The mascot of the wishing shop is a cat.

"Come quick, something's wrong here."

"This energy fluctuation occurred a week ago!"

"Who was on duty at the time? Why didn't they report it?"

……

The psionic center was brightly lit and bustling with activity. It seemed to be an extremely urgent situation, and everyone looked frantic.

"Ding--"

The door opened, and eight or nine people in combat uniforms walked in, led by Ling Ye. He looked at the messy surroundings, frowned, and said, "Ling Ji, go and help them tidy up. It seems they've made some mistakes and are only just realizing it."

"Yes."

Lingji carried his specialized equipment over to help check the data. Meanwhile, Lingye led the remaining people to sit in the adjacent conference area.

"Lingyan, when you and Lingji went to absorb spiritual energy today, did you have any special feelings?"

"Hmm... I don't really feel anything special, I even feel more relaxed. It's like some bad things have been removed from me."

"Oh? Tell me, aren't you luckier now?"

A baby-faced boy sitting next to Lingyan asked eagerly, clearly very interested in these things. It seemed that if Lingyan hadn't already been there, he would have wanted to go himself.

"No, not really. I went to buy scratch-off lottery tickets as soon as I came out, and lost 300 yuan in half an hour. Luckily, Lingji was with me, otherwise I wouldn't have wanted to leave."

Lingyan still looked shaken when she talked about it.

"Hahahahaha!"

"Lingyan, you really are laughing!"

"Lingyan, you should repay Lingji with your body. If it weren't for her watching over you, you wouldn't have been able to save money to buy things all these years. You probably wouldn't even be able to afford food if the team didn't provide meals for you."

……

Upon hearing this, everyone teased Lingyan, making him blush and occasionally glance at Lingji, who was busy compiling statistics.

"Ahem, stop laughing."

Lingye suppressed a laugh and stopped everyone.

"Lingyan, continue, and stop talking nonsense."

"Oh. Where was I? Oh right, Lingji later said that it was very likely that she extracted the aura we usually pick up from fighting aliens. This aura can make people extreme, impulsive, and irritable over time. That's why we often need mental guidance from support-type abilities. And Lingji also said that, according to the data, the energy absorption this time was stronger than the mental guidance I did for a week before. She said that I am now as mentally healthy as a newborn!"

Lingyan became more and more excited as she talked, even gesturing wildly, while the people around her sat further away with disgusted expressions. Lingyan, coming to her senses, was utterly shocked.

"No, why are you all keeping so far away from me! I'm not having a mental breakdown right now, I'm healthier than all of you! (*｀皿′*)?"

"Everyone is looking down on you. I even think that when Lingji Jie said you're as mentally healthy as a newborn, she meant you're brainless. ヽ(ー_ー)ノ"

The baby-faced boy looked at everyone with disdain, but he still spoke for everyone.

"(；′⌒`) You guys have gone too far!"

Lingyan turned around and pounced on Lingji's side, pretending to be coquettish.

"They bullied me! ┭┮﹏┭┮"

Lingji rolled his eyes, dragged a huge lump of spirit flames to the front of everyone, and showed the client to them.

"Let's take a look."

July 10, 4037, 1:30 PM

Slum C

A brief spatial rift fluctuation occurred, which went unnoticed at the time.

Three days later, a report was filed that a homeless man had mysteriously disappeared on the edge of Sector C of the slums. His body was not found, and the case was closed.

The next day, an F-level alien race appeared on the pedestrian street in the city center, but it was already the first generation of its kind. Although the embassy quickly sent people to wipe out all the aliens without causing too many casualties, they still couldn't capture the mother.

It wasn't until we arrived, and happened to arrive just in time to hear Zhang Lin report the incident, that we realized something was wrong and had them re-investigate, which led to the discovery of the problem.

After reading the entire report, everyone frowned. They had been part of the elite team for several years, and even those who weren't professionals could sense that something important had been missed.

"Everyone has finished reading, right? Let me start by saying something."

Lingji looked around and saw that everyone was frowning, so he stood up and pointed to a point on the report.

"Here, an F-level alien race. Aliens of this level cannot kill an adult male on their own, but we only know that one adult male has gone missing, and we haven't encountered any other alien race incidents recently besides Zhang Lin's case. The alien race that Zhang Lin encountered was a C-level, but they either transformed after devouring or became parasites as we discovered this time, so they wouldn't make people disappear."

"So here's the key point: this time, a C-level or higher alien will definitely arrive with the spatial rift, and the F-level one should just be an afterthought. So now we should focus on finding that alien."

"report!"

The baby-faced boy raised his hand.

"explain."

"But we came here to investigate the relocation of the nest in the Otherworld in a short period of time. Should we focus our investigation on this Class C alien?"

“There has been no unusual activity in that nest recently, and it has even been passively clearing out nearby alien races, so there is no threat of an outbreak for the time being. This C-level alien killed someone as soon as it passed through the spatial rift, and has not left any trace so far, which means that it is a troublesome and dangerous creature. We need to deal with it first.”

“Lingji is right, so now I will give the order…”

Soon, everyone was ordered to go out and investigate where the overlooked C-rank was hiding...

....................................

Meanwhile, inside the wishing shop,

It was already three in the morning, and Lin Xiyue was fast asleep. Fugui, however, got out of bed, nimbly jumped off, and walked to the bedside. It glanced back at Lin Xiyue, then quietly leaped out the window.

Under the moonlight, Fugui's shadow was stretched long, standing upright and growing larger and larger, even obscuring the moon. Moonlight shone down from the edges, and suddenly a pair of huge cat eyes appeared in the shadow's eyes.

"Meow~"

Fugui let out a cry, and the shadow detached itself from Fugui and ran towards the slums. Although it was the shadow of a giant cat, it was almost tangible and disappeared in a short while. Fugui, on the other hand, strolled leisurely towards the psychic center in the city center. He even looked back at the wishing shop and, after confirming that the tentacles were properly guarding the shop, he quickened his pace and left.

A dozen minutes later, Shadow Cat found the location first.

It was a house located on the border between a slum and a residential area. The house wasn't very good, but it was much better than the shacks in the slums. It had its own walls and door, and even a separate bathroom, which was unimaginable in the slums. Perhaps it was because it was on the border that it was such a much better house than the slums. But this place was probably still where undocumented people or the slightly better-off homeless lived. After all, it was too close to the slums, and ordinary people wouldn't dare to live here; it was too unsafe.

The shadow cat looked down at the house, tilting its head as if in thought. The next second, it began to shrink, its entire body becoming more and more like its original form. In no time, except for the absence of a shadow, it was practically identical to its original self. However, because it was nighttime, this detail was not so easily noticed.

It approached the door and scratched at the door with its claws, making a piercing scratching sound in the quiet night that carried far.

"Who?"

A lazy, pleasant female voice came from inside the door, accompanied by footsteps.

"crunch-"

The wooden door opened, and a lightly dressed, sweet-looking woman opened it. She looked around but saw no one. Looking down, she saw a black cat with bright green eyes.

"A cat? How could a cat come here? Is it because its scent isn't strong enough? That shouldn't be the case; if there's only a hint of scent, no animal would dare to come near..."

As she was pondering this, the shadow cat slipped into her room and wandered around.

Perhaps because it was located in a neglected border area, she made no attempt to conceal it. A disemboweled corpse lay in the center of the room, surrounded by strange patterns. From a distance, one could see a formation extending from beneath the body. Around the formation were various other sacrificial objects, all carcasses of different animals. Even red candles burned nearby. It was clear that this was not a benevolent place; it exuded an eerie and malevolent aura.

The shadow cat scratched at the edge of the corpse with its paw, then ran to the side to look at the candle, nodding as if to confirm.

On the other side, the woman finally came to her senses. The cat had run inside, and she hurriedly chased after it. She saw the black cat sitting on one of the few clean spots on the middle of the corpse, leisurely licking its paws.

"What are you doing! Get down here!"

She roared, instantly transforming from a human into a monster.

This monster had eight gleaming, spider-like claws. In the middle, where it should have been its body, was a large, uneven mass of flesh, with tattered pieces of its previous clothing still hanging on it. What should have been its head had been replaced by a long, needle-like tube with a mouthpart at the front. On top of its head were a pair of enormous compound eyes, taking up a third of its head. The back was covered with sparse hair, making it look utterly repulsive.

The monster lunged at the black cat, trying to scare it away, but it seemed too afraid to enter the formation. It could only roar from the outside.

The shadow cat glanced at the monster, slowly walked down, stepped onto a node of the array, and then gently swung its claw. The node exploded with a series of crackling sounds, becoming unusable. The other nodes connected to it also successively crumbled like dominoes.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

After discovering that the formation was broken, the monster went completely berserk. It charged at the shadow cat like a madman, trying to swallow it whole.

Shadow Cat dodged to the side and casually wrapped its tail around one of the monster's claws. The tail looked soft, but it wrapped around the gleaming claw perfectly and even threw the monster away with a forceful movement.

With a loud crash, the monster slammed into the wall, creating a large hole that filled with smoke.

"Damn it!"

A hoarse sound came from the smoke, and the next second, balls covered in slime rolled out. With a popping sound, the balls broke open, and a bunch of small monsters rushed towards the Shadow Cat.

Shadow Cat glanced away in disgust, plunged its tail into the ground, and rapidly grew larger before quickly returning to its original size, its aura, which it had suppressed, spreading outwards.

Sensing this aura, the monster was stunned, turned around and ran away, even ordering the group of smaller monsters to entangle the Shadow Cat and self-destruct in order to delay the Shadow Cat.

Shadow Cat originally wanted to chase after them directly, but when it saw the group of little monsters, it felt that leaving them there was definitely not an option. So it exhaled a puff of black smoke, which enveloped them tightly before it chased after the monsters.

The monster fled in a panic, even heading towards the city center. It had no time to hide its tracks, and wished it could grow wings to escape the terrifying creature more quickly.

Damn it, how could such a terrifying guy be in this remote city? I didn't do anything, so how did he suddenly find me?

She complained to herself, but dared not stop for a moment. She knew she was unlikely to escape, but she couldn't just wait to die.

"What the hell! Stop!"

The monster was too busy running away to look around, and it was discovered by an elite team that came out to investigate, including one of the strongest members of the team—Lingyan.

"call out--"

A red flashbang shot into the sky, illuminating half the city, and the elite squad that was investigating quickly assembled there.

"Get out of the way! You damned humans!"

"fire."

A burst of flame rose in front of the monster, blocking its escape route.

"Human! Do you want to die? That terrifying guy behind you won't let you go either! Let me pass right now."

The monster tried to run away, but was blocked, and it was truly furious.

"No matter what, we won't let you run rampant in the city!"

Ling Yan stretched out his hand, and a fiercely burning white flame burst forth in his palm. He threw the fireball and then drew his gun from his waist, firing at the attacker.

The monster, trying to escape, had no time to dodge the fireballs; its fleshy growths were burned, emitting a stench of burning rotten garbage.

"Ah ah ah ah ah--"

It screamed and rolled around trying to extinguish the flames, but the flames evenly covered most of its body. In addition, the wound from the special bullet also caused damage inside its body, and it soon lay on the ground, barely alive.

Lingyan didn't rush over immediately. He knew that even if the alien looked like it was about to die, it still had the power to ambush him, and he wasn't a newbie anymore. So Lingyan stood at a distance, waiting for the monster to die, and also waiting for his teammates to arrive.

Unseen by the light, a black shadow spread out and, concealed by the flames, pierced the monster's body.

"Aaaaaah! No! I was wrong!"

The monster, which had been waiting for the human to approach so it could ambush him, was suddenly stabbed, its energy being frantically drained. It panicked, thinking the terrifying being wasn't going to pursue it because of the human, and even tried to escape. However, it failed to realize that the being had no intention of letting it go and had plenty of ways to kill it.

In less than two minutes, the monster became silent.

"Hey? Don't worry, I didn't go in on my own. I'll wait until you get there. Yes, that monster is at least a C-rank. Okay, okay, I'll be careful."

Lingyan answered the walkie-talkie and then remained on guard. He didn't know that the monster was truly dead.

Five minutes later, all the elite team members had arrived. They checked to confirm that the monster was truly dead before taking the body away.

……