Chapter 1: Nen Ability
Pain!
It hurts so much!
My head... my heart hurts!
Arthur gradually awoke from unconsciousness, feeling as if he were submerged in a weightless pool of water. It should have been a warm and comfortable sensation, yet his heart was pounding wildly, as if it were about to explode. Arthur numbly sensed a strange aura, feeling both scalding like boiling water and chilling to the bone, trying to burrow into the depths of his heart...
Stop it! My heart is really going to explode...
After an unknown amount of time, Arthur suddenly opened his eyes. It felt like waking from a dream, followed by a sense of disillusionment. Then came the sensation of being bound by something and suffocated under layers of heavy objects... He struggled desperately, and dim light seeped through the gaps in the heavy objects. Arthur struggled more fiercely, pushing all the weight off himself, finally freeing himself from the constraints and awkward posture. Though exhausted, he could now lie comfortably spread-eagle.
The evening glow filled the sky, and chaotic, tall wild grass filled Arthur's vision. He belatedly realized, when did he end up lying in such a desolate place?
If he remembered correctly, he had been at home, just finished a meal and was looking for something to watch to pass the time... He hadn't done anything out of the ordinary, so how did he end up here in the blink of an eye?
Arthur exhaled a long breath in frustration, and as he inhaled again, his expression changed slowly—why was there such a strong smell of blood?
He sat up abruptly but slipped and fell back down, his limbs weak.
A male corpse in a suit appeared before him, its vacant, enlarged pupils staring directly at him.
Arthur's scalp tingled instantly, a chill running up his spine.
He looked around, and as far as he could see, amidst the lush, towering wild grass, there were bodies scattered everywhere. He realized he had been buried under a pile of corpses! These suited bodies had shell casings and guns scattered around them... A gang shootout? What kind of place was this, where such a massacre could happen so openly?
Arthur looked down again and saw a female corpse beneath the pile, wearing an ordinary gray coat, her eyes half-open as if she died with regrets. He wasn't a forensic expert and couldn't tell how long the woman or the suited men had been dead, but he could see the woman's stiff hand tightly clutching an empty, disheveled swaddle...
Arthur's breathing quickened, and he looked incredulously at his own hands, his gaze moving upward...
Like his hands, his arms and torso had become incredibly thin and small, with skin so tender it didn't match his previous adult self, looking at most three or four years old!
Had he transmigrated?
And crawled out from this swaddle beneath the corpses?
Arthur's mind was in chaos, wanting only to escape this pile of corpses. He used his hands and feet, slipping several times, his legs weak, pushing through the tall, chaotic grass, trying to crawl out.
As he parted the wild grass again, he inadvertently saw a high slope not far away, with a beast silhouetted against the setting sun, its outline indistinct, but its beastly eyes glowing eerily, meeting his gaze from afar.
Arthur felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over him, waking him up completely.
Damn!
Arthur despaired, quietly letting the parted grass fall back, collapsing powerlessly to the ground, hoping the beast on the slope hadn't noticed him...
Then Arthur turned his head and saw a gray wolf's tail sticking out of the grass, less than half a meter from his face.
Arthur held his breath, following the tail with his eyes, his heart sinking bit by bit. He saw a wild wolf, at least two hundred pounds, gnawing on another black-suited corpse in the grass, the sound of chewing flesh and bones echoing... Arthur couldn't believe he hadn't heard this before—had he been deaf?
Arthur cautiously moved back, keeping his eyes fixed on the back of the feeding wolf.
Suddenly, the wolf stopped moving, and Arthur froze, not daring to move.
The wolf scratched its neck with its hind leg, then continued to gnaw. Arthur suppressed his breathing, moving back gently... Then he heard the sound he least wanted to hear: the rustling of grass being parted on his left and right, and soon, two more bloodthirsty wolves emerged, glaring at Arthur with glowing green eyes.
Could things get any worse?
The wolf that had been eating stopped at some point, turned around, and licked its sharp teeth, seemingly grinning at Arthur.
...Indeed, they could!
Arthur inexplicably understood. These three wild predators had always known he was there!
Damn it, were these three mongrels toying with their prey, or saving the tender meat for last?
The three wolves surrounded him, parting the grass, moving slowly toward Arthur with threatening growls.
Arthur kept retreating until he hit the original pile of corpses, with nowhere left to go.
As the three ferocious wolves closed in, the sense of impending death enveloped Arthur's heart. He felt his brain cells dying and regenerating at an unprecedented speed, desperately trying to find a way to survive. But no matter how he racked his brain, it seemed unrealistic. He hadn't even figured out if he had truly transmigrated, and now he was about to be devoured by wolves, piece by piece...
A soft, childlike strand of hair floated down in Arthur's peripheral vision.
Somehow, Arthur gradually calmed down, sitting with his back against the pile of rocks, staring intently at the approaching wolves. The meat scraps between their teeth, the nauseating smell of blood, were all clearly visible...
The soft strand of hair moved imperceptibly, floating toward the wolf in the middle.
On a level invisible to the naked eye, a white aura wrapped around the strand of hair, bending it into the shape of a pentagram, before quietly landing inside the wolf's ear.
A flash of white light, and the strand of hair scattered and fell, but a pink pentagram pattern remained on the skin inside the wolf's ear.
Arthur was shocked, looking at his own body and then at the wolf in the middle. He felt a dual consciousness—his own and that of the wolf. Was this wolf also "him" now?
Had he taken over the wolf's body?
A series of questions flashed through his mind like electricity, but Arthur knew there was no time. He immediately controlled the wolf in the middle, without hesitation, ramming into the wolf on the left, then growling and pouncing on the wolf on the right, launching a sneak attack! Arthur howled through the wolf's throat, biting down hard on the struggling wolf's throat, blood gushing into his mouth.
Arthur ignored the psychological barrier because the other wolf, which had been knocked away, was already counterattacking from behind, its claws slashing his back, leaving bloody wounds that soaked his fur. Arthur gritted his teeth; the pain was too real!
Arthur tore at the wolf's throat, shaking his head, blood splattering as he turned to fight the wolf that had attacked from behind.
But Arthur, a novice wolf, was ultimately no match for a professional wolf in close combat, especially since he wasn't familiar with moving on four legs. The enemy wolf howled loudly, wrestling, biting, and fighting with Arthur, gradually gaining the upper hand... Meanwhile, Arthur's main body, sitting on the ground, watched anxiously. If he lost this fight, he'd be the next meal, his tender flesh devoured...
The wolf with the severed throat gradually stopped struggling, while the other two wolves continued to fight. Arthur took a deep breath of the blood-scented air, enduring the pain in his heart, forcing himself to stay calm. Even if he hadn't figured out the situation, he couldn't afford to make mistakes now...
If he remembered correctly, when he controlled the wolf and successfully killed one, holding off another, he felt... as if his whole body was submerged in an invisible aura, then the aura wrapped around a strand of hair, bending it into a pentagram...
As Arthur thought, a drop of dark red blood floated off his skin, hovering before him. Arthur's thoughts wavered, and the blood almost fell. He quickly held his breath, focusing, controlling the blood to fly toward the two wolves fighting, bending into a pentagram under a white light.
As the pentagram blood approached, Arthur, controlling the wolf, roared, using all its strength to pin the enemy wolf to the ground. The wolf struggled, trying not to expose its soft belly. Arthur controlled the wolf, pressing it down, one paw holding the enemy wolf's head, the other using its claws like nails, pulling out the enemy wolf's tongue. Meanwhile, the pentagram blood, controlled by Arthur's main body, landed on the enemy wolf's exposed tongue.
A flash of white light, and Arthur's main body felt dizzy, his strength exhausted.
The eyes of the wolf Arthur was controlling narrowed. The pentagram blood quickly dissipated on the enemy wolf's tongue, failing to leave the expected pink pentagram pattern—failure!
Arthur's main body gritted his teeth. This strange ability seemed to consume aura at the moment of activation! And his frail body, with its limited aura reserves, was lucky to control one wolf; he had no energy to control a second...
Thinking this, the enemy wolf struggled desperately, and Arthur had no time to think, his eyes turning red as he controlled the wolf to bite down. Its sharp teeth pierced the enemy wolf's throat, blood gushing out as the enemy wolf convulsed.
It seemed the defensive counterattack strategy was correct... The enemy wolf's struggles grew weaker, and Arthur exhaled a breath of relief. At least he had controlled one wolf for his use; otherwise, with his small arms and legs after transmigration, he wouldn't have been able to defend, let alone counterattack—he'd be a forensic challenge, his body in pieces!
Soon, the wolf stopped struggling. Arthur felt a strange aura entering his heart, both cold and hot, causing his heart to spasm. He barely stood up before falling back on his butt.
Congenital heart disease? Arthur's face turned pale, or was it... He clutched his chest, looking at the motionless wolf corpse. The strange aura entering his heart was because of the wolf's death?
Recalling the heart-wrenching pain before he woke, thinking it was a dream, Arthur looked around at the corpses hidden by the tall grass, suddenly understanding the cause.
He was stunned for a moment, then exhaled a long breath.
No matter what, he had survived!
Arthur spat out a mouthful of wolf fur through the wolf's mouth, but his expression changed suddenly. The reason was that after falling back into the pile of corpses, he inadvertently saw the swaddle the gray-coated woman had clung to even in death... Arthur had thought this woman was likely his mother in this new world, and he was the one who had crawled out of the swaddle, reborn...
But this small swaddle was clearly meant for a newborn.
And his current body, though weak and small, was clearly that of a three or four-year-old child!
The wolf Arthur controlled walked over, turning its head to look at his new, pale face. The little guy, just learning to walk, was shorter than the adult wolf. It then looked at the swaddle the dead woman wouldn't let go of... Who was the original baby in this swaddle, and where had it crawled to?
"Awoooo,"
The howls of wolves echoed from all directions.