Chapter 487 First Encounter with the Apocalyptic Strangeness 2

A night sky without stars or the moon...

Such a monotonous and dark night sky was unusual, and it made me think of other things. I had seen similar night skies elsewhere. That being said, since this is an alternate dimension, the absence of stars and the moon is understandable. The moon is Earth's satellite, and stars are distant celestial bodies. Even in an open alternate dimension, it's hard to imagine it having the scale of a universe.

After a brief moment of thought, I opened the window and launched two fireballs into the outside world. One fireball shot upwards, while the other probed the surrounding area.

Perhaps due to the spatial chaos, the two rapidly moving fireballs seemed to be constantly moving away from me, yet their relative positions appeared to be fluctuating, sometimes near and sometimes far, and the information I received through communication was mostly noisy. Originally, I planned to transform the fireballs responsible for exploring the surrounding area into thousands or even tens of thousands of "fireflies" to increase exploration efficiency, but now I can only proceed slowly for the time being.

And with the light emitted by the fireball, I could see the cityscape outside more clearly.

In short, this is a city in ruins.

I've seen quite a few zombie apocalypse horror movies in the past, and this city outside looks like it's been destroyed by a zombie crisis for twenty or thirty years, or like it's been the site of World War III. It's desolate and decaying, with many city buildings damaged to varying degrees, and groups of cars lying on the road like abandoned, old toys.

The building I'm currently in is a residential building, about fourteen or fifteen stories high, with a residential complex below. Untrimmed plants have grown haphazardly from the green belts onto the roads, weeds have sprouted from the cracks in the concrete pavement, and the exterior walls of the buildings are covered with lush plants that look like ivy.

There are also some scattered things that look like remains and skeletons scattered on the street. Occasionally, you can catch a glimpse of suspicious shadows flashing from dark corners, like humanoid monsters lurking in the shadows. But if you look closely, you may think it is just your imagination, as there seems to be nothing there.

My intuition tells me that such a simplistic mistake wouldn't happen; there must indeed be a lot of unknown dangers lurking outside. At the very least, the homeowner wouldn't have so neurotically sealed the doors and windows shut without any reason. Although no direct threat has been confirmed yet, we still can't let our guard down.

Just as I was thinking this, suddenly, an unusual change occurred.

I heard an incredibly shrill and desperate scream, seemingly coming from afar. With the hearing of this body, I should be able to pinpoint it clearly and analyze where it came from, but for some reason, I couldn't.

At the same time, just as the fireball swept past the upper floors of one of the residential buildings in the distance, the flames illuminated the interior of one of the apartments. Although it was only a fleeting glimpse, I clearly saw the astonishing scene inside.

It must have been a living room. In front of a floor-to-ceiling window, a man sat in a chair, covering his face with a white cloth like a customer in a barbershop. Behind him stood a blurry, tall, black figure, holding scissors and making gestures like a barber.

However, the man had no hair on his head. Not only that, but his skull had been sawed off in a bowl shape and thrown at his feet. Grayish-white brain tissue, stained with blood, was exposed to the air, blood flowing down his forehead, making his face incredibly horrifying and grotesque. A blurry, tall, black figure was slowly cutting away the man's brain tissue with rusty, blood-stained iron shears.

The man opened his mouth wide in utter terror, letting out a horrifying scream; the scream I had just heard was most likely from him. Blood stained the white cloth covering his body. He appeared to be unrestrained in any way, yet he seemed frozen in place, unable to escape. It seemed only his facial muscles could move; his only permitted action was to stare wide-eyed, bloodshot eyes and scream in agony.

I immediately manipulated the fireball that had overshot its target, directing it back towards the house while trying to recall the man's appearance. To be honest, although the man's face was terrifying and grotesque, making him incredibly distorted, and the fact that his hair had been removed along with his skull made him even more difficult to identify, upon closer reflection, I felt like I'd seen his face somewhere before.

Yes, I actually know that face very well.

That looks like... my face.

The fireball returned to the house in the distance, and I saw the scene there again. But this time, the scene wasn't in the living room; it appeared on the windowpane in front of me.

Impossible, I clearly opened the window just now. When was the window closed? No, that's not the point. What's happening right now leaves me no time to think about anything else.

The windowpane, like a mirror in a barbershop, reflected my current state. I don't know when, but I was sitting in a chair, a white cloth stained with blood covering me, and my skull, sawn into a bowl shape and thrown at my feet, with half of my grayish-white brain tissue cut into pieces.

Behind him stood a vague, tall, black figure, holding a pair of rusty, blood-stained iron scissors with bits of brain tissue hanging from them, resembling tofu dregs.

The iron shears continued cutting into the half-shattered brain tissue.

I wanted to stand up, but my body wouldn't obey me. Come to think of it, with so much brain tissue cut up, it's normal to be unable to control the body. No wonder that person was sitting there obediently as if frozen in place.

Normally, in this state, I wouldn't even be able to stand, let alone save my life. However, my body is merely a mimicry to me, as is my brain. Besides, I don't necessarily need my brain to issue commands to control my body. Therefore, I quickly stood up and then kicked the blurry, tall, black figure behind me.

This tall, black figure, resembling a vengeful ghost from a ghost story, wasn't a real ghost, but rather something with a physical form. I kicked it away with one kick. It crashed into tables and chairs in the distance, then fell awkwardly to the floor.

"Cleaning up a stranger's skull right off the bat, aren't you local weirdos being a little too overly familiar?"

Actually, I was a little scared. Before I started out as a witcher, although I often investigated supernatural tales, I had never encountered anything real; and after that, most of the conflicts I encountered were straightforward, rather than the kind of perilous situations that are typical of supernatural tales.

To calm myself down, I spoke in a seemingly calm manner while bending down to pick up my skull from the ground and reattaching it to my head.

After it was installed, something felt off. I rotated the skull slightly to adjust the angle, and then it felt perfectly fitted, which put my mind at ease.

“Let me see what kind of monster you really are,” I said.

The other party lay silently in the darkness, offering no response, nor did I expect one. From what I've learned, not all strange beings can speak human language; in fact, those capable of understanding human language and thought and communicating are a tiny minority. Even a being like the Silver Moon has many incompatibilities with human thought processes.

Most of these strange things are alien creatures like those in horror movies, or even unknown natural phenomena that are impossible to communicate with.

I maneuvered the fireball closer, illuminating the area where the other person was, and in doing so, the other person themselves. Then, I was speechless.

Not the blurry, tall, black figure from before was there, nor were the rusty, blood-stained iron shears. Lying among the overturned tables and chairs like a broken puppet was the homeowner's corpse, which had been lying at the bedroom doorway for an unknown amount of time, rotting away.

(End of this chapter)