Chapter 9 – Facing Reality

Splash!

On the other side of the island, the sound of splashing water echoed from behind several jagged reefs. A moment later, Su Lifeng and the others scrambled onto the shore.

Once they had put as much distance as possible between themselves and the seawater, the group collapsed, looking as if every ounce of strength had been drained from their bodies.

“Ugh…” One boy’s face twitched twice before he suddenly crawled to the side and began to dry heave.

Everyone else’s complexion wasn’t much better.

Seeing so many people slaughtered at close range was a massive shock to the system.

Especially that moment just now, when they were practically face-to-face with the Xenospecies Octopus…

“Su Lifeng, are you okay?” As soon as Jiang Yushi caught her breath, she immediately grabbed Su Lifeng and asked.

Only then did the others recall the shocking sight of Su Lifeng taking the initiative to attack the Xenospecies Octopus. They were only alive now thanks to his decisiveness and his willingness to risk everything on a single throw of the dice.

But how could a normal person do something so terrifyingly dangerous? He had truly put his life on the line!

The way these ordinary college students looked at Su Lifeng had completely changed.

Even though he was currently soaked to the bone, with his hair plastered to his forehead and a pale face that made him look utterly harmless.

Based on looks alone, Su Lifeng didn’t have a fierce bone in his body; he looked more like the type of boy who would sit quietly and read a book.

“Hmm? I’m fine…” Su Lifeng had just managed to answer when he suddenly felt a tearing sensation in his abdomen.

Standing beside him, Cheng Xiaomei followed his gaze downward and let out a startled cry, covering her mouth. “Ah! Su… you’re hurt!”

A large gash had been torn through the clothes on Su Lifeng’s abdomen at some point, revealing the mangled flesh beneath.

“I must have been hit by a tentacle earlier…”

His heart tightened. However, when he frowned and carefully lifted his shirt, he was stunned to find that such a deep wound had already stopped bleeding.

“That’s strange…”

Su Lifeng immediately thought of the blood spot on his wrist-that, too, had vanished quickly.

Could it be related to that Black Thread that had burrowed into his body?

Thinking back to the strength of those tentacles-how they could shatter a human body just by touching it-he realized that while he felt pain, his internal organs hadn’t even been damaged. As a top student from the School of Life Sciences, making this judgment wasn’t difficult for him.

At this thought, a bizarre idea suddenly surfaced. He couldn’t help but reach out and touch the wound.

Residual blood stained his fingers. He rubbed them together lightly… it was somewhat viscous, and several Black Threads were quickly rolled out from the mess.

Su Lifeng’s scalp tingled. He almost lost control of his expression.

The viscosity was clearly that of the Gelatinous Substance, though the degree was quite different.

But no matter what, this was a characteristic of a Xenospecies!

He hadn’t guessed wrong. After killing Cheng Peng, he had absorbed the Xenospecies that was inside Cheng Peng’s body!

“Let’s get this bandaged up…” A cool, soft touch against his abdomen snapped Su Lifeng back to reality.

Jiang Yushi was holding a strip of fabric she had just torn from her pant leg, attempting to bind his wound.

“I’ll do it.” Su Lifeng suddenly became nervous. He didn’t dare let Jiang Yushi come into contact with that blood. He quickly tied a knot himself in a few swift motions.

Seeing that Su Lifeng still seemed mobile, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Even though they had temporarily escaped the threat of the Xenospecies, they were still a long way from being “safe.”

Setting aside the fact that their only Cruise Ship had been seized by a Xenospecies, this island itself looked very problematic.

“The rocks here are strange. They’re almost like fossils, and the texture is different from anything we usually see.”

“And look at this grass. Why is it all black and as hard as wood?”

Once the boys had calmed down slightly, they began to proactively observe the island’s environment.

Though the words spoken by the Iron Piece Boy had filled them with rage, they had involuntarily taken some of his warnings to heart.

If they continued to be nothing but dead weight, who could guarantee that Su Lifeng wouldn’t eventually abandon them?

“If we’re going to find a place to hide and wait for rescue, we’d better not go too deep…” one boy suggested, thinking himself clever.

This time, Su Lifeng didn’t even have to speak; the people around the boy were already looking at him with pitying eyes.

“Get a grip on reality,” Su Lifeng said. He didn’t lecture him further, merely sighing as he reached out to pat the boy’s shoulder.

He took the chair leg from Jiang Yushi and crouched down. “First, we need to understand exactly what happened. Here’s my theory… I believe our Cruise Ship was forcibly dragged through a gate by those two Xenospecies Octopuses. You could call it a Spatial Gate or a Spatial Rift. In other words, the place we’re in now might not be far from our original course, but we’re in two different dimensions. Does that make sense? And no, don’t ask me what I’m basing this theory on.”

As he spoke, he drew a gate on the ground and sketched two different but overlapping areas of sea as an illustration.

“Once the Cruise Ship entered this overlapping space, the Spatial Gate opened, the ship lost its signal, and then the Xenospecies Octopuses made their move… This part is purely my speculation, so don’t take it too seriously. I want to know the truth as much as anyone, but for now, I can only make this inference based on the clues we have.”

The others were stunned, but then Cheng Xiaomei nodded and said softly, “I think it’s possible. None of us have ever seen such a calm, eerie stretch of sea before. Besides… right before I passed out, I suddenly saw this thick fog… Even if it were to get foggy at sea, it wouldn’t just surge out like that all of a sudden, would it?”

This was the first time she had shared this piece of information. Su Lifeng glanced at her in surprise, then gave a subtle nod. If that was the case, his theory was basically confirmed… Their collective loss of consciousness was likely a side effect of passing through the Spatial Gate.

There were probably others who had seen the fog, but without a Precognitive Ability like Su Lifeng’s, it would be difficult to connect the dots so quickly.

“Then there are the Xenospecies-the creatures that have taken control of the tourists,” Su Lifeng continued. “These creatures are clearly the Natives of this island, or rather, this World. Their way of greeting us is to occupy our bodies. So, no matter what, be careful of every living thing you see, whether it looks human or not. Once you’re occupied, you’re as good as dead…”

As he said this, a flash of unease crossed his eyes.

He had absorbed a Xenospecies himself-what did that make him?

“Final point: I know what everyone wants most right now is to go back. But until we completely understand these Xenospecies, we don’t have a chance.” Su Lifeng stood up, clutching his abdomen, and looked toward the ink-black woods behind them. “So, we’re heading into the island.”

Everyone looked over at the same time, suddenly feeling as if many pairs of eyes were staring at them from within the sinister branches.

At that moment, images flickered before Su Lifeng’s eyes again.

It was the same vision of a Shadowy Figure suddenly pouncing on him and “absorbing” him, but this time, the figure was noticeably clearer-it was vaguely recognizable as a human silhouette.

He also saw a scene of numerous corpses strewn across the ground, among which were Jiang Yushi, Cheng Xiaomei, and the others.

The Cruise Ship sat silently on the sea, seemingly never to sail again.

Everyone was dead.

Su Lifeng snapped back to reality and tightened his grip on the chair leg.

Since they were just biological entities… then there was nothing to fear!

I’ll even dissect an alien for you to see!