Through the car window, Daniel’s piercing gaze settled upon the middle-aged man outside.
With a re thought, the system’s interface materialized before him.
[Item]: mory-Altering Monster
[Detail]: An entity beyond human comprehension, capable of arbitrarily modifying the mories of living beings.
[Appraisal]: The mory-Altering Monster does not possess significant offensive capabilities. However, due to the unique nature of its abilities, it can effortlessly drive its targets to ntal breakdown, thus eradicating them. Additionally, because of its power, ordinary humans and even average Evolvers may struggle to inflict harm upon it. Its level of threat is exceedingly high, approach with caution!
...
mory-Altering Monster.
A na fittingly eerie for such a creature.
The steely glint in Daniel’s eyes didn’t waver.
He turned to Susanna and inquired, "Do you know Jonathan?"
"Of course," Susanna replied, "Joey’s younger brother."
"Where is he now?" Daniel pressed.
"Asleep in a car with Joey," she said, her eyebrows knitting with confusion. "Why?"
Just as he’d suspected.
The monster had made its move.
A shadow crossed Daniel’s face, yet a peculiar thought gnawed at him.
Last ti, the mory-Altering Monster targeted only Joey and his group, sparing him.
Why had he fallen prey this ti?
As he gazed out at the misty weather beyond the window, a spark of realization lit his thoughts.
Could this be the reason?
Frowning, Daniel felt as if he might have just stumbled upon the cause behind these monstrous occurrences.
Susanna, too, sensed sothing amiss.
She couldn’t rember when Jonathan had joined their group.
Had he been there from the start?
Or had he joined midway?
The mories seed to elude her.
Looking at Daniel, she felt an inexplicable trust.
Even though their acquaintance was brief, she harbored a budding hope that perhaps he might be the one to save her from this monstrous predicant.
Daniel quickly reassured Susanna before opening the door to step out.
Lost and anxious, Susanna inquired, "What are you going to do?"
In a hushed tone, Daniel replied, "Stay silent and wait here for ."
With those words, he headed straight for his car.
The middle-aged man, clutching his book, faced him directly.
Daniel felt undeniably exposed, as if he were being scrutinized from behind the book.
He was certain malevolent eyes lay hidden behind its pages.
He opened the door and got into the car.
"Dad, you can put the book down now.
Reaching out, Daniel placed his hand atop the book.
Channeling every ounce of his strength, so much so that even the car seed to skid forward under the force, he tried to move it.
Yet the book remained steadfast, held unyieldingly in those rigid hands.
Realizing the futility, Daniel decided to retract his hand.
At that mont, he noticed a crimson hue staining the edge of the book, reminiscent of fresh blood. The air even carried the tallic tang of hemoglobin.
It truly was blood!
Daniel’s pupils constricted in realization.
Clearly, his actions had alard the creature before him.
But what of it?
That’s precisely the reaction he was aiming for!
With a steely glint in his eyes, a dagger made of silk thread materialized in his hand.
Swiftly, he thrust it into the book.
A muffled thud echoed.
Yet the figure remained motionless, seemingly indifferent to the intrusion.
Frustration creasing his forehead, another silk thread dagger appeared in Daniel’s other hand, and he slashed it horizontally across the book.
With a soft rending sound, the book, clutched tightly by the man, was torn asunder.
For the first ti, Daniel truly saw the man’s face.
Startling!
Though Daniel had long beco indifferent to life and death, the sight before him sent an involuntary shiver down his spine.
The man’s head tilted up at an eerie speed, fixing an unrelenting gaze on Daniel.
But astonishingly... he had no facial features!
All Daniel could see was a smooth, unblemished expanse of skin, devoid of any contours.
Kill it!
That was the singular thought coursing through Daniel’s mind.
He raised both hands, the daggers in them slashing forward and backward in quick succession.
The gleam-less blades aid directly at the man’s face.
Yet, to Daniel’s astonishnt, they halted upon contact with the man’s skin!
It was impenetrable!
With a disturbing creak, the man’s neck cocked sideways, the sound of bone grating eerily audible.
Then, unbelievably, the corners of his smooth face began to part, opening and closing.
His hands ca up, fingers digging in.
The flawless skin was forcibly torn apart, blood gushing out like a fountain.
A guttural, raspy voice emanated from that horrific maw.
"Uh..."
Pain overwheld Daniel; it felt as though his head was being rcilessly pounded by a fist.
And then, darkness enveloped his vision, and the world around him crumbled once more.
...
[Remaining retrospections within 24 hours: 8.]
Daniel stirred, finding himself once more within the confines of the car.
Outside, the sky shimred with stars, vast and unobstructed.
The thick fog was yet to manifest.
Lost in thought, Daniel wrestled with his perplexities.
He couldn’t fathom when exactly the creature had manipulated his mories.
The creature wasn’t divine; such feats couldn’t be whimsically executed.
It must have directly engaged him at so point or, perhaps, through so interdiary.
But what could that conduit be?
Daniel’s gaze shifted to the car window, watching Susanna approach him once again.
Before Susanna could reach out, he preemptively rolled down the window.
"Susanna, there’s sothing pressing we need to discuss."
Susanna halted, her eyes widening in astonishnt at the man before her.
She had absolutely no mory of him.
How did he recognize her?
Urgently, Daniel motioned for Susanna to join him inside the car, where he quickly briefed her on the insights gathered from his prior two retrospections.
After hearing Daniel’s account, Susanna was utterly incredulous.
She stared at him in astonishnt, "But how... how could you possibly know all this?"
Daniel replied with an air of nonchalance, "I can foresee the future."
Susanna felt her mind go blank.
Had it not been for the profound revelations in Daniel’s information, she would never have believed him.
But now, she was compelled to.
The man before her could, astonishingly, predict the future.
Such an ability seed almost otherworldly.
It took Susanna a considerable while to regain her composure. "There was no need for you to tell all that," she finally said.
Daniel responded, "I need your ability."
"Malice Detection" – perhaps this power could help him pinpoint when the creature had begun to tamper with his mories.
Susanna didn’t depart.
Instead, she stayed in Daniel’s car, quietly waiting, her senses on high alert, always vigilant to the lurking dangers around.
Elsewhere.
Akid cast restless glances toward the car on the opposite side of the road. "Why isn’t Susanna back yet? What if sothing’s happened to her?"
As Aesop tidied up their bedding, he remarked, "In a car with a level 3 Evolver, what could possibly go wrong?"
Akid’s frustration peaked, "It’s precisely because of that, that I’m worried!"
"It’s all your fault, insisting on sending Susanna to see him. Don’t think I don’t know what you all were thinking."
"You didn’t voice any objections either," Aesop pointed out.
Akid was left montarily speechless.
He could only continue to gaze out of the window, eventually letting out a sigh of relief.
"Is there truly no danger, or could your ability be mistaken?"
Sweat had begun to bead on Susanna’s forehead, a clear indication of her overexerted powers.
Without hesitation, Daniel pulled out a Gene Magnet and tossed it to Susanna, preventing her from resonating due to excessive strain.
Susanna, already at the edge of her stamina, hastily grabbed the magnet.
The overwhelming special magnetic field enveloped her, bringing an unparalleled sense of tranquility.
Her entire deanor stabilized, and the sweat on her brow quickly dried.
After a brief respite, she once again unleashed her Malice Detection.
Daniel, with furrowed brows, silently gazed out of the window.
This couldn’t go on; if Susanna overextended herself, no amount of Gene Magnets he possessed would make a difference.
It was then that he noticed the moon, obscured not by a cloud, but by a thick mist.
"It’s coming!"
Suddenly, Susanna sounded the alarm.
Daniel’s eyes sharpened, imdiately understanding the implications.
This mist was the harbinger of the creature’s arrival.
Susanna’s face mirrored sheer terror, as if she had witnessed sothing profoundly horrifying.
In reality, she hadn’t seen anything; rather, she had sensed an unprecedented danger.
A surge of fear swelled within her, and she instinctively gravitated closer to Daniel.
"What do we do now?"
With composure, Daniel responded, "We wait."
The first ti, he remained still inside the car, and by the next morning, the mories of Joey and the others had been altered, leaving him unscathed.
The last ti, when he stepped out of the car, his mories beca compromised.
If his conjecture was correct, the creature altered mories through this enveloping mist.
To be on the safe side, Daniel even pulled out a safe made of gold from his Portable Dinsional Storage.
If anything went awry, he’d take refuge inside it.
Minutes later, the outdoors were blanketed with a dense fog, visibility reduced to less than a ter.
Across the road, in the other car, Joey and the rest sat upright, seemingly undisturbed.
Yet terror was evident on Susanna’s face as she barely held back tears.
"Such a terrifying creature, so fearso." Daniel sharply lifted his gaze, staring intently at Joey and the others.
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