Chapter 003: Insight into All Things

A faint flush of unusual red crept across Bai Yuxi’s pale cheeks. The oxygen-intensive “extraordinary logical thinking ability,” once supplied with enough oxygen from his blood, began to operate on its own, beyond his conscious will.

With just a glance, every single piece of information in the surrounding space—ranging from the density of the air and the concentration of oxygen to the minutest details like the number of bacteria and dust particles—was meticulously cataloged in his mind, which instinctively began integrating, analyzing, and calculating it all.

Some subtle clues that had previously gone unnoticed in the chaos now emerged with perfect clarity before his eyes!

Because Bai Yuxi’s frail body had been unable to support the energy and nutrients required for his brain to function at full capacity, he had never dared to unleash his mind so recklessly, never dared to let his brain run wild as it did now.

He had never experienced such a sense of exhilarating control, as if he could “see every detail with perfect clarity, understanding all things with ease.” The entire world seemed to be highlighted in brilliant light, as though a thick layer of dust had been wiped from glass, leaving it bright and transparent.

Faced with the bizarre scene before him—clearly a supernatural and mysterious event—Bai Yuxi, as an ordinary person, should have been gripped by terror and panic. Yet, after synthesizing all the information around him, he felt a godlike illusion of omniscience and omnipotence, as though all things were within his grasp!

In this state of confidence born from “relative rationality,” fear and panic were thoroughly suppressed before they could even arise.

On either side of the alley were several windows from ground-floor residences; by the light pouring from inside, laundry could still be seen hanging on the aluminum security grilles. Earlier, when the foreign youth was hurled by the monster, he crashed heavily into one of those grilles with a resounding bang. Yet such a jarring impact neither deformed the apparently delicate grille nor drew a single curious resident to their window—a response quite unusual for locals famed for their love of excitement.

A thin “membrane” covered the surrounding walls and even the walkway of the alley, easily overlooked unless one paid close attention. This, Bai Yuxi realized, must be the so-called “secondary barrier” mentioned by the two others.

Beyond this translucent barrier, the scenery took on a faint blue hue and remained perfectly still. Coupled with the literal depictions of “barriers” in film and animation, it became clear:

The space enveloped by this soap-bubble-like “barrier” was, in theory, isolated from the normal world. Not only could it shield the interior from causing damage to the environment outside, but it likely also prevented living beings from entering or escaping—keeping that monster penned in.

This was evident from the way their earth-shattering battle failed to disturb anything in the surroundings. Although Bai Yuxi did not understand the principle behind the formation of the “barrier,” the fact that Maya and Jason, even when clearly outmatched by the humanoid monster, did not simply open the barrier to escape, strongly suggested that it could not be opened or closed at will.

This meant that, if Bai Yuxi wanted to survive and leave this place, he could only hope for the barrier to disappear on its own, or that the foreign girl would find some other supernatural way to deactivate it.

Meanwhile, behind the humanoid monster, in an inconspicuous corner of the alley, there flickered a cluster of dazzling light—like countless shards of colored glass swirling and coalescing into a radiant orb. Though he had no idea what this glowing sphere, more than a man’s height and hovering a foot above the ground, was, Bai Yuxi instinctively sensed that the entire mystery was connected to it.

Carefully avoiding the violent struggle between the two foreigners and the monster, Bai Yuxi pressed his back to the wall and edged toward the glittering orb, reaching out to touch the crystalline fragments swirling within.

But in the midst of battle, Jason happened to catch sight of Bai Yuxi’s action out of the corner of his eye. His face blanched with terror as he roared, “Don’t touch it!”

Warned, Bai Yuxi quickly drew back his hand. Yet Jason’s attention had been diverted; the monster struck him brutally on the shoulder, sending him sprawling across the alley!

Though Maya was exceptionally agile, without Jason to defend her and distract the savage monster, she was caught off guard. The creature seized her slender ankle and hurled her against the wall of a residential building. She crashed down with a pitiful cry, her lovely face ashen as she spat a spray of blood.

“Maya! I can’t hold on!” Jason gasped as he struggled to his feet. “This MS-UMA is probably a quasi-leader class—I can’t take it!” He fumbled at his belt for a vial of “bio-energy nutrient,” bit off the stopper, and swallowed the contents with his blood. Then, gripping his spiked hammer, he staggered forward to intercept the monster. “I’ll hold it off—get—”

He didn’t finish. The beast, like an enraged rhinoceros, rammed into him and sent him flying. The small wooden shield on his arm shattered in midair like butterflies scattering, and his arm twisted unnaturally.

Seeing her comrade’s plight, Maya screamed. She snatched a glass orb the size of a tennis ball from her pouch and hurled it with all her strength at the monster’s broad back.

A burst of fierce orange flame erupted, engulfing the man-beast in fire. It roared in agony, dropping its club and flailing its massive arms, trying to beat out the searing flames clinging to its back like maggots to the bone.

But whether its arms were too thick or its body too inflexible, the monster couldn’t reach its burning back. It could only roll on the ground, howling in torment.

Maya, once so valiant and beautiful, was now a picture of disarray. Her lovely face was streaked with blood and grime, and after crawling and rolling on the ground, her sweat-soaked golden hair clung in strands to her cheeks, a far cry from her earlier goddess-of-the-night bearing.

Dragging her swollen, bruised ankle—the one the monster had seized—she limped desperately toward the writhing beast.

But before she could finish it off, the creature they called “MS-UMA” smothered the flames on its back and rose again, wreathed in black smoke and the stench of scorched flesh.