What It's Like Being a Vampire

Seventh floor.

As Liu Shiling had deduced, Tang Baona, Yang Zhen Er, and Xiao Pingguo no sooner reached the seventh floor than they, due to a positioning error, faced a close-range attack from “Hetero-dimensional One”.

Although in such a situation, Tang Baona could, in her desperation, use a destructive “Material Melody” to fend it off. However, without precise control, Mr. Liang, Li Shibao, Yang Zhuo, and the others behind “Hetero-dimensional One” would be affected, and even Yang Zhen Er and Xiao Pingguo could suffer the consequences.

So even though Tang Baona was startled by the terrifying large mouth on the stomach of the suddenly approaching “Hetero-dimensional One”, she still kept her cool and didn’t react hastily, because she believed…

In times of crisis, Alice would appear.

Indeed, at the same time the surveillance signal disappeared, Alice in her white princess dress appeared in front of Tang Baona and the others.

Her body was still small, but her hands were ridiculously large, one fist was almost half the size of her body. Facing the approaching “Hetero-dimensional One”, she swung her disproportionately large fist and, with a cute yell, sent it flying.

After eliminating the crisis, Alice turned around, tilted her head, blinked her right eye at Tang Baona and the others, grinned triumphantly, and then disappeared.

Regaining their senses, the trio of Tang Baona, Yang Zhen Er, and Xiao Pingguo joined the attack. Together with Li Shibao, Yang Zhuo, and Liu Zhengyi’s “High-level Attached Spiritual Object” unit, and Mr. Liang in his “Black Armor”, they launched a siege against “Hetero-dimensional One”.

Originally, Mr. Liang alone could pretty much beat up “Hetero-dimensional One”. Now, with the added forces of the two three-person units, they had the upper hand.

However, “Hetero-dimensional One”‘s body was shattered countless times and reduced to rubble, yet it kept regenerating at an incredible pace, reassembling itself.

Moreover, each time it reassembled, its body would exhibit certain differences, unleashing new characteristics. It seemed like each time its body shattered and reassembled, it was obtaining high-dimensional factors from the “Old Vampire”, which manifested its past abilities and characteristics.

Occasionally, its surface would be covered with scales, providing a strong defense; at other times, its skin would become extremely smooth, causing any attacks to possibly slide off; sometimes it would decrease in size, with a height of about one meter, but with extremely long limbs that could extend up to 3 meters, resembling a giant spider, extremely fast, able to easily climb walls; sometimes it could refract light and go semi-invisible, blending into the environment; sometimes it could even attempt to manipulate people’s minds and create illusions.

Normally, if these were abilities acquired from devouring other “mutants”, the transformation of these abilities would require some time. But this “Hetero-dimensional One” needed neither to hibernate nor any time for its body to undergo transmutation after devouring Gerald. Moreover, it materialized these abilities far more directly than Gerald did, with some characteristics clearly originating from non-humanoid “mutants” that Gerald devoured.

For Mr. Liang, who is a “mutant”, familiar with the mechanism of mutual devouring and ability transformation among “mutants”, and who has learned the theory of high-dimensional factors from Xiang Kun, the manifestation of “Hetero-dimensional One” is very astonishing. No wonder Dr. Xia organized such a huge operation.

Of course, what shocked him even more was that most of the mutant characteristics manifested by “Hetero-dimensional One” had already been accurately described by Dr. Xia during the mission preparation stage. He had even devised specific countermeasures.

Just like now, the two squads of Li Shibao and Tang Baona responded perfectly to each eccentric ability exhibited by “Hetero-dimensional One” after each reassembly, according to the mission plan.

When “Hetero-dimensional One” entered a semi-invisible state, Yang Zhuo and Xiao Pingguo were immediately able to lock onto the target through their glasses and other modes of vision, helping their comrades determine the direction of attack. Yang Zhen Er could even use illusion special effects to directly “mark” “Hetero-dimensional One”.

When “Hetero-dimensional One” increased its speed and agility, Li Shibao would use temperature control and freezing to hinder it, and Tang Baona would also change the type of “Material Melody” to make it difficult for it to move.

When “Hetero-dimensional One” attempted to harm, disrupt, and mentally affect them with sound, Tang Baona would use the Emotional Melody to help everyone avoid damage.

They were able to perfectly respond to each sudden change in characteristic, according to Dr. Xia’s mission plan. Those mutation traits not mentioned in the mission plan posed no significant threat and were dealt with easily.

Dr. Xia’s mission plan was like Zhuge Liang’s bag of tricks, simply brilliant.

That’s why no matter how undying “Hetero-dimensional One” seemed to be, and though it gained new abilities every time it regenerated from being smashed into pieces, they didn’t panic too much.

After all, even with a threat present, the little girl in a white dress with a pair of giant fists would appear in time to bail them out. They were like children playing in a pool under the watchful eyes of their parents.

On the other hand, given the information about the “Hetero-dimensional Universe” and “Hetero-dimensional High-Dimensional Factors” that they had received, and considering the various tasks set up by Dr. Xia, Mr. Liang was somewhat suspicious that Dr. Xia had slowly “cultivated” this monster.

This caused him a bit of anxiety. Although now Dr. Xia seems to have everything under control, many features of high-dimensional factors are beyond human understanding or comprehension. Who knows if a situation beyond control might occur.

However, Mr. Liang couldn’t really remind Dr. Xia, he knew that Dr. Xia must be aware of these issues. He could only hope that Xiang Kun would wake up soon, so that everyone could feel at ease under his control. With Xiang Kun’s caution, he would definitely be able to minimize the risks, so he hoped that Dr. Xia wouldn’t act recklessly.

…

Parking lot.

The screens inside the car had restored the surveillance footage from the seventh and eighth floors, but there were still no real-time battle scenes, only the messy aftermath on the ground, indicating the intensity of the recent battle here.

From the huge hole visible in the eighth floor’s ceiling in the surveillance footage and the noises from above, it could be inferred that the battle had moved up another two floors, reaching the ninth floor.

Old He couldn’t help but look toward the main building from the car windows. Were they really battling their way up floor by floor?!

However, he noticed something odd: the surveillance footage showed an entire wall on the eighth floor near the parking lot being smashed, but when he looked out the car window, he saw no debris or any sign of disturbance. Even looking up at the outer wall of the main building, everything appeared intact; there were no signs of a battle that had blasted its way up from the basement to the ninth floor, not even a sound.

Although Dr. Xia had informed him beforehand that they would perform “sensory shielding” on the area of combat, and had cordoned off this area under the guise of renovation, thus ensuring that even during the day, operations would not affect other areas of the hospital and nobody would detect any anomalies, the stark contrast between the scenes of devastation on the surveillance footage and the tranquility outside the buildings made him feel a sense of spatial-temporal dislocation.

But it was precisely because Dr. Xia and her team had such miraculous capabilities that Old He dared to let them go on a mission in a large hospital like Yangcheng City Hospital in broad daylight.

Despite not being able to see the actual combat footage, Old He remained fairly calm. His trust in Dr. Xia’s actions was one reason; over the past five years, any research or investigative mission led by the research base had never suffered any mishaps. Secondly, the sounds from Mr. Liang and Li Shibao in his earpiece, as well as the surveillance footage, gave him the impression that everything was going as planned.

However, gradually, the voices of Mr. Liang, Li Shibao, and others began to sound anxious, as if the battle was becoming more intense and critical and cries of “danger,” “be careful,” and “damn” began to emerge.

Then, Miss Yang’s panicked shout came through the earpiece: “Old Xia! We need backup! We can’t hold on any longer!! Alice, get more aggressive!!”

Miss Tang’s voice followed: “Hahaha, Old Xia, we can’t win, haha, ouch, run!”

Miss Li Jun’s voice: “Run, run, run! Alice, cover our retreat!”

Li Shibao’s voice: “Director He, Dr. Xia! ‘Exotic Pig No.1’ has gone berserk! We can’t handle it!”

Yang Zhuo’s voice: “Help! Help! Help! Save us!!”

Old He was startled; after glancing at the still composed Dr. Xia, he hurriedly asked through the intercom, “What’s going on? What happened?”

Mr. Liang’s voice answered, “Dr. Xia! We can’t kill this monster, and it’s growing stronger the more we attack it. Now it’s displaying multiple traits and abilities simultaneously, and we’re having trouble controlling it! It’s going to escape!”

When “Hetero-dimensional One” was continuously reforming itself and exhibiting different “mutant creature” traits before, Mr. Liang and his team had handled it very steadily, because everything was going according to Dr. Xia Libing’s plan.

But soon, the monster began to show a combination and enhancement of different “mutant” traits, all designed to counter their abilities, and the situation suddenly flipped. If it weren’t for Alice persistently co-manifesting herself and putting up a staunch defense with her big fists, they probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on.

Following the mission plan, at this point, their instruction was to “call for backup when they could no longer hold on”, so naturally, they started to call for Dr. Xia Libing’s help on the intercom.

“I’m on my way.”

After giving a simple reply, Dr. Xia Libing calmly got up, casually ruffled Liu Shiling’s hair, then got out of the car and walked briskly towards the main hospital building.

Just as Old He was about to close the car door, he suddenly saw Dr. Xia throw something on the ground and then step on it.

The instant she stepped on it, the object beneath her feet swelled and rose up into the air like a silver wall, rocketing her up to the top of the main building in a blink of an eye.

It wasn’t until Dr. Xia landed on the roof of the main building and the object that lifted her up disappeared, that Old He realized – it was a scalpel!

What just happened?! Did Dr. Xia just climb atop an enlarged scalpel?!

He subconsciously looked around. Their parking lot was also isolated due to fear of falling objects from high altitudes, so only their few modified vans were parked here. The hospital main entrance was further away, bustling with people and vehicles going in and out. But no one glanced in their direction. Clearly, nobody outside their isolated zone was able to see the shocking show or the fights happening in the main building.

He remembered what Li Shibao and Yang Zhuo had mentioned about the mission in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Dr. Xia’s scalpel seemed like the Golden Cudgel, capable of growing or shrinking at will. But it was rather ridiculous to see a scalpel that was almost as large as a building with his own eyes.

“Why are they calling it ‘Research Base’? It should be called ‘Cultivation Base’ instead,” Old He couldn’t help but mumble to himself.

Returning to the car, Old He looked up at the screen in the van. There were still no images of the fighting on it, neither were there any panicked shouts from Li Shibao and Yang Zhuo on the other monitored feeds. Clearly, the situation was quickly stabilized once Dr. Xia went up.

But Mr. Liang’s words still bothered him, he muttered to himself, “What does he mean by ‘this monster cannot be killed’?”

“Uncle He, that monster can’t be killed in this world.”

Old He was taken aback, only to find that the speaker was the student Liu Shiling next to him.

“It…it can’t be killed in this world?” Old He couldn’t help but repeat. He knew that Liu Shiling was no ordinary ten-year-old. Her knowledge of “mutants” might be even more extensive than Mr. Liang’s. Plus, considering her relationship with Dr. Xia and Miss Tang, it was normal for her to know some insider information.

“Yes, it can’t be killed! When we fight, we are helping it evolve! And training ourselves!” Liu Shiling nodded.

“Help it evolve?” Old He’s heart skipped a beat and various conspiracy theories suddenly popped into his mind, making him nervous.

But just as he wanted to ask further, Liu Shiling suddenly straightened up and pointed to the roof of the van, widening her eyes at Old He, “Uncle He! It’s thundering!”

As she finished her sentence, a loud thunder rang out.

Even with Liu Shiling’s “predication”, Old He was still startled.

He instinctively opened the window blinds of the van and looked through the dark one-way window towards the sky. The once bright and sunny sky was now filled with thick clouds flashing with electricity. It looked like a storm was brewing.

Is this real?

Old He couldn’t help but look at the flow of people at the hospital entrance and found that many people were also looking up at the sky or quickening their pace. Obviously, this sudden weather change wasn’t only noticeable in their isolated area, it was a genuine, sudden change in weather.

He shifted his gaze back to Liu Shiling inside the van. The young girl was on her knees on the van seat, her hands clutching another window, tilting her head to look at the sky.

Her eyes were wide open, and her face was full of excitement. Her previous unhappiness seemed to have vanished with the sudden thunderstorm.

Did… did this little girl cause this?

Feeling Old He’s gaze, Liu Shiling turned her head and said in a pleasant tone, “Uncle He, have you ever seen a lightning storm?”

Another thunderclap rumbled outside the van.

…

A little earlier.

Antarctica.

A blonde researcher stood in a vast open field with a few team members. Stomping on the snow under her feet, she said, “William, our instruments detected unusual reading from here about three hours ago. I suggest bringing the machines over to start digging right away.”

A few of her companions huddled around the thick tablet she handed over, inspecting the data from monitoring instruments, their expressions surprised. Over the years, with the rapid development of technology, research teams, investigation squads, and exploratory groups from various countries in Antarctica have been equipped with advanced equipment, strengthened in all aspects from supplies to detection.

“Hmm, I’ll contact the Chinese research team right now.” A man named William said, picking up the satellite phone.

The blonde woman researcher interjected, “Wait, can’t we… can’t we do it ourselves?”

Startled, William replied, “But the nearest place with portable automatic digging equipment is China.”

The blonde researcher bit her lip and whispered, “I suspect… the thing beneath could possibly be a special form of life, maybe… related to the monster that caused the ‘Antarctica crisis’!”

In these years, teams visiting Antarctica for whatever reason, more than ninety percent of them, are there to investigate the “Antarctic Crisis” or more precisely, they are examining the entity that caused and solved the crisis, looking for any traces they might have left behind.

William still hesitated, “If that’s the case…shouldn’t we notify them even more? According to the ‘Citong Accord’, all related research involving field excavations should be reported to them.”

“We don’t even know if it is, and officially, we’re not involved in mutant-related research!” the blonde researcher exclaimed.

“Yes, I agree that we should do the excavation first, using basic equipment. If that doesn’t work, we’ll resort to dynamite,” another companion suggested, “If it truly is a creature related to the ‘Antarctic Crisis’, our discovery could potentially lead to new breakthroughs, breaking the Chinese monopoly on this issue.”

“But…” William started to argue. It was rumored in the field of “Mutant” research that anyone who conducts private research in violation of the “Citong Accord”, especially by capturing or attacking “mutants”, might face inexplicable supernatural events. Seeing however that there were fewer Chinese representatives in Antarctica than other major nations, he became thoughtful. Perhaps this really was an opportunity and he decided not to say anything else.

Just as they climbed onto their snowmobiles, ready to return to the supply station, the ground suddenly began to shake. The snow on the ground seemed to have come to life, knocking over their snowmobiles.

As they crawled on the ground, trying to comprehend what had just happened, the area where the blonde researcher had detected abnormalities began to rise.

The ice cap beneath the snow seemed to have shifted, causing icicles to “grow” from the ground, all concentrated in a small area.

Simultaneously, the sky darkened with clouds, thunder rumbled, and lightning struck the icicles. Arcs of electricity scattered and fled like earthworms.

Subsequent flashes of lightning swept over, like a doomsday punishment.

With a loud bang, all the icicles exploded, leaving a big hole from which a figure slowly rose, suspended in the air.

Despite the distance, the fallen blonde researcher, William, and the others could faintly see the glowing figure suspended in the sky.

The figure seemed to glance at them, a look that caused their breaths to stop and their hair to stand on end, creating a sense of life-threatening danger.

By the time they had regained their senses, the figure had already pierced the sky, swiftly shooting off at several times the speed of sound.

After the figure disappeared, the dark clouds dispersed and sunlight poured down, restoring a clear sky as if none of the previous events had occurred.

However, looking at the snowmobile toppled on the ground and the huge hole in the distance, they all understood that what had just happened was not an illusion—it really took place.

Did they… just witness something important?

“Do you guys remember, there’s an online legend about the ‘Antarctic Crisis’.” William suddenly said.

Others evidently thought of the legend too, an array of emotions coursing through them.

That legend… It appeared to be true.

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