Chapter 344: Escaped... Or Have I?

Suddenly, a cold draft brushed against Raccoon’s neck, making him jolt.

The cold air did not come from the lobby. It came from behind him—from the direction of the stairwell.

He slowly turned his head, looking back toward the dimness he had just fled.

The light at the stairwell entrance had gone out completely. He did not know when it had died.

The darkness there was so thick it seemed almost tangible, like some viscous liquid slowly seeping out from the stairwell, creeping inch by inch across the corridor floor.

And that shadow—could it not, perhaps, be the unknown terror itself?

He was a monstrosity cloaked in human skin. He knew better than anyone how deceptive appearances could be.

But the thing hunting them might not need to play by the same rules.

They needed human skins because they still wished to walk among human society.

But that thing...

Perhaps the entity itself was the shadow.

In that moment, the darkness at the stairwell became the bloody maw of a giant serpent. The shadows beneath his own feet felt like the serpent’s intestinal tract, poised to consume him.

The path ahead led into an unknown crowd. The path behind led into bottomless darkness.

A bone-chilling sensation swept over him, as if countless icy hands were simultaneously stroking his spine.

He hesitated no longer. He shoved the corridor door open and strode into the lobby.

………………

The receptionist at the front desk glanced at him.

She was a young girl in staff uniform, an ID badge hanging from her neck.

She seemed to recognize his face and casually asked, “Hey, off work so early today?”

“Did you feel that slight tremor just now? Everyone else said no. Was it really just me?”

Raccoon forced a smile.

His facial muscles felt rusted. Every movement cost immense effort.

“Yeah, something urgent came up at home...”

“Probably just someone moving furniture upstairs.”

He mumbled a vague reply and walked toward the exit, feigning calm.

His stride appeared composed, but his knees were trembling slightly beneath his trousers, every step weak and unsteady.

The receptionist thought it odd. Her colleague seemed stiff today, his expression unnatural.

But she said nothing more.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Everyone had personal matters. Perhaps a genuine emergency had left him so distracted.

As for the stiffness in Raccoon’s face, that was normal. The skin he wore now was not one of the perfect human hides Butterfly had tailored for them.

It was a skin he had seized with his own abilities, taken from one of the building’s original staff members.

Butterfly was dead. The skin he had worn before was the last of the perfect ones.

There would be no more.

But to escape, this small sacrifice was worth it.

An imperfect human skin meant more flaws, more unnaturalness.

But as long as he could walk out that door, none of it mattered...

Realizing this, he suddenly snapped back to his surroundings and looked around.

In that short minute or so, he had already left the building.

His feet had somehow carried him through the revolving door, down the front steps, and into the alley beside the skyscraper.

He had escaped the building harboring that suspected unknown terror. He now stood in an utterly familiar dark alley.

The cool autumn breeze brushed his cheek, carrying the chill of late autumn and the city’s distinct scent of dust and exhaust.

But to him, this was the smell of freedom.

He gasped for breath, his heart pounding as if ready to burst from his chest.

He had finally escaped. He...

He had survived!

The alley was dim, lit only by a sliver of light cast from a distant streetlamp.

Those shadowy corners reminded him of the years before he had obtained human skin—years spent in darkness and mire.

Back then, he had been nothing more than a damp, foul thing curled up in a corner.

Darkness had been his refuge. Shadow had been his home.

And now, that familiar shadow was gently wrapping around him.

Starting from his feet, creeping up his calves, spreading to his waist—like a tender, enveloping cover.

That sense of being wrapped... it felt like returning to the safest place in the world.

Raccoon closed his eyes. A smile—the smile of a survivor—involuntarily curled at the corner of his lips.

The smile was still on his face, not yet fully unfurled—

Shlick!

Crack!

Snap!

Several sounds erupted almost simultaneously.

The sound of a blade piercing flesh. The sound of bones being forcibly snapped. The sound of joints being wrenched from their sockets...

Agonizing pain tore through his body!

The pain came so suddenly, so violently, that his consciousness went nearly blank in that instant.

Only then did Raccoon understand.

He had been wrong.

Terribly, terribly wrong.

The abrupt relaxation after the peak of terror had caused a fatal misjudgment.

The shadow had not covered him like a warm blanket.

The shadow had genuinely come alive. From the moment he stepped into the alley, it had slowly coiled around his body.

At the very moment he closed his eyes, at the moment he felt safest...

The shadow gently peeled away that flawed human skin of his.

And then, it bared its fangs.

It became a blade, stabbing into his limbs.

It became a spear, impaling his torso.

It became a noose, coiling around his neck.

It dismembered his arms and legs, ripped open his stomach, and pinned him firmly to the ground.

Only his head and eyes remained, still capable of barely moving.

His monstrous vitality kept him from dying immediately.

That vitality was a curse now, not a blessing.

Because it meant he could feel every single thread of agony, the searing burn of every inch of torn flesh with absolute clarity.

Raccoon finally saw clearly.

He saw clearly the unknown, terrifying entity emerging from the darkness with slow, deliberate steps.

It was...

Pandora Douglas.

The young scholar who had drawn the most attention at the banquet. The founder and inventor of the Rejuvenating Spring Elixir.

The genius doctor who, just moments ago under the chandeliers, had been looked up to, fawned over, and encircled by countless admirers.

She still wore that same elegant, detached smile she had at the gala.

As if she were merely dealing with a trivial...

Vermin.

Pandora held a girl by the hand.

For some reason, a faint, almost imperceptible trace of fear lingered on the girl’s face.

The fear was so subtle it could almost be ignored, yet it was undeniably present—like a puff of white breath on a winter’s day, fleeting but unmistakable.

Raccoon instinctively concluded: the girl must be afraid of the monster beside her.

That terrifying humanoid thing named Pandora.

It made perfect sense.

How could an ordinary girl not be afraid?

In that trace of fear, he even glimpsed himself—the same state of mind he had felt while sprinting through the stairwell. That primal terror of the unknown and the unnameable.

As for the human figure behind the two of them...

When Raccoon saw clearly who it was, he clenched his jaw.