Chapter 1011

"You mean, laser surgery?"

"@￥%*#！%……"

Luján replied with a few incomprehensible syllables and walked away quietly.

……

"Black rectangle? Can that giant tombstone still exert this kind of influence on the world?"

"3125 is starting to make moves?"

"Something's not right, very not right. The world is starting to get weird, and Adam's reaction is also not right……"

"No, it's not the tombstone; it's the anomalous entity that wiped out that ancient civilization and turned their names into rectangles! 3125 is starting to become active!"

"Is this what it feels like to watch the world become unfamiliar bit by bit……"

……

The auditorium opened, and the house was full.

As usual, the symphony orchestra waited in place until all the equipment used to assist the performance was fully activated.

Today, this sense of anxiety was particularly intense, as if an invisible hand had tightly gripped him, and an unusual impulse made him want to run away.

"That's right," he thought to himself, "I can ruin my career with my own hands at any time."

Confirmed, he thought. I can destroy my career right now, right now.

As his thoughts flew, he even imagined himself packing up quickly, rushing to the stage exit; the taxi that brought him might still be stuck in traffic.

But he quickly pushed this thought back; this was just a childish fantasy.

The long tour had reached its end, and only this one performance remained to draw the curtain.

Finally, the curtain rose, and Adam took his place under the spotlight.

Tonight's opening piece was a work by Shostakovich; the first movement was like a quiet, lingering, and slightly sorrowful nocturne.

Adam was in excellent form tonight, throwing himself heart and soul into the performance.

As time passed, the melody became fiery, even wild.

And just then, something different took effect. The atmosphere of the entire venue changed abruptly; the air seemed to become hot and dry, as if someone had turned off the air conditioning.

Adam didn't notice at first, but the melody behind him began to weaken, and the conductor's movements stopped.

In confusion, Adam continued to play for a second or two.

However, soon, he realized something was abnormal—a change that only he couldn't perceive, but which everyone else saw, was happening.

He lifted his gaze from the strings and caught a glimpse of Luján staring at him intently.

In fact, every musician in the orchestra was watching him with the same cold, suppressed, angry expression.

Adam blinked, and then his pupils dilated sharply.

The entire orchestra, all seventy people, had been replaced by a pink-brown meat mass from another realm with a twisted form.

Every place that used to be a head had become a thick protrusion, covered with dull eyeballs and soft slits, and various disgusting, mixed-colored fungi grew on their hat brims.

They were draped in black and white fabric, covering mottled, uneven, and irregular bodies.

Through strange tailoring, they either covered or highlighted their spotted, inconsistent body structures.

Adam stood up in extreme fear, stumbling a few steps, nearly falling off the front edge of the stage.

His stomach spasmed, and a strong desire to vomit assaulted his brain, but a crazy corner of his heart was still warning him:

"Wait."

"Everything hasn't changed, right?"

"Humans are like this to begin with, aren't they?"

"What happened? Is there a problem?"

No, it's not like this…… something is wrong…… humans aren't like this……

In a daze, Adam came to his senses and witnessed the "truth" once more—this crazy scene, like a ritual site for the kin of the Great Old Ones.

In terror, he tried to find even half a person who could still be called "normal," fitting the "human" he had always known.

But everyone sitting in the audience was the same disgusting meat mass, without exception, no one survived.

They had also been replaced.

Compared to this terrible fact, there was an even worse problem waiting for him—they knew he hadn't been replaced.

When a person, a person without any supernatural power, spawns in a nest of man-eating monsters, what will his end be?

Run!

Run fast!

The desire to survive awakened Adam's mind, making him stop trying to discern whether the world had malfunctioned, or his eyes had a problem, or if he was the real lunatic.

Adam hugged his violin tightly, stumbled across the stage, passed the conductor, and ran wildly toward the wing area.

At this moment, the musicians stood up from their seats one after another, letting their instruments fall to the ground, emitting noisy and messy final notes.

The conductor acted first, and the other musicians followed suit.

When Adam reached the wing area, two backstage staff were already waiting there. They wore that calm yet angry expression, their terrifying, man-eating, strange giant mouths agape.

No way out! No way to escape!

Adam braked, trying to turn around and run in another direction back to the main hall, intending to escape through the door where the audience entered.

But just as he turned, his heart almost stopped beating in extreme fear.

Luján, or the upright bipedal monster that used to be Luján, was walking toward him.

Adam instinctively raised his violin, as if it were a sharp sword or an indestructible shield.

However, the monster easily snatched the instrument, threw it on the ground, raised what used to be a foot, and crushed the neck of the violin with one step, as easily as destroying a matchbox.

Adam backed away, but bumped into the meat blocks that should have been backstage staff; they tried to grab Adam's arms.

He broke free from the entanglement with force, struggled out with difficulty, plunged into the backstage corridor, and then ran for his life. ===== CHAPTER 1013 =====