After saying goodbye to Pandora, Lu Ren hung up the phone. He tightly gripped the Red Star Pendant in his hand and whispered.
“Transformation.”
In the next moment, a soft, orange-red Starlight descended from the sky, swirling around him.
Looking at the light that was so familiar to him, Lu Ren took a deep breath.
He then gazed toward the direction of the distant Magical Power Source, raised his hand to pry open the Small Black Box, and whispered.
“Transformation.”
……
Meanwhile, at the City A Third Hospital.
A middle-aged man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a formal suit paced back and forth outside a ward, waiting for news from inside.
With a soft click, the previously locked door opened.
Seeing the Doctor walk out of the ward, the middle-aged man rushed forward and asked in an urgent tone.
“Doctor, how is my son’s condition? Can he get out of Bed again in this lifetime?”
“You are Li Mingluo’s father, right?” The Doctor took off his mask and nodded.
“Please rest assured, your child’s condition is very good now. I estimate he can be healthy and discharged in less than 1 month.”
“Really?! Can I go in and see him now?!”
“No, the patient still needs to rest for a while.” The Doctor shook his head.
“Wait another half a day. If we confirm that the patient is truly all right, you can go in and talk to your son.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!”
The middle-aged man was moved beyond words.
He grabbed the Doctor’s hand and kept nodding, expressing his gratitude to the man in front of him in this clumsy manner.
The Doctor seemed used to such scenes. He quickly waved his hand at the man and said.
“This is just what we should do; there is no need to thank me. I have the next surgery, so I won’t chat with you. If you have questions, you can talk to the nurse who will come out in a moment.”
“Alright, okay!”
Under the middle-aged man’s grateful gaze, the white-robed Doctor walked upstairs, leaving only his back.
Once the man had disappeared from sight, the father looked at his son, who was resting peacefully in the Bed.
He let out a long sigh and sat down on the iron chair in the corridor. He lowered his head, his body relaxing significantly.
The moment he closed his eyes, an almost irresistible sense of exhaustion flooded his heart. He instinctively nodded and dozed off, wanting to rest right there in the chair.
Ever since he learned that his child had suffered a mental breakdown due to a scam and became a vegetable, he hadn’t been able to sleep soundly.
He had been in a daze no matter what he did.
‘Thankfully, my son was blessed by the heavens and didn’t remain a vegetable for the rest of his life.’
He didn’t know what had happened last night, but his child had suddenly regained consciousness and was able to communicate.
Although his child’s body became quite weak after receiving this “miracle,” necessitating a small surgery this morning to ensure all bodily functions were normal.
However, compared to being a vegetable forever, a surgery was nothing.
‘As long as my child can recover, I’d be willing to pay for several more surgeries.’
“Phew…”
At the thought of money-related matters, a bitter smile involuntarily appeared on the man’s face.
After he learned his child was hospitalized, he wanted to ask his Higher Authority for time off to take care of his son.
In the end, the Higher Authority didn’t approve it, claiming they were rushing a project and couldn’t spare a single person.
Forced by necessity, he could only choose to resign. He left with nothing and came to the hospital to take care of his child.
Once his child was successfully discharged this month, he would have to find a new job to support the family.
‘Although I still have quite a bit of money on my card, for the long term, I still have to work hard…’
“…Hm?”
Just as the man was thinking about which companies to send his resume to, he suddenly sensed something strange.
The corridor, which had been brightly lit, suddenly went dark.
“Doctor? Doctor? What’s going on? Why did the lights go out?”
The people sitting around him clearly noticed something was wrong as well. Some even stood up and shouted to ask the Doctor.
But strangely, the Doctors who were everywhere just a moment ago had all mysteriously disappeared.
As a result, there was not a single person to answer the man’s question.
“Hey! What the hell! Is there a power outage?! There are so many patients using machines right now, how could the hospital just cut the power—”
The man who asked the question stood up and shouted toward the end of the corridor.
But before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly stopped.
Immediately after, a clatter sounded.
It sounded as if a basketball had fallen onto the floor.
Even though he couldn’t see anything clearly, the middle-aged man could still figure out what had happened from that distinct sound and the blurry silhouette.
That man’s head had been cut off by a Scythe and had fallen to the ground.
In an instant, a thick scent of blood filled the entire hospital.
Some people screamed and hurriedly ran in the opposite direction, fleeing the dangerous place.
The middle-aged man froze where he stood. Smelling that terrible scent, his body couldn’t stop trembling.
He saw it.
The “person” who had just killed that man was now slowly walking toward his son’s room.
That person wore a large black cloak, and its body was made entirely of mist.
In its left hand, it held a Deep Red Lantern made of countless eyeballs, and in its right hand, it gripped a long Scythe.
This appearance instantly made the middle-aged man think of Death from various legends.
After killing the man who had shouted, that Death did not chase the fleeing people, nor did it come to kill the middle-aged man.
Its goal seemed quite clear; from the beginning, it had been heading for the middle-aged man’s son, Li Mingluo.
Watching the Mist-person get closer and closer to his child’s ward, even reaching the door, pushing it open, and being about to walk in.
The middle-aged man’s reason told him that the most correct and understandable behavior right now was to escape as quickly as possible.
The Mist-person had no interest in them. Killing the man who spoke was merely to shut him up.
It only seemed to be there to do something, as if it was only there to take something.
But, but…
For no reason, a strong sense of anger and resentment in his mind overwhelmed all of the man’s reason.
He grabbed the fire extinguisher from the corner and charged forward with a Power he had never possessed in his life.
The heavy fire extinguisher flew from his hands and accurately struck the Mist-person’s body, causing it to stagger slightly.
The middle-aged man was overjoyed. He turned around to find another fire extinguisher, intending to subdue this Mist-person with brute force and save his child.
But he completely failed to notice that the moment he hit the Mist-person with the fire extinguisher, the Scythe in the hands of “Death” came whistling toward him.
With a shredding sound, the middle-aged man’s life was also taken by the Mist-person.
Looking at the corpse in the distance, the Mist-person snorted and muttered.
“Stupid.”
With that, it stopped looking at the two corpses in the corridor and walked into the ward where Li Mingluo was.
Gazing at Li Mingluo, who was lying in the Bed and had regained consciousness, the Mist-person raised its Scythe high.
There was no pity in its eyes as it swung the Scythe down at Li Mingluo’s forehead.
With a single slash, a distinct red line was engraved on the other’s forehead, slicing through both skin and flesh.
“…What a pity. With your aptitude, you could have become our new companion.”
“But because the negative emotions you absorbed were completely insufficient, and you returned to your original body too early, a secondary separation is impossible.”
“So now, you can only become one of those brainless Hounds.”
Along with the Mist-person’s soft muttering, Li Mingluo’s body turned into black starlight and dissipated into the air, flying toward an empty space outside the window.
After a moment of silence, a deafening roar suddenly erupted from that empty space outside.
A Black Giant Wolf, its body covered in fur and standing 2 stories tall, let out an angry howl toward the high-rise building, its eyes flashing with a crimson light.
A new Shadow Beast appeared just like that on the hospital grounds.