at least it stopped the Aberrant Species that had pounced on the wife, but the price was that the Aberrant Species was utterly enraged by the husband.

The Aberrant Species adjusted its posture and lunged forward again, moving faster than the man had anticipated.

The husband barely managed to hold the baseball bat horizontally before him as a shield, and only heard a "Crack!" sound.

The wooden baseball bat snapped in response to the monster's impact, and the tremendous force hurled the man completely into the air, slamming him heavily against the TV cabinet behind him.

The ornaments on the cabinet clattered to the floor, and the husband felt a sharp pain in his chest as darkness began to spread before his eyes.