Chapter 21: Is This What They Call Reality?
……Boom!
Flames erupted from the suffocating puppet, spreading rapidly through the dry warehouse cluttered with debris, thick smoke billowing upward, the mass of flesh and blood tissue sizzling and crackling as it burned.
At this moment, Xiao Xiao had no regard for anything else, and simply rushed out with the three vicious dogs in large strides.
Now they still couldn’t breathe, which at least prevented the poisonous smoke from entering their lungs. They only needed to increase their speed to the maximum and leave this man-eating warehouse that had become extraordinarily dangerous before the fire completely erupted.
“Has this guy gone mad?”
Further out, Ruanruan suddenly widened her eyes, watching the flames burn brighter and brighter, and forcibly drew in a sharp breath of cold air.
With a fierce stomp of both feet on the ground, the figure shot up high, crashing through the warehouse’s dome, and jumped directly outside.
“……Did a cannonball become a spirit?”
Xiao Xiao was also startled by the commotion, complaining inwardly while rushing forward even faster.
Before them, twisted and grotesque arms and pale, eerie faces swayed incessantly, overlapping into countless shadows.
These suffocating corpses seemed oblivious to the flames, driven only by some mysterious instinct, frantically reaching out to grab them, as if trying to keep them and the three dogs trapped in the warehouse.
Xiao Xiao, facing these arms pulling and tugging at him, gritted his teeth silently and pushed his body’s potential to the limit.
The violence factor played its due role.
The body seemed to possess strength that transcended human limits, charging left and breaking right, forcefully tearing free from the countless grasping hands, and smashing through a path of blood.
One could even feel the dull sensation of rotting arms being torn apart by one’s own brute force.
Finally, just before the oxygen in his body was completely depleted and he lost consciousness, he rushed out of the warehouse door with three dogs in tow, and continued charging forward without pause.
At the same time, as the fire spread, the abandoned oil drums stacked inside the warehouse, which may or may not have contained residual fuel, were also ignited.
The scorching flames filled the narrow space, rapidly forming a massive sea of fire.
Within this inferno, twisted and churning serpents of flame collided with one another, beginning to release enormous explosive force outward.
The solid warehouse walls, like thick cardboard at this moment, were blasted to pieces, and seven or eight windows were shattered by the intense firelight, as surging flames burst out from within.
Countless suffocated corpses, their bodies twisted in grotesque shapes as they struggled in agony, were engulfed by the flames at this moment, hissing and crackling, gradually turning into charred carbon.
……
……
“Phew……”
Xiao Xiao flicked the scorching flames behind him, looked up at the sky filled with stars, and took a deep breath.
The sensation of oxygen rushing back into his chest somehow brought a sense of happiness.
After taking several deep breaths, he turned back to look at the warehouse that was now completely engulfed in flames, seeing the entire structure consumed by fire.
Through the wide-open warehouse door, one could still faintly see burning corpses moving sluggishly.
However, these corpses seemed to lack the ability to escape the warehouse, or rather the Suffocation Nest, and after a long, long time, they simply fell down slowly, finally regaining the peace they deserved…
“It seems the Suffocation Puppet can only deprive people of their ability to breathe, not actually extract all the oxygen from the air.”
Xiao Xiao thought to himself: “Physics still applies…”
He had already realized this from the moment he struck the match.
Of course, he hadn’t expected the flames to burn so vigorously and make such a commotion.
Could it be related to those abandoned oil drums in the warehouse?
Indeed, after all, he was still just a newcomer, and his experience in handling such matters was far too lacking…
Thinking silently, Xiao Xiao felt no excitement from completing the task. Instead, there was an inexplicable sense of loss in his heart.
The three vicious dogs following beside him, however, seemed completely unaware of his melancholy. They appeared quite excited now.
It seemed that having just experienced such an exhilarating battle alongside Xiao Xiao, the beasts were now in high spirits, their tails wagging frantically as they darted left and right around him.
One of them even eagerly tried to climb onto Xiao Xiao’s body, stretching out its tongue and straining to reach something on him.
Xiao Xiao lowered his head and suddenly jumped in fright.
Hanging from his chest was a withered, twisted hand, apparently torn from some corpse when he had escaped from the warehouse.
He hastily tore off this palm and threw it aside.
The three vicious dogs saw their master throw something down and immediately rushed forward excitedly, scrambling and chasing after it.
“This guy is feeding a dog with a dead man’s hand?”
On the other side, Ruanruan, who had just turned around from the other end of the warehouse, happened to witness this horrifying scene, and her scalp went numb for a moment.
At this moment, she had completely lost the demeanor of a senior expert in front of Xiao Xiao, and even seemed somewhat bewildered as she walked step by step toward him. Her small face with a hint of baby fat appeared unusually serious:
“What exactly did you just do?”
“……”
“I…”
Xiao Xiao turned his head to glance at the warehouse burning brightly, hesitated slightly, and said: “Handling the problem…”
“Handling the problem requires setting the warehouse on fire?”
“This…”
Seeing that Ruanruan’s expression seemed somewhat confused, Xiao Xiao hastily explained: “Since the Suffocation Nest has already formed, then merely killing the Suffocation Puppet might not be enough, right?”
“So to be safe, I still think it’s best to burn it all down with fire.”
“Is there a problem with this method of handling it?”
“……”
Ruanruan didn’t know how to describe it for a moment.
The problem was that everything he did seemed to have no issues?
It was simply too damn reasonable.
At first, she thought he wouldn’t have realized the difference between the Suffocation Nest and the Suffocation Puppet, but unexpectedly, he had considered it and even came up with a solution.
But this way, the strange feeling in her heart became even more intense.
“You…”
She couldn’t help but ask the question: “Is he really a newcomer?”
Could a newcomer shoot without hesitation when facing thugs with ill intentions?
Could a newcomer remain calm when opening the warehouse door and seeing a corpse lunge toward him?
A newcomer can accurately find the Suffocation Puppet when facing the increasingly dangerous Suffocation Nest, and even burn it down in one go?
A newcomer…
…forget it, there are too many variables. Even Soft Soft couldn’t guarantee that if she were in the same state as him, she could handle all these matters so cleanly and efficiently.
“Of course I’m a newcomer…”
Facing her question, Xiao Xiao seemed somewhat bewildered: “Wasn’t what I just did the decision any normal person should make?”
“Newcomer…”
Faced with Xiao Xiao’s composure, Ruan Ruan seemed to have been ignited like gunpowder, and the confusion in her heart suddenly burst out: “How can someone like you be considered a newcomer?”
“How is it possible for a newcomer to perform this well?”
“How could a newcomer possibly not wet their pants?”
“……”
“This…”
Xiao Xiao suddenly felt embarrassed. Was this considered a good performance?
Isn’t it enough as long as you have a brain?
But facing Ruanruan with her eyes wide open, he pondered for a moment and tentatively said: “Perhaps… being strong is just an innate instinct?”
Ruanruan immediately wilted like a defeated rooster…
I said that back then just to show off…
And you took it as a life philosophy?
Looking at Ruanruan’s frantic appearance, Xiao Xiao felt somewhat concerned: this firecracker seemed emotionally unstable, was he sure there was nothing wrong with her mind?
He quickly changed the subject, turning to look at the warehouse with raging flames, and said in a low voice: “Actually, I wanted to ask too…”
“What on earth is going on?”
“……”
Ruanruan turned to glance at the warehouse and sighed: “What else could it be? You’ve already resolved this matter. A newcomer who hasn’t even reached a hundred points has resolved this C-level crisis…”
“No…”
Xiao Xiao interrupted her and said, “I mean, how was that suffocating doll formed?”
“The causes of distortion are varied and numerous.”
Ruanruan steadied herself, seeing that Xiao Xiao had a serious expression on his face, so she also gathered her spirits and said:
“Some are influenced by mysterious sources, some are transformed by certain special forces, and some are caused by the accumulation of painful substances within the body reaching their limit.”
“Just like this suffocation puppet we’re facing, it’s said that some of them undergo distortion and become monsters because they cannot bear the weight of life, having been tormented by the omnipresent enormous pressure to a critical point.”
“In their vast lives, they cannot find a chance to breathe, and thus they have also acquired the ability to generate a suffocating force field.”
“And usually, once such a suffocating puppet appears in a city, it will unconsciously attract some equally desperate people to come here, influencing each other and forming a nest of suffocation…”
“And if we do not handle it in time now, the influence of the nest of suffocation will grow stronger and stronger, gradually eroding this city and forming a greater disaster.”
“And the reason our mission this time had intelligence problems is…”
“……”
Ruanruan continued explaining as clearly as possible, as if she had prepared this long ago, using these events to help Xiao Xiao understand this world as much as possible.
But Xiao Xiao’s mind wandered slightly.
Ever since he learned the true nature of this world, he felt that this city was particularly fake. Whether it was people or buildings, everything was false—merely disguises of monsters, deliberate performances.
But after just seeing the suffocating doll, unexpectedly, he felt a peculiar sensation…
…If he had to describe it, this was probably… reality?