The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile - Chapter 71

Shen Ge and Cheng Shengnan waited at Xiao He’s house until almost 7 p.m. After ordering takeout and finishing their meal, it was just past 8 when the sky darkened completely.

Xiao He lived in an old residential complex where the streetlights used energy-saving bulbs, leaving the entire area dim and shadowy.

Right outside the complex stood a large shopping mall with a spacious, brightly lit plaza. Elderly residents and parents often gathered there to dance or take their children for walks, which meant the complex itself was nearly deserted at night—giving it an eerie, unsettling atmosphere.

Xiao He led Shen Ge to the courtyard downstairs, pointing to a garbage room about ten meters ahead. She told him that the black dog had appeared near the garbage room during her previous encounters.

The three of them waited from 8 to 8:30 p.m., but nothing showed up.

Shen Ge suggested, “Why don’t you two head back first? I’ll keep watch here.”

“It’s fine. We can chat anywhere,” Cheng Shengnan replied.

Just as Xiao He was about to say something, her eyes widened in shock. She screamed, pointing toward the garbage room. “It’s—it’s here! It’s by the trash bin!”

Shen Ge and Cheng Shengnan turned to look, but both frowned—there was nothing by the garbage room.

[Warning!]

[Host has entered the territory of a Tier 1 Aberration and has been detected. The Aberration is of the same tier as the host. As long as the host doesn’t do anything reckless, a fight should be manageable. Good luck!]

The system actually cheered me on?

Shen Ge was stunned. Since the system had awakened, this was the first time it hadn’t told him to run but instead encouraged him to fight. Was the sun rising from the west today?

“Stay here or go upstairs. I’ll check it out.” Shen Ge pulled out his Aberration gloves, put them on, and gripped his pistol, loading it before cautiously approaching the garbage room.

After a few steps, he activated Silent Mode, but even when he was just three meters away, he still saw nothing.

Looking closer, he noticed a faint, shadowy silhouette in the darkness of the garbage room.

“Is it an invisible-type like ‘Formless’?”

He quickly dismissed the thought. Based on his experience and the Special Response Division’s research data, Aberrations with special abilities usually meant they had developed an Aberration Domain—which would make them at least Tier 2, not Tier 1.

Wait… Aberration Domain?

A possibility occurred to him. He circled around to the back of the garbage room, avoiding Cheng Shengnan and Xiao He’s line of sight, then activated Silent + Formless simultaneously.

Shen Ge could maintain both abilities for 133 seconds—enough time to investigate the garbage room thoroughly. The moment he stepped inside, he clearly saw a dog-shaped shadow coalescing from black mist near a green trash bin.

“Just as I thought!”

As Shen Ge had suspected, this Aberration was only Tier 1 but had a pseudo-Domain ability. However, unlike typical Aberration Domains that could pull other beings inside to kill and consume them, this one seemed to only affect itself.

In other words… this was an Aberration in the process of mutating!

The black Aberration energy had condensed into a massive red-eyed dog, standing at least two meters tall when upright. Yet it remained crouched on the ground, motionless, staring straight at Shen Ge.

“It can still see me even when I’m invisible?” Shen Ge frowned. But considering it was a dog, its sense of smell was likely sharp enough to detect a human presence.

Without hesitation, Shen Ge aimed at the shadowy dog’s head and fired. The silenced bullet shot out—only to pass straight through the dog’s skull as if it were smoke, embedding itself in the wall behind.

“Grrr—”

The black dog seemed to have locked onto Shen Ge’s position. A low, guttural growl rumbled from its throat before it suddenly lunged at him.

Shen Ge dodged swiftly to the side, firing several more shots, but each bullet phased harmlessly through the dog’s body.

“Smoke?”

Why did it feel like the dog’s body was made of Aberration energy?

Shen Ge holstered his gun and lunged forward, using a grappling technique to seize the dog by the back of its neck.

But his hand closed on empty air.

The moment his fingers touched the dog’s neck, its form dissipated into smoke, slipping through his grip. Since he was wearing the “Unrelenting” Aberration gloves, this meant the dog wasn’t the true body!

“Where’s the real one?” Shen Ge scanned the surroundings but found nothing suspicious—except for the lower half of the shadowy dog, which seemed to blend into the darkness of the garbage room.

He pulled out a flashlight and shone it at the dog. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the black mist trailing down to the base of the trash bin.

Shen Ge kicked the bin aside. Beneath it was nothing but a dense swirl of black fog.

“Grah!”

The black dog snarled and lunged again. Though Shen Ge knew it was just an energy construct, he sidestepped out of caution.

Then, he deactivated Formless + Silent to conserve mental energy. The moment he did, the shadowy dog vanished from sight.

Formless and Silent were both “self-targeting” abilities—they affected the user. Immobilize, on the other hand, was an “external-targeting” ability that restrained an opponent.

By activating Formless and Silent, Shen Ge had essentially entered a pseudo-Aberration Domain state, allowing him to perceive the black dog, which was also in a similar state.

Once he deactivated the abilities, he could no longer see it.

Now, shining his flashlight where the black mist had been, he spotted a tiny black puppy—no bigger than two palms—lying motionless.

But this puppy was already undergoing mutation. Most of its body had rotted away, with eerie black mist drifting around it.

Shen Ge cautiously approached, nudging the puppy with his foot. It seemed dead, but when he crouched down for a closer look, he saw its decaying flesh twitching slightly, as if slowly regenerating.

Recalling the Aberration Cat incident, a possibility struck him. He found two sticks, used them to pick up the puppy’s body, and carried it over to Xiao He.

“Xiao He, take a look. Have you seen this dog before?” Shen Ge asked.

Xiao He shrank behind Cheng Shengnan nervously, then peered at the corpse. Her eyes widened in shock. “Ah! It’s Xiao Meitan!”

“You know it?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it was a stray around here. Some kids in the complex used to bully it. I chased them off a few times and even fed it near this garbage room. A while ago, it disappeared. I thought someone had adopted it, but…”

Just as I thought.

Shen Ge remembered what Deng Yuqi and Li Xiang had mentioned—Aberration energy could amplify biological functions and negative emotions. The Aberration Cat had mutated after being tortured by that delinquent.

This puppy must have been abused to death by those kids, its negative emotions magnified, and was now in the midst of mutation. As for why Xiao He could see it—perhaps because she had helped it before, creating some kind of strange connection between them?

Shen Ge wasn’t sure if his theory was correct, but he confirmed one thing: the system had indeed evolved after absorbing Formless.

Before, he couldn’t detect such faint Aberration energy during early-stage mutations. Now, not only did the system issue warnings, but he could also visually spot Aberration energy in its initial stages!

As Li Xiang had said, Shen Ge’s ability to see pre-mutation and ongoing-mutation Aberrations was a game-changer for a world plagued by these horrors.