The smell of blood in the room is too strong, I can't stand it, I really want to eat it.
He covered his lips, his fingers touching the fangs, a signal that his body needed to eat.
Are these people sick? Why do they always seem to have a problem with his appetite?
Ren Yifei tried to control himself and leave, but the other hunters had already arrived.
Despite his intense hunger, Ren Yifei shot two needles directly towards the door.
Two members of the hunting team arrived. The first one collapsed after being hit by the needle, while the second seemed to have some resistance, not immediately losing consciousness and still having some strength left.
"How come you..." The NPC, who had been injected with tranquilizer, was incredulous. He was a newbie, and in his mind, the Scarlet Witch was a monster. How could a monster use human tools? And so skillfully at it.
Ren Yifei didn't give him a chance. He stepped into the darkness, lowered his head, and bit the NPC's neck. The NPC was so frightened that he fainted.
"Ugh..." He had only taken one breath when he couldn't stand it and spat it out. The other person's blood also contained the drug that targeted him.
"I can't eat," Ren Yifei forced himself to look away. He looked at the man with the knife in his chest and the man whose throat had been slit.
The smell of blood became extremely strong, and faint sounds emanated from all parts of the building, which had been dormant for an unknown period of time.
Human blood has a special attraction for monsters, and when the people below discovered that there were small monsters lurking in the building, their expressions were not good.
Something must have happened up there; some team members may have already sacrificed their lives.
"All team members, respond!" the captain said to the people inside.
The surviving team members began to respond, including the man with the stab wound to the heart, who was the vice-captain and had been with him for over ten years. He struggled to report the situation on their floor.
"On the fifth...fifth floor, there are two people, seriously injured, there are..."
The hunting party captain's eyes reddened as he listened to the listless voices of his subordinates.
But in front of so many people, he simply took a deep breath: "The target is on the fifth floor. They've already killed or wounded four of our brothers. Everyone, be careful. We're facing a very cunning monster."
One team member is gone and will never come back, and another will also...
The captain looked up at the building: "We must capture the Scarlet Witch alive at such a high price, otherwise all the sacrifices will be in vain."
The man whose throat was slit was already dead, but the man whose heart had been stabbed twice was still barely clinging to life.
Ren Yifei looked at the blood all over the ground. His eyes had turned completely red. What he saw was no longer a colorful world, but a black and red one.
Red is blood, and black is everything else besides blood.
The deputy captain is still alive and he's still trying to find a solution.
He wasn't surprised that the Scarlet Witch could use a tranquilizer gun. Even a gorilla could learn after watching a few times, let alone this monster whose intelligence was no different from a human's.
He breathed heavily: "Scarlet Witch, I know you can understand me, after all, you are human."
"They were originally human?" Ren Yifei stopped in his tracks. Although he already knew about this from the head of the laboratory, he didn't mind comparing and verifying the two sides.
Do you remember the person who gave you this outfit?
Is that the distinctive red cloak?
A fragment flashed through Ren Yifei's mind; he was like a malfunctioning machine receiving a signal that didn't belong to him.
In the clip, a blurry shadow pushes him into the darkness: "Go quickly, and never come back."
The man turned and ran toward the light. After a few steps, a gunshot rang out, his shadow fell, and blood splattered, turning the light red.
The Scarlet Witch looked at him, her blood-red eyes seemingly fixed on him. His brows furrowed slightly, and his lips parted, revealing helplessness, confusion, and sorrow.
His expression was more complex than ever before, a complexity that no animal would ever possess.
The vice-captain seemed to hear his own heartbeat, thump, thump.
He never imagined he would see such a heart-wrenching expression of sorrow on the Scarlet Witch, a monster.
"Didn't they say that the little monsters that were successfully transformed had completely lost their humanity?" The vice-captain felt a chill creep into his body.
"You remember her?" the vice-captain asked tentatively.
"She's dead." The Scarlet Witch opened her mouth, her voice hoarse, as if she hadn't spoken in a long time.
Ren Yifei's fingers lightly touched the 'hundred-eye sieve' sewn on his clothes. He looked at the vice-captain again, his blood-red eyes still full of appetite, but he looked as lost as a child who couldn't find his way.
Touched by that look, the vice-captain couldn't help but speak up: "That person's name is Fang Li."
He clutched his chest, forcing a bitter smile. A tranquilizer dart fell from his hand; he had intended to use it to ambush the Scarlet Witch, but then changed his mind.
"You look a bit like her." Actually, the vice-captain couldn't remember what she looked like anymore, but at this moment he suddenly felt that she looked somewhat similar.
The vice-captain closed his eyes, looking like he was waiting to die, and didn't say a word.
Ren Yifei glanced at the vice-captain, then turned and left the room. The vice-captain was quite surprised, watching helplessly as he slowly walked out of the room, supporting himself against the wall.
His eyes turned blood red, indicating that the Scarlet Witch's craving for food had reached its peak, yet he left. Because the vice-captain mentioned someone, the little monster chose to defy his instinct to eat.
If this isn't 'love,' then what is it?
The vice-captain clenched his fist.
"Captain." The vice-captain answered the hunting team captain's call.
"How is it going?" came the voice of the hunting team leader.
"Is the Scarlet Witch really a monster?" the vice-captain asked haltingly.
There was a long silence on the other end, so long that the vice-captain thought he would go to hell with this question. Finally, the hunting team leader spoke: "He can only be a monster." Whether he is or not, he must be.
"I understand." The vice-captain coughed up blood and closed his eyes forever.
"Hello? Hello!"
Ren Yifei stumbled down the corridor, still a little confused: was that fragment a memory of the character?
Why would such a thing exist?
"Hmm." He touched the spot where he had been given the anesthetic injection.
The effects of the drug had worn off, but the hunger was growing stronger. He could see nothing but blood.
His appetite was burning through his reason.
"Attention, you on the left, the Scarlet Witch is heading towards nine o'clock."
A member of a hunting team, with one hand on his headset and the other holding a tranquilizer gun, walked cautiously close to the wall.
The team member became increasingly cautious, noting that the location was around nine o'clock.
"Gurgle gurgle gurgle".
"Who!" The team member swept the light across the wall. No, the voice came from... He looked up and saw a red shadow on the ceiling of the corridor, half of its body hanging from the chandelier, its hands bracing against the walls on either side.
The team members who looked up saw a pair of red eyes.
The stench of blood in the building didn't intensify, which was a good thing. But the hunting team leader was still uneasy; he had a bad feeling.
According to the map, the Scarlet Witch is located at the nine o'clock position. She hasn't moved for a long time, and it's unknown whether she has been captured or something else has happened.
"Sixth Team, how's the situation? Please respond." The captain switched channels and spoke to the team member in that direction.
After a beep, a team member's voice came through: "We haven't found it yet, it might be hiding."
"Keep looking. Check under the cabinets and under the bed. I told you, this is a clever monster; he knows how to protect himself."
"yes."
Putting down the walkie-talkie, the team member stared blankly at Ren Yifei. Four or five people lay in the small room, all shot in the back of the neck and drained of their blood; they were unconscious.
Ren Yifei understood the principle of sustainable development, so he only inhaled a portion of it from each person, which prevented them from dying.
The last one was tricked by his illusion.
"Continue," Ren Yifei, wearing a gas mask, said to the hunting team member.
The bewildered NPC spilled everything he knew like water pouring from a bamboo tube: "The Scarlet Witch is the raw material for the odor-eliminating agent, and it is said that she is the child of a human and a monster..."
The members of these hunting teams are not from the original group. Hunting is a dangerous profession, and now there are hardly any elderly people left. Therefore, they don't know much about the Scarlet Witch.
Ren Yifei asked them about the origins of the 'Scarlet Witch,' but none of them knew anything about it.
All they knew was that he had always been in the lab, like other special little monsters.
There were eight monsters in total. Every two or three years, one of them would die, leaving only two, including the Scarlet Witch.
Two years ago, with the help of unknown individuals, he escaped and has remained there ever since.
The order to capture the Scarlet Witch alive was issued recently, about six months ago.
"Why capture him alive? What do you need from him?"
The NPC shook his head; he didn't know, it was a direct order from above.
It seems he won't get any clues from this person either. He has to go back into the human base and into the underground laboratory, where the truth he's looking for is.
Who died on the day the Scarlet Witch left?
Ren Yifei stared intently at the NPC. Although his expression was obscured in the darkness, the frequency of his breathing indicated his condition.
"A lot of people," he said.
"Including... the leader's wife?" Ren Yifei asked slowly.
The NPC thought for a moment, then nodded firmly: "Yes."
Ren Yifei closed his eyes briefly, even though he was already mentally prepared...
"This is the second monster defection incident to occur at the base."
"And on which other occasion?" Ren Yifei pressed.
The NPC, seemingly oblivious, answered every question: "Monster number three misled the researcher. The researcher believed they were equal intelligent beings and devised a plan to let it leave. Many people died that time. But a day after it left, the monster returned on its own."
"She came back by herself?"
"Yes, I happened to be one of the security personnel at the time, and I heard about it," the NPC replied blankly.
Ren Yifei already knew that Monster Number Three had failed to escape, and he suspected that Monster Number Three was the 'Third Sister' mentioned by Monster Number Seven. However, this was the first time Ren Yifei had heard that she had successfully left but then chose to return.
"Why did she come back?" Ren Yifei couldn't understand.
The NPC shook his head: "After returning, Monster Number Three committed suicide."
"Huh?" Ren Yifei was even more confused.
"My colleagues all guessed that she died because the researcher who let her go died, so she committed suicide for love. But that's ridiculous, what feelings do monsters have?" Even in his delirious state, the hunter still believed that a 'monster' could only be a 'monster'.
"After that incident, the little monsters were locked up in solitary confinement, unable to communicate with the outside world or learn from humans."
A double suicide? Ren Yifei immediately probed, "That third monster, she can speak human language? She has human thought patterns, and even, she has higher emotions like love, hate, and passion?"
"yes."
"So, why can't she 'die for love'?"
Perhaps it wasn't just a suicide pact; Monster Number Three was using death to prove that monsters are intelligent beings, at least this batch of them were, and should be treated equally.
Unfortunately, it seems she failed.
Ren Yifei stared at the human NPC, waiting for his answer.
As expected, the NPC said, "What do you mean by 'suicide pact'? It's probably just some kind of conspiracy."
"Hahahaha..." Ren Yifei's low laughter came from inside the gas mask, the laughter was shrill and piercing.
How can I allow others to sleep soundly beside my bed?
The lab director had assumed that proving the monster was intelligent life would give them a companion. The opposite was true; the monster's intelligence brought disaster. Humanity wouldn't allow another intelligent being to exist, and they would compete with them for resources.
Scarlet Witch may have been taught by other test subjects early on to hide her intelligence so that she would have a chance to escape.
"Hope." He had never forgotten the word that little monster had said to him. It seemed that a huge price had been paid to bring forth this hope.
Hope, oh hope, it took countless lives to build upon.
If this hope were to perish halfway through, how painful would the 'hope' itself be? Then the obsession that led to this instance becomes obvious.
If it were just for himself, Ren Yifei could use the Transformation Potato to escape through the underground pipes right now. But he is now the Scarlet Witch, carrying the 'hope' of countless lives.
"I have to go to the base."
The illusion's duration was over, and the NPCs, still intoxicated by the illusion, gradually awoke: "I... what happened to me?"
Ren Yifei injected an anesthetic needle, which took effect in three seconds, and the NPC immediately collapsed.
He will forget everything.
These people deserve to die, but they are not the culprits.
"Group six, group six."
Two minutes later, the Scarlet Witch's position remained unchanged, and the hunting team leader finally realized something was wrong.
None of the six groups replied. One person might be an accident, but with so many people, something must have happened, and they might have been killed in retaliation.
He immediately reminded the other group members to be extra careful, as the Scarlet Witch was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with.
"The smoke grenade didn't work?" the team member wondered.
"I don't know what's going on up there. Perhaps the Scarlet Witch has developed immunity. After all, she's different from other monsters; her learning ability is extremely strong."
The hunting team leader suddenly realized something. He looked at the building and said, "Could he have changed into one of the team members' gear and infiltrated our group?"
"You mean, the Scarlet Witch is wearing a gas mask and wielding a tranquilizer gun right now, trying to kill us?" The NPC's eyes widened. "Is she really that smart?"
The hunting team leader shook his head: "No, he does."
The author has something to say: The third sister is the third experimental subject. Her abilities are prophecy and entering dreams. She fell in love with the only son of the laboratory director and they both died.
Ali is Fang Li, the leader's wife, the Scarlet Witch's biological mother, who was killed after helping the Scarlet Witch escape the base.
The spawn condition for the 'Nobody Knows' high-end instance is: Death by despair.