"Oh no, oh no, oh no, this is bad!"
On the empty street, the cold wind whistled, blowing through the girl's hair and the desolate fallen leaves.
She seemed oblivious, her eyes trembling with ripples. The great terror in the distance and the ugly, terrifying face before her continuously assaulted her fragile inner defenses.
It made her want to cry.
She had been too careless! The moment she saw the terrifying behemoth in the distance, her expression faltered, attracting the attention of some surrounding unclean things!
Even more critically, the behemoth at the end of the street seemed to be taking notice of her.
"Wuwuwu—"
"Steady! Steady, steady! An Jianyou, you must stay calm!"
The girl cheered herself on internally, letting the shambling, grotesque figures approach her. Her cheeks were taut, maintaining a blank expression.
"So terrifying, wuwu!"
"How could I not be scared!"
But An Jianyou wasn't encountering such a situation for the first time. After many times, when she couldn't fight back, she could only… gradually get used to it.
It had been about two years since she discovered she could see strange, unclean things. At first, they were just small figures or blurry dark shadows.
And not many of them.
She had been scared for a while but realized that as long as she ignored these dark shadows, they wouldn't affect her.
Fear was useless, so An Jianyou had to accept it.
Gradually, as time passed, the unclean things she saw increased, becoming clearer, and she could even hear strange sounds.
She could only force herself to ignore them and had even sought solutions, but all were in vain.
Sometimes, it even became more dangerous.
An Jianyou had gotten used to it. Just ignore them, ignore them, ignore them!
She could do it; those things only existed in desolate, lonely places and weren't numerous.
But recently, for some reason, the world in her eyes seemed increasingly unfamiliar.
Rotting figures ambled on the roads, the sky was covered in a faint gray mist, and even more terrifying things appeared.
That behemoth in the distance was one of them!
And that one…
An Jianyou's pupils reflected the image of the Serpent Mother, her heart pounding.
Her instincts told her that this behemoth was different from the others she had seen before. She absolutely could not approach it, absolutely could not be noticed by it.
Otherwise, even if she ignored it…
She would die!
"This is dire, this is dire, this is dire!"
"Huu—breathe—"
An Jianyou stood frozen for several seconds, then suddenly twisted her wrist and muttered, "So heavy. Did I buy too much stuff? Damn it, I should have dragged Ying along."
She rubbed her wrist, opened her phone, and made a call, muttering a few words. Seeing that the surrounding shambling figures gradually lost interest in her, she nonchalantly picked up the dropped shopping bags and turned away.
However, her steps were more hurried than when she arrived.
An Jianyou raised her gaze slightly, looking past the buildings to the extremely distant, over a hundred-meter-tall skyscraper.
The skyscraper was magnificent, but in her sight, an incomparably huge, terrifying monster resembling an octopus was clinging to it.
Bulging, contracting.
As if sucking on something.
"What on earth has happened to this world?"
…
"How should I know what happened!"
"Do those bizarre entities need a reason for what they do?"
"The problem now is that the entity in the abandoned building is far more active than before, and it's starting to move!"
Inside the Baijiang Investigation Bureau, Director Zhou slammed the round table repeatedly.
Anxiety, unease, and heaviness weighed on him.
But all these emotions were meaningless!
"The key now is how to handle this matter."
Director Zhou paused and said, "First, evacuate the surrounding civilians and expand the containment area… Fortunately, that area is remote with few people."
"Secondly…"
It was how to deal with that bizarre entity.
Before, they could temporarily contain it and leave it be, but now they had to deal with it!
However, if eliminating this bizarre entity were easy, the Investigation Bureau wouldn't have resorted to containment.
Containment was their last resort!
In the conference room,
Several investigators recalled the terror of the construction site entity a few days prior. Even twenty-year-old prayer beads had snapped because of it, and the elimination attempt had failed.
And the abandoned building entity would only be more terrifying.
After a series of their analyses and judgments, it far surpassed the construction site entity.
"Director, can we contact that person from a few days ago?"
An investigator asked.
Director Zhou shook his head. "I know what you're thinking. I've already inquired with the higher-ups. There is no such person in our bureau. The mysterious man in black who appeared at the construction site a few days ago is not a special-class investigator of our Investigation Bureau."
"I've also requested support from our Baiyun Province Bureau, but…"
Director Zhou shook his head. "Special-class investigators are scarce. Either they have important matters to attend to, or they are too far away. The only special-class investigator in our neighboring city is rushing here as fast as possible."
"However, she explicitly stated that she might be powerless against such a terrifying entity."
Heavy pressure fell upon everyone in the Baijiang Investigation Bureau.
There were some methods to deal with bizarre entities.
Consecration by a master.
Containment.
Special-class investigators.
But all of these were insufficient.
Suddenly, Jiang Tingqiu, Baijiang's only first-class investigator, looked at Director Zhou and asked, "What exactly do special-class investigators represent? If our Baijiang City had its own special-class investigator, would that be able to…"
Exactly!
Several investigators' eyes lit up as they looked at Director Zhou.
Could there be some great secret involved?
"Indeed, there is a piece of intelligence with a very high classification level. I didn't quite understand it myself, but now…"
Director Zhou sighed. "The situation is becoming increasingly grim, and the higher-ups have permitted limited disclosure. Remember, you must keep what you hear today a secret."
This was inevitable.
As investigators, they were inherently the ones who could best keep secrets.
But it didn't stop them from anticipating.
Especially Jiang Tingqiu, who had always doubted and pursued, yearning to possess true means to deal with bizarre entities.
Just like the man in black from a few days ago.
"Special-class investigators are individuals who possess special means and can directly injure or kill bizarre entities. However, they are not eccentric individuals who have cultivated since childhood. Most of them come from backgrounds similar to yours, starting as ordinary investigators."
"The difference is that when any of you awaken, you will receive a summons from the General Bureau. As long as you pass the assessment, you will be promoted to special-class investigator."
"Therefore, there has never been a fixed promotion path for special-class investigators. You can only wait until your own conditions are met and then await the summons from the General Bureau."
"As for…"
"You're surely wondering how to awaken and what awakening is, right?"
Director Zhou paused, his gaze sweeping over the investigators before him, and revealed the great secret they were most concerned about, "To awaken, one must embrace the mysterious."